Justification by Faith Alone |
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Only by faith - 18 August 2009
Paraphrase of Edwards, Justification by Faith Alone, pp. 151ff.
Having considered what justification is, let’s think now about what it means to say that justification is only by faith. Then we’ll think about what it means to say that justification is not by our own goodness.
The problem with understanding the meaning of ‘justification by faith’ is that it’s hard to pin down what ‘by’ means.
Some have tried to clarify matters ‘by saying that faith is the condition of justification’ (p. 152). Though this is true in one sense, it doesn’t get us very far, because the word ‘condition’ is itself ambiguous. It can mean subtly different things in different contexts, and these differences can cause great confusion.
For example, in one sense, ‘Christ alone performs the condition of our justification’ (p. 151). So how can our faith be a further ‘condition’ of justification?
More confusingly still, if we take ‘condition of justification’ to mean ’something indispensable, without which we shall not be justified, and with which we shall be justified’, then lots of other things could legitimately be called ‘conditions of justification’ as well. The Bible says that ‘love to God’, ‘love to our brethren’, ‘forgiving men their trespasses’ (p. 152), and many other things besides, are also conditions of justification in this sense. Clearly the phrase ‘condition of justification’ is inadequate to describe the ‘particular influence that faith has’ (p. 153) in justification.
Others have tried to clarify the relationship between faith and justification by calling faith ‘the instrument of our justification’ (p. 153). Unfortunately, this explanation has been misrepresented and ridiculed by others, who have wrongly understood it to mean that faith is the instrument God uses to justify us, rather than the instrument we use to receive justification.
On the other hand, perhaps some confusion is understandable. For those who describe faith as the instrument by which we receive justification also identify faith as the act of receiving justification. That doesn’t work. It’s a bit like confusing your journey to work (the act) with the car you drive in (the instrument).
In any case, even those who describe faith as an ‘instrument’ speak of it, strictly speaking, as ‘the instrument by which we receive Christ’ rather than ‘the instrument by which we receive justification’ (p. 153). But we’re in danger of getting ahead of ourselves.
So then, what does ‘by’ mean in the phrase ‘justified by faith’? Let’s take a step back for a moment. God has sent ‘a Mediator’, Christ, who ‘has purchased justification’ (p. 153). Surely the most obvious thing to say is this: Faith is the thing that makes it right in God’s sight that some people (i.e. believers; those with faith) rather than others (i.e. unbelievers, those without faith) should have justification assigned to them. Faith is the ‘qualification’ (p. 153) that makes it appropriate in God’s sight that ‘we should be justified’ (p. 154).
God doesn’t do anything randomly. Everything in the way that God has set up the world fits together perfectly in line with his wisdom. And God in his wisdom says that faith and justification ‘match’. They fit together, so to speak, such that it is right (i.e. ‘proper’, ‘meet’, ‘fit’, p. 154) for those who have faith to be justified.
This distinguishes faith from all the other things which can rightly be described as conditions of justification (love for God, love for other believers, and so on). For though all these things are ‘inseparably connected with justification’ (p. 154), only faith qualifies us for justification in this special and unique sense.
Setting the wheels in motion - 17 August 2009
Paraphrase of Edwards, Justification by Faith Alone, p. 149ff.
We are justified only by faith in Christ, and not by any manner of virtue of goodness of our own.
In the following pages we’ll explore this statement in five steps:
1. Explain what this statement means.
2. Prove that this statement is true.
3. Show what place ‘evangelical obedience’ (p. 149) has in justification.
4. Answer objections.
5. Reflect on why this issue matters.
Let’s begin with what justification is. ‘A person is said to be justified when he is approved of God as free from the guilt of sin, and its deserved punishment, and as having that righteousness belonging to him that entitles to the rewards of life’ (p. 150).
Justification has both positive and negative aspects. Negatively, it means that a person is regarded as being not guilty of sin. Positively, it means that a person is righteous in God’s sight, and is therefore ‘entitled to a positive reward’ (p. 150).
Justification therefore includes the forgiveness of sins, but it’s more than this. After all, Scripture says that a person can be ‘either justified or condemned’ (p. 150) – there’s no middle ground. Justification leaves us in the right with God, not in some kind of neutral moral ground.
For an illustration, consider Adam. In order to be justified, he would have needed to ‘[finish] his course of perfect obedience’ (p. 150). Only then would he have ‘fulfilled the righteousness of the law’ (p. 150). He wasn’t justified when he was first created, and it would not have been enough for him to hang around doing nothing!
Or, for another illustration, consider Christ. He ‘was not justified until he had done the work the Father had appointed him, and kept the Father’s commandments, through all trials’ (p. 150-151). He was finally justified ‘in his resurrection’ (p. 151).
Let’s think a bit more about the resurrection as Jesus’ justification. 1 Peter 3:18 says that Jesus was ‘quickened by the Spirit’; 1 Timothy 3:16 says he was ‘justified in the Spirit’ (p. 151). This was the moment when Jesus’ suffering and humiliation ended, when his exaltation began, when God granted his ‘reward’ (p. 151).
Now, what happens when a believer is justified? Simply this: we share in the justification of Jesus. We are ‘admitted to communion’ (p. 151) with him, and so we share in his reward. For Jesus did not die and rise merely as a private individual; he is the head and representative of all who believe in him. So he was raised to life not merely for his justification, but also ‘for our justification’ (p. 151; Romans 4:25).
Edwards on justification by faith alone - 11 August 2009
I was talking with a friend the other day about this and that, and was reminded how much I love Jonathan Edwards’s Justification by Faith Alone.
Written in 1738 to counter the growing threat of Arminianism in New England, it is a work of theological genius. It combines many of Edwards’s greatest gifts – theological precision, philosophical sophistication, thoughtful exegesis – with an additional trait not displayed in some of his other works: it’s short. Well, short-ish.
You can even read it free online at the Jonathan Edwards Center.
In this and a few future posts, we’ll be working through Edwards’s work by paraphrasing/summarising a chunk at a time. Text in quotes is taken directly from the Yale edition; page references in brackets.
Edwards, Justification by Faith Alone, p. 147ff.
‘To the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness’ (Romans 4:5).
Four important things flow from this verse:
1. When God justified a person, he doesn’t have regard for any moral goodness in that person. For God ‘justifies the ungodly‘ (Romans 4:5). So, ‘immediately before’ (p. 147) God justifies us, he obviously isn’t looking at us and thinking, ‘Hey, look at how godly (s)he is!’ It’s like when God gives sight to the blind: immediately before they receive their sight, they can’t see.
2. When this verse talks about ‘the one who does not work’ (Romans 4:5), it not just talking about the ceremonial law. It’s talking about all ‘works of morality and godliness’ (p. 148), because ‘the ungodly’ and ‘the one who does not work’ clearly mean the same thing.
3. The ‘faith’ (Romans 4:5) spoken of here is not just another word for obedience. Striving for obedience in order to be justified is a very different from trusting in a God who justifies the disobedient.
4. The very fact that the justified person’s faith is ‘counted’ (Romans 4:5; i.e. ‘imputed’) ‘for righteousness’ (p. 148) demonstrates that God regards the justified person as having no righteousness in himself. Yet the consequences of this imputation for the justified person ‘are the same as if he had righteousness’ (p. 148). The context points in precisely this direction (v. 4 – the ‘gift’; v. 6 – ‘righteousness apart from works’; vv. 7-8 – ‘blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven … against whom the Lord will not count his sin’).
This all boils down to a simple one-liner: ‘We are justified only by faith in Christ, and not by any manner of virtue of goodness of our own‘ (p. 149).