I recently listened to a message on sanctification that contrasted sanctification with justification. Several statements were made. “Justification is passive.” “There is no imperative to seek justification.” “Justification is monergism.” (Monergism = one worker, i.e., God)<\/p>\n
Some of this is true enough. Justification is indeed the work of God, not the work of man. You can search the scriptures and see that it is God who justifies man, man is always justified, always the one receiving justification from God not obtaining it through the works of the law.<\/p>\n
The way the two doctrines were contrasted in the sermon I was listening to, however, was as if justification = salvation and that the fact that it is God who justifies men means men are entirely passive in salvation.<\/em> That is to say, the sermon was thoroughly neo-Calvinist, and triumphantly so.<\/p>\n But is this equation actually presenting a true picture of salvation according to the Scriptures?<\/p>\n The great paragraph on salvation in the New Testament is found in Rm 3.21-26. Moo gives us this note on its importance:<\/p>\n “Luther called this paragraph ‘the chief point … of the whole Bible’.” ((Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans<\/em>, p. <\/span>242.))<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The preceding paragraphs, indeed the whole of Rm 1-3 concludes the wretched condition of man with these words:<\/p>\n Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n No one is justified by ‘deeds of law’ (no article in the Gk). No one can curry favour with God by performing any kind of work that satisfies any law, whether it be the law of Moses, the law of the Church, or any law of any man’s devising, including the ‘law of tolerance’ so widely held supreme today. The presence of such laws only serves to point to human failure and sin.<\/p>\n The ‘chief point’ begins by turning the corner to look at a new kind of righteousness: a ‘without-law’ kind of righteousness that comes from God.<\/p>\n Romans 3:21\u00a0\u00b6 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe \u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This new kind of righteousness is ‘by faith’ (literally, ‘through faith’) of Jesus Christ \u2013 that is, it is obtained through faith as a vehicle through which it is applied to the individual. Salvation is by means of grace (God’s grace) through faith (man’s faith). The new righteousness is ‘upon all and unto all’ the ones believing.<\/p>\n And now we come to justification, for the ones believing are:<\/p>\n Romans 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That is to say, the ones believing are being justified (declared righteous) because they have entered the holy of holies and obtained the benefits of a propitiation-in-his-blood by faith. They obtain the ‘without-law’ righteousness through faith, they enter the Holiest through faith, and are the ones who therefore are being justified (declared righteous) by God.<\/p>\n In the next paragraph the apostle is even more specific:<\/p>\n Romans 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Here we have justification itself directly connected to faith, this time not with a preposition but by a simple dative: ‘in, with, by’ faith a man is justified. And we are told quite clearly that this justification is without ‘deeds of law’.<\/p>\n Wallace specifically cites this verse and this word in describing the Dative of Means\/Instrumentality:<\/p>\n The dative substantive is used to indicate the means or instrument by which the verbal action is accomplished. This is a very common use of the dative, embrac\u00ading as it does one of the root ideas of the dative case (viz., instrumentality). \u2026 it is distinguished from personal agency in two ways: (1) personality is not in view, and (2) means involves an agent who uses it (whether that agent is stated or implied). ((Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, Nouns: Dative Case: 3.Dative of Means\/Instrument.))<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n What is this faith that is the means of justification?<\/p>\n We need to turn to James for amplification:<\/p>\n James 2.18\u00a0\u00b6 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. 19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. 20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? 22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? 23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. 24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n James says, ‘faith without works is dead’! Doesn’t that contradict Paul? ‘A man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law’, says Paul.<\/p>\n Well, what kinds of works does James cite as the works of faith? He cites the offering of Isaac by Abraham. Was that a work of any kind of law? What law was Abraham following? He cites Abraham’s belief in the covenant promise of God, Gen 15.6. Was that a work of any kind of law? What law was Abraham following? He cites Rahab the harlot and her reception of the spies. Was that a work of any kind of law? What law was Abraham following?<\/p>\n No, these were not works of law. These were works of faith.<\/p>\n The result of these works of faith is the imputation of righteousness (‘without-law’ righteousness) with justification accompanying: a divine judicial declaration, “You, Abram, are righteous in my sight.” “You, Rahab, are righteous in my sight.”<\/p>\n So yes, justification is passive as far as we are concerned, but it is actively applied by God on passive us by, or through, our faith in God’s public propitiation-in-blood, Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n It could also be said, technically, that we are not commanded to seek justification. But we are commanded to seek salvation, which includes justification and is much more than merely justification.<\/p>\n Acts 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.<\/p>\n Acts 17:30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:<\/p>\n Acts 16:31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n It is somewhat artificial to isolate one aspect of a doctrine and make it the determining factor for the whole doctrine.<\/p>\n Maranatha! I recently listened to a message on sanctification that contrasted sanctification with justification. Several statements were made. “Justification is passive.” “There is no imperative to seek justification.” “Justification is monergism.” (Monergism = one worker, i.e., God) Some of this is true enough. Justification is indeed the work of God, not the work of man. You […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[94,69],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2fYWj-ks","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1268"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1272,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions\/1272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nDon Johnson
\nJer 33.3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"