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CHAPTER 5
SALVATION BY WORKS
In this chapter, it will be shown how the Biblical doctrine of salvation has been misunderstood and partly obscured by the intrusion into Christian theology of legalism. According to legalism, salvation is earned by good works. And salvation is by works because the justice of God requires meritorious works for man to be saved. This legalistic misunderstanding of salvation will be examined first in this chapter and then the legalistic misunderstanding of God. It will be shown how the righteousness of God has been misunderstood and obscured in Christian theology by the Greek-Roman concept of justice, that is, the giving to each what he has merited. This concept of justice has not only caused a misunderstanding of the Biblical meaning of the righteousness of God but also of the love of God. After the discussion of this legalistic misunderstanding of God, then Martin Luther’s rediscovery of the Biblical concept of the righteousness of God will be related and then the legalistic misunderstanding of justification by faith will be discussed. Finally, the Calvinism/Arminian theological controvery will be discussed.
According to the legalistic point of view, salvation is earned by good works. The good works entitles the doer to eternal life. The Augustinian doctrine of original sin assumes this legalistic view of salvation. Augustine used the doctrine of original sin to establish the need for salvation. Why does man need to be saved? Augustine answered that man needs to be saved because he is sinner by nature. By this he meant that man is not able not to sin and not able to do meritorious good works because of the sinful nature inherited from Adam. Man needs the grace of God to enable him not to sin and to do good works by which he can earn eternal life as a reward for his meritorious good works. The doctrine of original sin was Augustine’s answer to Pelagius’s assertion that man was able not to sin and able to do good works to earn eternal life by natural grace. Augustine said that man needs special grace because he lost the natural grace and is now, since the fall, a sinner by nature. Although man needs this special grace to enable him to do good works, men are still saved by good works. Augustine nowhere questions this legalistic conception of salvation. The Augustinian doctrine of original sin is legalistic because it presupposes a legalistic understanding of salvation. He, like Pelagius, assumes that salvation must be earned, but Augustine said that since we are by nature sinners, we need God’s special grace to enable us to do so. Salvation as well as the need for salvation was understood legalistically.
At the Reformation, the Protestant Reformers opposed the teaching of the Roman church which since the time of Augustine taught that by the grace of God, which is infused into man at baptism and renewed by the sacraments, a man is able to do good works to earn eternal life. The Reformers agreed with Augustine that man cannot earn eternal life because of his sinful nature but they rejected the idea that grace was something infused into a man to make it possible for him to earn eternal life. Grace, they said, is God’s unmerited favor, and eternal life was a gift to be received by faith. But, they said, this eternal life was earned by the active obedience of Christ during his life on earth. This “merits of Christ” is imputed to the believer’s account when he first believes in Christ. Thus salvation was for them still ultimately and fundamentally by meritorious works. It is true that they said that salvation was not by our works and that eternal life was a gift to be received by faith. But salvation was still by works — not our works but the meritorious works of another, Jesus Christ. It was a vicarious salvation by works. This explanation of salvation, like Augustine’s and the Roman church’s, assumes that salvation must be earned, but they said that since men are sinners by nature, they cannot earn it themselves; someone must earn it for them. Salvation as well as the need for salvation was still understood legalistically. This classical Protestant explanation of salvation, like Augustine’s and the Roman church’s, mixes grace and works, which the Apostle Paul says cannot be done or grace will no longer be grace.
“But if it is by grace, it is no longer by works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.” (Rom. 11:6).
Paul very clearly teaches that salvation is not by works.
“2 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9not as the result of works, that no one should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 NAS)
“He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.” (Titus 3:5 NAS).
This is the clear and explicit teaching of Scripture. Man cannot be saved by his good works because salvation cannot be earned by good works. Not because man is not able to earn it but because salvation has nothing to do with meritorious works. Salvation is the gift of a personal relationship to God by His grace through our faith (Eph. 2:8). This salvation is a gift of God’s grace which is received by faith and not something that is earned. Salvation by grace through faith excludes salvation by meritorious works. Salvation by grace and salvation by meritorious works are mutually exclusive and opposing views of salvation. Salvation is either by grace or by works and not by both.
“But if it is by grace, it is no longer by works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.” (Rom. 11:6)
This is the reason why salvation by grace and salvation by meritorious works must not be mixed. The attempt to do so reduces grace to something less than the Biblical concept of grace as God’s love in action.
“4But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which He loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).” (Eph. 2:4-5)
According to these verses, the grace of God is God’s love in action. God’s grace is more than His favor; it is His love acting to do something good for us. And because He loves us, He has acted to save us, to make us who were dead “alive together with Christ.” The result of such a mixture of works and grace is that the strong dynamic Biblical concept of God’s grace as God’s love in action was reduced in Augustine’s and the Roman church’s theology to the idea of something infused into man by the sacraments which makes it possible for him to earn eternal life or in Protestant theology to the weak idea of grace as unmerited favor that imputes Christ’s merits to the believer’s account. Grace is no longer grace in these theologies.
Salvation is not by meritorious works, not because a man is not able to do them, but because God does not deal with mankind on the basis of the merit scheme. As Jesus made clear in his parable of the householder (Matt. 20:1-16), God does not act toward us on the basis of our merit but on the basis of His generosity. And because God does not treat mankind according to their desserts, but according to His love, He often puts the least deserving before the more deserving. “The last will be first and the first last.” (Matt. 20:16; 19:30; Mark 10:31; Luke 13:30)
The legalistic misunderstanding of salvation and of the death of Christ is based on and grounded in a legalistic misunderstanding of God. Since legalism is basically an absolutizing of the law, either by identifying God with law or making the law stand by itself apart from God and above God, legalism is fundamentally a misunderstanding of God. It conceives of God entirely in terms of the law. The will and mind of God are subject to the law, whether the law is conceived as existing externally apart from God and above Him or as the eternal and essential nature of God. The law is the eternal, objective order, lex aeterna, to which the will and mind of God conforms as the Lawgiver and Judge. In the legalistic Christian theologies, the law is not external and above God but is internal and in God, the very essential nature of God; God is law. The law is the essential being of God. According to these theologies, God’s will is immutably determined by His eternal and unchanging nature; it is the expression of His essential being. [1] They say that God acts freely in accordance with the inner law of His own essence. They argue that God does not will the good because it is good; for then the good would be above God. Neither is the good because God wills it; for then the good would be arbitrary and changeable. God acts freely but not whimsically; He acts always in accordance with the inner law of His being. [2] Thus God’s being is understood in terms of the law. According to this understanding of God’s being, the holiness of God is misunderstood in terms of the law. They say that the holiness of God is the eternal conformity of His will to His being which is law; it is the purity and moral perfection of God’s being. [3] Holiness is accordingly the fundamental attribute or, more exactly, the consummate infinite moral perfection of all the attributes taken together. Each attribute has its own perfection; holiness is the infinite moral perfection of the whole together. It is not one attribute among others but is the total moral perfection of the Godhead that sets Him transcendently apart from and above all the creatures. As such, holiness is the regulative principle of all of the attributes. Accordingly God’s love is holy love; His power is holy power; His will is a holy will. “Love must have a norm or standard, and this norm or standard can be found only in holiness.” [4] In His eternal and essential nature, God is Holy.
God’s righteousness is also understood legalistically to consist in the conformity to the law of right and wrong. [5] The absolute righteousness of God is the infinite moral perfection of God and as such is equivalent to the holiness of God. In His eternal and essential nature God is righteous. God is immutably determined by the law of His own being to act righteously in His relationships with man. This exercise of the divine will in His relationships to man, as determined by God’s infinite righteous nature, has been called the relative righteousness of God. [6] God’s righteous nature expresses itself in the form of the law and in all its essential principles of right and wrong, the law is an immutable transcript of the divine nature. This relative righteousness of God is called rectorial, when viewed as exercised in administering the affairs of His government, in providing for and governing His creatures. This relative righteousness of God is also called distributive, “when viewed as exercised in giving unto each creature his exact proportionate due of rewards and punishments. It is called punitive or vindicatory when viewed as demanding and inflicting the adequate and proportionate punishment of all sin, because of its intrinsic ill deserts.” [7] God, they say, because of His own eternal and essential righteousness, must reward all good because of its own intrinsic merit (remunerative justice) and He likewise must visit every sin with a proportionate punishment because of its own intrinsic demerit (retributive justice). According to this legalistic theology, to do otherwise God would be unrighteous and unjust. Absolute justice which is the eternal being of God requires and demands the reward of good and the punishment of sin. As the Judge, God shows His righteousness by visiting divine retribution upon sin and unrighteousness. No evildoer can escape; all will receive what is due to them and the precise deserts of their evil. Because of the holiness of the divine nature, God hates sin with a holy revulsion and is impelled by the demands of His righteousness to pour out His wrath. God must display His righteousness in judging and punishing sin; not to do so would be a negative reflection on His righteousness. [8]
There is little place in this view of God for love, mercy, or grace. These were totally absent from the legalistic philosophy of the Greek and Roman philosophers and have little place in the legalistic Christian theologies. [9] In the definition of God in the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the goodness of God is mentioned but the love, mercy, and grace of God are totally absent.
“God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.”
Where love is allowed a place in the legalistic view of God, it is reduced to an affection or emotion which must be subordinated to God’s holiness and righteousness in order not to become sentimentalism, a sympathy which tolerates human imperfection. Legalism not only misunderstands God’s righteousness but also his love; it has misunderstood God.
The Biblical view of God is not this legalistic view. God’s will is not immutably determined by His eternal and unchanging nature. Contrary to these theologies, God’s nature is His sovereign will; He is what he chooses to be (Deut. 32:39; Isa. 45:7; 46:8-11). God is truly free; His choice determines the good. God’s will is not determined by the good; for then the good would be above God. The good is what God wills. And it is not whimsical or arbitrary because it is God who has willed it. “Thy will be done on earth as in heaven” (Matt. 6:10, etc.). “God is love” (I John 4:8, 16); but this does not mean that God had to love; there was no nature or inner necessity that caused God to love. God has freely and sovereignly chosen to be love. God’s will is not determined by His nature; His nature is His will; He chooses what he will be. And God has chosen to be love and He has revealed that choice in the history of the children of Israel and supremely in Jesus Christ, His Son (John 3:16; I John 4:9-10). The true God is a God of sovereign love, not of sovereign justice or law. God does not have to fulfill any condition before he can act in His love to save us; God’s love is truly free and does not have to satisfy a supposed divine justice before He can act in love. God can freely forgive man’s sin because He is not bound by any prior conditions in His nature. And according to the Scriptures, He will forgive when a man will repent and turn from his sin (Ezek. 18:21-23, 32; see also Ezek. 33:11).
ENDNOTES FOR “THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF GOD”
[1] Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1949), p. 154 (question 59), p. 411 (question 13).
[2] Ibid., p. 153 (question 58). See also Henry Clarence Thiessen, Introductory Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1949), p. 129.
[3] A. A. Hodge, Outlines in Theology, p. 163.
[4] A. Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology (Philadelphia: Judson, 1907), vol. 1, p. x. See also Carl F. H. Henry Notes on the Doctrine of God (Boston: W. A. Wide Co., 1948), p. 113.
[5] James I. Packer, “Just, Justify, Justification,” in Baker’s Dictionary of Theology, ed. Everett F. Harrison (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1960), p. 305.
[6] A. A. Hodge, Outline of Theology, p. 154, question 59.
[7] A. A. Hodge, Outline of Theology, p. 154, question 59. (underlining ERS).
[9] Note the brief treatments of the love of God in Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1871); in
A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 1878; in A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, 1907; and in Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1918).
Since the time of Augustine, when legalism succeeded in fastening itself upon the church’s teaching and practice, the church has been caught in the bondage of legalism. For a brief moment at the Reformation this bondage was broken when Martin Luther rediscovered the meaning of the righteousness of God in Paul’s letter to the Romans. This discovery was made at the end of a long and troubled search which began when, at the age of 21, on July 17, 1505, Luther applied for admission to the monastery of the Augustinian Friars known as the Black Cloister because of their black habit. They were also known as the Augustinian Hermits. Having recently been made a Master of Arts at the University of Erfurt, Martin had gone home to Mansfeld on a vacation during the month of June, 1505. On July 2, when returning to Erfurt from Mansfeld, at a distance of about five miles from his university, close to the village of Stotternheim, he was overtaken by a thunderstorm. When one of the lightning bolts nearly struck him, he cried out in terror, “Help, St. Anne, and I’ll become a monk.” Later, in his DeVotis Monasticis (“Concerning Monastic Vows,” 1521) Luther explains his state of mind at that time.
“I was called to this vocation by the terrors of heaven, for neither willingly nor by my own desire did I become a monk; but, surrounded by the terror and agony of a sudden death, I vowed a forced and unvoidable vow.” [1]
Accordingly, he sold his books, bade farewell to his friends, and entered the monastery. Luther observed the canonical regulations as prescribed in the constitution of the Observatine section of the Augustinian Order of Mendicant Monks. He says:
“I was an earnest monk, lived strictly and chastely, would not have taken a penny without the knowledge of the prior, prayed diligently day and night.” [2] “I kept vigil night by night, fasted, prayed, chastised and mortified my body, was obedient, and lived chastely.” [3]
The purpose of it all was justification, being righteous with God.
“When I was a monk, I exhausted myself by fasting, watching, praying, and other fatiguing labors. I seriously believed that I could secure justification through my works…” [4] It is true that I have been a pious monk, and followed my rules so strictly that I may say, if ever a monk could have gained heaven through monkery, I should certainly have got there. This all my fellow-monks who have known me will attest.” [5]
But all these observances did not bring peace to his troubled conscience. He says:
“I was often frightened by the name of Jesus, and when I looked at him hanging on the cross, I fancied that he seemed to me like lightning. When I heard his name mentioned, I would rather have heard the name of the devil, for I thought that I had to perform good works until at last through them Jesus would become merciful to me. In the monastery I did not think about money, worldly possessions, nor women, but my heart shuddered when I wondered when God should become merciful to me.” [6]
Later in 1545, in the famous autobiographical fragment with which he prefaced the Latin edition of his complete works, Luther thus described his feelings:
“For however irreproachably I lived as a monk, I felt myself in the presence of God to be a sinner with a most unquiet conscience, nor could I believe that I pleased him with my satisfactions. I did not love, indeed I hated this just God, if not with open blasphemy, at least with huge murmurings, for I was indignant against him, saying, ‘as if it were really not enough for God that miserable sinners should be eternally lost through original sin, and oppressed with all kind of calamities through the law of the ten commandments, but God must add sorrow on sorrow, and even by the gospel bring his wrath to bear.’ Thus I raged with a fierce and most agitated conscience…” [7]
These inward, spiritual difficulties were intensified by a theological problem. This was the concept of the “righteousness of God” (justitia Dei). His religious background made him intensely aware of the justice of God, and he had learned the Greek concept of justice as found in book 5 of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Thus encouraged by the use of justitia in Gabriel Biel and other nominalists, he thought of God’s justice as being primarily the active, punishing severity of God against sinners as he explains in his exposition of Psalm 51:14 in 1532:
“This term ‘righteousness’ really caused me much trouble. They generally explained that righteousness is the truth by which God deservedly condemns or judges those who have merited evil. In opposition to righteousness they set mercy, by which believers are saved. This explanation is most dangerous, besides being vain, because it arouses a secret hate against God and His righteousness. Who can love Him if He wants to deal with sinners according to righteousness?” [8]
This conception blocked his understanding of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.
“All the while I was aglow with the desire to understand Paul in his letter to the Romans. But … the one expression in chapter one (v.17) concerning the “righteousness of God” blocked the way for me. For I hated the expression ‘righteousness of God’ since I had been instructed by the usage custom of all teachers to understand it according to scholastic philosophy as the ‘formal or active righteousness’ in which God proves Himself righteous by punishing sinners and the unjust…” [9]
But God used this passage of Scripture to change his understanding of the righteousness of God and to solve his inward, spiritual difficulties.
“Finally, after days and nights of wrestling with the difficulty, God had mercy on me, and then I was able to note the connection of the words ‘righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel’ and ‘just shall live by faith.’ Then I began to understand the ‘righteousness of God’ is that through which the righteous lives by the gift (dono) of God, that is, through faith, and that the meaning is this: The Gospel reveals the righteousness of God in a passive sense, that righteousness through which ‘the just shall live by faith.’ Then I felt as if I had been completely reborn and had entered Paradise through widely opened doors. Instantly all Scripture looked different to me. I passed through the Holy Scriptures, so far as I was able to recall them from memory, and gathered a similar sense from other expressions. Thus the ‘work of God’ is that which God works in us; the ‘strength of God’ is that through which He makes us strong; the ‘wisdom of God’ is that through which He makes us wise; and the ‘power of God,’ and ‘blessing of God,’ and ‘honor of God,’ are expressions used in the same way.””As intensely as I had formerly hated the expression ‘righteousness of God’ I now loved and praised it as the sweetest of concepts; and so this passage of Paul was actually the portal of Paradise to me.” [10]
This discovery of the righteousness of God not only brought peace to Luther’s troubled conscience but it was also the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Luther’s protest against the errors of the Roman church stems from this discovery. But his discovery was lost by those who came after him, the Protestant scholastics. Luther’s use of the scholastic distinction of active and passive righteousness of God tended to obscure the Biblical concept of the righteousness of God. Luther obviously rejected the active sense; but the Lutheran Protestant scholastics interpreted Luther as accepting both senses. Because their explanation of the death of Christ was still grounded in the legalistic concept of justice, that is, that Christ died to pay the penalty for man’s sin which the justice of God requires to be paid before God can save man, they had to retain the active sense also. Thus Luther’s discovery of the Biblical understanding of the righteousness of God was obscured and eventually lost.
By identifying the righteousness of God with the passive sense, Luther also gave the impression that the righteousness of God is the righteousness from God, that is, the righteousness man receives from God through faith. The righteousness of God is not the righteousness from God. These are different though related ideas and must be carefully distinguished. Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians,
“8b For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, in order that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith, the righteousness from [ek] God that depends upon [epi] faith, …” (Phil. 3:8b-9).
The righteousness from God is the righteousness of faith (Rom. 4:13) which is that right personal relationship to God that results from faith in the true God (Rom. 4:3). To trust in God is to be righteous (Rom. 4:5). Paul writes in his letter to the Romans,
“3For what does the scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ 4Now to one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift but as his due. 5And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness …. 4:13The promise to Abraham and his descendants, that they should inherit the world, did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.” (Rom. 4:3-5, 13)
As we saw above, the righteousness of God, on the other hand, is God acting to set man right with God Himself and is synonymous with salvation (Ps. 98:2; 71:1-2, 15; 119:123; Isa. 45:8; 46:13; 51:5; 56:1; 61:10; 62:1). Note that the parallelism in these passages clearly shows that the Old Testament writers considered the righteousness of God as synonymous with divine salvation. This righteousness of God has been manifested, that is publicly displayed, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:21-22). God was active in the death and resurrection of Christ for man’s salvation. Because He is the act of God for man’s salvation, Jesus Christ is the righteousness of God (I Cor. 1:30).
The gospel tells us about this manifestation of the righteousness of God or salvation (Eph. 1:13). But also in the gospel the righteousness of God is being continually revealed or made effective and actual (Rom. 1:17). When the gospel is preached, God is acting to set man right with Himself. The result of God’s activity of righteousness is the righteousness of faith, the righteousness from God, since it has been received from God by faith. God in His righteousness sets man right with Himself and through faith man is set right with God; faith rightly relates man to God. The righteousness of God is what God does and the righteousness of faith is what man does in response to God’s activity. The righteousness of faith is the righteousness from God because faith which is man’s response to the word of God, comes from God (Rom. 10:6-8, 17); that is, in a sense, faith is “caused” by the word of God, even though it is man who does the believing and trusting.
Luther’s apparent identification of the righteousness of God with the righteousness from God lead eventually to the equating of the righteousness from God with Christ’s righteousness, that is, the merits of Christ, which is imputed to the believer. Righteousness is misunderstood as merits and the righteousness of God as the justice of God. The idea that the righteousness of God is the justice of God, that is, that attribute of God which requires that God punish all sin and reward all meritorious works, is a legalistic misunderstanding of the righteousness of God. This legalistic misunderstanding reduces and equates righteousness to justice, that is, the giving to each that which is his due with a strict and impartial regard to merit (as in Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics).
ENDNOTES FOR “DELIVERANCE FROM LEGALISM”
[1] Quoted in Albert Hyma, New Light on Martin Luther (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1958), p. 16.
[2] Luther, Commentary on the Gospel of John, ch. VI-VIII, ed., XXXIII, 561. Dated October 21, 1531. Quoted in Hyma, p. 28.
[3] Luther, op. cit., dated October 28, 1531, p. 574. Quoted in Hyma, p. 28.
[4] Luther, Exposition on Psa. XLV, 226. Quoted in Hyma, p. 29.
[5] Luther, Answer to Duke George’s Latest Book, p. 143. Quoted in Hyma, pp. 28-29.
[6] Luther, Sermon on Matthew XVIII-XXIV. Quoted in Hyma, pp. 29-30.
[7] Library of Christian Classics, Vol. XV, Luther: Lectures on Romans (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1961), pp. xxxvi-xxxvii.
[8] What Luther Says, Vol. III, Compiled by Ewald M. Plass, 1961), p. 1225.
[9] What Luther Says, Vol. III, pp. 1225-1226.
Legalism in Christian theology misinterprets the righteousness of God as justice, that is, as that principle of God’s being that requires and demands the reward of good work (conformity to the Law) because of their intrinsic merit (remunerative justice) and the punishment of every transgression of the law with a proportionate punishment because of its own intrinsic demerit (retributive justice). According to this view, for God to do otherwise He would be unrighteous and unjust. Absolute justice, which according to this point of view is the eternal being of God, is said to require and demand, of necessity, the reward of meritorious good works and the punishment of sin. It was this legalistic concept of justice that gave Martin Luther so much trouble.
From this legalistic point of view, man needs to be saved because he is guilty of breaking the law. Salvation is accordingly conceived of as a removal of that guilt. Justice requires that the penalty be paid before the guilt can be removed. It cannot be forgiven freely but only can be taken away by the paying of the penalty which alone can satisfy justice. Because of the enormity of the guilt — it is against an infinite moral being — finite man himself can never pay the penalty and go free. From this legalistic point of view, man’s sin demands an eternal punishment, and being finite man cannot meet the infinite demand of justice. If he is to be saved at all, he must be saved by another — one who is man like himself but without sin, but also one who is God, who alone can meet the infinite demand of justice. Where is such a one to be found? Only God can provide the one, and God has provided the perfect sacrifice to pay the penalty by sending His Son to become man. His death is the perfect sacrifice. It satisfies the justice of God and reconciles God to man. It removes the guilt by paying the penalty. In His death, he endured the eternal punishment due to man’s sin.
But from this legalistic point of view, it is not enough just to be declared not guilty; man must also have a righteousness which merits eternal life. He must not only have no guilt, no demerits, but he must also have a positive righteousness, merits placed to his account. Since man cannot earn this righteousness (merits) himself because of his sinful nature (he is not able not to sin and not able to do righteousness — good works which merit eternal life as a reward), someone must earn this for him. According to this legalistic theology, salvation is not only a vicarious satisfaction of the demands of justice and the law, but it is also vicarious law-keeping. Christ’s life of active obedience under the law before His death on the cross provides the righteousness (merits) we need; Christ earned for us eternal life by His active obedience to the law. And by His passive obedience of death on the cross, He paid for us (vicariously) the penalty of our sins. Therefore, the one who receives in faith Christ’s work for him is declared not guilty, and Christ’s righteousness (the merits of Christ) is imputed to his account. He is justified because Christ has satisfied the demands of justice and the law against him. He is legally entitled to eternal life if he receives it from Christ who earned it for him. Thus salvation is understood legalistically. It is a legal transaction — a fire insurance policy that another paid for and is given freely to man if he will take it.
This is a consistent and logical explanation of the salvation by Christ. There is only one difficulty with it — it is not true. Yes, Christ died for man to take away his sin. The fact of Christ — who He is and what He did — is true, but the explanation is wrong — it is legalistic. Salvation is not by meritorious works, even though another — even God — performs them. God is not the kind of God that the legalist thinks He is. He is not a God of law and justice but a God of love. Yes, God is just, that is, fair, but not in a legalistic sense. God is fair because he loves all men alike and therefore treats them impartially, without regard to their merit (Matt. 5:45). The problem solved by Christ’s death was not in God but in man. God did not have to be reconciled and His justice satisfied before man could be saved. On the contrary, it is man who needs to be reconciled to God; it is man who needs to be changed. Man is dead spiritually and he needs to be made spiritually alive. The problem is in man — he is dead and he needs life. Man does not need a lawyer; he needs someone to raise him from dead. Only God can do that, and He has done it through His Son’s death and resurrection. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself (II Cor. 5:18, 19; see also Rom. 5:10-11) — not reconciling God to the world. And since man sins because he is dead (Rom. 5:12d ERS), by making him alive, God saves him from sin to righteousness. He saves him not just from the guilt of sin but from sin itself. And He saves him not just from breaking the law but from trusting in false gods. God saves man to trust in God Himself — the only real righteousness. Legal righteousness (that is, merits) is not enough. For the real law wants faith, trust in and love of God — “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul and mind.” And since spiritual death is what hinders this and is the barrier between man and God, God removed this hindrance and barrier by the death and resurrection of His Son. He entered into our death so that we could enter into His life — through His resurrection. Being made alive with Christ we can now trust, love, and worship God. So then as sin flows out of death, righteousness flows out of life — out of Jesus Christ who is the life. Life is not some thing; it is a person — Jesus Christ — and to know Him and God through Him is to be alive (John 17:3). And to know Him and His love is to trust Him. This trust in God is a real righteousness ( Rom. 4:5).
The legalistic explanation is a misunderstanding of the righteousness of God and of justification by faith; it is unbiblical and therefore false. The Scripture nowhere speaks of the righteousness or merits of Christ and of justification as an imputation of the merits of Christ to our account. The Greek word (ellogoo) which means “to charge to one’s account” occurs twice in the New Testament (Rom. 5:13; Philemon 18), and in neither occurence is it used to define justification. The introduction of such a legalistic righteousness, even if it means the merits of Christ, into the discussion of the righteousness of God and justification by faith, obscures the grace and love of God, and misunderstands the law as well as the gospel of the grace of God. In principle, the grace of God has nothing to do with legal righteousness and merits. [1] God does not give man His grace so that he can earn merit to gain eternal life nor to declare that he is legally righteous before God by the imputed merits of Christ. Jesus Christ did not in our place satisfy the demands of the law, either in precept or penalty. Christ fulfilled the law (Matt. 5:17), but not for us. Nowhere in the Scripture does it say that Christ fulfilled the law for us. Christ by fulfilling the law did not earn for us a righteousness that could be imputed to our account when we believe. Neither did He fulfill it legalistically. Not because Christ was not able to do it but because God does not in His love and grace operate on the basis of merit or legal righteousness. Christ fulfilled the law by love, for “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:8, 10).
This legalistic concept of righteousness underlies the controversy between Roman and Protestant theology concerning whether righteousness is imparted or imputed in justification. Roman theology asserts that righteousness is imparted when the grace of God is infused into man by the sacraments; this infused grace of God makes it possible for man to do righteousness and thus earn eternal life. Protestant theology has, on the other hand, denied that the grace of God is something infused into man to make it possible for him to earn eternal life. Grace, they said, is not a something infused into man but God’s unmerited favor, and eternal life is a gift by that grace to be received by faith. But this eternal life, they said, was earned by the active obedience of Christ during His life on earth before His death on the cross. This righteousness of Christ which merits eternal life is imputed to the believer’s account when he first believes in Christ. As the result of this imputation, the believer is “clothed” with the righteousness of Christ and thus has a righteous legal standing with God. The believer, they say, does not have any righteousness of his own that can avail before the justice of God; he has only the imputed righteousness or merits of Christ which avail with God. The believer is thus treated as if he has righteousness. The opponents of this view have called this imputed righteousness “a legal fiction” because the believer has no real righteousness of his own.
But as was shown above, both of these doctrines are unbiblical and legalistic; both the Roman and Protestant doctrines are based on legalistic misunderstanding of righteousness. As we have seen, the righteousness of God is the act or activity of God whereby God sets man right with God Himself. Hence, the revelation of the righteousness of God is this act of setting right, and this act of setting right is justification. Justification is not just a pronouncement about something but is an act that brings about something. It is not just a declaration that a man is righteous before God but is a setting of a man right with God: that is, it is a bringing him into a right personal relationship with God. Justification is then essentially salvation: to justify is to save (Isa. 45:25; 53:11; see Rom. 6:7 where dikaioo is translated “freed” in RSV). The righteousness of God (=salvation) has been manifested (publicily displayed) in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:21-26). The gospel tells us about this act of God, about this manifestation of the righteousness of God. But also in the preaching of the gospel, the righteousness of God is being continually revealed or actualized (Rom. 1:17). That is, God is exerting His power for the salvation of man in the preaching of the gospel (Rom. 1:16). This revelation of the righteousness of God (Rom. 1:17) is justification (Rom. 3:24). The results of this act of God is not a legal fiction, a legal relationship, but real personal relationship to God, spiritual and eternal life. Justification is not just a legal declaration or imputation of Christ’s righteousness, the merits earned by Christ’s active obedience, but the act or activity of God that saves one from death to life, and from sin (trust in a false god) to righteousness (faith and trust in the true God), and from wrath to peace with God through faith in the death and resurrection of Christ (Rom. 3:24-25).
Justification is the free act of God’s grace (Rom. 3:24; Titus 3:7). The source of justification is the love of God. And the love of God in action to bring man salvation is the grace of God (Titus 2:11). Hence justification is the true expression of the grace of God and the act of the love of God. Because justification is a gift (Rom. 3:24; 5:15-17), justification is free and is not something that can be earned ( Rom. 4:4; 11:6). Being a free act of God’s grace, justification has nothing to do with the works of the law (Rom. 3:20, 28; 4:5; Gal. 2:16; 3:11; see also Eph. 2:8-9; Phil. 3:9; II Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5). Grace and works (merits) are mutually exclusive and are opposed to each other.
“But if it is by grace, it is no more on basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.” (Rom. 11:6)
The attempt to combine them reduces grace to something that is not grace. The grace of God is no longer God’s love in action to set man right with God Himself, but is something given in the sacraments so that one is enabled to earn salvation, or the unmerited favor of God that imputes the merits of Christ to the account of the believing sinner. God does not give man His grace so that he can earn merits by his works to gain eternal life nor to declare that he is legally righteous before God, entitled to eternal life. The grace of God is God’s love in action giving eternal life to be received by faith; the grace of God makes the spiritually dead alive, setting them right with God, saving them from death to life. Eternal life is the gift of His grace and it is received by faith. Justification is the act of God’s grace putting the believer into right personal relationship with God, and faith relates the believer rightly with God.