Calvin
on Justification
All
of the magisterial reformers recognise that “justification by faith”
is shorthand for “justification by grace through faith in
Christ”; i.e., faith “puts on” Christ and he
(alone) is our justification. There
is no quality inhering faith that renders “my faith” “my
justification.” If a
quality inhering faith is thought to justify, then faith becomes another
form of self-justification. Barth
insisted that the point of “justification by faith” is that it is
God who justifies us rather than we who justify ourselves.
We
are justified by grace (alone) through faith (alone) on account of
Christ (alone.) Note that
when Paul speaks of justification “by” (“through”) faith, he
writes dia pisteos not
dia pistin.
In Romans 3 Paul does not use “alone” when he speaks of
justification, but Luther correctly saw that this was the meaning of the
text; hence L’s “alone” was not out of place.
[1]
Faith puts on Christ who is both our justification and our
sanctification. Justification
plus sanctification together are the grand sum of the gospel.
Calvin repeats this in his work passim.
3.11.1
[2]
Since Christ can’t be divided, justification and sanctification
can never be separated even though they must always be distinguished.
[3]
Neither justification nor sanctification is the ground of the
other.
[4]
Justification means that ultimately
the believer has to do with the gracious Father rather than the just
(and therefore undeflectable) judge.
3.11.1.
[5]
Justification is the “main hinge on which religion turns.”
3.11.1.
Valentius
Loescher, a 17th century Lutheran, insisted, Iustificatio
est articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae.
(articulus: article,
point, crisis, division, hinge {thumb})
Most
religions repudiate this articulus formally (e.g., Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses); most
church folk repudiate it informally – i.e., operatively.
Those
who would never repudiate it formally are often found repudiating it
subtly and thereby fall into one or another form of self-justification
insofar as
we are justified by our grasp of the doctrine of justification
by our ability to
articulate the doctrine in private or public
by faith as the
substance of our justification
by “grace” and
“works” in that grace by provides an outer framework
whose
inner content is our achievement
by
(in modernity with its psychological preoccupation and its emphasis on
ego-
strength, etc.) our awareness that “we need do nothing to be
accepted.”
In other words, modernity tends to abstract justification from
its rootage in
Christ.
[6]
To be justified is to be both “reckoned righteous” and to be
“accepted.” 3.11.2
“Reckoned”
echoes Paul’s forensic model; “accepted” adds the relational
(personal) dimension.
Again,
one must be aware of the secularisation of the doctrine today.
God, however, “sees” in Christ only those who are
in Christ (by faith in Christ.) 3.11.3.
[7]
Dispute with Osiander. (See
class notes on “The Mediator and His Work.”)
O.
documents from scripture that Christ is one with believers, yet fails to
grasp the nature of this oneness: by faith we are bound to Christ in
utmost intimacy, but Christ is never transfused into us thereby
obliterating the distinction between us, obliterating our identity, and
rendering us incarnations as well. 3.11.5.
Osiander’s
errors: we are justified inasmuch as we are made
righteous through the impartation of holiness.
(Problem: no believer is sufficiently holy to secure his own
righteousness.)
: Christ is our
righteousness simply in virtue of his deity.
(Problem: our sin isn’t seen as serious enough to be that for
which atonement (propitiation) is needed.
We merely need to be elevated (divinised.)
Note the affinities here with modernity.
[8]
While C retains “imputation” in that he feels it essential to
the truth of justification, he rejects the accusation that such
terminology suggests iciness, sterility, the mechanistic or the
impersonal. For when we
“put on” Christ we cease “contemplating him from afar”; we are
“engrafted into his body”; we are “made one with him”; we
“glory that we have fellowship of righteousness with him.” 3.11.10.
[9]
“Justification”, “forgiveness’, “free remission”,
“reconciliation with God” are all synonyms.
3.11.11
and 3.11.21.
[10]
Note the following in the 3.11.11:
(i)
Since
justification is never separated from sanctification, and sanctification
is never separated from mortification, C can’t be accused of “cheap
grace.”
(ii)
Battles’
“traces” (of sin) for reliquae (remainder) is much too weak. Reliquum
means “remainder”, “arrears”, “debt”, “outstanding
(sum)”, “residue”, “subsequent.”
(iii)
Reformation
of life is gradual (and frequently slow.)
(iv)
At all
times Christians, of themselves, merit condemnation.
(See 3.11.21.)
[11]
The Spirit reforms the justified person (i.e., advances her in
holiness) not directly but through the Son.
3.11.12
Since
the Spirit is the Spirit of the Son, C endeavours here to disavow what
he regards as Anabaptist vagaries concerning the Spirit; on the other
hand, he endeavours here to disavow what he regards as RC vagaries
concerning holiness: holiness consists in adopted sons/dtrs being
conformed to their elder brother.
At
no point does justification mean that we are deemed righteous on the
ground of Spirit-wrought fruits of regeneration in believers. 3.11.14.
[12]
For C assurance is always assurance of our standing with God,
which standing is grounded in Christ (not ourselves).
For “papists and schoolmen”, on the other hand, assurance is
assurance of conscience that their Spirit-inspired quest for holiness merits God’s recognition and reward.
(Hence C speaks of them as “doubly deceived.”) 3.11.14.
Justification
by faith, rather, directs our contemplation away from ourselves in all
respects to “God’s mercy” and “Christ’s perfection” alone.
3.11.16.
[13]
While always aware that justification is the antithesis of
moralism, C recognises moral distinctions.
Not to do is both silly and a threat to social order.
3.14.2. Still, moral
virtue is qualitatively distinct from the Kingdom.
Here C parts company with modern liberalism, mediaeval
scholasticism, and some forms of contemporary RCm.
(E.g., Karl Rahner’s “anonymous Christian.”) 3.14.3.
When
C speaks of the “sheer disgrace of need and emptiness” he is not
speaking morally but rather theologically.
His point is that the moral people are yet un-graced.
Neither is he speaking psychologically.
C thinks theologically throughout the discussion. 3.14.5.
Justification
is the beginning of love for God. (What
“righteousness” could ever precede it?)
Our works-righteousness, so far from exemplifying love for God,
is actually defiance of him. Only
the justified person loves God. 3.14.6.
[14]
The justified person has “regard not for the work of the law
but for the commandment of God.” 3.14.10.
Luther is magnificent on this matter.
Every commandment can be fulfilled only in faith.
Commandments 2 through 10 are properly and profoundly obeyed only
if the first is; i.e., only in faith.
[15]
Remember: to undervalue justification by faith means that we do
“not realise what an execrable thing sin is in God’s sight.”
3.14.13.
[16]
The sum of the doctrine is
“we are received into grace by God out of sheer mercy”,
“this comes about by Christ’s intercession and is apprehended
by faith”,
“all things exist to the end that the glory of divine goodness
may fully shine
forth”.
3.14.17.
Professor
V. Shepherd
