“…I don’t think we can make any progress in holiness if we don’t have a profound, deep, powerful assurance that we are accepted by God by faith alone.”

One of the concerns that I have about justification, and in particular the biblical understanding of imputation (being counted righteous as distinct from actually becoming behavioral in our righteousness—which are both crucial), is that those who are jealous like I want to be for our holiness, our love, our justice and our mercy in the world can begin to build those fruits into the instrument of justification to make sure that it is not separated. But in the process they undermine the very goal that we are both after.

Here’s what I mean. I’m arguing, as I think historic protestant Christianity and the Bible argues, that the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to me is through union with Christ, where he is for me all that he is, and I am attached to him in that union through faith alone. The only instrument by which I am made a participant in Christ’s righteousness is God’s acting through my faith. I am born into that relationship through faith alone, not through any of its fruits, like mercy and justice and love and patience and kindness and meekness and so on, which turn me into a useful person in the world.

Now what some people feel, I think, is that if you conceive of justification that way, as being imputed with Christ’s righteousness so that you stand perfect before God by faith alone, you have disconnected it from love and mercy and goodness and justice and kindness, such that you can begin to become indifferent to those things. You can begin to think of yourself as holy and let the world go to hell. So to solve that problem, to make sure that justice and love and mercy are all kept closely connected—as they should be, as the fruit of justification—they begin to bring it into the instrument by which we are attached to Christ and they don’t make faith clearly distinct as the sole instrument.

The reason I say this undermines what we are both after is because I don’t think we can make any progress in holiness if we don’t have a profound, deep, powerful assurance that we are accepted by God by faith alone. If you try to make the fruit of justification part of the root of justification, the fruit itself is destroyed. Because I think God has ordained that it is out of a sense of wonder and marveling that God is patient with me through faith alone that I am able to be patient with another person.

If I try to make becoming patient with my wife part of the instrument by which I am attached to Jesus, who then becomes my righteousness and acceptance with God, so that it is mostly his work but still partially my work, then my whole sense of assurance by which I make progress in that patience begins to go down the tubes.

So I’m saying that I really believe that Christians have to be loving, they have to be just, they have to be caring. In other words, the fruits of the Spirit really matter. We are not born again if we are not living differently than we would if we weren’t born again. I just want to say that the doctrine of justification by faith alone, or imputation through union with Christ along the instrument of faith alone, is the best way forward in that.

William Wilberforce is perhaps the best historical example because he built his whole anti-slave trade life on the doctrine of justification. When he wrote his book A Practical View of Christianity, his one book, he said, “My main goal is to help England understand that transformation in life and in slave-trade is the fruit of justification, not the root.” He wanted to distinguish very clearly how you became justified with God and how you became holy in the world.

As far as his example goes, that’s where I’m heading. I want to produce lots of Wilberforces in my church and in the world. And I think trying to bring the commitment to justice into the instrument of justification, instead of the fruit of it, undermines what we’re both after.

John Piper is the Pastor for Preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This article is am edited transcript of an audio message posted on his blog, Desiring God, and is used with permission.
Source: http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/