Being and Function

The church needs to learn that Being precedes Function.

Example:  We all know the reasons for the Incarnation.  Jesus Christ must be a man in order to make the sacrifice for man's sin.  Jesus Christ must be God to sustain that manhood, and lead it in perfection.  But, then, is that all?  What about the glory of the Being of the God-Man?  Is the glory only his Function?  The Scripture not only describes his sacrificial work, but also forcefully points out that it is the radiance of his glory (Being) perceived spiritually by us in the Word of the Gospel (the Bible), which transforms us into his image!  We worship him for his works, but we must also worship him for his being!

Use:  What about each other in the church?  We major on "function" in our busy lives, perhaps even glorying in it.  But Function is meaningless without a doctrine of Being.  Who are the Beings which we serve, and why?  I think this is greatly underplayed.

Being is superior to Function.  It was the Being of dead sinners, souls lost and gone, which moved our Father in Heaven to Function on our behalf by sending His Son to save us.  Being grounds Function. 

Respect for the Being (Personhood) of your spouse is the ground of your love.

Ultimate Function is the expression of self-sacrificing, divinely motivated Love.  But, Love is a meek and lowly Attitude and Function, done by me to you, that is motivated only by my appreciation of your Being (Personhood), regardless of your qualities.

This applies to us all.

Justification: Mediate and Immediate Grace

One could define "mediate grace" as that power of the Holy Spirit that changes our inner man, and thus, also changes our working relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One would then orthodoxly say that mediate grace made us new men, and our relationship with our God and Father is placed on a basis which may be thought of as "covenant keeping," or "being and acting like Christians."  Our relationship with our Father in Heaven is relationship with a Person, and we may therefore expect that that relationship of fellowship is moved forward, through thick and thin, based on the spiritual quality of our our personal relationship with one another.  Innumerable Scripture passages may be quoted to support this.

Likewise, one could define "immediate grace" as that grant of the status of sonship to us regardless of our merits, for the sake of Christ, which is communicated to our souls as a gift, through faith only, and not based on our works.  Definitive passages of Scripture from many places can be quoted to support this.  Happy is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin (David).

It's clear then, that total free grace operates at the same time as the give and take of personal relationship with God in the ethical and religious sphere which is produced by grace-in-us, mediate grace.  God is sovereign and good to his people.  Yet, men are responsible before God, in the give and take of ethical personal relationship.  There is such a thing as discipline for sin.  There are apostates.  There is forgiveness.  There is reward.  Yet there is also superabounding unearned and unearnable grace enveloping our whole life, because of the work of our Savior.

The argument over justification in Reformation time was about this.  Which grace is supreme?  For Romanism, it is grace operative in me, that is, mediate grace, which will determine my destiny at the judgment.  For the Reformers, it is immediate grace.  Mediate and immediate grace are both operative in us or for us, but immediate grace, free grace, is always sovereign.

Does this mean that mediate and immediate grace can conflict?  Can a man under the influence of immediate and free grace fail to show the evidence of mediate grace?  No.  There is no conflict here.  The manifestation of a Christian life, and the presence of free grace always comport properly with one another, whether it looks that way to us or not.  Free grace is not a license to sin, nor is mediate grace in us the ground of our acceptance with God.

Does this mean that a spiritually poor Christian life ought to make us doubt whether free grace is given on our behalf?  Does a sleazy and sinful Christian life mean that mediate grace is absent, and therefore free grace is absent, too?  Not if repentance toward God and faith in the free grace of our Savior is present.  We remember Luther's first Reformation thesis:  Our entire lives should be lives of repentance -- every day!

Sin and Deliverance

Paul is clear.  The unmitigated ministry of the Moral Law is a ministry of death to sinners.  But, then we should likewise by no means think that the unmitigated ministry of the Moral Law is life to believers.  Paul is clear:

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^{Rom 3:19} Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. ²⁰ Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. ²¹ But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, ²² even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.

The phrase I bring out in significance is the comment "apart from the Law."  What Paul is saying is not that the Incarnation, Ministry, Death, Resurrection, Ascension and Session of Christ at the Right Hand of God has made the Moral Law "keepable."  What Paul reveals is that the Way of Life is the path to fellowship with God apart from all Law.  Yes, the gospel must be received, but the gospel is not Law.  It is a free gift.  The Gospel may be called the "law of faith" by Paul, but this is to distinguish the way of faith from the way of works which belongs to the Moral Law.  The "Law" of faith is not another name for the Moral Law.  The way of faith is the only way to fellowship with God in Christ, and this way is apart from the Moral Law.

Now, Paul goes on to teach that our deliverance from the bondage of sin is part and parcel of the way of faith, because it is connected with our union with Christ, which comes about inwardly through faith by the Spirit and is reckoned outwardly in baptism.  He speaks of the contrast between Letter and Spirit, meaning the contrast between the word of the Moral Law and the Spirit of Holiness who comes upon us in Christ.  There is no divorce here between forgiveness (justification) and holiness (sanctification).  The way to forgiveness is the way of the gospel apart from any stricture of the Moral Law whatsoever.  So is the way to holiness.  Not that we aren't instructed by the Moral Law.  The Moral Law, as descriptive of the ways of God, is beautiful.  In Christ, it does not curse, but it nevertheless always accuses.  One would have to be dead in conscience not to feel the accusation, even as a true believer.  Therefore, as Paul teaches, the law is not the medium of our deliverance from sin.  We are delivered in the way of the free grace of the gospel, a way that does not burden us with accusation, but invites us into fellowship with Christ freely.  Do we then not care whether we are delivered from our besetting sins or not?  Surely not.  We must repent.  We certainly must fight against our sin.  But, we can only be delivered from it by our death and resurrection in Christ.  We can only be delivered by the way of free grace.  We can only be delivered by fellowship with Christ, and he only receives sinners.

Are you seeking deliverance from besetting sin?  Give up all your attempts at obedience for acceptance with God.  You are not acceptable to God that way.  The harder you try, the worse it will be.  The Letter of the Moral Law will stimulate more sin, as you strive for acceptance.  Stop that process.  Truthfully accept your state of moral poverty.  Rest in Christ the Savior.  Rest in him whether your friends, your spouse, or your church accept you.  See Christ's deliverance!  You will still have to fight sin, but Christ in his grace will begin to take it away.

This is the way of deliverance.

It is not our victory.

Repentance and Faith -- Two sides of a Coin

When the level of faith grossly exceeds the level of repentance in a person, then it turns out that what appears to be "faith" may be mostly "easy believism."  The consequence of this state of mind can be a slow slide into sin.  In the midst of ease the hardness of heart grows stronger.  When a person slides long enough, sins can begin to break out into the open and be seen by others.  There can be discipline from the Lord and from his church.  A slide that continues long enough can end in departure from the faith and excommunication by the church.

The reason for all this is that "easy believism" is not real faith.  It is not real faith because the warfare between flesh and spirit has been forgotten.  This "easy believism" is not real trust in Christ to forgive us our real and recognized sins, and to give us victory in a real war.  The warfare has been forgotten in the midst of battle, the heart is hardened, and the enemy achieves quiet victories.  "Easy believism" is not the gospel, because The Gospel is only the gospel in the midst of a real war.

On the other hand, when the level of repentance grossly exceeds the level of faith in a person, then it turns out that what appears to be "repentance" can become legalism, or a monk-like religiosity that cannot enjoy the gifts of God.  This can be connected with self-righteousness and pride -- great sins in the midst of all that "righteousness."  For the elect and the true believers it can lead to sadness, spiritual depression, and even despair.  There is no relief in the midst of the spiritual warfare, which is filled with failure.

The upshot is that dividing repentance and faith, and allowing one or the other to atrophy, is in either case a route to sin.  Success lies only where both repentance and faith are coupled in a Scriptural manner.  The gold coin of spirituality has two sides.  One side of the coin, by itself, is not the coin at all!  Faith without repentance is not real faith.  Repentance without faith is not true repentance.  Faith is only faith when coupled with true repentance.  Repentance is only possible when founded in faith.

As believers we ought to love righteousness and hate sin.  We must have faith in the definition of sin found in the Moral Law and the teaching of Christ.  We must recognize the evil within ourselves, and begin the fight against it, and we must trust in the total forgiveness of sin and the spiritual power against it, both given as a gift by our Savior through his sacrifice for our sins.

As soon as we come to know the Lord, a fight should break out between sin and righteousness in our souls.  It is a war -- even a death struggle.  In this war, the Spirit begins to give us victory through faith in Christ as he is clothed in the gospel.  It is not as if we ourselves achieve victory in the fight, but the Lord gives victory while we fight.  Recognition of the enemy, and the fight against him are integral to the process of repentance.  This recognition of sin, and the resulting war against it, is made possible by the omnipotence of Christ, who is engaged in the battle with us and in us, and who is totally on our side!  In the midst of the struggle with sin, there is the exultant knowledge of our victory in Christ, and our total acceptance, even today!  There is mourning for sin, but there is even greater joy in the gift of Christ!  This is the kind of life where hardness of heart begins to be put away, where sin is seen as ever uglier, and where Christ and his grace are seen as infinitely more precious.  Joy rules in the midst of mourning, and victories begin, in the Name of the Lord.

I've likened the spiritual life to a coin with two sides -- repentance and faith.  Another useful analogy might be to an airplane with two engines.  Trying to fly that spiritual airplane on only one engine is going to lead to a crash!  Things weren't meant to work that way.

Voluntarism and Irresistible Grace

To my readers: Pardon me for this somewhat technical post.  For context, see a previous post at URL:  http://christocentry.blogspot.com/2010/10/justification-and-sanctification.html

Define "voluntarism" as the doctrine that our wills are the controlling factor in the progress of our sanctification.  Voluntarism does not necessarily deny free and sovereign grace, because God can freely and sovereignly ordain the movements of our will and spirit, while those movements appear to us to be initiated and carried forward by our own volition (with God's help in power).  In other words, free and sovereign grace can theoretically coexist in the same theological system with a strong doctrine of the human will, voluntarism.  Things can be all of sovereign grace (in the hidden background), while they simultaneously appear to us to be ultimately dependent on our positive volition, though that volition is helped forward in execution by the power and grace of God.

Giving other names to this conception, we could say that "calvinism" can contain within it a bubble in which our consciousness lives and moves, and in that bubble, all our progress can appear to be regulated on "arminian" principles.  This is the nature of the strongest accusation that can be made against the nature of the spiritual piety characteristic of much Puritanism.

But, I assert that if it walks and talks like "arminianism," then that is what it is.  For it not to be "arminianism," in our subjective experience, we have to deny the voluntarism in some degree.  That is, it must not be the case that our sanctification is subjectively totally regulated by our own volition.  Put simply, we are made better by Christ through the Spirit even when we do not want to be.  Though we are reconstructed as new men by Christ, and we ought to begin to act like it and to fight the spiritual warfare, it is an absolute fact, and must be an experiential fact, that our sanctification is not in our own hands, but is in Christ's hands.  To make ourselves implicitly the "lords" of our own progress is the path of despair, not victory, and is even a kind of blasphemy.

Justification and Sanctification (revised 11.02.2010)

We believe in justification by faith only, and therefore distinguish the judicial process of being declared righteous in the Court of God (justification) from that process by which we begin to be made righteous (sanctification).  This is different from the medieval and pre-Reformational conception that justification is sanctification.  In that medieval concept, justification and sanctification could never be separated, but the assurance of final justification was not possible, because sanctification appears to be so variable and imperfect.

Now, the danger for those making a distinction between justification and sanctification is that the two ideas may "wander off from one another," so that justification and sanctification are achieved by radically different methods, with radically different philosophies of life lying behind them.  To put it crassly, one can begin to think that justification is achieved by faith only in the Gospel -- not by doing anything at all --  but that sanctification is achieved by an arduous process of self-improvement under the Law.  I express this crassly because one will hardly ever see it put so blatantly.  I say it in this extreme fashion, in order to show what I mean by saying that justification -- resting in Christ -- can be made to differ so much from sanctification -- a life of labor, that theological and practical confusion is brought into the Christian life.  How can you rest and labor at the same time?  These things must be reconciled.

Advocating a reconciliation is not a new idea.  The history of theology since the Reformation is littered with attempts to do this, but no consensus has been achieved.  As a starting point, however, it's clear that we need to keep justification and sanctification in union with one another, but distinguished.  As a familiar example, we speak of the union of the two natures of Christ in one Person, the divine Second Person who has taken on the attributes of manhood.  As such, the two natures are tightly unified under a single Person, but at the same time the natures (not the Person) are distinguished, so that Christ remains a single Person, yet fully God and fully Man.  So, in our doctrine of justification and sanctification, we need to keep these two elements tightly unified under the heading of salvation by grace, even though we continue to distinguish the judicial acceptation of our persons from the infusion of grace into our persons.

------------------- EXAMPLE ---------------------

Why is it that in the medieval scheme the variability and poverty of our faith and works implies that we cannot have assurance in this life concerning our justification or final perseverance unto acceptance by God, whereas in some Reformed (actually, Puritan) versions of the doctrine of assurance our mortification of sin and our good works are precisely supposed to be the major evidence to us that our position in Christ is secure, and that we have been truly justified (by faith only)?

Put another way, how could it ever be that those who believe sin indwells believers ineradicably in this life (Protestants) could ever receive assurance of justification from the quality of their combined faith and works, when those who believe in perfectibility in this life (Romanists) cannot have any assurance on the same basis?  How can those who see themselves as "worse" believers than Romanists have any assurance based on performance, when even Romanists confess that they cannot?

I'm reading the great Puritan theologian John Owen's treatise On the Mortification of Sin in Believers.1  The treatise is full of many valuable bits of teaching concerning sin and repentance.  However, these bits are gerrymandered together with other material to enforce a virtually unendurable demand for perfection in repentance and holy walking.  It is "spiritually" Arminian,* triumphalistic and perfectionistic.  As a result I cannot tell that anyone who takes really, really seriously what Owen describes as the truly sanctified life could ever consider himself to be anything but a "second class" Christian at best, if indeed he considered himself to be a Christian at all.  Owen's perfectionism is often fit only to produce despair in poor saints.

Then, shall it be well with men, when they have an equal respect to all God's commandments.  God will justify us from our sins, but he will not justify the least sin in us (p. 125).

I can't fathom what Owen thinks of himself.  He never speaks in the first person about his own depravity.

On the other hand, I see John Calvin speaking quite otherwise in the Institutes 2:

Therefore, God does not, as many stupidly believe, once for all reckon to us as righteousness that forgiveness of sins concerning which we have spoken, in order that, having obtained pardon for our past life, we may afterward seek righteousness in the law;  this would be only to lead us into false hope, to laugh at us, and mock us.  For since no perfection can come to us so long as we are clothed in this flesh, and the law moreover announces death and judgment to all who do not maintain perfect righteousness in the works, it will always have grounds for accusing and condemning us unless, on the contrary, God's mercy counters it, and by continual forgiveness of sins repeatedly acquits us (Vol 1, p 777).

Calvin also somewhere says that when a believer compares the righteousness he thinks he has to the ungodliness he knows he has, that he cannot gain any assurance from his works that he knows the Lord at all.  He must only rely on acceptance with God by faith alone, and can only gain his assurance from that knowledge of his acceptance which he has apart from his works.  Seeing God work in our lives, and having assurance from that, says Calvin, is something that we might see in retrospect, and will know it to be something we ourselves are not the cause of.  But, this assurance of God's intervention in our lives to produce righteousness is not the primary evidence of our justification and assurance today.

The spiritual "smell" and teaching of Owen and Calvin could not be further apart.

Here is a quote from the mystical (contemplative, medieval, Romanist) standpoint that is relevant to this:   
My comments in [square brackets] and my underlines

At this point I would return to the reason for the close correspondences between these traditions [he means the Contemplative and the Puritan].  Insofar as I can see, they are due to something deliberate in the Reformed (especially the Puritan) tradition's efforts to reform the church more fully; namely, a return to the medieval contemplative mainstream to recover insight concerning sanctification.  The Puritans differed from the medieval contemplatives chiefly in the ambitiousness of their plans.  Where contemplatives tried to make saints of those in monasteries, the Puritans tried to make saints of everybody.  Here the Puritans forgot one of their basic tenets -- the fallenness of humanity -- which precludes such optimism.  The contemplatives were more realistic.  Only those who really want to and are willing to surrender themselves fully can become saints.  Coercion will never produce the kind of holy obedience God requires.3

It is interesting, in view of the supposed allegiance of the Puritans to a thoroughgoing doctrine of human depravity, that the contemplative in this quotation can accuse the Puritans (so ironically) of not taking the depth of human depravity among the believers very seriously.4

Any believer seriously troubled by sin must have had his very faith called into question by Owen's doctrine, or any like it.  Owen regards most so-called Christians with a jaundiced and disrespectful eye.  Since any mature believer sees his ingrained depravity even more deeply than an immature believer, it is hard to understand how even a mature believer could feel right.  This doctrine of sanctification would likely (and probably has historically) created churches full of sorrowing and doubting believers -- not what is seen in the New Testament.

Owen's doctrine of sanctification strangely overshadows the doctrine of justification, assurance and free unmerited grace found in the Gospel.  It is as if justification and sanctification have separate trajectories, and operate on separate principles:  That is, the work of the Holy Spirit which produces regeneration, repentance, faith and real union with Christ, fully by grace through faith alone, will not sanctify a believer according to substantially these same principles.  It truly must be the case that the work of the Spirit in the Gospel is the foundation of sanctification!  But, to Owen this is not subjectively the case in a believer's life.  The believer must operate by substantially different spiritual principles for justification than he does for sanctification.  This indicates theological and spiritual poverty in Owen's doctrine of justification and its consequences.  He thinks that justification "fixes" your legal problem with God, but does not begin to produce sanctification on the same gracious principles.  Justification and sanctification thus have wandered off on separate courses.  The objective and felt grace of the gospel, producing the love of God (and thereby the hatred of sin), has vanished away as the engine of the spiritual life.

1 This public domain text may be found in Kapic and Taylor, ed., Overcoming Sin and Temptation, Crossway Books, 2006, pp. 41-139.

2 McNeil, ed., Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, Westminster John Knox Press, 1960.

3 Donald Alexander, ed., Christian Spirituality -- Five Views of Sanctification, article by: E. Glenn Hinson, A Contemplative Response to the Reformed View, p. 93.

4 I suggest that Owen's doctrine of the anthropology of believers includes a redefinition of sin to be only those heart or external actions to which the will does not assent.  This would reinterpret his writing on mortification in order to put it into more practical terms.  But, this more "practical" doctrine is just the doctrine of the hated "Papists."  Concupiscence is not sin, etc.  Virtual perfectionism is possible.  This, in turn, could point in the direction of some flavor of Arminianism, or more likely, the Neonomianism of Richard Baxter or the doctrine of Bp. Jeremy Taylor.

* The reason for using the term "armininian" is explained in the post at the following URL: 
http://christocentry.blogspot.com/2010/11/voluntarism-and-irresistible-grace.html.  There is a well-known Arminianism concerning the doctrine of predestination.  But, here I refer to parallels in the doctrine of faith, and of volitional sanctification.

Luther, and Justification by Faith Alone

Revised 10/13/2010

Luther's spiritual state, and his spiritual evolution and ultimate conversion to new views of justification, are commonly separated from the doctrine itself in our understanding.  This is because we approach the Scripture seeking the Scripturally objective sense of it, concerning this doctrine.  It matters not what we or (or Luther) think, or what our spiritual state is.  What matters is what the Scripture teaches.

But there needs to be a wrinkle here.  Yes, it is true that the Scripture teaches "justification by faith alone."  But, we need to consider how to use and apply this doctrine.  We are helped toward this goal if we really do closely consider the relationship between Luther's spiritual turmoil and his "re-discovery" of this apostolic doctrine.

Luther originally accepted and labored under a doctrine of repentance which was usually stated like this:  "To those who do what is in them, God will not deny grace."  The question for Luther was whether or not he actually, honestly did "what was in him," that is, whether he ever did what he was really capable of doing for God.  In the end, he thought not.  All his works, he saw, were contaminated by sin.  The result was that the "system" of repentance and Christian assurance broke down and failed.  Now, if Luther isn't just out of his mind (an untenable position), then this means that Luther finally cared about the experiential truthfulness of this plan of salvation, and he found that the plan was a failure.

One might ask why other serious Christians did not discover this.  It's a mystery.  Perhaps they just did not put as much faith in that plan of repentance, or perhaps they did not worry about the sin which remained in their works.  If they were serious Christians, they must have thought, just as Johann Staupitz, Luther's confessor said to Luther, that one must at some point just stop being angry at God and confessing sins all day, and trust in the God who grants grace.  (This, of course, is implicitly to trust in justification by faith, while denying the doctrine).  Luther, however, tested the medieval church doctrine to the bitter end and found it wanting.  Because he strove for The Truth in this respect, he came to see The Truth on this point in the Scripture.  Consequently, there was a Reformation, which was provoked in largest measure by this doctrine of free justification.

This is all highly instructive.  We have to conclude then that justification by faith alone is only understood from the heart and relied upon by believers who truly see, mourn and hate their own ineradicable depravity.  Only those who have despaired in their striving for sanctification can know the glory of free grace.  Believers who have not reached the end of themselves cannot have heartfelt faith in Christ's free justification.  For them, "Justification by Faith Alone" may be a battle cry of their religious party, but spiritually, it is just words.  Such believers are open to false gospels.  They are open to the use of legal methods for sanctification -- if they are interested in sanctification.  Some may think in their hearts, "I'm justified, so I don't need to repent," thus implicitly denying their professed religion.  Therefore, we must conclude that misbehavior by Christians, truly converted or not, is not a denial of the truthfulness or usefulness of the doctrine of justification by faith alone.  When repentance comes alive, and sensitivity to sin constantly increases, and personal depravity becomes an ineradicable object of mourning and hatred in our souls, then salvation as a free gift (justification by faith alone) opens the doors of paradise to believers such as these.  The joy and love imparted by this experience is truly sanctifying.  It is spiritual deliverance.  It is a power-relationship to the Spirit and to grace, instead of a power-relationship to law.  It is the only truly sanctifying doctrine, and therefore is ultimately the doctrine of a standing or falling church.  The whole Christian life is the continual re-discovery of free grace, as we struggle against our remaining depravity and sin.

How should we ever think, then, that "Justification by Faith Alone" is simply an easily accepted initial doctrine of the faith, and that once this "believing" is done and we are justified, then, as a separate activity, we take up the serious business of "working on our sanctification."  It is only in the midst of the struggle of sanctification that the inbreaking of the divine peace continually delivers us!  In the end, in the day of final deliverance, the free justification and unmerited reward of God will be all there is, in glory, forever and ever.

More on Sanctification

One might ask a fundamental Protestant question about justification and sanctification:  How do the two concepts of "rest" and "war" comport with one another?  "Rest," of course, refers to the "rest" of faith on the justifying work of Christ's cross.  "War" refers to the active fight between flesh and spirit inside ourselves as believers.

Those who emphasize "rest," spanning the spectrum from orthodox Lutheranism through "deeper-life/higher-life/let-go-and-let-God" spirituality expect to prosecute the war within by spiritual rest.  Will they not always be suspected of harboring antinomianism?  Likewise, the fighting side will always be suspected by the others of having a commitment to legalism.  War periodically breaks out between various proponents of these two camps. 

The most significant engagement is that between orthodox Lutheranism and the orthodox Reformed.  The Reformed always doubt the ability of the Lutheran way to really come to grips with sin and sanctification.  The Lutherans are certain that the Reformed only have a half-way commitment to grace.  This war has not yet been brought to an end through a common understanding, and therefore, the Lutheran/Reformed schism remains unhealed.

Sanctification (revised)

The original badly written article has been revised to improve the sentence structure.

If sanctification were a process of becoming better and better by striving against sin by the Spirit (which, of course, we must do), and if we measured our progress by comparing ourselves against the standard of the Law, how would this comport with the doctrine of justification by faith alone?  Likely this way:  We would have to separate the process of justification from that of sanctification, because justification and sanctification were carried out by different methods.  Justification would be carried out through faith only in the gospel apart from Law, and sanctification would be carried out by laboring at holiness (which, of course, we must do) while using the Law as our guide.  This results in a common doctrinal dualism found in the churches.  The consequence among the insensitive Christians is perhaps legalism, as they practice a socially acceptable Christianity.  The consequence among the sensitive Christians is despair, through their (correct) perception of their constant sinning.

This kind of distinction between justification and sanctification does not do justice to the fundamental principle of grace inherent in the doctrine of justification by faith alone.  It reduces the relevance of this doctrine to the process of sanctification, and to the whole Christian life.  This is wrong.  We need a doctrinal formulation which makes justification and sanctification work together in a holistic doctrine of the Christian life that actually works.

Now, if justification by faith alone be the key doctrine for sanctification, it is obvious that real sanctification comes about by moving away from striving for personal self-improvement (before the Law) and toward Spiritual reliance on free grace in Christ.  Sanctification is measured less by accomplishment, as we perceive it, and more by repentance, humility, the sense of forgiveness, and the empowering vision of free grace in Christ, producing the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience ... .

This does not mean that we need not strive against sin when it threatens.  Because we are still in flesh, we have to fight and hopefully defeat sins at least some of the time.  But, real victory comes by deliverance from the power of sin by the grace of God.  It is not a product of human effort.  We may not see holiness coming over us as we persevere in repentance, and in humility, and in our joy and peace in Christ -- but others do.  The most self-forgetful, who are least fond of measuring their spiritual accomplishments, and who meekly boast in the merits of Christ will be the sanctified.

And vice versa.

Neonomianism and the "New Perspective on Paul"

This post is a continuation of a previous post, containing a review of the book:

C. Fitzsimons Allison, The Rise of Moralism -- The Proclamation of the Gospel from Hooker to Baxter, Regent College Publishing, 2003 (originally 1966).

This book details the rise of Neonomianism in Anglican Theology in the 17th century. The previous post may be found at the following link (ignore the absurd wording of the link, over which I appear to have no control):

http://christocentry.blogspot.com/2010/06/test-ignore-this-post.html

My purpose in this succeeding post is to evaluate the potential connection between Neonomianism and the doctrine of justification seen in the "New Perspective on Paul," as propounded by N T Wright.

The "New Perspective on Paul" vis-a-vis Neonomianism

Allison's book is a good historical and doctrinal introduction to an era in the theological history of the Church of England, whose theology is still said by Allison to be dominant in that body today.  For this reason and others, I believe that this book provides a useful introduction which may help discern the roots of the doctrine of justification often seen in the "New Perspective on Paul," especially as it is propounded by N T Wright.

Allison's book was originally written before the ministry of N T Wright, even before many of the other academic originators of the New Perspective.  However, what this book details when describing the doctrine of Jeremy Taylor and the other most influential "revisionist" Anglican divines in the Church of England seems similar to the doctrine of justification that Wright teaches (insofar as I understand it).

The aberrant doctrine of the era reported on by Allison holds the following points:

1)  Faith is implicitly a work, not an instrument
     (even though we are moved to it by the Spirit);

2)  There is no imputation of the righteousness of Christ
     to sinners;

3)  Justification (not justification by works, or the second justification,
     but simply final justification, and so, eternal destiny)
     is fully contingent, in the Last Judgment, on our total
     personal history in faith and evangelical obedience.

This is usually called "neonomianism," and is most prominently in our circles associated with the name Richard Baxter.

Simply put, Christ's work "lowered the bar" in the covenant, so that it becomes possible (instead of impossible) for sinners (in the power of the Spirit) to keep the stipulations (works) of the covenant.  The distinction between faith and evangelical obedience is needless, and is done away.  We are simply justified by obedience to an "easier" covenant, the first "work" of which is to believe the gospel by which we are initially justified.  But, that justification is not final.  Your justification will be revisited at the Last Judgment, where your life history of faith and works will be reviewed.

One distinction I am able to recognize between Wright's doctrine and Neonomianism is that the latter can tend toward pessimism in its preaching, but Wright appears to me to be optimistic about the Judgment.  Therefore, when Neonomianism preaches on the final judgment, it's typically to bring warning or even terror.  But, I can't tell that Wright takes this approach.

Regardless of the difference in tone, however, it is clear why Wright insists that Christians should not be worrying about their final destinies in this life:  By his doctrine you cannot know your destiny for sure until the Last Judgment.  The thing to do now is to get busy.  He does appear (in tone) to be saying that you can be assured of acceptance at the Judgment if you persevere in faith and works, that is, you will be accepted based on the covenantal validity of your faith and works (not simply based on what Christ did for you, applied to you through faith as an instrument).

As Wright himself insists (references are needed here, but are easily found in his relevant writings), he does not teach the Reformation imputational doctrine on justification, but opposes it.

The Rise of Moralism (v4)

As a student of soteriology (the doctrine of salvation), I'm constantly on the watch for books on the subject of justification, and the relationship between faith and works.

For the benefit of others who are attracted to this subject, I recommend:

C. Fitzsimons Allison, The Rise of Moralism -- The Proclamation of the Gospel from Hooker to Baxter, Regent College Publishing, 2003 (originally 1966).

In this interesting history Allison details the gradual evolution of teaching in the Church of England of the late 16th and 17th centuries, as certain influential bishops "moderated" the Reformational doctrine of total depravity and imputation, and removed the basis and sense of need for justification by faith alone -- and sometimes even denied this doctrine. 

The motivation behind this doctrinal evolution was to improve the morality of Christians, who, they felt, were hiding behind "justification by faith alone" in order to avoid true repentance.  The answer, as these bishops saw it, was to tilt their public doctrine in the direction of the demand for obedience, and to connect Christian assurance (and even justification) to obedience, at the expense of speaking freely about "free grace."

Allison argues strongly for the Reformational emphasis on justification by faith alone, since he sees that the Scripture and Christian experience support the need for spiritual freedom, doctrinally and pastorally.

Theologians who read this book will be interested in how Allison uses the scholastic (Aristotelian) descriptions of the various modes of causation, in order to describe the real difference between Trent and the Reformation.  This is something you may not have seen described exactly this way before.  I have not fully penetrated the depths of Allison's argument, but I'm reasonably certain that he is right.  The argument between the Reformation and Trent is an argument about how to order and label the causes of justification.  It is not an argument over the list of causes.  The list enumerated by the two sides is the same.  The doctrinal difference lies in how the causes imply and affect one another.

Allison's observation is that Reformation and Rome (Bellarmine) agree that the difference (on the doctrine of justification) lies only in the identification of the formal cause.  For the Reformation the formal cause of justification is the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to sinners through faith, which is trust in Christ clothed in the gospel, and apart from their works.  This, in turn, by their union with Christ, must and does eventuate in evangelical obedience.  For Rome, the formal cause of justification is the sinner's own faith and evangelical obedience, or actual covenantal righteousness, which is in him by grace.  Both sides thus grant the need for faith and evangelical obedience, or covenantal righteousness, but in different ways.

For the Reformation:

grace -> faith

faith  -> union with Christ

union with Christ -> justification now, evangelical obedience begins

This is also the order of the Reformation preaching of this doctrine.  Christian assurance of salvation can be given, subject only to perseverance in faith.

For Rome:

grace -> faith and evangelical obedience
faith and evangelical obedience, if present -> final justification

This is also the order of the Roman preaching of this doctrine.  Christian assurance of salvation cannot be given, because no one knows whether his faith and evangelical obedience have "kept covenant" until the final judgment.

This book is likely to be helpful for those who may be struggling with understanding the relationship between faith and works for any reason -- especially those with doctrinal questions whether the Reformation doctrine of justification is exactly right or not.

My comments

Properly describing the relationship between faith and works remains something hard for men.  This subject, which also involves the vital doctrine of Christian assurance, remains a perennial subject of investigation. Luther was certain that after his day, the doctrine of free justification would again be eclipsed.  He was right.  However, it has never been eclipsed throughout the whole church as badly as it seems to have been within the pre-Reformation medieval inheritance.

I think that the reason that Luther's dictum (that justification by faith alone is the mark of a standing or falling church) is accurate and true is that this doctrine is a sentinel which describes the spiritual health of the church.  Justification by faith alone is only understood by those who take their morality seriously, who truly mourn over their sins, and who, filled with gratitude, pant to receive this free salvation as a gift. 

The "New Perspective on Paul"

The material which originally appeared here concerning relevance to the "New Perspective on Paul" has been expanded and put into a new post, which may be found here:

http://christocentry.blogspot.com/2010/07/neonomianism-and-new-perspective-on.html

The Heavenly Vision of Faith

Or, The Connection between Faith and Works

What is faith?  A definition is given in the following excerpt from the famous 11th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews:

Hebrews 11:1-2  Now faith is the substance [or, assurance] of things hoped for, the evidence [or, conviction] of things not seen.  For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.

This famous passage speaks of faith as an assured conviction that the future fulfillment of the as yet unseen promises of God will certainly come to pass.

This chapter includes the great litany of the faith of the ancient saints and all their exploits and sufferings which they endured for the sake of these promises.

• By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain...
• By faith Enoch was taken away...
• By faith Noah ... prepared an ark...
• By faith Abraham obeyed ... and he went out..., and he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
• They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword.

In the context of this chapter, it's clear that these exploits and works of daring perseverance and endurance were a product of true faith, a living thing and gift of God in our souls, a vision of the city of God that makes us able to stand for the gospel in mighty exploits and sufferings.  This living faith is not a work, nor is it a mere lifeless assent to truth, which flees from us in sins and tribulations.  It is soul-rest in the certainty of God's promise of the heavenly city, which we enter through the work of our faithful high-priest and mediator, Jesus Christ.

See end of the story told in this Epistle about the Israelite apostasy in the wilderness:

Hebrews 3:18-19  And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey?  So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

The problem with them was not that they did not add works to their faith.  The problem was that the ones who apostatized had no real faith at all.  Of course, at one point, they said that they did.  But testing proved the claim false.

So, how do we prove ourselves to be faithful, like those ancient worthies who have gone before?  By trust in God's promise, in spite of the temptations and distractions of sin, even in the face of death.  This faith is not a work, but a soul-rest in God's saving power.  This conviction of truth moves us to stand for the gospel.  Sanctification is a direct consequence of confidence in the saving and delivering promise of God.

And, by the way, it's best to describe this true and living faith in Scriptural terms.  It's just "faith."  The so-called "faith" of those who profess faith but then fall away from the Lord's call, is a complicated and devious pseudo-faith, so evil that it can't be unraveled, discerned, understood or explained by the mind of man.  Those who hold it are self-deceived.

Real faith is just simple, not complicated -- like the faith of a child.  You rest in it.  God's promise is certain.  Christ's work is done.

Rest all your weight and destiny on the Rock Christ.

He is holding on to you!  And, nothing can pluck you from his hand.