A few unfortunates in our world have allergies so severe they must carry with them an epinephrine injection. If they should ever come into contact with a honeybee or a peanut or, heaven forbid, a latex glove, they can open up their single-dose pre-filled automatic injection device and jam it into a thigh, thus preventing sudden and horrible death.

On such an occasion, the not-so-unfortunate might say, “My epinephrine saved me,” or, if he has a certain sense of humor, he might instead say, “My single-dose pre-filled automatic injection device saved me.” Both statements would be true, though not in the same way.

The difference is important. A needle won’t stop an allergic reaction, no matter how advanced and state-of-the-art a needle it might be. It is only the instrument by which one receives and applies epinephrine. Put more bluntly, if you have a severe enough reaction, you can jam empty needles in your thigh all day without doing any good. Epinephrine arrests deadly reactions; needles do not.

Nevertheless, the needle matters. I’m sure those who need them are glad for the availability of single-dose pre-filled automatic injection devices. Without them, lives would be lost.

Likewise, don’t despise faith; without it none will be justified in the sight of God. But don’t think that your faith makes you just. It is only the instrument by which you may receive and apply the justifying righteousness of Christ.

Labels: faith, justification

We have been justified. I like that. It sounds final. It sounds like a done deal. We have been justified, not will be justified, not might be justified, we have been justified. It sounds like a done deal because it is.

How has this been accomplished? By faith. We have peace with God through faith. Faith in the Lord Jesus. Faith that God has raised Christ from the dead. Faith that, even now, Christ Jesus makes intercession for us. Jesus did not simply die for us; He also lives for us. If we have been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God? (Rom. 5:9). This justification, this salvation from God's wrath is a has been done, not a will be done. It is finished.

But here is where we get into a scrape with the Arminian, and I think, on the whole, we have handled it very poorly, as if we are embarrassed by the scandal of this grace. When we assert, unwavering, that our justification is settled, that the kingdom and the glory are ours through Christ, the Arminian will say, "What? You say that a man is eternally secure? So now he may live like the devil and still reach heaven's blissful shores?" It is asked incredulously, as if such a thing could never be countenanced by a just God. Often enough, such moral outrage will cause us to say things like, "Well, if someone did go out and do such things, it is evidence that they were not in Christ in the first place." Such answers rarely satisfy anyone who believes the Christian's grasp on justification is tenuous, as if we are holding on to a hopeful justification by our white-knuckled faith. We should stop saying such things and quit apologizing for God's scandalous grace.

The next time someone says, "You mean that you believe a person can be saved and then go out and kill someone and go to heaven?" You ought to answer, "I certainly do. I believe a man could pillage and plunder and still be fit by God to go on to glory." Perhaps you don't believe this, but I think that you should.

Do you, and be honest now, believe that salvation is by grace through faith and not of works? I hope that you do. If so, you know that a person cannot forfeit a salvation by his works if he never earned it by works in the first place. Second, while it may be especially terrible for a Christian to murder, it is not beyond his depravity's reach to do so. Or to get drunk. Or to cheat on his spouse. In fact, there is no low to which a genuine believer will not sink down. And even if they should not act upon them, many a true believer has tasty that dainty delight of fantasy sin they would never dare to act upon. I call heaven and earth to witness this fact: if the maintenance of our salvation were dependent upon us not sinning after salvation, we would surely all head straight down to the depths of hell the moment we breathed our last.

I am not ashamed of the fact that Christ has justified me by his death. I am not ashamed of the fact that he must, even now, intercede for me. At least, I am not ashamed to confess that I am secure because of him and not because of me. Why don't I go out and kill and rob? Because I would be ashamed of myself before the Christ who loves me, not because I am hoping to keep his favor. I behave precisely because I have his favor, not because I want to earn it.

So the next time someone challenges you and accuses you of holding to a kind of faith that would lead to certain immorality and careless living, you tell them that you believe in Christ, not in your own merit. Tell them that you believe that it isn't really "true Christians" who persevere, but that you believe in a persevering Christ who never lets His beloved go. Never, ever, ever. And tell that to the devil when you need to, send him slithering away with these words as often as necessary: I have been justified.

Labels: grace, justification

When you ask an adopted person about being adopted he isn't going to give you a definition of adoption, he is going to tell you the story of his upbringing within his (adopted) family.

Adoption begins with being brought into the adopted family, but immediately after one is adopted, the focus shifts from getting the person into the family, to raising that person as a member of that family.  Said another way, adoption starts with becoming a member of the family, but after that it is all about raising you up to be like your parents.

A "natural" child inherits both the physical image of his parents and also (typically) their values.  An adopted child will not bear the physical image of his adopted parents, but will bear their image in the values he inherits through his upbringing in their family.  When Paul describes believers as growing up into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (c.f Ephesians 4:13), he is describing spiritual maturity through the metaphor of a child having become mature when he takes on the (physical) stature of his parent.  For the believer, we do not take on Christ's physical stature, but being adopted into His family, we are pressed by the Holy Spirit to take on Christ's spiritual stature; that is, we are pressed to surrender our will to God even as Christ did.

The story of our adoption into God's family is a story of growth into the likeness of Christ by our continued, intentional obedience to the clearly stated will of God in scripture.  All who are in Christ have been adopted into God's family, but not all press on to maturity, that is, not all press on to grow into the likeness of Christ through personal obedience, and therefore, not all who are Christians bear the image of their adopted Father while sojourning here upon the earth.

The question for you, believer, is whether, having been adopted into God's family, you will surrender your will to the Holy Spirit within you when He convicts you to surrender your will to Christ in some matter.  Will you justify your disobedience, and continue on in the image of your flesh, or will you surrender to His will, and put on the image of Christ who is in you?  Will your adoption show itself in this world through your obedience, or will you hide it through you disobedience?  The doctrine of adoption often ends with our becoming children of God, when it should go on to include, and even focus on, our being "brought up" spiritually by Christ.

Do you, believer, understand how the metaphor of raising up a child to be like his parents applies to the Christian walk?  Do you see God as a loving Father who has not only taken you in, but is now bringing you up to be like Him?  Or has the enemy of Christ convinced you that you won't really be in God's family until you have brought yourself up into the image of Christ?  Think on these things Christian: the doctrine of adoption is a doctrine describing the present work of God and not a past work.  It describes how we are presently being pressed (by God Himself), into His own image.  Like every good doctrine the doctrine of our adoption leaves us adoring and praising God for what He is doing.  It is a doctrine of joy - not only (or even primarily) that we have been welcomed into His family, but that He Himself is at work in us provoking us to desire and do His will. 

Amen? Amen!

Labels: adoption, faith, justification

I was delivering ice in Gettysburg one day, assisting Sammy, one of the nicest drivers I ever helped. Sammy suddenly braked in the middle of a steep side street, secured the ice truck, and launched himself out of the cab and toward the opposite sidewalk - all with no explanation. I slid across the seat to see what the matter was and saw him running to the aid of an older man in a runaway wheelchair. But as Sammy approached the man he pulled up short. The luckless rider issued a stream of vile profanity as he waved Sammy away urgently, and then he managed to crash his wheel-chair into a low garden wall, bringing himself to what looked like a painful halt.

“What on earth?” I asked as a saddened driver climbed stiffly back into the truck. “He said he didn’t need any help from a [epithet deleted],” Sammy told me. As we drove on I looked back in disbelief at the old man climbing unaided back into his dented wheelchair. I marveled at his folly; he knew that Sammy was coming to his rescue, and that Sammy could rescue him, but he absolutely refused to accept help from a dark-skinned Puerto Rican.

Self-destructive hate also explains the necessity for a qualification in the definition of faith. Justifying faith is a grace whereby a sinner “…not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness…” But why would anyone believe the truth about Jesus and yet refuse to accept his offered help?

The answer is hate: hate for God, hate for His Son, and hate for the very righteousness which He offers. Shudder at this thought: Some men who are wholly convinced of the truth of the gospel hate God so passionately that they willingly choose hell over heaven. Such is the corruption of the human heart that if we all were born knowing and understanding the gospel perfectly, we would all make that choice alongside them. Thank God that “justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and Word of God…”

Labels: faith, justification, sin

The gospel is a stumbling block, even to six-year-olds. My oldest son now asks with annoying regularity whenever the death of Christ comes up, “But I don’t understand one thing; how can one person be punished for another person’s sins? It doesn’t make sense. If I disobey, I’m punished. If my brother disobeys, he’s punished. How is this possible?”

My only real answer is, “Because God decided it was acceptable. God is the one in charge, His justice was offended by our sin, and if He decides to let Jesus take our punishment, then it just plain works.”

And that is what this catechism question turns on. Substitution didn’t have to be a legitimate element of God’s justice. Most of us would not have made it such. But it was grace on God’s part that established the very principle, for without it we would be lost.

The Son demonstrates obvious grace by actually dying on our behalf. The Father also demonstrates obvious grace by giving us His only beloved Son as the sacrifice. But beyond that, the Father demonstrates a more subtle grace by accepting the satisfaction from another which He could just as well have demanded from us.

“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!”

(And I offer anything, up to half my kingdom, to anyone who can make that make sense to a six-year-old.)

Labels: justification

Let's explain the meaning of these phrases: "To be justified in the sight of God" and "to be Justified by faith or by works."

A man is said to be justified in the sight of God when in the judgment of God he is judged righteous, and is accepted on account of his righteousness; for as iniquity is monstrous to God, so neither can the sinner find grace in his sight, so far as he is and so long as he is reckoned as a sinner. Therefore, wherever sin is, there also are the wrath and vengeance of God. On the other hand, he is justified who is accounted not as a sinner, but as righteous, and as such stands acquitted at the judgment-seat of God, where all sinners are condemned. As an innocent man, when charged before an neutral judge, who judges according to his innocence, is said to be justified by the judge, as a man is said to be justified by God when, removed from the catalog of sinners, he has God as the witness and judge of his righteousness.

In the same manner, a man will be said to be justified by works, if in his life there can be found a purity and holiness which merits an attestation of righteousness at the throne of God, or if by the perfection of his works he can answer and satisfy the divine justice. On the contrary, a man will be justified by faith when, excluded from the righteousness of works, he by faith lays hold of the righteousness of Christ, and clothed in it appears in the sight of God not as a sinner, but as righteous. In this way we simply interpret justification, as the acceptance with which God receives us into his favor as if we were righteous; and we say that this justification consists in the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.

Labels: Calvin as Gadfly, justification

Yesterday, my dear friend and writing partner Tom Chantry had a great post about the flaws in a lesser catechism, and I enjoyed it immensely until I ran into this part:

Scripturally, no man is morally blank: each soul has been covered in writing, either that of wickedness or that of righteousness.

The fallen soul is clogged with wickedness. It does not need erasure - subjection to some sort of moral degaussing - rather it must be overwritten with righteousness.

I agree with what comes before the colon.  I really am crazy about the theological metaphor he creates after the colon.  I agree without any qualification with the next sentence.  I am not sure what to do with that last sentence.

According to Romans 1, every person ever knows all the moral decrees of God.  According to Romans 2, what's worse is that our very consciences tell us about these things -- so when we do the wrong thing, it's not for lack of information or even a lack of understanding.  It's from a profusion of disobedience.  Indeed, Rom 3 goes on to say that just because the Jews have the actual written moral law, it doesn't do them one bit of good.

So, first things first: on the one hand, I like Tom's gold-star effort to make a theological metaphor, and in that I gave a lot of grace for his attempt to seal the deal by transposing the act of justification into his metaphor.  In that grace, what I think he means here is that root cause of sin doesn't need to be merely corrected: it needs to be utterly changed out because, frankly, it's the kind of thing that can't be left blank.

Sticking to my Romans riff here, it says at the end of Romans 3 that what happens is "[we] are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."  So if I was to re-write what Tom wrote, here's how I would say it:

Scripturally, no man is morally blank: each soul has been covered in writing, either that of wickedness or that of righteousness.

The fallen soul is defaced with wickedness, graffiti'ed with all manner of vulgar mottos. It does not need erasure: it needs to be utterly reissued, reprinted by the publisher Himself, printed and bound on stuff purchased by the blood of Christ Himself.

Still, Tom's post has so much independent verve, I ran it as-is. Consider this my meditation on what he said so well.

Labels: human nature, justification, Romans

The question in the Catechism for Young Children which I insisted on rewriting for use in our church was # 50:


Sorry, epic fail. It’s almost as bad as the old “just if I had never sinned” pneumonic.

Let’s think about that for a moment. What would it mean for God to treat me merely as one who had never sinned? Does God accept men into His eternal kingdom based upon the mere absence of sin? Or does He reward according to the measure of our righteousness? (Psalm 18:24) Having my sins taken away is a great truth, but it leaves me unfit for heaven, needing yet to supply my own righteousness in order to enter in.

I suppose such a justification might make me a new Adam - capable of moral action, but also capable of sin. Am I so confident that I will succeed where Adam failed? That I will manage to supply sufficient righteousness to stand before God’s holy gaze? Moral neutrality is a horrible specter - a frightfully dangerous condition - and not the goal of Christ’s justifying love.

Perhaps the greatest point of departure for the Enlightenment philosophers was their elevation of the Aristotelian concept of tabula rasa. To Locke and others the infant was a moral blank slate with the freedom to determine his own moral destiny. Scripturally, no man is morally blank: each soul has been covered in writing, either that of wickedness or that of righteousness.

The fallen soul is clogged with wickedness. It does not need erasure - subjection to some sort of moral degaussing - rather it must be overwritten with righteousness. Moreover, a fallible human righteousness such as Adam’s will not suffice. No, what is needed is both the forgiveness of sins and an accounting of the soul as infallibly righteous.

And this, Christian, is the act of God’s free grace unto you: pardoning all your sins, yes, but also accepting and accounting you as righteous in His sight, according to the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, imputed to you by God and received through faith alone.

Labels: human nature, justification, total depravity

One of the reasons that I love this Gadfly writing gig is because it gives us a chance to add a little verve to the catechism. The catechism is a tool for instruction, and as such it reads a little bit like a dictionary. The answers it gives are concise definitions, and as such I think they come often come off as understatements at best.

Question 70 of the catechism asks "What is justification?", and while the answer is technically and wonderfully correct, it just doesn't do the subject justice. Imagine my child asking me, "Papa, what does it mean when you tell mommy you love her?" And to answer I said, "It means I am in a covenant relationship with her wherein I have forsaken the companionship of all other women and given myself to her only for the glory of God." Amen to that, right? But is that what it means? Is that what I am saying when I tell my wife, "I love you?" I'm not blaming the catechism; it is doing what it is supposed to do, but if we want people to love theology, it takes the art of life and words to glorify what it means to be justified.

I once had a young man ask me what it means to be justified. Except he didn't ask it like that. He asked, "What keeps you from becoming a Roman Catholic? Is it prayer to saints? The ecclesiology? The issue of authority? What is it that keeps you from crossing the Tiber?" I told him that while those things are real issues, that wasn't the thing that keeps me firmly on my side of the river. The issue is how a person comes to be justified before a holy God.

Justification does not just keep me away from Rome, it keeps me alive. It is why I wake up happy. It is why I do not live in despair. It is the fount of all my joy and hope. Justification teaches me that Christ did not just die to give me a clean slate, as if he just wiped out my sins and let me start over. He gave me His righteousness. I get credit for His obedience. When Jesus sent the devil away by saying, "You will worship God and serve Him only." I got credit for that. When Jesus loved His friends to the end, I got credit for that. When Christ trembled in the garden and prayed, "Not my will but yours be done", I got credit for that. It is as if I have been the sort of son the Father would be proud of, not the sorry dog I actually turned out to be.

 What is justification? It is life. It is the good news. Our sins have been taken away by Christ, and He has clothed us in His righteousness. This truth gives us life and reason for being. That's what justification is.

Labels: Christ, Gospel, justification

There is a big difference between settling a debt and cancelling it.  God did not cancel our sin debt, He settled it.  There is nothing righteous about a judge who cancels the sentence of a man found guilty of rape and murder.  If that man walks out of the court free, justice has failed.  But let that man serve 60 years in prison, and walk out of the prison robbed of sixty years of his own life, and some may be willing to say the man has settled his debt to society.

Justification is the doctrine that describes how our sin debt was settled (not cancelled).

Simply put, each one of us is one of God's creatures.  He has supplied us with bodies and life for a purpose, but we have taken that body, filled with that life on a self serving joy-ride, and in doing so we have made ourselves cosmic criminals.  We have rejected God's rule in favour of our rule, and the "just" penalty for our treasonous rebellion is an eternity in hell separated from God.  We have earned this just as surely as a man earns a wage that he works for.  God is obligated by His own righteousness to repay us what is owed to us.

If God owes every sinner damnation, the question we should be asking is, how can anyone be saved?

That's where the doctrine of justification comes in.  In order to deliver us from damnation God has to settle our sin debt on the one hand, and deliver us from the consequences of that debt on the other.  Given that the penalty for our sin is to experience the eternal wrath of God - an experience that no on can live through, we find ourselves left with an impossible situation.  God cannot cancel our debt and be righteous, and God cannot pour out His wrath on us without killing us.

How then can a just God punish our sin, and save us from it at the same time?

The answer is found in the story of Noah's ark.  How could God pour out His wrath on all the earth, and yet still save Noah and his family?  By providing an ark - a means of passing through God's judgment unscathed.  Through the believer's union with Christ, the believer is crucified with Christ.  God doesn't cancel the sinner's debt - the sinner is crucified with Christ.  The sinner does not live through this, but is buried with Christ.  Christ on the other hand is innocent, and so even though He has been crucified, died and was buried, God cannot let His holy One see corruption - and so God, in order to satisfy His own righteousness, must raise the innocent Christ from the grave.  But in order to do so, God has to raise us with Him because we (who are in Christ) are still united with Him.

Our debt is paid because we died in Christ, such that God is just and righteous in raising us up with Christ because there is no longer any debt associated with us - it has been paid.  But more than this, because we are united to the life of Christ, we are united with the favour that God has for Christ, adopted, as it were, into God's family through our union with Christ.

Thus our sin debt is paid (expiated) by the death of Christ, and we find favour (propitiation) with God through the life of Christ in us - and all this through our union with Christ.  In other words we are "justified".  That is what it happens when we become Christians - we are made eternally right with God, not on the basis of anything we have done, but entirely on the basis of what Christ has wrought in  us and for us.

Labels: Christ, Faith Alone, imputation, justification

“Love,” I once argued in all of my Reformed wisdom pomposity, “has nothing to do with emotion; it is entirely a matter of action.” We exist in a vapid culture in which love is imagined to be nothing but emotion. We toil to overcome that prejudice, but in so doing we can lose something valuable. Is Christian love really so cold?

We can only answer by considering the love of God for us, for “this is love…” What is His love for us? Or, to ask a few other ways, what “communion of grace” does Christ have with His church? What is the “virtue of His mediation” for them? What “manifests their union with Him”?

Imagine a friendless, orphaned juvenile offender standing before a judge. At the pleading of his advocate, the judge communicates to him three decisions. First, he declares him innocent, and more than that, declares him good in the eyes of the court. Further, he assigns him a mentor who will ensure that he becomes a law-abiding citizen in fact, and not only in the eyes of the law. At this point the young criminal ought to be very grateful to both the judge and his lawyer, because two great things have been done for him. But it all might be very clinical - merely the mechanical workings of the justice system.

On the other hand, imagine that the judge also says the following: “Young man, you didn’t realize, but your lawyer is also my son. At home he petitioned me even further on your behalf and - in addition to clearing your record and assigning you the mentor, I’m also filing a petition of adoption in family court. I’m going to be your father, your advocate is going to be your older brother, and the first job your mentor is going to do will be to teach you to think of us that way.

Different picture, isn’t it? Now the heart of the young man may soar; he is not merely left on his own with a clear record and a chance to be a better person - rather he is already embraced into a family such as he could never have hoped for. And this is exactly what Christ’s mediation has done for you, Christian. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” (Romans 8:16-17)

We would never make light of justification and sanctification; they are blessings of infinite value. But do not ignore the forgotten grace - adoption - which the Westminster Divines always sandwiched between the other two. It is the Spirit of Adoption who adds warmth to your fellowship with God, teaching you to cry out, “Abba! Father!”

Labels: adoption, Christ, grace, justification, sanctification

In each of the four gospels John the Baptist describes the coming Christ as the one who would baptize, not in water, but in the Holy Spirit. Jesus Himself, at His ascension (c.f. Acts 1:5), remarks that in the same way John baptized people in water, so all of those gathered with Jesus at the time would likewise be baptized in the Holy Spirit -and this, "not many days from now" (ie. at Pentecost).

I should note for some that the word baptize simply means to immerse one thing entirely into another thing. A body was "baptized" in a tomb, a cucumber into brine, etc.. In some contexts it is obviouse what is being baptized into what, but in other contexts these details are supplied.

Believers began to be baptized in the Holy Spirit (by Christ) on the day of Pentecost. This baptism was a new covenant promise (see Ezekiel 36:26-27) and was described by our Lord as a change in the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who formerly was with believers, but would, when the He came (ie. at Pentecost), dwell in belevers. (c.f. John 14:17).

In Galatians 3:27, Paul speaks of believers as being baptized into Christ. In Romans 8:9, Paul writes that anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. In other words every genuine believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. When do we receive the Holy Spirit? We receive Him when we believe.

In Romans 6, Paul tells us that our union with Christ is a product of this same baptism. We who have believed have been baptized in Christ, and through this baptism we are united with Him in His death, burial and resurrection.

This union did two things. It joined Christ to our guilt, and joined us to His righteousness.

It is a mind-blowing thing, but Jesus didn't take our disembodies sins with Him to Calvary tucked away in some sort of separate, spiritual back-pack; The scriptures tell us that Jesus became (our) sin for us. Said another way, He became a partaker of our guilt (condemnation). How did he become a partaker of our guilt? Through our union with Him.

It is just as mind-blowing to think that God did not idly forgive us, as though He saw His own Son destroyed and was so sad He was willing to forgive anything. No, we became partakers of Christ's life - His righteousness. When Christ lay in the tomb, there we were with Him through this same union. In order to raise up Christ from the dead, God had to find us as acceptable as Christ who Himself knew no sin. Christ found favor for us with God (ie. made propitation) through His own life which we became partakers of through this same union.

One might look at the ordinance of the Lord's table - where his blood represents the spilling out of his life that expiates our sin, and his body represents the life he lived that made propitiation on our behalf - all this we take into ourself - picturing our union with Christ, through which the atoning work of Christ has its perfect work.

Labels: Christ, effectual calling, election, Jesus, justification

So in Rom 3:23, Paul urges on everyone, without exception, to the necessity of seeking righteousness in Christ. He might as well have said, “There is no other way of getting yourself right, of getting past sin; it is not to each his own way, with some succeeding and others failing. All must be justified by faith in the same way, because all are sinners, and therefore they have nothing to boast about, nothing to take credit for, before God.” But he takes for granted that every one, anyone with a conscience, when he comes before God who will judge him, is lost and ruined because he knows his own shame. No sinner can bear the presence of God, as we see an example in the case of Adam.

Paul again brings forward a reason taken from one who might deny this, and hence we must notice what follows. Since we are all sinners, Paul concludes, that we are lack, indeed we are utterly empty of, the praise due to righteousness. So according to what he teaches, there is no righteousness but what is perfect and absolute. Even if there were such a thing as "half righteousness," it would still be necessary to deprive the sinner entirely of all glory: and therefore the imaginary idea of partial righteousness, as they call it, is proven wrong. If it were true that we are justified in part by works, and in part by grace, Paul could't say any of this — that all are deprived of the glory of God because they are sinners. It is then certain, there is no righteousness where there is sin, until Christ removes the curse of sin; and this very thing is what is said in Galatians 3:10, that all who are under the law are exposed to the curse, and that we are delivered from it through the kindness of Christ. The glory of God I take to mean the approval and proof of God as he is, as in John 12:43, where it is said, that “they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God.” In this way Paul summons us from the court of public approval to the divine court of heaven.

Labels: Calvin as Gadfly, judgment, justification, righteousness, sin