Righteous by Forgiveness

When I was in the Plymouth Brethren, one of my fellow church-members said to me that Adam was created "neither good nor evil."  This conclusion was reached because in the text of Genesis, God says that Adam, in his Fall, will become like God, "knowing good and evil."  The implication is that Adam, as created, did not "know good and evil."

This friend's sentiment bothered me a great deal, because it was always my conclusion from the Scripture text that Adam was created good, which implied a created righteousness.  If he were not good (righteous in some sense), then how could he fall?  What would the Fall mean?

I believe that I've now come to realize the source of the sentiment expressed by my friend.  I think it is embedded within the later history of Reformed Theology, with the development of the doctrine of the Covenant of Works.

Before getting into this, however, let me explain concepts about the relationship between righteousness and sin.  There are two paradigms:

1)  Righteousness is a positive good, and sin is a negative evil.  One can have ones sins cancelled, but this leaves him with no positive good.  Something else must happen to create the positive good.  To use a physical analogy, good and evil are separate substances, each handled differently, though they do affect one another.  One can eliminate the evil, but this does not create the good.  Or,

2)  Righteousness is the absence of sin.  To have a sin forgiven is to be put in the position of never having done it.  If that sin is the omission of an act of righteousness, then forgiveness makes it exactly as if that act of righteousness were done.  Therefore, forgiving all a person's sins is exactly the same as reckoning that person to be entirely righteous!  All the positive evil is reckoned as if never done.  All the failed good works are reckoned as if they were done.  The process by which this is done is identically the same in both cases.  The forgiveness of sin is the reckoning of righteousness.  They cannot be separated.

I believe it to be the case that the two paradigms shown above imply major differences in the resulting theologies of salvation.

Now back to Reformed Theology.

It is commonly said that Adam and his elect offspring need both the de-imputation of their sins (forgiveness), and the imputation of righteousness from God.  Simply by its mode of expression, this is based in paradigm #1 above.  The need for forgiveness and the need for righteousness are regarded as separate issues.  These are commonly tied to the passive and active obedience of Christ.  In the passive obedience (the endurance of punishment) Christ bore the punishment of our sin and exhausted that punishment.  Therefore, the liability is removed and the sins are canceled.  Furthermore, the active obedience of his life is a righteousness that is put to our account.  This is a separate issue.  But, in any case, having both forgiveness and a positive righteousness, we have full acceptance before God.

Note, however, according to paradigm #1, Adam, put in the Garden at the beginning of his trial of perseverance, had no sin, but this did not mean that he was as fully developed in righteousness as God required for eternal life (Westminster Confession).  Adam obeys the Covenant of Works by persevering in it.  Similarly, in the analogy between Adam and Christ, this would imply that Christ needs to develop his righteousness, because in his human nature even he would be sinless but without developed righteousness at his human birth.  Therefore, in order to carry out the job that Adam failed at, Christ would need to fully create his active righteousness, and that, first, for himself.  Without this, it could not be imputed to our account.

But, contrarily, we are faced with Calvin's (and Augustine's) conviction that Christ in his human nature was entirely and completely righteous from the first instant of his human conception.  This is based in paradigm #2 above.  Reasoning back to Adam, this would imply that Adam was originally righteous, too.  But, if Adam is originally righteous, in the same way as Christ conceived as a man is originally righteous, then the process of perseverance in the state in which each was made does not create the righteousness that each already has by creation or conception.  Perseverance illustrates and confirms the righteousness, but does not create it.  This view of the relationship between righteousness and sin shows that each is the obverse of the other.  Adam, newly created, and Jesus, newly conceived, are each righteous, though they have done nothing.  In other words, sinlessness equals righteousness.  The absence of sins exactly is the presence of righteousness.  The forgiveness of sins which we receive through Christ exactly is the imputation of righteousness.  The imputation of righteousness is therefore not a separate imputation.  There is no distinction between the de-imputation of sins and the imputation of righteousness.  They are the same thing.

Following out the argument, then, there would be no distinction between the active and passive obedience of Christ.  His life and his death, but principally his death, all have the same effect upon us, taken together.  There are not two separate and independent imputations.  He was made sin for us, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.  But the "dual imputation," or two-way imputation is not an imputation of sins separately from an imputation of righteousness.  In the dual imputation, our sins going to Christ and his righteousness coming to us is not merely simultaneous, but two sides of the same coin.

This is why Calvin says somewhere that justfication by faith alone (ie, the imputation of righteousness to us) is defined as the cancellation of our sins.  That is, by cancellation of our sins we are righteous.  Or, he says in another place, that Christ by his righteousness (which he had from conception) caused the cancellation of our sins.  Or, that Christ's "merit" is that he created the Christian life in us.  Calvin vehemently denies that Christ's righteousness was obtained for himself first (as the Covenant of Works requires).  All that Christ did was not at all for himself, but all for us.

This needs a lot of thought.  The proper definition and explanation of the Covenants of Works and Grace, the definition of the purpose of the Creation, the real doctrine of Sanctification, and the real focus of Eschatology are all knotted together here.

I think it likely to be the case that the two paradigms of the relationship between sin and righteousness imply different theologies in all these realms.