Michael Horton on Justification

Theologian Michael Horton has a new two volume work on Justification. They are available on Amazon. There are massive but worth the effort to read about a thousand pages. I just read an interview with Horton on Books at a Glance about them here. Here are a couple of gems from the interview.

On Justification – that in this marriage between Christ and us, there’s a great exchange of our rags for his riches; he becomes poor so that we may become rich; he becomes a sinner so that we may become justified; he becomes the most unholy thing in the universe so that we can be the very righteousness of God.

There are basically two trajectories or trends in the later Middle Ages. You could have Augustinians who are also modern, the via Augustini moderna, but the via moderna, the modern way, was more often associated with the nominalists. And the nominalists were, for the most part, Pelagian or semi-Pelagian. That is, they either believed that God’s grace wasn’t necessary at all, or they believed that God’s grace was something he gave after you, by your own free will, took the first step. You take the first step, repenting and believing in Christ and then he gives you grace for the rest of the way.

Other people, and I place myself in this camp, say that union with Christ is an umbrella term for all of the benefits that we have in Christ. We are chosen in him, redeemed in him, called effectually to union with him; where we receive, through faith, which is a gift, we receive justification, sanctification and glorification. But within that union that we have in Christ, sanctification can only come about, the process of being made new, being conformed to the image of Christ, can only come about on the basis of God’s verdict that we are declared righteous only for the sake of Christ. Think of adoption or marriage, analogies, of course, that the Bible itself uses for all this. First, you have to be legally married before you can sleep together and have a proper relationship in marriage. Before you go home and become part of the family, you have to be legally adopted. And so, justification really is the legal ground that gives us security and certainty. When we are justified, we can go home rejoicing, knowing that nothing can ever separate us from the love of our Father in Jesus Christ. We can grow in our marriage, our union with Christ more and more each day knowing that we can never be severed from his body. Why? Because Romans 5:1, having been justified through faith we have peace with God.

There’s no middle ground here. Well, the middle ground is precisely what the medieval church occupied. We are saved by grace, but we are also saved by our cooperation with that grace. Justification is that cooperation with grace. The reformers said, look at these passages, not just in Paul, but in the Gospels. Not only in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament. There’s nothing we can do. We can’t make the first move to God; he has to regenerate us; and he has to declare us righteous; we can’t make ourselves righteous. How much can you cooperate with grace in order to be justified? The Scriptures teach that we are justified, and therefore, we cooperate with God’s grace. It doesn’t tell us that we are justified by cooperating with God’s grace. What was Abraham doing in Genesis 15, when he believed God and was justified? He believed the promise and right then and there, hashab is the Hebrew word, he was justified, then and there. What does that mean? Well, Paul tells us what that means in Romans 4, and elsewhere. So, really, it was coming back to the Scriptures. When we come back to the Scriptures and see how they contrast the helpless condition of fallen human beings with the all-sufficient grace and power and mercy of God in Jesus Christ that we really understand the Gospel.

The only way you can be right with God is to come with your sins; to come with your doubts; to come with your despair; to come to him just as you are, as we sing, without one plea, except that Christ died for you and was raised for you. Think of the contrast that Jesus draws between the tax collector and the Pharisee. The Pharisee looks over at the tax collector and says, I thank you God that I am not like one of those guys. Notice, he wasn’t saying, what a great guy I am, I did it all by myself. He’s not a Pelagian, he’s not denying God’s grace. He says, I thank you God that I am not like this person over here. And then he goes on to list all the ways that he cooperates with God’s grace. But the tax collector can’t even lift his eyes up to heaven. Imagine this guy probably swindled old ladies out of their estates, and he can’t even raise his eyes to heaven. And he cries out, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. And Jesus says that man went home that day justified, rather than the other.

How a Deep Theology Leads to Deep Worship

This is from a talk John Piper gave at his 2015 pastor's conference.  Without getting technical he was talking about a book arguing against the New Perspective on Paul (a new view of justification) and how it impacted him.  It is a great example of how deep theology leads to deep worship.

[Paul’s] depiction of humanity’s condition required a much more rigorous dependence on divine grace than did Judaism’s. . . . It is no caricature of Judaism to say, with Sanders, that it lacked a doctrine of the “essential sinfulness” of humankind; no Jew would regard that claim as an insult. For Paul, on the other hand, it is precisely the “essential sinfulness” of humankind that requires a salvation based on grace alone, apart from [all] human “works.” (34)

I recall pausing, as I read, and asking myself, “Do I know my condition? Do I know what he means by my essential sinfulness. Do I have a grasp of what it is about me that requires the death of the God-man for me to be saved? Do I have any suitable notion of my own evil?” This is somehow proportionate to what it cost to save me?

That’s where this conference came from. And just to complete the illustration. Therefore, the old perspective on Paul, clarified and heralded in the Reformation, is not fundamentally mistaken. Yes, there is grace in Judaism — atonement, repentance, forgiveness — but no this did not rule out for them the mingling of good works with grace as the basis of a right standing with God. One thing rules that out: we are so sinful, we can’t contribute any good works to the basis of God’s acceptance of us. There are no good works anywhere in unregenerate humanity, there never have been, ever since the fall of Adam and Eve into sin. That’s how bad it is. I defend that statement shortly.

And at that point last summer, I felt a weight both personally and doctrinally. Doctrinally, it became clear that, if I didn’t see the true nature and depth and power and extent of sin not only would I distort the doctrine of justification, but I would distort almost everything: what happened when Christ died for sin? What happens in conversion — new birth and faith and repentance? How do sanctification and perseverance in faith and holiness come about? What will heaven be like? Will I be safe from sinning there?

And personally, I felt: Do I know the nature of my own sin? Do have a proper sense of the power and depth and evil of what I am dealing with in what Paul calls “indwelling sin” in believers? Do I have a kind of love to Christ and thankfulness for grace that corresponds to the horrors of what I was rescued from and to the price the most beautiful and innocent person paid for that rescue?

Spurgeon on on the Work of Grace

If he gives you the grace to make you believe, he will give you the grace to live a holy life afterward." Sermon, "Justification by Grace."  In other words, the same grace that leads to faith in Christ for our salvation is the same grace that leads to faith for our sanctification!  

Justification by faith is an answer to the greatest personal question ever asked by a human soul: ‘How shall I be right with God?  How do I stand in God’s sight?  With what favor does he look upon me?’  There are those, I admit, who never raise that question.  There are those who are concerned with the question of their standing before men but never with the question of their standing before God.  There are those who are interested in what ‘people say’ but not in the question of what God says.  Such men, however, are not those who move the world.  They are apt to go with the current.  They are apt to do as others do.  They are not the heroes who change the destinies of the race.  The beginning of true nobility comes when a man ceases to be interested in the judgment of men and becomes interested in the judgment of God.”

J. Gresham Machen, in God Transcendent (Edinburgh, 1982), pages 89-90.

Why Obedience to Christ is Necessary

Most importantly, forensic righteousness is the basis and ground of any transformation that occurs in our lives.  This means that any change in the lives of believers is rooted in the objective work of Christ by which believers are declared to be right in God's eyes.  But for Paul the work of God is a whole.  He never imagined someone who was justified yet who failed to live in newness of life (Rom 6:4).  Those who are declared to be in the right are united with Christ, they enjoy the gift of the Spirit, and they are empowered to live in a new way.  Thomas Schreiner, Paul, Apostle Of God's Glory in Christ, p. 208.