At the outset of this article we noted the danger of conflating justification and sanctification. There is, however, another danger–namely, separating justification and sanctification so as to downplay the importance of sanctification. While the imputed righteousness of Christ is sufficient for us on the day of judgment, it is not the only aspect of salvation that the Scriptures teach us about. God is not only committed to removing our guilt, He is also committed to cleansing our corrupt natures.
Throughout the history of Protestantism, myriads of books have been written to highlight and explain the intricacies of the biblical doctrine of justification. With the rise of the New Perspective(s) on Paul the doctrine of justification has received a resurgence of interest throughout the past decade. As a result, some very useful volumes have been published. Some of the more helpful include the D.A. Cardon ed. Justification and Variegated Nomism, Vol. 2: Paradoxes of Paul, Guy Prentiss Waters’ Justification and the New Perspective(s) on Paul, K. Scott Oliphint ed. Justified in Christ, Gary L.W. Johnson and Guy P. Waters ed. By Faith Alone, John Piper’s The Future of Justification, and John Fesko’s Justification: Understanding the Classic Reformed Doctrine. Among 20th Century works, John Murray’s chapter on justification in Redemption Accomplished and Applied has become a much loved contribution to the subject. There are also a plethora of valuable historical works such as John Owen’s Doctrine of Justification by Faith, Francis’ Turretin’s chapter on Justification and James Buchannan’s The Doctrine of Justification. The beauty of the above mentioned works is that they consistently outline and defend the Biblical (and confessionally Reformed) doctrine of justification by faith alone. In addition to these volumes, a multitude of articles and blog posts have been written to deal with the nuances of the discussion. Ligonier Ministries, for instance, dedicated an entire issue to the subject. These Tabletalk articles serve as helpful introductions of some of the more specific nuances of this seemingly new redefinition of Paul’s doctrine of justification.
The imputation of righteousness has specifically come under attack in recent years. This aspect of the Protestant formulation of justification has been questioned–and in certain cases even brazenly denied–by some who actually classify themselves as “Protestants.” For instance, many proponents of the New Perspective(s) on Paul–and some of the proponents of Federal Vision theology–have rejected the idea that Jesus kept the Law of God perfectly for His people in order to merit righteousness for those He came to save. Usually the arguments against imputed righteousness are built upon straw-man logical fallacies, such as the following: “How can righteousness be passed from one source to another? It’s not a gas or made of atoms.” The problem with this objection is that it completely distorts the historic Reformed teaching on imputation. There is not one Reformed theologian that I have ever come across who treats righteousness like a material substance passed from one person to another. The most basic explanation of imputation is that it is “the legal conferring or accounting of a righteous status to an individual on the basis of that persons union with the perfectly righteous one Jesus Christ.” Jesus was constituted a sinner for His people, and those who believe in Him are constituted righteous before God. The Pauline doctrine of justification does not refer to any actually inner transformation or personal change; rather, it is the legal status that has been effected by the obedience of Jesus. The personal inner transformation that sinners receive through union with Christ is imparted righteousness–and that is what the Scriptures teach that believers who have received the imputed righteousness of Christ for justification will also receive the imparted righteousness of Christ for progressive sanctification. This is the distinction that must always be safeguarded.
When we come to discuss the formulation and reception of the Protestant doctrine of justification we would be remiss if we did not give consideration to the writings of the Westminster Assembly. In the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the members of the Assembly define justification in the following way: “Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone” (WSC Q. 33) This statement serves a summary of what Protestants have believed historically concerning the doctrine of justification. In short, the Reformed have always believed, taught and defended that guilty sinners receive the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ by grace alone through faith alone; that it is a once for all finished act; that it is set in the context of our legal standing before God; that a justified sinner cannot loose that justification; that God accepts us as perfectly righteous, only because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to us; that the justified sinner is constituted righteous because Christ was constituted a sinner in his place (2 Cor. 5:21); and that in justification the justified person is not transformed inwardly. The Reformed have always insisted, with Martin Luther and John Calvin, that the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is “the doctrine on which the church stands or falls.”
So what is meant when we hear the term “the imputed righteousness of Christ?” Can we prove from the Scriptures that it is a once-for-all completed act? How do we know that the Pauline use of the term speaks of our legal standing before God? Furthermore, what do we do with the seeming contradiction between James and Paul with respect to the use of the word justified? These, and other pertinent questions, have been posed and answered in a plethora of ways over the centuries. It will do us good to recap a few of the most significant passages of Scripture on the subject.
Works of the Law
While the Gospel is not limited to the forensic dimension of justification, it is a fact that if you give up justification by faith alone you have given up the Gospel. This is certainly the Apostle Paul’s argument in Romans and Galatians–the two books that have not-surprisingly come under attack from “so-called” Protestant scholars over the last 30 years. Within the New Perspective camp, as well as among many of the proponents of the Federal Vision, one of the principle arguments against the Reformed doctrine of justification by faith alone comes from a redefinition of Paul’s use of the phrase works of the Law. Interestingly, this is not a “new perspective” at all. It is the old Roman Catholic Perspective. Protestants have historically understood the phrase works of the Law to refer–not simply to Jewish exclusivity–but to anything a man may do to try to gain a right standing before God. To be fair, there was, indeed, something distinctively Jewish about the context in which Paul entered into polemics on the subject of justification. To deny that would be to disregard the historical setting; but to redefine works of the Law to mean Jewish nationalism–in contradistinction to legalism–is to disregard the whole of the biblical data. Consider the very persuasive arguments set out by Tom Schreiner in “‘Works of the Law’ in Paul.”
Demand for Perfect Obedience
At the heart of the historical Protestant teaching on justification–as over against the Roman Catholic dogma–is the biblical teaching that God demands perfect and perpetual obedience. A helpful scholarly defense of this subjec can be found in Thomas Schreiner’s outastanding articles “Paul and Perfect Obedience to the Law: An Evaluation of the View of E.P. Sanders” and “Is Perfect Obedience to the Law Possible? A Reexamination of Galatians 3:10.” The need for imputed righteousness rests squarely on God’s continued demand for perfect obedience. God is absolutely holy. In order for a Holy God to maintain His holiness He can never become lax in his demand for holiness. A general holiness will never do. Man is indebted to God as the creature to the Creator. It is unthinkable that the infinitely holy God would require less than absolute perfection. To do so would be for Him to deny Himself. The fact that fallen man cannot provide what God requires is no argument against His requiring of it. In fact, this is the glory of the Gospel. In the life, death, resurrection, ascension and reign of Christ God provides what He requires. He fulfills the Law’s demand for perfect obedience by coming in the Person of Christ to fulfill the legal demands of the Covenant. Jesus kept the Law perfectly and so merited a human righteousness as the representative of His people. Jesus was sinless. Jesus was a representative of His people. Jesus’ sinlessness was a representative sinlessness. This is what is meant when we speak of imputed righteousness. The sinless One became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. My sin was imputed to Christ. His righteousness was imputed to me. For a treatment of the sinlessness of Jesus see my short Tabletalk article.
Galatians 3:10
The locus classicus for the Reformed teaching on God’s demand for perfect and perpetual obedience is Galatians 3:10. There the apostle Paul cites Deuteronomy 27:26 in an attempt to prove that justification is by faith, not by works. If justification were by our law-keeping (works) then a man would have to keep the entirety of the Law. This is the reason why Paul appeals to Deut. 27:26, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things written in the Law of God to do them.” Schreiner, in his article “Is Perfect Obedience to the Law Possible,” notes the following important observation about Galatians 3:10:
It is unlikely, therefore, that in Gal 3:10 Paul cited Deut 27:26 because the latter condemned the sin of legalism. The simplest way of reading the quotation, and it is one that accords with the OT context, is that Paul is saying that there is a curse on anyone who does not observe the law entirely. Such an interpretation is strengthened when one observes that Paul, in basic agreement with the LXX, uses a Scripture text that pronounces a curse on anyone who does not abide by all things (pasin)written in the book of the law, to do them. It is very important to note that the MT does not have any word in Deut 27:26 that corresponds to the word pasin in Gal 3:10. It is fair to conclude, therefore, that Paul’s use of the word pasin clearly implies that the curse was pending if one did not observe any part of the law.
The πασιν τοις of Galatians 3:10 makes it undeniable that God demanded perfect and unbroken obedience to the Law. The legal demand for perfect obedience did not pass away with the fall of Adam. God is holy, and a holy God must continue to demand perfect obedience to His own holy standard. If God did not demand perfect obedience to His Law then He would deny His own holy nature. As Cornelius Van Til noted, “What God says is right because He says it, and He says it because it rests on His own holy nature.” Even in eternity, God will demand perfect moral obedience to His holy law.
Romans 10:5-6
The other significant passage to which biblical scholars have pointed in defense of the demand for perfect obedience to the Law of God is Romans 10:5-6. Citing Leviticus 18:5 , the apostle Paul contrasts two different kinds of righteousness: (1) The righteousness of the Law, and (2) the righteousness of faith.” Guy Prentiss Waters, in his outstanding JETS article on this passage, charters the exegetical waters (no pun intended) of this text. He writes:
When Paul encompasses Moses’ phrase [from Lev. 18:5] “all of my decrees and all of my commands” (πάντα τὰ προστάγματά μου καὶ πάντα τὰκρίματά μου) in a single word (αυτα ), he is stressing a vital point. The righteousness which is of the law (την δικαιοσυνην την εκ του νομου) is a righteousness which is based upon and demands perfect and entire obedience to all the commands of God’s law. It is the meeting of this standard that is requisite for entrance into “life.” We have, then, an important affirmation parallel to Paul’s claim at Gal 3:10 that failure to perform flawless obedience to the law results in coming under the law’s curse (“for as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, “Cursed is every one who does not abide in everything which has been written in the book of the law, to do them.”
Paul sums up the biblical teaching on the demand for perfect obedience in the “πασιν” of Galatians 3:10 and the “αυτα” of Romans 10:5. This alone ought to suffice as sufficient proof of the exegetical accuracy of this doctrinal assertion.
So the question is, “How do we gain a righteous standing before an infinitely holy God who requires perfect and continual obedience for that right standing?” To answer this question we must turn our attention to the biblical teaching on the perfect, representative obedience of Jesus. Do the Scriptures really teach that Jesus kept the Law as a representative figure for His people so that they would get all the righteousness they need for a right standing with God by faith in Him? Can we point to a chapter and verse to prove it? That all depends on what we mean by “point to a chapter and verse.” There are several important texts and doctrines that need to be considered in tandem in order for us to see that God has revealed this precious doctrine in the Scriptures.
Provision of Perfect Righteousness
Beginning in the 17th Century, it became common to find Reformed theologians distinguishing between two aspects of Christ’s perfect obedience–what they termed His active and passive obedience. Certainly there can be a danger in seperating the righteousness of Christ into two categories because the Scriptures teach that He was “obedient unto the point of death, even the death of the cross.” Despite this potential danger, John Murray aptly noted the significance of using the categorical terms active and passive when referring to Christ’s obedience. He wrote:
(a) The term “passive obedience” does not mean that in anything Christ did was he passive, the involuntary victim of obedience imposed upon him. It is obvious that any such conception would contradict the very notion of obedience. And it must be jealously maintained that even in his sufferings and death our Lord was not the passive recipient of that to which he was subjected. In his sufferings he was supremely active, and death itself did not befall him as it befalls other men. “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself” are his own words. He was obedient unto death, Paul tells us. And this does not mean that his obedience extended to the threshold of death but rather that he was obedient to the extent of yielding up his spirit in death and of laying down his life. In the exercise of self-conscious sovereign volition, knowing that all things had been accomplished and that the very moment of time for the accomplishment of this event had arrived, he effected the separation of body and spirit and committed the latter to the Father. He dismissed his spirit and laid down his life. The word “passive,” then, should not be interpreted to mean pure passivity in anything that came within the scope of his obedience. The sufferings he endured, sufferings which reached their climax in his death upon the accursed tree, were an integral part of his obedience and were endured in pursuance of the task given him to accomplish.
(b) Neither are we to suppose that we can allocate certain phases or acts of our Lord’s life on earth to the active obedience and certain other phases and acts to the passive obedience. The distinction between the active and passive obedience is not a distinction of periods. It is our Lord’s whole work of obedience in every phase and period that is described as active and passive, and we must avoid the mistake of thinking that the active obedience applies to the obedience of his life and the passive to the obedience of his final sufferings and death.
Murray went on to defend the internal reason behind this distinction:
The real use and purpose of the formula is to emphasize the two distinct aspects of our Lord’s vicarious obedience. The truth expressed rests upon the recognition that the law of God has both penal sanctions and positive demands. It demands not only the full discharge of its precepts but also the infliction of penalty for all infractions and shortcomings. It is this twofold demand of the law of God which is taken into account when we speak of the active and passive obedience of Christ. Christ as the vicar of his people came under the curse and condemnation due to sin and he also fulfilled the law of God in all its positive requirements. In other words, he took care of the guilt of sin and perfectly fulfilled the demands of righteousness. He perfectly met both the penal and the preceptive requirements of God’s law. The passive obedience refers to the former and the active obedience to the latter. Christ’s obedience was vicarious in the bearing of the full judgment of God upon sin, and it was vicarious in the full discharge of the demands of righteousness. His obedience becomes the ground of the remission of sin and of actual justification.
Though there was some debate in the Assembly on this issue, the language of the Westminster Confession of Faith of “the whole obedience” almost certain alludes to the law-keeping and obedient death of Jesus. Westminster Larger Catechism 97 clearly points out these two distinct parts of the work of Christ when it speaks of believers being “bound to Christ for His fulfilling [the law], and enduring the curse thereof in their stead, and for their good.” In other words, the righteousness of Christ includes all of His obedience culminating in His laying down His life for the sheep.
In addition to His keeping of the demands of the moral law, our Lord taught that He had to obey specific Mediatorial commands from His Father. In John 10:17-18 He said,” “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.” God the Father commanded the Son–the eternal aspect of the Covenant of Grace–to lay down His life willingly. This was a Mediatorial command from the God the Father. In addition to the moral and ceremonial commands that Jesus kept perfectly, He also kept all the Mediatorial commands that were uniquely His to keep. Jonathan Edwards summed up so well the obedience that Christ rendered to His Father on our behalf when he wrote:
- He obeyed those commands that he was subject to merely as man, and they were the commands of the moral law, which was the same with that that was given at Mount Sinai, written in two tables of stone, which are of obligation to mankind of all nations and all ages of the world.
- He obeyed all those laws that he was subject to as he was a Jew. Thus he was subject to ceremonial law and was conformed to it. He was conformed to it in his being circumcised the eighth day. And he strictly obeyed it in going up to Jerusalem to the temple three times in the year, at least after he was come to the age of twelve years, which seems to have been the age when the males began to go up to the temple. And so Christ constantly attended the service of the temple and of the synagogues.
To the head of his obedience to the laws that he was subject to as a Jew may be reduced his submission to John’s baptism; for it was a special command of God to the Jews to go forth to John the Baptist and be baptized of him. And therefore Christ, being a Jew, was subject to this command, and therefore when he came to be baptized of John, and John objected that he had more need to come to him be baptized of him, he gives this reason for it: that it was needful that he should do it that he might fulfill all righteousness, Matthew 3:13–15 [“Then cometh Jesus … unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbad him, saying … comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said … it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness”].
- Another law that Christ was subject to was the mediatorial law which contained those commands of God that he was subject to, not merely as man, nor yet as a Jew, but related purely to the execution of his mediatorial office. Such were the commands that the Father gave him to teach such doctrines, to preach the gospel, to work such miracles, to call such disciples, to appoint such ordinances, and finally to lay down his life. For Christ did all these things in obedience to commands that he had received of the Father, as he often tells us. And these commands he was not subject to merely as man, for they did not belong to other men; nor yet was he subject to ’em as Jew, for they were no part of the Mosaic law. But they were commands that he had received of the Father that purely respected the work he was to do in the world in his mediatorial office.
Because He is God and man, Jesus Christ, was able–by His perfect life and atoning death–to merit righteousness for His people. By faith-union with Him, we have His righteousness imputed to us–just as our sin was imputed to Him at the cross.