My post on the Sola Panel today:
Late last year, Gavin wrote about the importance of being faithful in the small things. I’ve been pondering Gav’s insights, and I’d like to offer a couple of further comments.
Jesus himself directly teaches the importance of faithfulness in small things:
Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.” But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply “Yes” or “No”; anything more than this comes from evil. (Matt 5:33-37)
Is Jesus, in this passage, issuing a blanket ban on any formal promise-making activity? No, as usual, he’s being far more radical than that. He’s calling the people of his day to account for their hypocrisy. He’s teaching that it’s no good to keep God’s law outwardly while inwardly breaking one of its fundamental principles—in this case, faithfulness.
Jesus may be referring to a particular Pharisaical application of the third commandment: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” (Exod 20:7, Deut 5:11). The Pharisaical application would have gone something like this: if you use God’s name, “the Lord”, when you are swearing an oath, you have to keep it. So how do you tell whether you have made an oath to the Lord? What if you swear toward Jerusalem? That’s an oath to the Lord, because the Lord lives in the temple—in Jerusalem. So you can’t break that oath, either. That would be taking the Lord‘s name in vain. What if you swear by Jerusalem—not toward it, but by it? Well, that’s not an oath to the Lord, because God himself is not actually Jerusalem. So you’re in the clear; you can break that oath. What if you swear by heaven and earth? Is that an oath to the Lord? No, it’s not, because heaven and earth aren’t actually God. So it’s okay to break that oath.
In effect, the Pharisees were distinguishing between ‘core’ and ‘non-core’ promises. While, on the surface, they appeared meticulously faithful in keeping the third commandment, what they were really doing was creating loopholes for themselves. They had created a ‘fingers-crossed-behind-your-back’ mentality to making promises. In doing so, they limited the scope of God’s presence and power.
Jesus’ point is that you should be bound to act on any promise you make. God is Lord of the entire creation, and God is faithful. He keeps all of his promises. It is evil to break promises. The form of words doesn’t matter, nor does the solemnity of the occasion on which the promise was made. In fact, if you truly kept every promise you made, why would you ever need to take a formal oath? All you should need to say is ‘yes’ and ‘no’. That should settle the matter. Jesus’ standard is faithfulness in everything, big or small.
Our personal interactions are full of lots of little promises: “We’ll meet on the 5th of June at 10 am”, “I’ll pray for you”, “I’m happy to be on the morning tea roster in two Sundays’ time”, “I’ll call her to see how she’s going”, “I’ll email you that link”, “I’ll think about it and get back to you”.
Are you the sort of person who keeps your promises? Or do you have reasons why certain promises don’t need to be kept? “I didn’t have my diary on me at the time.” “I forgot.” “Nobody will ever know anyway.” “I lost it.” “I was born between 1980 and 1995.” “Oh yes, sorry, I didn’t remember until it was too late …” “Somebody else will take care of it.” “I didn’t get a reminder.” “It wasn’t one of my priorities. There are bigger things in my life right now.”
Sound familiar?
As somebody who is guilty of using all of the above excuses (except the birth year one), I’d like to offer a tip that I’ve picked up from friends and colleagues—something that has really helped me to be more faithful in the little things. It may sound a little strange, and you may have a better solution that works for you. But for what it’s worth, here’s mine.
The tip involves two habits. Firstly, carry a small notepad and pen around with you all day and scribble down the promises you make as you make them, no matter how small. Then, secondly, at the end (or beginning) of each day, take each of those promises and decide how you’re going to keep them (e.g. write it in your diary, pray straight away, put it on your To Do list, etc.). If you realize you can’t keep a promise, contact the person and apologize as soon as possible.
These two interrelated habits haven’t perfected my faithfulness, but they have helped me to realize the impact of the promises I make, and to act more like the faithful Son of God whom Jesus has called me to imitate. They have also helped me to be far more realistic about the promises I do actually make so that my ‘no’ means something, as well as my ‘yes’.
Lionel Windsor (2004)
Introduction
It is undeniable that Paul’s letters contain both declarations and commands, theology and ethics, indicatives and imperatives. Yet Paul himself never explicitly lays out the logical connection between these two elements of his thought. Certainly, indicatives generally precede and are connected to imperatives, sometimes broadly (e.g. Eph 1-3 then 4-6; Rom 1-11 then 12-15) sometimes in the same breath (e.g. Gal 5:1, Gal 5:25, 1 Cor 5:7; Phil 2:12-13).1 Yet Paul employs a wide variety of individual motivations for ethical injunctions, ranging from God’s mercy (e.g. Rom 12:1) to God’s eschatological judgment (e.g. 1 Thess 4:6, Gal 5:21; 1 Cor 6:9-10), from the example of Christ (e.g. Phil 2:5), through the work of the Spirit (e.g. Rom 8), to the self-awareness of Christians (e.g. 1 Cor 6:1).2 Can we comprehensively account for this variety? This question is one, not just of the existence, but of the implicit nature and logic of the connection between indicative and imperative in Paul’s thought.3
As we explore this connection, we will make certain assumptions. Firstly, we will assume (along with Classical Protestantism) that Paul’s controlling indicative is one of assurance of salvation for the individual believer. In Grogan’s words,
‘The Christian’s acceptance with God is grounded in Christ’s atoning work, accepted by faith [. . .] however ethical activity is to be conceived, whether as evidence of grace or as grateful response to grace, or as both, it cannot be rightly viewed as the means of acceptance with God’4
Secondly, we will assume that Paul does indeed operate with a coherent, if implicit, ethic.5 Thirdly, we will assume that Paul himself is tacitly aware of his ethic, in such a way that he can apply it in various contingencies without requiring a direct divine command (e.g. 1 Cor 7:25).6 On this basis, our task is to explore Paul’s rationale for moving from assurance of salvation to ethical injunction. We will then show how Paul applies his rationale to the particular connection between the Christian’s freedom and the Christian’s responsibility to love.
Separation?
Earlier studies tended to see little or no connection between indicative and imperative. The Lutheran tradition in particular, with its tendency to focus exclusively on the forensic element of justification and neglect participation in Christ, has often struggled with the connection.7 Freedom from ‘the law’ (e.g. Rom 7:4, 8:2) can often be understood as freedom from all imperatives. Pauline imperatives are then viewed as temporary pragmatic injunctions designed to protect the spiritually immature from sin or lead them in despair to the gospel.8
The tendency to view Pauline ethics in purely consequentialist categories is not limited to Lutheranism. The British Congregationalist C. H. Dodd, for example, was influential in distinguishing the gospel kerygma—the gospel proclamation of God’s mercy and judgment—from the didache subsequently given to those who respond.9 The initial purpose of this didache was to help Christians conform to their surrounding culture in terms of family life, etc.; to be prudent, non-provocative and non-eccentric.10 Paul went some way towards ‘transforming’ this didache by connecting it back into the kerygma, but imperfectly.11 The USA, too, has advocates of a radical separation between salvation and ethics, in which assurance is linked to Christ’s atoning work whilst ethics is linked to the wholly separate sphere of Christ’s ‘lordship’.12
Necessity?
This separation of indicative and imperative, however, is inadequate to account for either the depth or the breadth of the theological grounds for ethical injunctions in Paul. As Rosner points out, Paul’s ‘ethics make no sense without his eschatology, soteriology, and ecclesiology’.13 Ethics is about preparing the church for the day into which it has already entered (e.g. Rom 13:11-12), following the paradigm of Christ’s death and resurrection (e.g. Romans 15:1-3; Phil 2:1-13), building the community through love (e.g. 1 Cor 12-14). This interrelatedness has led many scholars to posit a much closer connection between indicative and imperative which is often presented as a relationship of necessity.
Bultmann’s 1924 essay ‘The Problem of Ethics in Paul’ was a watershed in this regard.14 It made indicative and imperative the ‘basic formula’ of Pauline ethics and set the agenda of subsequent reflection.15 Bultmann saw the formula in terms of existential necessity. What is accomplished (indicative) must gain real existence in my moment of decision (imperative).16 ‘Since it is concrete, empirical man [. . .] who becomes justified, whose sin is forgiven, the relation of the justified to the life beyond does not exist apart from or beside his concrete conduct and destiny.’17
Bultmann seriously attempted to safeguard the reality of both God’s free grace and human decision.18 However, his existential categories cannot deal with the theological objectivity of the indicative: the existence of life ‘in Christ’ before it is ‘in me’ (Gal 2:17-21, Eph 2:5, Rom 5:6-10). For Bultmann, the indicative is only real ‘in me’. But others since him have realised that in Paul being precedes act; the imperative is grounded upon, appeals to and develops the implications of a given reality (past, present and future).19
Furnish, while rejecting Dodd’s separation of kerygma and didache, does not go down Bultmann’s existentialist track.20 Rather, he sees the relation of indicative and imperative in terms of Christological necessity, particularly when it comes to the command to love. Indicative and imperative, ‘though they are not absolutely identified, [. . .] are closely and necessarily associated.’21 For Paul, the command to love ‘is the necessary manifestation within Christ’s body of the new creation already underway in the working of God’s Spirit.’22 ‘If one has received the gospel then he has already received God’s love, and with it the command to love his brethren.’23 Why? Because ‘Christ’s love’ is both a gift and a claim, a benefit to receive and a power to display.24
Furnish is certainly more theocentric than Bultmann. This enables him to distinguish a logical order in which indicative precedes imperative: the gift of Christ’s love is prior to its application to the believer. Yet for all this, it is hard to see how Furnish accounts for the contingency inherent in the imperative. He affirms that the imperative must be taken seriously, yet does not really explain how something that is necessary can also be commanded.25 This is seen most acutely when we look at negative examples. When, for example, the Corinthians failed to love each other (1 Cor 1:11), then we must conclude that either Christ’s love had failed, or the connection between Christ’s love and their love was not ‘necessary’.
Similarly, Deidun argues that the indicative and imperative are connected by ‘theological necessity’.26 He takes dei/ (1 Thess 4:1) in strong terms, ‘it is necessary’.27 The ultimate ground of the imperative is the indwelling of God’s Spirit, impelling obedience.28 As with Furnish, this is a helpful, Trinitarian corrective against Bultmann’s existentialism.29 However, it is again difficult to see how to take the imperatives seriously in Deidun’s schema.30 For Deidun, the imperative is about human freedom ‘not resisting’ God, ‘co-operating’ with God, ‘yielding’ to God and saying ‘yes’ to the ‘necessary effect of God’s inward activity’.31 Yet if God is necessarily involved in our obedience, isn’t the possibility of resisting him ruled out? Where is the place for the contingency that Deidun seeks to affirm? Deidun is ultimately forced to exchange Paul’s prolific second person imperatives for his own third person imperative: ‘Let God be what he is’.32
Teleology
If necessity is inadequate to explain the connection between indicative and imperative, is there a better way? Furnish himself points in the right direction when he notes that ‘redemption is not just deliverance from the hostile powers to which [the Christian] was formerly enslaved, but freedom for obedience to God.’33 This idea of an end goal or purpose for salvation is very promising, and we shall explore this connection in what follows.
O’Donovan, in discussing the Pauline material, points to the far-reaching effects of Christ’s resurrection.34 The resurrection does not simply assure us of salvation from death; it entails a re-ordering of fallen creation. At its centre, the resurrection is a reaffirmation of God’s created order in all its richness: God, humanity and the creation are rightly related by Christ’s resurrection. Like Deidun, O’Donovan affirms both the Spirit’s work and the reality of human freedom in the imperative. However, he relates these two realities in a more coherent manner.35 The gift of the Spirit in me means not only that I must ‘put to death’ what is opposed to God’s order (e.g. Col 3:5ff)36 but also that ‘in the redemption of the world I, and every other “I”, yield myself to God’s order and freely take my place within it’.37 The imperative is thus a call to yield to God’s necessary resurrection order rather than a necessary yielding to God’s order (as in Deidun); hence the imperative preserves its integrity. Our freedom is that of Spirit-indwelt Sons, ‘humbly and proudly in command’ of the natural order yet subject to the facts of this order.38
O’Donovan then goes on to discuss the implications of this re-ordering.39 Hill’s article in many ways parallels O’Donovan’s argument but is applied directly to Paul’s Letter to the Romans; it is worth a brief summary.40 Hill argues that an overarching indicative of Romans is that the created ‘generic order’ (i.e. the set of relationships between classes of persons and things) is both deformed and concealed by sin (Rom 1) but has been restored by God’s work in Christ. This restored generic order has an historical goal that is yet to be reached at the last day, particularly freedom from decay and the redemption of our bodies (Rom 8:19-25). The incompleteness of this historical goal explains the frustration, suffering and sin that characterises our lives. Yet the renewed generic order in Christ also implies a presently renewed telic order; that is, a re-orientation of purpose for all those ‘in Christ’ rather than ‘in Adam’ (5:12-21). This renewed telic order, which is the basis for ethics (the imperative), is grounded on the renewed generic order (the indicative) that is only knowable by the renewal of our minds (12:2) by the Spirit (8:1-8).
We conclude that the relationship between the indicative and the imperative in Paul is neither incidental nor necessary, but naturally teleological. The indicative assures us not only that we have been saved from generic disorder in its fullest sense (‘death’) but to generic order in its fullest sense (‘life’), beginning with ‘righteousness’: right relationship between God and humanity ‘in Christ’ (e.g. Rom 5:17-18, 8:10; Eph 4:24; Phil 3:9).41 The imperative, then, is contingent upon the natural telic re-orientation of our being. This logic is evident in Romans 6: our new generic order in Christ (5:12-21) involves death to sin and life to God (6:1-10). Thus the first imperative in Romans is ‘account yourselves dead to sin but living to God in Christ Jesus’ (6:11), followed closely by commands to ‘yield’ your created members to God as tools of righteousness (6:12-13). The gift of ‘eternal life’, then, is not just a promise of immortality but the creation of a new person with re-oriented purposes (6:23). Similarly, in 1 Corinthians 15, we see that those who have no hope of life also have no imperative (15:32-33), but the knowledge of our bodily resurrection in Christ climaxes in a sweeping ethical imperative to labour ‘in the Lord’ (15:58). In Christ, we have not ‘abstract, ideal potentialities’42 but a real purposeful nature.
Freedom, love and Paul
A good example of the teleological structure of Paul’s ethics is the relationship between our freedom in Christ and our love for others. The connection is evident in Gal 5:13: ‘For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as (eivj) an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.’ Freedom is oriented toward love. This orientation is explored at more length in 1 Corinthians 8-10 and Romans 14-15, where, as we shall see, what Christians are saved to is given priority in ethical decision-making over what they have been saved from. As Barth observes, sanctification (which includes love) is the goal of justification and therefore has teleological priority.43
1 Cor 8:1 raises the question about whether it is right to eat food offered to idols. Paul’s answer is lengthy and complex, but illuminating. He answers neither ‘yes’ or ‘no’ but gives a number of indicatives interspersed with imperatives. He begins by contrasting ‘knowledge’, which ‘puffs up’ (and is inherently divisive),44 with ‘love’ which ‘builds’. It soon becomes evident that the ‘knowledge’ that he is disparaging is that knowledge which only considers what we have been saved from: in this case, bondage to polytheistic idolatry (8:4, cf 10:19). Paul appears to agree in principle with this ‘indicative’, identifying it with the beliefs of a group called ‘the strong’ who felt free to eat the food.45 However, he also identifies a group called the ‘weak’ who do not have this knowledge (8:7), yet are Christian and are not perverse (8:9-12).46 It seems that the ‘weak’ have accepted monotheism (8:6) but this has not filtered down into their attitude to idols; they have not yet realised that an idol is nothing (8:4).47 Paul does not seem immediately concerned to correct this misunderstanding; and he certainly does not use the ‘correct’ attitude to idols as a basis for any imperatives. Rather, Paul’s controlling indicatives are those which describe what the Corinthians have been saved ‘to’. These two indicatives can be characterised as monotheism and brotherhood.
In 8:6, Paul weaves Jesus Christ into the classic Deuteronomic statement of monotheism (Deut 6:4); and then expands the statement to show its implications for the generic order of creation (‘all things’) and our own existence. Wright has dubbed 8:6 a statement of ‘Christological monotheism’, and sees it as the controlling indicative of the rest of the passage.48 Horrell, on the other hand, argues Paul completely overrides 8:6 by his subsequent argument; Horrell posits that Paul’s ethics are not based on doctrinal considerations at all but rather on the competing notion of the imitation of Christ (11:1).49 However, there are good reasons to agree with Wright that Christological monotheism is crucial to the rest of Paul’s argument. If we have been saved to worship ‘One God and Lord’, then the critical imperative is to worship God alone and nothing else. If the weaker brother really believes that idols are something, and he eats idol food, then his action will violate monotheism. Hence he is ‘destroyed’ (8:12).
The second controlling indicative of chapter 8 is brotherhood (8:11-13). The strong must realise that their generic order under Christ entails brotherhood with the weaker Christian, who through Christ’s death participates with them in the new creation (cf 12:13, Gal 3:27-28).50 Paul, when applying this to his own situation, describes it as being ‘in-lawed of Christ’ (e;nnomoj Cristou/, 9:22)—an expression that shows that believers are governed by their new order of being in Christ and belonging to him, which leads to a life of service to others.51 Therefore the strong must lovingly ‘build’ the brothers, not to idolatry (8:10) but toward their telos which is worshipping the one true God (8:6, cf 10:23). This may require abstaining from idol food if it causes the weaker brother to stumble (8:9-13).
Paul brings brotherhood and monotheism together in chapter 10. Here Paul’s prohibition of idolatry is much stronger. This is probably best explained by the observation that chapter 8 discussed the individual’s use of his ‘authentic right’52 while chapter 10 has the redeemed community as a whole on view, as seen by the propensity of plural pronouns and words such as ‘participation’ and ‘body’ (10:16-20). Thus Paul’s ultimate intention in chapters 8-10 is to persuade the ‘knowers’ to forego their individual rights and seek their neighbour’s good (10:24).53 The member of the redeemed body will not eat idol-meat even though as an individual it is perfectly acceptable, for this would be sinful for the church. This is truly a teleological ethic. It recognises the objective and necessary existence of a right but decides not to use that right in the interests of love, which is the purpose of the redeemed community which worships the one true God. This logic extends even to unbelievers (10:27-28). The implications of monotheism for what we are saved to overrides its implications for what we are saved from.
Romans 14-15 presents a similar argument in a different situation. The ‘weak’ here are vegetarians (14:2), observe special days (14:5-6) and abstain from wine (14:21). Most commentators see this as a more specifically Jew-Gentile issue than in 1 Corinthians.54 Yet the overall shape of the ethic is similar. The ‘strong’ were in danger of basing their actions simply on the truth of what Christians have been saved from. Because they knew that purity regulations were of no consequence (14:14, 20), they were tempted to despise those who adhered to them.55 Yet, once again, Paul bases his imperatives on what we are saved to. Because we are those welcomed by God and Christ into a community of the welcomed, the strong are to welcome those who have not yet worked out the full implications of their salvation (14:1-3, 15:7).56 Conversely, since we belong to the Lord through Christ’s work and are thus accountable to him (14:6-12), the weak must not pre-empt God’s role by judging their brothers (14:3, 13).57 Because we are in brotherhood with those for whom Christ died (14:15), we are to love them, thus serving Christ (14:15, 18; 15:1-2, 6). The ‘kingdom of God’ is God’s generic order which has the shape ‘righteousness and peace and joy’ rather than ‘food and drink’ (14:17). Although this saves us from scruples about eating and drinking, this fact alone is insufficient for ethics. For (ironically) if we remain with this fact alone, we end up making the ‘kingdom of God’ a matter of food and drink and destroy God’s real work (14:20-21).
Furnish, in discussing these chapters, is certainly right when he observes that ‘Paul regards love as an act of freedom’,58 and that love is ‘the means by which one’s freedom in Christ is authentically realized.’59 Yet a teleological understanding of the relationship between indicative and imperative is required to illuminates the inner logic of these observations. Freedom is not just about the destruction of bonds, it is about the restoration of right order in which the restored agent is free to fulfil the full range of potentialities inherent in that order: in this case, to love. Conversely, to use one’s freedom as an opportunity for the flesh (Gal 5:13) is just a different form of slavery.
Freedom, love and us
This understanding is very pertinent for our world in which people of many different backgrounds and convictions live, work and play together. Multiculturalism tests the limits of tolerance, e.g. how far can the secularist ideal of ‘reasoned debate and compromise’ really go when people who believe in animal sacrifice and female circumcision live side by side with those who find it morally repugnant?60 This variety is also reflected in contemporary churches: in a single church, one could find somebody who struggles with alcoholism sitting next to a wine collector, or somebody who believes that the wearing of robes is vital to preserve the dignity of church order sitting next to somebody who believes robes are superstitious medieval trappings.
In responding to this diversity, some have proposed that the solution involves subordinating ‘truth’ to ‘love’. In order for us live in harmony, doctrinal propositions must be sacrificed. Horrell, as we saw, proposed that this is exactly what Paul did in 1 Corinthians 8-10.61 Stanley Grenz, for example, posits that a loving Christian community defines God’s truth.62 This sort of argument is even used to justify the blessing of same-sex unions by church authorities.63
However, as we have seen, Paul’s solution is not to sacrifice doctrinal propositions, but rather to teleologically order and prioritise such propositions. If female circumcision, however ‘unnecessary’, enables women of a particular culture to freely serve and enjoy their family relationships, we should not prohibit it. But if it means ongoing frustration or degradation for such women, we should oppose it. It is never loving to bless same-sex unions, for this moves people away from the order of creation that is revealed in the law and restored in Christ. Similarly, if wine, robes or T-shirts lead my brothers and sisters towards drunkenness, superstition or irreverence and thus away from God’s good purposes, I must avoid them as far as I am able.
Paul says, ‘if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat’ (1 Cor 8:13). This is not because Paul has decided to jettison all indicatives, but because he regards the indicative ‘an idol has no existence’ (8:4) as teleologically subordinate to the indicative of his salvation into a brotherhood in which God alone must be glorified. Thus Paul’s strongest imperative is to do nothing to prevent God being glorified by his brother for whom Christ died.
Bibliography of Sources Cited
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Bornkamm, Günther. Paul. Translated by D. M. G. Stalker. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971.
Bultmann, Rudolf. ‘The Problem of Ethics in Paul’. Pages 195-216 in Understanding Paul’s Ethics: Twentieth Century Approaches. Edited by Brian S. Rosner. Translated by Christoph W. Stenschke. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995
Chattaway, Peter T. ‘Canadian Anglicans Face Off’. Christianity Today 48/1 (2004): 24.
Coles, Clifton. ‘Testing the Limits of Tolerance’. Futurist 37/2 (2003): 14-15.
Deidun, T. J. New Covenant Morality in Paul. Analecta Biblica 89. Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1981.
Dennison, William D. ‘Indicative and Imperative: The Basic Structure of Pauline Ethics’. Calvin Theological Journal 14/1 (1979): 55-78.
Dodd, C. H. Gospel and Law: The Relation of Faith and Ethics in Early Christianity. Cambridge: University Press, 1951.
Furnish, Victor P. ‘Belonging to Christ: A Paradigm for Ethics in First Corinthians’. Interpretation 44/2 (1990): 145-57.
______. The Love Command in the New Testament. Nashville: Abingdon, 1972.
______. Theology and Ethics in Paul. Nashville: Abingdon, 1968.
Grenz, Stanley J. Revisioning Evangelical Theology: a Fresh Agenda for the 21st Century. Downers Grove: IVP, 1993.
Grogan, Geoffrey W. ‘The Basis of Paul’s Ethics in His Kerygmatic Theology’. Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 13/2 (1995): 129-47.
Hill, Michael. ‘Theology and Ethics in the Letter to the Romans’. Pages 249-62 in The Gospel to the Nations: Perspectives on Paul’s Mission. Edited by Peter Bolt; Mark Thompson. Leicester: Apollos, 2000.
Hodges, Zane C. Absolutely Free: a Biblical Reply to Lordship Salvation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989.
Horrell, David. ‘Theological Principle or Christological Praxis?: Pauline Ethics in 1 Corinthians 8:1-11:1’. Journal for the Study of the New Testament 67 (1997): 83-114.
Kolb, Robert and Timothy J. Wengert (eds.). The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Translated by Charles Arands, Eric Gritsch, Robert Kolb, et. al. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000.
Martin-Schramm, James B. ‘Justification and the Center of Paul’s Ethics’. Dialog 33/2 (1994): 106-10.
Moo, Douglas J. The Epistle to the Romans. NICNT. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996.
Mott, Stephen C. ‘Ethics’. Pages 269-75 in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship. Edited by Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin and Daniel G. Reid. Leicester: IVP, 1993.
O’Donovan, Oliver. Resurrection and Moral Order: an Outline for Evangelical Ethics. 2nd ed. Leicester: Apollos, 1994.
Parsons, Michael. ‘Being Precedes Act: Indicative and Imperative in Paul’s Writing’. Pages 217-47 in Understanding Paul’s Ethics: Twentieth Century Approaches. Edited by Brian S. Rosner. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.
Rosner, Brian S. ‘Paul’s Ethics’. Pages 212-23 in The Cambridge Companion to St. Paul. Edited by James D. G. Dunn. Cambridge Companions to Religion. Cambridge: University Press, 2003.
______. ‘“That Pattern of Teaching”: Issues and Essays in Pauline Ethics’. Pages 1-23 in Understanding Paul’s Ethics: Twentieth Century Approaches. Edited by Brian S. Rosner. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995
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Seifrid, Mark A. ‘Righteousness, Justice and Justification’. Pages 740-45 in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology. Edited by T. D. Alexander, Brian S. Rosner. IVP Reference Collection. Leicester: IVP, 2000.
Shogren, Gary S. ‘“Is the Kingdom of God About Eating and Drinking or Isn’t it?” (Romans 14:17)’. Novum Testamentum 62/3 (2000): 238-56.
Still, E. Coye. ‘Paul’s Aims Regarding EIDWLOQUTA: A New Proposal for Interpreting 1 Corinthians 8:1-11:1’. Novum Testamentum 44/4 (2002): 333-43.
Wright, N. T. ‘Monotheism, Christology and Ethics: 1 Corinthians 8’. Pages 120-36 in The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991.
1 Brian S. Rosner, ‘“That Pattern of Teaching”: Issues and Essays in Pauline Ethics’, in Understanding Paul’s Ethics: Twentieth Century Approaches (ed. Brian S. Rosner; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 18; T. J. Deidun, New Covenant Morality in Paul (Analecta Biblica 89; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1981), 241; Michael Parsons, ‘Being Precedes Act: Indicative and Imperative in Paul’s Writing’, in Understanding Paul’s Ethics: Twentieth Century Approaches (ed. Brian S. Rosner; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 247.
2 Deidun, New Covenant Morality, 51-52.
3 Rosner, ‘Pattern of Teaching’, 17-20.
4 Geoffrey W. Grogan, ‘The Basis of Paul’s Ethics in His Kerygmatic Theology’, Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 13/2 (1995), 143.
5 Michael Hill, ‘Theology and Ethics in the Letter to the Romans’, in The Gospel to the Nations: Perspectives on Paul’s Mission (ed. Peter Bolt; Mark Thompson; Leicester: Apollos, 2000), 249.
6 Grogan, ‘Basis in Kerygmatic Theology’, 130.
7 James B. Martin-Schramm, ‘Justification and the Center of Paul’s Ethics’, Dialog 33/2 (1994), 108; e.g., the Augsburg Confession (1530) in Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (trans. Charles Arands, Eric Gritsch, Robert Kolb, et. al.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 39-40, separates justification from the Spirit’s work.
8 critiqued by Oliver O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order: an Outline for Evangelical Ethics (2nd ed.; Leicester: Apollos, 1994), 154; Stephen C. Mott, ‘Ethics’, in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship (ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin and Daniel G. Reid; Leicester: IVP, 1993), 269.
9 C. H. Dodd, Gospel and Law: The Relation of Faith and Ethics in Early Christianity (Cambridge: University Press, 1951), 9-10.
10 Dodd, Gospel and Law, 20-24.
11 Dodd, Gospel and Law, 24.
12 Charles C. Ryrie, So Great Salvation: What it Means to Believe in Jesus Christ (Chicago: Moody, 1997); Zane C. Hodges, Absolutely Free: a Biblical Reply to Lordship Salvation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989).
13 Brian S. Rosner, ‘Paul’s Ethics’, in The Cambridge Companion to St. Paul (ed. James D. G. Dunn; Cambridge Companions to Religion; Cambridge: University Press, 2003), 216-17.
14 Rudolf Bultmann, ‘The Problem of Ethics in Paul’, in Understanding Paul’s Ethics: Twentieth Century Approaches (ed. Brian S. Rosner; trans. Christoph W. Stenschke; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 195-216.
15 William D. Dennison, ‘Indicative and Imperative: The Basic Structure of Pauline Ethics’, Calvin Theological Journal 14/1 (1979), 59.
16 Dennison, ‘Indicative and Imperative’, 61-62; Parsons, ‘Being Precedes Act’, 222.
17 Bultmann, ‘Ethics in Paul, 212; italics original.
18 Bultmann, ‘Ethics in Paul’, 216.
19 Günther Bornkamm, Paul (trans. D. M. G. Stalker; London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971), 201-3; Parsons, ‘Being Precedes Act’, 229 & 247.
20 Victor P. Furnish, Theology and Ethics in Paul (Nashville: Abingdon, 1968), 98-112.
21 Furnish, Theology and Ethics, 224-25; italics mine.
22 Victor P. Furnish, The Love Command in the New Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972), 94; italics mine.
23 Furnish, Love Command, 95.
24 Victor P. Furnish, ‘Belonging to Christ: A Paradigm for Ethics in First Corinthians’, Interpretation 44/2 (1990), 153.
25 Furnish, Theology and Ethics, 227.
26 Deidun, New Covenant Morality, 60.
27 Deidun, New Covenant Morality, 53-63.
28 Deidun, New Covenant Morality, 55.
29 Deidun, New Covenant Morality, 230-31.
30 see Parsons, ‘Being Precedes Act’, 231.
31 Deidun, New Covenant Morality, 63, 67, 81-83.
32 Deidun, New Covenant Morality, 83.
33 Furnish, Theology and Ethics, 226; italics mine.
34 O’Donovan, Resurrection, 11-27.
35 O’Donovan, Resurrection, 24.
36 O’Donovan, Resurrection, 14-15.
37 O’Donovan, Resurrection, 23-26.
38 O’Donovan, Resurrection, 25-26.
39 O’Donovan, Resurrection, 31-97.
40 Hill, ‘Theology and Ethics’.
41 Mark A. Seifrid, ‘Righteousness, Justice and Justification’, in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (ed. T. D. Alexander, Brian S. Rosner; IVP Reference Collection; Leicester: IVP, 2000), 740-45.
42 Bornkamm, Paul, 201.
43 Karl Barth, The Doctrine of Reconciliation (ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance; Church Dogmatics Vol. IV, 2; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1958), 507-511.
44 Furnish, Love Command, 112.
45 David Horrell, ‘Theological Principle or Christological Praxis?: Pauline Ethics in 1 Corinthians 8:1-11:1’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 67 (1997), 86.
46 Furnish, Love Command, 113.
47 Horrell, ‘Principle or Praxis?’, 88.
48 N. T. Wright, ‘Monotheism, Christology and Ethics: 1 Corinthians 8’, in The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991), 129.
49 Horrell, ‘Principle or Praxis?’, 88-91; 106-10.
50 Furnish, Love Command, 114.
51 Furnish, ‘Belonging to Christ’, 155.
52 E. Coye Still, ‘Paul’s Aims Regarding EIDWLOQUTA: A New Proposal for Interpreting 1 Corinthians 8:1-11:1’, Novum Testamentum 44/4 (2002), 335.
53 Still, ‘1 Cor 8:1-11:1’, 337-39.
54 Gary S. Shogren, ‘“Is the Kingdom of God About Eating and Drinking or Isn’t it?” (Romans 14:17)’, Novum Testamentum 62/3 (2000), 239-45; Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 831.
55 Furnish, Love Command, 116.
56 Moo, Romans, 836.
57 Furnish, Love Command, 116.
58 Furnish, Love Command, 111-12.
59 Furnish, Love Command, 116.
60 Clifton Coles, ‘Testing the Limits of Tolerance’, Futurist 37/2 (2003): 14-15.
61 Horrell recognises (without resolving) the inherent dangers of this (‘Principle or Praxis?’, 107-9).
62 Stanley J. Grenz, Revisioning Evangelical Theology: a Fresh Agenda for the 21st Century (Downers Grove: IVP, 1993), 73-129.
63 Peter T. Chattaway, ‘Canadian Anglicans face off’ Christianity Today 48/1 (2004): 24.
Lionel Windsor (2004)
Introduction
The relationship between God and humanity is, of course, of fundamental importance to Biblical revelation. The details of how this relationship is made right, from God’s point of view and from our own (corporately and individually), are also treated at length, both in the Scriptures and in subsequent Christian reflection. Here we will examine one aspect of the workings of this relationship; the relation between the creation of the believer’s right relationship with God (justification) and the effects of that relationship in the believer (sanctification). Once the terms are clarified according to normal systematic theological usage, the location of their unity and the points of their distinction will be defined, with particular weight given to Calvin’s Institutes. Then will follow a brief history of thought on the topic from Augustine to Calvin. We will then be in a position to look at some contemporary misunderstandings of the relation; focusing on the consequences of neglecting either the unity or the distinction.
Definitions
The ‘righteousness / justice’ word group in the Bible (OT root צדק, NT δικ-) is primarily relational.1 One is ‘right’ with respect to a person, especially God, rather than a purely abstract principle (e.g. Gen 15:6, Deut 6:25, 1 Pet 3:10-12).2 Yet this relational rightness is realised in concrete ways: in ‘right order’—because God is creator (e.g. Isa 45:8)—and in forensic situations—because God is ruler and judge (e.g. Deut 6:20-25, Ps 7:6-11, 1 Sam 26:23).3 Thus when we come to the New Testament, we see that God effects our ‘justification’ both by establishing order (e.g. Eph 4:24) and by judging sin ‘forensically’ (e.g. Rom 8:33-34).4
Hence justification encompasses the creation of a rightly ordered relationship with God and the legal declaration that this right relationship does, indeed, exist. To neglect this relational reality by defining justification in an exclusively forensic (or ‘declaratory’) way is ‘legal myth’.5 This element of ‘unreality’ in some understandings has been rightly criticised, e.g. by Osiander,6 Newman7 and Rahner.8 Yet these critics attempted to locate righteousness in the believer, wrongly (e.g. Rom 4:5). Rather, as Calvin perceived, justification is an ontic reality rooted in Christ’s person and work rather than in the believer.9 Christ’s substitutionary death really achieved it, and it is appropriated by faith, uniting us with Christ (2 Cor 5:21).
Sanctification is definitionally problematic, because of the divergence in the use of the term between the Bible and systematic theology. When the Bible applies terms such as קדשׁ (OT), ἁγι-, καθα- and παριστημι (NT) to believers, on view is an act of God (e.g. John 17:19, Eph 5:26, Heb 10:29, 1 Cor 6:11, Acts 20:32, Acts 26:18) to make believers fit for his purposes (e.g. 2 Tim 2:21), with ongoing consequences in their lives (e.g. 1 Thess 5:23, Rev 22:11, John 15:2), often with their co-operation (e.g. Rom 6:19, 22; 2 Cor 7:1).10 The moral element is present throughout Scripture (e.g. Lev 19:2ff, Matt 15:19-20). Peterson defines sanctification as a covenantally-conceived aspect of the total renewal of the person,11 with definitive sanctification being fundamental.12
Protestant systematics, however, has understood the term differently.13 Melancthon used it to refer to the total process of the action of the Spirit in our lives, based on our renewal.14 Calvin developed the word along similar lines,15 although he didn’t use sanctification as a heading.16 Now it is commonly used as a heading to cover the work of the Spirit in conforming our lives to right relationship with God.17 We will use this systematic understanding, conscious of Peterson’s warning that it is different to the biblical term, and that this has caused confusion in many articulations. Perhaps a more appropriate biblical grammar would be terms such as ‘walking’ (e.g. Rom 6:4, 8:4, 13:13, 14:15; 1 Cor 3:3; 2 Cor 4:2, 5:7, 10:2-3; Gal 5:16; Eph 2:10, 4:1, 5:2, 5:8, 5:15; Phil 3:17-18; Col 1:10, 2:6, 4:5, 1 Thess 2:12, 4:1, 4:12, 1 John 1:7, 1 John 2:6); ‘discipleship’, especially in the Gospels;18 putting off the old self and putting on Christ, or the new self (Rom 13:12, 14; Eph 4:22-25; Col 3:8, 10; Jam 1:21; 1 Pet 2:1); ‘killing / crucifying sin / flesh / desires / the old man’ (Rom 8:13, Col 3:5ff) and ‘transformation’ (Rom 12:2, 2 Cor 3:18).
United but distinguished in Christ
What, then, is the relation between the creation of a right relationship with God (justification) and living in this relationship (sanctification)? It cannot be the relation between the declaration and the reality, for justification is the reality in Christ.19 It is better conceived as the relation between the objective and the subjective.20 Calvin, in locating both justification and sanctification in Christ, was able to perceive their unity and inseparability, as well as their distinction. Before looking at historical and contemporary articulations of the relation between justification and sanctification, we will explore the nature of this unity and distinction.
Justification and sanctification are united as the work of the Triune God. Calvin’s Institutes, which are self-consciously and credally Trinitarian,21 locate both sanctification and justification in the work of the Spirit, ‘the bond by which Christ effectually unites us to himself.’22 The Spirit, says the Nicene Creed, is ‘the holy one, the Lord, the lifegiver, the one who proceeds from the Father [and the Son]’.23 In Colossians, the Spirit is not mentioned except in 1:8, yet ‘in Christ’ language (Colossians 1:2, 4, 27, 28; 2:2, 5, 6, 8-16, 17, 20; 3:1-4, 11, 15-16, 24) is bound up with calls to living a godly life (especially chapter 3). Thus Jenson’s comment that justification must follow the Cappadocian pattern ‘initiated by the Father, effected by the Son and perfected by the Spirit’ applies equally to sanctification.24 As we shall see, modern conceptions which separate the work of the Son (as justifier) and Spirit (as sanctifier) are problematic.25
Furthermore, justification and sanctification are united in Christ. Paul is sweeping in his inclusion of the whole of our reality en Christo.26 This includes justification, sanctification (1 Cor 1:30, 1 Cor 6:11) and our Christian walk (Eph 2:10; Col 2:6; Rom 6:3ff). Our faith union with Christ means that in justification, ‘We do not, therefore, contemplate him outside ourselves from afar in order that his righteousness may be imputed to us but because we put on Christ are engrafted into his body—in short, because he deigns to make us one with him.’27 Our faith union in Christ is so fundamental for sanctification that Paul’s criterion for the value of our works is not their intrinsic value but their source: whatever is not from faith is sin (Rom 14:17).
Justification and sanctification are united in Christ’s whole divine-human person and work. They are, in fact, en Christo Jesou (1 Cor 1:30, i.e. Christ crucified 1:23). As Athanasius observed, the Spirit is mediated to us through the Christ’s humanity.28 Because we are united by faith to the incarnate divine person there is an ontic basis of justification, inseparable from sanctification. But because we are united by faith to Christ’s human work of obedient substitutionary death and resurrection there is a forensic element to justification, and sanctification is typified by mortification and vivification.29 This is the problem with Jenson’s Trinitarian perspective on justification referred to above.30 For Jenson, justification is a union of the divine Logos (‘the word that he is’) with our soul, so ‘we are righteous as we are one with the Son’.31 Although the Son’s divine righteousness is ‘itself achieved as a human event’,32 we are separated from Christ’s work, since we do not benefit directly from it. Rather, the Logos achieves Trinitarian righteousness through death and resurrection, and we benefit by partaking in the Logos. Hence Jenson wants to dispense completely with the forensic element of justification.33 We shall see that many modern misconceptions spring from a neglect of either the person or work of the Christ in whom is our righteousness and life.
However, justification and sanctification are also distinct. Firstly, they are distinguished eschatologically. Justification, an objective reality totally en Christo, is completed in Christ’s crucifixion, although it is hidden before Christ’s eschatological appearance (Col 3:3). Sanctification, insofar as it is a subjective reality in the believer’s life, will be completed at the eschaton ‘in glory’ (Col 3:4), although it is anticipated before then (Col 3:5ff). Luther expressed this in the eschatological dialectic of ‘simultaneously a sinner and justified’.34 Calvin expressed it in the fact that the primary pattern of our sanctification before the eschaton is Christ’s death rather than his glory.35
Justification and sanctification are also distinct soteriologically. There is an ordered relationship between the two. Just as we received Christ, so we must walk in him (Col 3:6). This ordo salutis is not chronological, since they are inseparable in Christ. Hoekama, following Berkouwer, rightly rejects such a chronological separation of justification and sanctification.36 Yet in his zeal to reject certain teachings which posit chronological order, he is too quick to dismiss any order at all, and ends up with an amorphous ‘process/way of salvation’.37 Yet Barth notes that soteriology will suffer if we do not distinguish them in a logically ordered fashion.38 For Barth, justification (God’s act towards us) is the basis of sanctification (God’s act in us).39 Teleologically, however, sanctification is prior as the goal of justification.40
How does this distinction affect soteriology? The basis of salvation from condemnation into eternal life is justification, not sanctification (Rom 5:9, Rom 8:33-34, Titus 3:7), because it is the forensic act before the judge. This is not to deny that sanctification may be ‘evidentiary’ when it comes to final judgment,41 nor that there may be an assessment of our works (done in Christ and by faith).42 Yet after all we have done, we are still unworthy servants (Luke 17:10). God’s creation of a right relationship with himself is not dependent upon our living in that relationship.
Historical development
We have already mentioned some of the key historical figures. Before we proceed to look at contemporary misunderstandings, however, we will briefly trace the historical development.
The contribution of Augustine, being a foundation for all serious Western thought in the doctrine of grace and salvation, is immensely significant, yet also immensely problematic. Positively, he sourced justification entirely in God’s grace rather than in human nature (Rom 3:24).43 Yet, in using as a controlling category a Roman/Aristotelian-Ciceronian category of justice (reward for merit) rather than Biblical righteousness (right relationship), he failed to distinguish justification and sanctification. So believers are justified:
‘“freely by his grace”: not that the justification is without our will, but the weakness of our will is discovered by the law, so that grace may restore the will and the restored will may fulfil the law’44
For Augustine, sanctification is a part of the process of justification. Aquinas followed suit, systematising both of Augustine’s emphases: that God is the initiator of justification (operative grace), and that we are involved in the process (co-operative grace).45
Luther’s breakthrough was to locate our justification, not in an infused righteousness, but in Christ’s righteousness imputed to us. Thus he was able to distinguish ‘two kinds of righteousness’: Christ’s alien righteousness which we receive by faith, and the righteousness which is our proper righteousness, but which is the fruit and consequence of Christ’s alien righteousness.46 It is Christ’s alien righteousness which saves, although ‘[t]rue faith is not idle.’47 Yet this ‘alien’ righteousness is not something distant from us, for it is truly given to us through faith in Christ. ‘Righteousness is our possession, to be sure, since it was given to us out of mercy. Nevertheless, it is foreign to us, because we have not merited it.’48 Luther used personal, relational terms rather than forensic to describe imputation: fulfilment of a promise or sharing in a marriage union.49 For Luther, Christ himself becomes ours.50
Melanchthon, Luther’s colleague and successor, systematically distinguished justification from sanctification. Unfortunately, Melancthon and the documents he influenced tended to use exclusively forensic terms for justification.51 For example, in the Augsburg Confession (1530) which is a foundational Lutheran document, it is Christ’s work which reconciles the Father to us, and so we are justified by faith ‘on Christ’s account’.52 This is correct, but incomplete. The Spirit is not specified a role in justification, only sanctification.53 The lack of emphasis on personal union with Christ was problematic for the Lutheran Osiander, who tried to reinstate the ontic basis of justification by bypassing Christ’s humanity and ‘merging’ our nature with Christ’s divine nature, which Calvin calls a ‘gross mingling’.54 The Formula of Concord (1577) went some way toward reinstating the Spirit’s role in justification,55 and also the role of both Christ’s divinity and humanity.56
It was Calvin, however, who articulated a truly coherent picture of the Spirit as the bond of unity to Christ, and Christ’s human righteousness justifying those united to him in faith:57
‘Although we may distinguish [justification and sanctification], Christ contains both of them inseparably in himself. [. . . T]hus [. . .] we are justified not without works yet not through works, since in our sharing in Christ which justifies us, sanctification is just as much included as righteousness.’58
We are now in a position to address the deficiencies and consequences in some contemporary misunderstandings.
Separating Son and Spirit: the Holiness Movement
‘Holiness’ denominations such as the Nazarenes and the Keswick movement exist today but are relatively small.59 Sadly, prosperity has overtaken holiness as the buzzword in many contemporary churches. For this reason, we will not devote much space to this topic. The ‘holiness’ movement has some origin with Wesley who stressed sanctification to the extent that he hinted at the possibility of perfection in this life. The Keswick movement stresses ‘victorious Christian living’ by complete reliance on the Christ’s strength in the believer.60
This is a faulty Christological relation between justification and sanctification; and a consequent separation of the incarnate Son and the Spirit. Christ’s work justifies me; subsequently Christ’s person indwells and sanctifies me by the Spirit. Personal assurance can be lost because Christ’s perfect work is distant from the believer and Christ’s person is seen primarily at work in our imperfect sanctification.61 Sanctification becomes moralism and perfectionism.62
Collapsing the distinction: Lutheran-Catholic Dialogues
Recent Lutheran-Catholic dialogues63 have fed upon the lack of adequate Christological foundation for justification in Lutheran confessions outlined above. Modern Catholicism is defined by the Council of Trent (16th Century) interpreted by the Second Vatican Council (20th Century). Trent quite starkly reasserted the Augustinian and scholastic position that ‘justification itself [. . .] is not only a remission of sins but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man’ leading to eternal life.64 Trent’s concern was Christological: ‘faith, unless hope and charity be added to it, neither unites man perfectly with Christ nor makes him a living member of His body.’65 Modern Catholic theologians such as Rahner and Küng have had the same issue: there appears to be no ontic basis in the purely ‘declarative’ Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith, and they feel the need to locate this reality in the believer.66
The outcome is more than just a redefinition of terms, a simple recognition that what Catholics mean by the term ‘justification’ is exactly what Protestants mean by the two terms ‘justification and sanctification’;67 faith ‘com[ing] to fruition in our love’.68 More seriously, the ontic reality of justification is displaced from being purely ‘in Christ’ and placed, like sanctification, partly in the believer. The Joint Declaration make this explicit in paragraphs 23 and 24: neither justification nor sanctification is independent of human cooperation.69
Thus there is a simul of assurance for believers. ‘In trust in God’s promise they are assured of their salvation, but are never secure looking at themselves.’70 This may be true, but it is entirely misleading when followed by ‘Every person, however, may be concerned about his salvation when he looks upon his own weaknesses and shortcomings’71 which assumes an undeniable basis of salvation in our own works. It is, in fact, opposite to Luther’s position, in which we are made more sure of our salvation when we look upon our own weaknesses and shortcomings, and in despair look instead to Christ.
Neglecting the Person of Christ: no-Lordship Salvation
MacArthur speaks of the development of a ‘no-lordship gospel’ in North America.72 Representative advocates are Ryrie73 and Hodges.74 According to Ryrie, faith is ‘assent’ rather than relational commitment, justification is entirely forensic, and Christ’s work is the complete gospel.75 Hodges is more radical: repentance is not only distinct from faith,76 but separate. Faith is the basis of justification and salvation; repentance is the basis of the entirely separate concept of relationship or fellowship with God and Christ.77 Faith can exist without repentance, salvation without a relationship with God!78
This is, of course, a radical disjunction between Christs’ person and work. It leads quite simply to false assurance; assurance based on a ‘faith’ devoid of repentance, which is not union with Christ. Furthermore, like the holiness movement, because Christology is separated from sanctification then the Christian life is emptied of its power, which is the Christ’s Lordship exercised through the cross (Phil 2:1-11, Col 2:6-15). There is also the intense, individualistic focus which doesn’t impinge upon the outer man or the public world, as Wright observes happens when the focus on Jesus’ lordship is lost.79
Neglecting the Work of Christ: the ‘New Perspective’ on Paul
In many ways the ‘New Perspective on Paul’80 is a direct mirror image of the ‘no-lordship salvation’ view. Wright, for example, separates Christ’s person and work, so that the person displaces the work from the ‘centre’ of Paul’s thought:
‘[Justification] cannot be put right at the centre, since that place is already taken by the person of Jesus himself, and the gospel announcement of his sovereign kingship.’81
‘“the gospel” is not an account of how people get saved. It is [. . .] the proclamation of the lordship of Jesus Christ.’82
The New Perspective is self-consciously a reaction against Lutheran excesses, particularly the individualistic, existential theology of Bultmann (critiqued by Stendahl).83 There is an emphasis on Christ’s lordship which creates community. Following Schweitzer to some extent,84 Sanders has made a disjunction between juristic and participationist understandings of justification, such that participationist is more fundamental.85
To use Wright’s own words, his position is, ‘a covenantal reading of Paul’. Forensic, righteousness, and even apocalyptic concepts are all subsumed under the overarching theme of ‘covenant’, which is primarily a corporate rather than an individual notion.86 The consequence is that justification and sanctification are both aspects of the covenant between God and his people.87
But this ‘covenant’ is now interposed between the individual believer and Christ’s cross.88 There is an ecclesiological and eschatological distance between the believer and his justification. This is because our union with Christ by the Spirit is ecclesiological (or ‘irrevocably covenantal’89) and because ‘justification is the covenant declaration, which will be issued on the last day, in which the true people of God will be vindicated [. . .] the verdict, can be issued already in the present, in anticipation.’90 Ironically, Wright’s theology, which seeks to put Christ’s person at centre stage, ends up working in the purely forensic, declarative categories for justification that Calvin worked so hard to join with the person. Present justification is merely a ‘declaration’, a ‘verdict’.91 It is simply a ‘definition’ of covenant membership.92 We are left, in Calvin’s words, to ‘contemplate him outside ourselves from afar’.93
Sanctification is also ‘covenantal’. The sanctifying work of the Spirit is primarily seen in a ‘re-integrated humanity’,94 the ‘existence of a community of love.’95 Because the ‘real’ justification takes place at the eschaton, it follows sanctification chronologically. So it is hard to avoid the conclusion that, from the point of view of the individual, justification is based on sanctification.96 This looks very similar to the Roman Catholic position.
‘The gospel’ of ‘Jesus is Lord’ is primarily for the world, not the individual.97 It is a royal pronouncement comparable with the pronouncement of an ancient emperor.98 The individual’s response and experience is acknowledged by Wright, but sidelined in the interests of community.99 But when the question, ‘How can I be saved?’ is sidelined as secondary, it doesn’t disappear. The individual believer will keep asking the question, and the answers he receives will be inadequate because Christ’s work has not been used to properly define his person. This ambiguity is compounded by the promotion of the ecumenical task,100 since it is agreement about Christ’s person rather than the details his work which bring people to the ‘same table.’101
Again, there are consequences for sanctification. ‘[I]n redefining justification and distancing it from the gospel, Wright has actually weakened the ground from which holiness springs.’102 Holiness comes from the complete freedom in Christ brought about by our justification through his work, and which must be constantly drawn on throughout the Christian life.103 This is all sadly ironic, given Wright’s concern to proclaim a God who is intimately involved in every aspect of our world.104
Conclusion
Justification and sanctification are united as the work of the Triune God and in Christ’s person and work. Thus they are inseparable. Yet they must also be distinguished, as entities with eschatologically distinct completion (now and not yet) and as different moments in the order of salvation (the creation of a right relationship with God following by living in that relationship). The holiness movement separates Son and Spirit, the Lutheran-Catholic dialogues collapse the distinction between justification and sanctification, the no-Lordship Salvation view neglects Christ’s person, and the New Perspective on Paul neglects the application of Christ’s work to the believer. The results are loss of assurance, loss of holiness, and (most seriously) loss of saving union with Christ.
Footnotes
1 See, for example, Mark A. Seifrid, ‘Righteousness, Justice and Justification’, in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (ed. T. D. Alexander, Brian S. Rosner; IVP Reference Collection; Leicester: IVP, 2000), 740; Alister E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei (2nd ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 2; Alan Torrance, ‘Justification’, in The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (ed. Adrian Hastings, Alistair Mason and Hugh Pyper; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 362.
2 Seifrid, ‘Righteousness’, 740.
3 Seifrid, ‘Righteousness’, 741–42.
4 Seifrid, ‘Righteousness’, 743–45; Torrance, ‘Justification’, 362.
5 See Anselm’s merit/satisfaction atonement model (Gordon S. Dicker, ‘Luther’s Doctrines of Justification and Sanctification I’, Reformed Theological Review 26/1 (1967): 15), modern Lutheranism (Anthony N. S. Lane, Justification by Faith in Catholic-Protestant Dialogue: An Evangelical Assessment (London: T & T Clark, 2002), 153).
6 Peter Toon, Justification and Sanctification (Foundations for Faith; Westchester: Crossway, 1983), 64.
7 Toon, Justification and Sanctification, 113-17.
8 Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations Vol. VI: Concerning Vatican Council II (trans. Karl-H. and Boniface Kruger; 23 vols.; Baltimore: Helicon, 1969), 221-23.
9 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1 (ed. John T. McNeill; trans. Ford L. Battles; 2 vols.; Library of Christian Classics vol. XX; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1955), 753.
10 K. Bockmuehl, ‘Sanctification’, in New Dictionary of Theology (ed. Sinclair B. Ferguson and David F. Wright; Leicester: IVP, 1988), 613-14.
11 David Peterson, Possessed by God: A New Testament Theology of Sanctification and Holiness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 133.
12 Peterson, Possessed by God, 13.
13 Peterson, Possessed by God, 13-14.
14 Philip Melanchthon, ‘Loci Communes Theologici’, in Melanchthon and Bucer (ed. Wilhelm Pauck; trans. Lowell J. Satre; The Library of Christian Classics XIX; London: SCM Press, 1969), 130-31.
15 Calvin, Institutes, 607, 798.
16 E.g. Calvin, Institutes, 552-3, 684-86, 775-76.
17 E.g. Anthony A. Hoekema, Saved by Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 192; Oliver Davies, ‘Holiness’, in The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (ed. Adrian Hastings, Alistair Mason and Hugh Pyper; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 302.
18 Karl Barth, The Doctrine of Reconciliation (ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance; Church Dogmatics Vol. IV, 2; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1958), 500.
19 Contra Toon, Justification and Sanctification, 42.
20 Torrance, ‘Justification’, 362.
21 Robert C. Doyle, Eschatology and the Shape of Christian Belief (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1999), 191.
22 Calvin, Institutes, 538.
23 Geddes MacGregor, The Nicene Creed: Illumined by Modern Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), ix.
24 Robert W. Jenson, ‘Justification as a Triune Event’, Modern Theology 11/4 (1995): 421.
25 E.g. R. E. O. White, ‘Sanctification’, in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (ed. Walter A. Elwell; Baker Reference Library; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 970.
26 73 times in Paul, 3 in Peter.
27 Calvin, Institutes, 737.
28 Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995), 189.
29 Peterson, Possessed by God, 113-14.
30 Jenson, ‘Justification’, 421-27.
31 Jenson, ‘Justification’, 425.
32 Jenson, ‘Justification’, 426.
33 Jenson, ‘Justification’, 425.
34 Doyle, Eschatology, 165.
35 Peterson, Possessed by God, 114.
36 Hoekama, Saved by Grace, 17-27
37 Hoekama, Saved by Grace, 16
38 Barth, Reconciliation, 504.
39 Barth, Reconciliation, 503.
40 Barth, Reconciliation, 507-511.
41 Calvin, Institutes, 821-25.
42 See the Formula of Concord in Kolb and Wengert, Book of Concord, 576; Calvin, Institutes, 813; ‘Personal action implies purpose, and this in turn implies assessment’ (D. Broughton Knox, Selected Works Volume I: The Doctrine of God (ed. Tony Payne; Kingsford: Matthias Media, 2000), 57-58).
43 Torrance, ‘Justification’, 363.
44 Augustine, Later Works (ed. John Baillie, J.T.McNeill and H.P. Van Duse; trans. John Burnaby; Library of Christian Classics vol. VIII; London: SCM Press, 1955), 205-6.
45 Toon, Justification and Sanctification, 51-54.
46 Martin Luther, Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings (ed. Timothy F. Lull; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 156-58.
47 Martin Luther, Luther’s Works Vol. 34: Career of the Reformer IV (ed. Lewis W. Spitz; 55 vols.; American ed.; Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1960), 183.
48 LW 34, 178.
49 Luther 1989, 600-4.
50 Luther 1989, 156.
51 Toon, Justification and Sanctification, 62.
52 Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (trans. Charles Arands, Eric Gritsch, Robert Kolb, et. al.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 39-40.
53 Kolb and Wengert, Book of Concord 39, 41, 57.
54 Calvin, Institutes, 738.
55 Kolb and Wengert, Book of Concord, 569.
56 Kolb and Wengert, Book of Concord, 564.
57 Torrance, ‘Justification’, 363.
58 Calvin, Institutes, 798.
59 F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), ‘Holiness Movement’, in Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 779.
60 Bockmuehl, ‘Sanctification’, 615.
61 This is the concern of John C. Ryle, Holiness (Welwyn: Evangelical Press, 1979), 16, 113.
62 Peterson, Possessed by God, 137.
63 See especially H. George. Anderson, T. Austin Murphy, and Joseph A. Burgess, ‘Justification by Faith (Common Statement)’, in Justification by Faith (ed. H. George Anderson, T. Austin Murphy and Joseph A. Burgess; Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue VII; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985), 13-74; and the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (1999) cited in full in Lane, Dialogue.
64 Council of Trent, The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (trans. H. J. Schroeder; Rockford: TAN, 1978), 33.
65 Council of Trent, 34.
66 Hans Küng, Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Barth and a Catholic Reflection (Reissued ed.; London: Burns & Oates, 1981), 199-211; Rahner, Vatican II, 221-23.
67 Contra Lane, Dialogue, 152-55.
68 Anderson, Common Statement, 73.
69 Lane, Dialogue, 248.
70 Lane, Dialogue, 252.
71 Lane, Dialogue, 253.
72 John F. MacArthur, Faith Works: The Gospel According to the Apostles (Dallas: Word, 1993), 25-26.
73 Charles C. Ryrie, So Great Salvation: What it Means to Believe in Jesus Christ (Chicago: Moody, 1997).
74 Zane C. Hodges, Absolutely Free: a Biblical Reply to Lordship Salvation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989).
75 MacArthur, Faith Works, 27-28, summarising Ryrie.
76 Hodges, Absolutely Free, 143-45.
77 Hodges, Absolutely Free, 167-68.
78 Ryrie, So Great Salvation, 141-43; Hodges, Absolutely Free, 107-19; cf MacArthur, Faith Works, 27.
79 Tom Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? (Oxford: Lion, 1997), 153-57.
80 Coined by Dunn: see Mark D. Thompson, ‘Personal Assurance and the New Perspective on Paul’, Reformed Theological Review 53/2 (1994): 73.
81 Wright, Saint Paul, 114.
82 Wright, Saint Paul, 133.
83 James D. G. Dunn, ‘The Justice of God: A Renewed Perspective on Justification by Faith’, Journal of Theological Studies, NS 43/1 (1992): 4-5.
84 Dunn, ‘Justice of God’, 4.
85 Thompson, ‘Assurance’, 76.
86 Wright, Saint Paul, 132, 151-53; see also Dunn, ‘Justice of God’, 15-18.
87 Wright, Saint Paul, 117-18, 160; Dunn, ‘Justice of God’, 15-18 makes the same point.
88 Thompson, ‘Assurance’, 85.
89 Wright, Saint Paul, 121.
90 Wright, Saint Paul, 131, emphasis mine.
91 Wright, Saint Paul, 131, emphasis mine.
92 Wright, Saint Paul, 119.
93 Calvin, Institutes, 737.
94 Wright, Saint Paul, 143.
95 Wright, Saint Paul, 147.
96 Robert S. Smith, ‘Justification and Eschatology: A Dialogue with “The New Perspective on Paul”’, Reformed Theological Review Supplement 1 (2001): 132.
97 Wright, Saint Paul, 153-57.
98 Wright, Saint Paul, 157.
99 Wright, Saint Paul, 157-58.
100 Smith, ‘New Perspective’, 130-31.
101 Wright, Saint Paul, 158-59.
102 Smith, ‘New Perspective’, 131.
103 Smith, ‘New Perspective’, 131.
104 Wright, Saint Paul, 161-64
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