Passivity and licentiousness: To simply accept that upon Justification we retroactively inherit Christ’s righteousness can easily lead to badly abusing the message of grace and the empowerment to live righteous for ourselves, and to assuming that we can live unrighteous lives with a fictitious history of somebody else’s righteousness attached haphazardly to us.

Unquote.

Do you count God as some sort of fool that He would impute the righteousness of Christ to a person that would misuse such a priceless gift?

Justification – Declarative or Actual?

The New Testament teaching of justification can be subdivided into two aspects: the declarative aspect and the actual aspect. Declarative Justification is the act whereby God declares a sinner to be positionally justified. You affirm declarative justification, as do I. However one thing must be noted concerning this: this declarative act is made on the basis of an actual justified constitutive disposition of the one being justified (this is known as Actual Justification).

The New Testament Doctrine of Justification is presented as an amalgamation of the two. We can’t pick and chose one or the other as they are both interdependent upon each other. This is for the following reasons:

God’s Nature requires He justify positionally only those who are just in actuality.

Through sin our relationship to God was lost. Therefore our justification is not only a matter of our judicial position, but also our spiritual relation. Here me out on this point.

Because our justification is not merely dealing with a judicial standing but also a spiritual relationship to a personal God 1) guilt, 2) condemnation and 3) separation must also be dealt with in a constitutive way. God declares us righteous through Jesus because He has made us righteous through Jesus. In the context of justification all of our righteousness is as filthy rags (Is. 64:6). You absolutely cannot separate these two aspects in the act of justification.

It is impossible to be declared justified without actually being found just. It would be terrifying to ascribe an abominable acts like justifying the wicked to God (Prov. 17:15). Therefore one cannot be declared justified if one is not just (Prov. 17:15; Ex. 23:7; Deut. 25:1).

God is a Bridegroom God, but He is also a holy and just Judge. He does not suspend one of His attributes in order that He may exercise another attribute. Therefore these two attributes, though in tension, must be reconciled somehow in the act of justification. All of His ways are like this. He is the One who is as Jasper and Sardius.

The means by which God justifies us in an actual way are threefold.

1) God removes our guilt through imputation.

Justification: The Word –  has essentially the same mean as the Hebrew word for justification tsadaq. The background of the New Testament word is found in the Hebrew. A person who is justified is declared to be in conformity with the requirements of the Law. This is true not only of their forensic position but also of their spiritual relation to God. The righteousness of Jesus Christ is reckoned to his account in a relational way so that the declaration of the Judge may be made truly (Rev. 15:3 “just and true are all Your ways”).

2) God removes our condemnation by the gift of forgiveness (Rom. 5:16; 6:23)

3) He removes our separation through the restoration of fellowship.

It is this threefold application of actual justification which declarative justification is contingent upon. You cannot have one without the other.

The Vindication of the Bridal Paradigm

I’ve been in the House of Prayer for three years and am familiar with the Bridal Paradigm. I’m convinced that Actual justification (specifically imputed righteousness) is the greatest vindication of the Bridal Paradigm I know of. The motivation of the Bride of Christ to press on in faith is through His declarations of who She is. It is only through this lens that we can rightly interpret “dark yet lovely”. We are dark in our experience as weak and immature believers, yet we’re lovely in our position in Christ (Rom. 6:11).

And it is only through this reality that the boy straight out of the gutter and into Christ can have the confidence to press on. Knowing that his ability to press forward in the faith, and be pleasing in the sight of God is not wholly contingent upon his ability to hold his weak self in and muster up righteousness of his own. His faith is bolstered at the realization that his salvation and perseverance is found in what Christ accomplished on the cross on his behalf (Rom. 6:5; 7:4).

If “faithfulness” is a requirement to remaining in God’s covenant, and true believers (God’s elect) can fail to meet this requirement, how do you define “faithfulness” and how does one know he/she is… faithful enough?”

Actually, answering this very question is part of purpose of the series of posts I’m writing right now; so if you would like to have a Biblical discussion over the the content of that series and the conclusions I arrive at therein, feel free to jump in!

“RE: Piper – It still seems odd that you would link to the site of a man who boldly and passionately places the doctrines you so disdain at the center of his ministry.”

I have the rare privilege of knowing many great men and women of God from so many ends of the theological spectrum – from hardcore Calvinist to Open Theist, from Dispensational to Amillennial, from Classic Reformed to NPP, from more Existentialist and experiential worldviews to more Enlightenment influenced intellectual ones – that I believe I have the perspective with which to delineate the importance of the different issues, have positive, mature debates where each individual is mutually strengthened and unoffended, because both approach the debate objectively – letting it take place over the idea in question on the grounds of Biblical interpretation and not sinking to taking punches at one another. I think its entirely possible to hold firm to ones convictions on issues such as these, give impartial arguments for why you land where you do (which is what I seek to do in this blog), and yet be reasonable with others who do not reach the same conclusions. That is what I mean by not being the “orthodoxy police”. If the essentials and ethic end up the same, the differing logical processes of getting there are of secondary importance.

Matt

I think you’re dodging a question that drives at the heart of your perspective’s fatal flaw. I may not have asked my wife on our wedding day, “How much faithfulness is enough?”, but I certainly had specific things in mind that would necessarily accompany said faithfulness (e.g. monogamous sexual fidelity).

If “faithfulness” is a requirement to remaining in God’s covenant, and true believers (God’s elect) can fail to meet this requirement, how do you define “faithfulness” and how does one know he/she is… faithful enough?

RE: Piper – It still seems odd that you would link to the site of a man who boldly and passionately places the doctrines you so disdain at the center of his ministry.

I view Open Theism with as much disdain (and probably more) as you seem to view the Doctrines of Grace. I guess I can’t imagine wading through Greg Boyd’s bones in order to strain out the few pieces of meat.

Oh well…

P.S. Don’t apologize for being a doctrine cop – that’s exactly what you’re doing here, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Why throw out the baby with the bath water? He has a lot of good stuff that I passionately agree with. It’s obvious when looking through the pages of Church history that varying degrees of bad theology doesn’t always equal unrighteous living. All that it often means is a foundation that does not logically lead to the good ethic lived out.

Is bad theology dangerous? Yes, to varying degrees depending on the theology. Is it all of the same consequence? No, of course not. Can we be reasonable with each other on issues that aren’t “top tear” issues so to speak, eat the meat and spit out the bones and have good debates hoping to strengthen and be strengthened? Absolutely. God forbid that I would be the orthodoxy police, claiming absolute authority in every doctrinal area as the guardian of pure theology and making it my right to rebuke anyone who doesn’t hold every tenet I do! What a poor existence that would be.

What will you say to your brothers and sisters on their deathbeds? Will you tell them, “I hope you lived up to your calling!” Or will tell them, “Look to Christ! He is your righteousness! He is your hope!”

If a measure of human faithfulness is required to remain in God’s covenant, how much is enough?”

You’re confusing “faithfulness” with “merit”. Would you ask your wife when you made your vows at the altar, “I promise to be faithful, but how much faithfulness is enough?” No, of course not. It’s time to take this discussion out of the dark ages…

What will you say to your brothers and sisters on their deathbeds? Will you tell them, “I hope you lived up to your calling!” Or will tell them, “Look to Christ! He is your righteousness! He is your hope!”

If a measure of human faithfulness is required to remain in God’s covenant, how much is enough?

…

With all due respect, you seem to have an incomplete understanding of Reformed Theology. I have just finished this series, and have been reading your most recent on the NPP. You make numerous claims about RT that are simply wrong.

Just one example: I know of no Reformed teachers who take biblical commandments and exhortations as descriptions of Christ’s life and work. Zero. Biblical exhortations are viewed as the means by which God perseveres His people. They are to be taken literally and seriously.

You should take the time to understand this system a bit more before ridiculing it.

…

I noticed you link your blog to John Piper’s website, DesiringGod. What do you make of a man (ministry, church, etc.) that passionately embraces and regularly teaches these “unbiblical” and “dangerous” doctrines and is neither confused nor drawn to passivity or licentiousness?

God Bless

So, over the next [I don’t know how long] I have decided to do a series on Exploring the Atonement.
Being the seasoned theologian and all (sarcastic), I thought it would be a fantastic topic to get to know better – especially since I’ve hea…