Romans - Lesson 15

Justification (Part 1)

Let me proceed in a slightly different way.  Feel free to continue to bring in your observations from your reading of Wright and Piper. I want to move through my own presentation on justification briefly and then talk about its implications. 

A. Classic Reformation Doctrine

Here first of all is my understanding of what I would call a classic Reformation doctrine. As you look back to the Reformers and those who followed the Reformers and walked along in their footsteps, as time progressed, this was the sort of the developed Reformation understanding.

One, justification is forensic; it involves entirely God’s declaration that a person is in right relationship. It is not a moral righteousness. This was something the Reformers wanted to stress in contrast to Roman Catholicism of their time. 

Second, justification is before God. Here, this is a kind of individual focus of the Reformation emphasis. We talked about that a little bit yesterday.

Third, justification is on account of Christ; God justifies people not on the basis of anything they are or do, but on the basis on what Luther called an “alien righteousness,” the righteousness of Christ imputed to that person. We had a brief discussion yesterday about imputation which is a very debated issue these days, not only among Wright and Piper but many others are debating it and talking about it. This is a kind of developed doctrine of the Reformation that did have a place for what we would call Christ’s righteousness imputed to us. 

So, when God looks at me as a person who is in Christ, He looks at me in light of Christ’s righteousness given to me and justifies me on the basis of that righteousness that Christ Himself earned that I could never have earned myself.

Four, justification is through faith alone, a well-known emphasis, and is by grace alone. 

This was the view of justification I was taught when I was in seminary just after the earth cooled. Probably the basic outline of justification that most of you have picked up somewhere along the line. It is the very traditional doctrine that 25 or 30 years ago when I was in seminary there really wasn’t a lot of discussion about it. We were taught this and there wasn’t a whole lot of debate. Now, that has changed quite dramatically in recent years. I want to first of all, look a little bit at why that has changed.

B. Contemporary Reassessment

Academic: The “New Perspective on Paul” 

First, there is the academic pressure; we have already talked adequately about that with the New Perspective and some of the work that Wright is doing. You have read him, so you understand that pressure from as it were the more academic side of things to say: let’s go back and read Paul against his first century Jewish context. When we do, maybe the traditional idea of justification doesn’t hold water quite as much as we thought. 

Ecclesiological: Ecumenical Dialogue

Second, most of you will be aware of what we might call the ecumenical pressure; we live in an era that is strongly emphasizing a desire for unity among Christians. An entirely appropriate emphasis of course, no one can read the New Testament and miss the concern for the unity of believers in Christ. The question is of course how far that is to extend. That is a debated issue, obviously. 

But here there is a sense in which people are saying the doctrine of justification was developed during the time of the Reformation need not separate us anymore. One of my former colleagues, Mark Noll along with a co-author Carolyn Nystrom wrote a book with the provocative title: Is the Reformation Over? That is, have we moved now to the point as Protestants on one hand and Roman Catholics on the other, that while we still have some differences, maybe they aren’t all that serious? For Noll and Nystrom, they would want to argue that justification may be a doctrine that doesn’t need to divide Roman Catholics and Protestants the way it used to. 

Here, one would appeal for instance to the 1999 consensus reached by major Lutheran and Roman Catholic theologians. This was a very significant agreement because it constituted an agreement between World Federation of Lutheranism, the official governing body for Lutheranism in general, and the Roman Catholic Magisterium, the official teaching body of the Vatican. In that document, which is on justification, it’s called the Joint Declaration on Justification, you can google it and find it very easily, the Joint Declaration on Justification. It basically they say we pretty much agree on justification.

What is somewhat remarkable about that document is that I think it is fair to say that in order to reach an agreement, the Lutherans gave up some things, but the Roman Catholics gave up a lot more. A lot of the Roman Catholic Biblical scholars I respect and read are talking about justification in terms that Martin Luther would probably have been pretty happy with. Roman Catholicism in its official stance has moved quite a way. 

Obviously, you have these official groups that say this, it doesn’t mean that all Lutherans or Roman Catholics agree, by any means. But there is this pressure to revisit the doctrine of justification and ask questions whether it needs to separate believers anymore. And there is the pressure to come to agreement. And the concern obviously in the desire to come to agreement, do we sacrifice something that is Biblically important in order to reach agreement with somebody? That becomes the key question.  

Cultural: Distaste for Doctrine

Three, another factor in all of this I think is that we live in an era which doesn’t have much of a time for doctrine. We live in a time where there is an emphasis on living out the Christian story. In a postmodern world there is considerable emphasis on narrative and stories. There is considerable emphasis on community; there is a deep concern among a lot of young Christians I know to be living the Gospel. They get a little impatient with older folks like me talking about what we believe in terms of doctrine. They are a bit impatient about that; they don’t want to say, let’s not get hung up on the doctrine, let’s go out and be Christians. Let’s live as Christians; let’s get out there and affect society and do the work of evangelism, get involved in social justice, and so forth. So, let’s do the work of being a Christian and not get hung up on the ins and outs of doctrine, which is sterile, intellectual, and not all that helpful for what it really means to be a Christian. 

Practical: Christian Lifestyle:

Finally, there is throughout the development of this Protestant teaching on justification (we talked about that yesterday a little bit) a concern that an emphasis on justification by faith alone breeds superficial Christianity. You emphasize that we are put right with God by faith alone; that thatsecures our ultimate standing with God; where then is a significant place for discipleship, for doing the work of the Christian life? It is argued that this undercuts. You can see this debate occurring in almost every generation since the Reformation. Emphasis on justification by faith alone leads to a push back by some other Christians who say but if we keep saying that in those terms, we are undercutting the Christian life. The Wesleyan movement itself was a bit of an attempt, not to leave justification by faith alone, but to say look what justification by faith alone has led to. It has led to Christians who are superficial, they go to church, but they have no true vital Christian life. We need to restore that; we need to right the balance again. You see this happening virtually in every generation. There have been a whole series of books written in the last decade making this point also.

C. Two Differing Points of Roman Catholicism: 

Comment: 
Can you explain the infusion of grace in the Catholic understanding of justification, the infusion of righteousness?  I know it’s a big dividing line between the Reformers and the Catholics, and I don’t understand what they are talking about.

Dr. Moo: 
The traditional Roman Catholic doctrine differed from the Protestant view in two essential aspects. 

First, the official Roman Catholic - and you have to say that because even at the time of the Reformation there were a variety of Roman Catholic views; there wasn’t just one monolithic Roman Catholic view - but in terms of the official standard Roman Catholic view of the time, justification was considered a broad category, including both our right standing with God and our transformation into the image of Christ. It involved, not just a righteousness imputed to us, a standing that is forensic, or judicial only, as Luther and Calvin were arguing, but it also involved the infusion of God’s righteousness, an actual moral transformation. Arguably, that goes all the way back to Augustine who seemed to have that broad and more encompassing view of justification. The issue of is justification forensic only involving imputation of righteousness or does it also involve an infusion of righteousness, that was a key matter of debate. 

The second issue then was where grace was to be found. In the Roman Catholic system, justifying grace is found in the sacraments and closely tied then to baptism especially. Whereas, of course, Luther and Calvin in their different ways wanted to make God’s grace much more significantly involved in human experience leading to faith. 

Comment:
So, some infant would be baptized and hence justified and given the capacity to be righteous, and then what? As he grows up, then he either adheres to that, or walks away?

Dr. Moo: 
That is exactly right.  The way you continue to reclaim, as it were, your righteousness is s by a continuing participation in the sacraments again: mass, penitence etc. which maintains that status that you were given as an infant.

D. Further Explanation on the Lutheran - Catholic Joint Agreement: 

Comment: If I am understanding correctly what you’re saying, really a lot of the ecumenical dialogue to try to bring Catholics and Protestants together has kind of moved the needle on the spectrum between imputed and imparted righteousness where a lot of Protestant folks are saying we need to start saying that imparted righteousness is a part of it as well.  I guess what I find confusing, is that in my understanding, it has never been that you stop at one.  The fruits of imputed righteousness have always been that we start to walk for God. And yet you’re saying that there has always been a necessity that doctrinally we say that you will be changing your lifestyle, you will be changing your actions, if you’re actually justified by God.

Dr. Moo:   
A couple of points on that.  First, in terms of the definition of justification; the movement has been more toward the traditional Reformation view. The tendency has been for Roman Catholic theologians - I think just faced with the Biblical evidence, to be honest - to agree with Protestants saying that yes, justification is entirely a forensic thing. There has been a move more in that direction. 

Where there continues to be significant debate is this point on the sola, the only, the Latin phrase used at the time, sola fide. That is the real sticking point. The joint declaration says that we agree – Lutherans and Roman Catholics - that a person is justified by faith. For someone who doesn’t know the history, they can say oh, this is great, they all agree! 

But anyone who knows Reformation history is going to say that no one ever debated on whether justification is by faith. Everyone has always agreed that justification is by faith. The issue is, is justification by faith only, or is it justification by faith plus baptism, or faith plus works, or faith plussomething else? 

The problem in the documents, and I’m betraying my own view now, is that they are sort of papering over the key issue. You can get people to agree on a vague enough statement and think that you have reached agreement, when in reality, the fundamental differences remain. That is a really important issue here.

The other point I want to make in terms of what you said, and we’ll talk about this in a moment, Calvin and Luther were as strong as anyone in arguing that true Christianity is marked by people who are faithful in what they do; works follow faith. But what was the key to them was to keep justification and sanctification distinct from each other. This was again the difference between the Protestant view, wanting to keep those neatly separate, and the Roman Catholic view that wanted to blur them quite a bit, and view them as sort of working together in a more significant way.

Comment:
I was thinking about this, being the United Church of Christ, we have a concord with some other denominations saying that say we accept one another’s baptism, we accept one another’s ordination, even though we understand baptism, and ordination, and communion differently, we have agreed to accept one another’s understanding of that. Sounds like some similarity.  

Dr. Moo: 
There is some similarity, yes, that is exactly right.

E. Christians Are No Longer Interested in Theological Fights: 

Comment:
Can you touch a little bit on the distaste for doctrine, the reassessment kind of matter. For instance, we include hymns versus all the contemporary things that are going on.  How do we? Are we like Paul, kind of tiptoeing around? Doctrinally I think it is really key, but how does it flesh out in terms of bridging all that? It’s very much needed

Dr. Moo: 
Obviously, I’m referring to groups, like the Immersion Church, as it’s been called. A lot of the young people I work with at Wheaton, particularly the undergraduates at Wheaton, are fired up in wonderful ways to go out and really do some serious work for Christ. They want to go out into tough neighborhoods and be a witness there to help people, to address issues of poverty and homelessness, AIDS, all of these plagues that we are familiar with. 

But again, as I said, they aren’t as interested in figuring out what the truth of the Gospel is. They are skeptical because they look at earlier generations; they look at their parents, they look at older folks. They look at a Wright and a Piper who spend all their time fighting about doctrine and they say I’m not interested in those fights. I am not interested in the niceties of doctrinal formulation. I just want to go out and be a Christian and live the Gospel. Can’t we just all get along? is their motto, I would say.

I think that there is no question that we who are in a more traditional mode (I include myself here) can sometimes be guilty of number one, getting into unnecessary fights; that is a key concern that I have. It seems that one of the ways Satan tries to blunt the effectiveness of a Christian witness is by dividing us, and getting us fighting, getting us squabbling over stuff that maybe we don’t need to squabble over. 

But two then is doctrinal preaching or teaching that is dry or unrelated to life. I think that is what God is calling us to do; we, who have a concern, that yes, Christians need to understand what justification is. It is an important thing for them to know. We have to teach it effectively and make clear why it is important for people to understand it and know it. We have to teach doctrine well, call it whatever we want: Christian truth or whatever language we want to use. I don’t know if that is getting at your question?  I think we have to do it, and we have to do it well. We haven’t always done it well. 

Comment: 
Isn’t it more so that the church responds to culture, more so than culture responds to the church? [unclear] A similar perspective on worship which affords more convenience rather than conviction? More works than transformation? 

Dr. Moo:
I think so. I think as Christians, we need to speak to the issues of our day. We need to bring Christian truth to bear on issues like same sex marriage, for instance. This is very much in the press in recent days obviously. But as we do that, at the same time, we have to stand back sometimes and say but our job also is more fundamentally to inculcate a Christian world view in my people that will prepare them to meet whatever issues they might face. This is again where to me, patient careful expository preaching of the Word can be an effective thing to do, where you say for the next two years I’m going to preach through the Letter to the Romans. What am I going to preach this Sunday? Well, I happen to be in this paragraph of Romans, so that is what I’m going to preach this Sunday. 

That is one way to keep us from simply preaching our own fads, our own hobby horses, or always simply to be preaching what we think meets the needs of people. We are then I think, better stewards of the Word of God, and by doing that, we hold ourselves accountable in a sense, to proclaim what is there in the Word rather than our own ideas or simply reacting always to culture. 

In other words, the vision to build a congregation who have a thoroughly Christian mind set which then can enable those Christians to go out and face all sorts of things. There is no way we are going to have time to preach on all the issues that all our people face every Sunday, because they are facing all kinds of different things.  But we can do is to try to build them up in a way that gives them a thoroughly Christian orientation to life, the values of the kingdom that then they can translate into all of the areas that they need to be addressing.