legalism3
LEGALISM
CONTINUED
by Ray Shelton
The Augustinian doctrine of original sin is legalistic because it presupposes a legalistic understanding of sin and death. According to the legalistic point of view, all sin is a transgression of the law, a crime, and death is always the punishment for those crimes. Death is always the result of or, in legalistic terms, the penalty of sin; death is the just reward of our sins. But the Augustinian doctrine of original sin is also legalistic because it assumes a legalistic understanding 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 a sinner by nature. By this he meant that man is not able not to sin and not able to do meritorious good works because he has inherited a sinful nature 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. He like Pelagius assumes that salvation must be earned, but since we are sinners by nature, he said that we need God’s special grace to enable us to do so. Thus salvation as well as the need for salvation were 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 by our works but the meritorious works of another, Jesus Christ. It was a vicarious salvation by works. Thus salvation as well as the need for salvation were 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 ( Rom. 11:6). Paul very clearly teaches that salvation is not by works.
“2:8For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, 2:9not as a result of works, that no one should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 NAS).
“3:4But when the kindness and love of God our Savior for man appeared, 3:5He saved us, not by works of righteousness which we done, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, 3:6whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, 3:7that being justified by His grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:4-7 ERS)
Salvation is by grace through faith. Man cannot be saved by his good works; he cannot earn salvation by his works. This is the clear and explicit teaching of Scripture. But not only is salvation by grace but it is also not by meritorious works. Salvation by grace and salvation by meritorious works are mutually exclusive and opposing ways of salvation.
“But if it is by grace, it is no longer by works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.” (Rom. 11:6)
Thus salvation by grace and salvation by meritorious works must not be mixed. The result of such a mixture is that the strong dynamic Biblical concept of God’s grace as God’s love in action is 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. 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)
Legalism 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 (comformity 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 legalistic 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. 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 at Erfurt 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 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 not only brought peace to Luther’s troubled conscience but it was 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 between active and passive righteousness 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 gave the impression that the righteousness of God is the righteousness from God, that is, the righteousness man receives from God through faith. But the righteousness from God is not the righteousness of God. These are different though related ideas and must be carefully distinguished. The righteousness from God is the righteousness of faith (Phil. 3:9), because God reckons faith as righteousness ( Rom. 4:3-5). Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians,
“3:8bFor his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, in order that I may gain Christ 3:9and 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).
This 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,
“4:3For what does the scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ 4:4Now to one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift but as his due. 4:5And 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)
That is, the righteousness of faith is not merit placed to the account of the believer, but the right relationship of the believer to God by faith. And this righteousness of faith is the righteousness from God. The righteousness of faith is the act or choice of a man to trust God and the righteousness of God is the act or activity of God to set a man right with God Himself by faith. Since this act of faith by a man is possible only when God acts to set a man right with God Himself, the righteousness of faith is the righteousness from God ( Phil. 3:9).
Luther’s apparent identification of the righteousness of God with the righteousness from God led eventually to the equating of the righteousness from God with Christ’s righteousness, that is, the merits earned by Christ’s active obedience under law and is imputed to the believer’s account when he believes. And the righteousness of God was then equated with the justice of God, that is, that attribute of God which requires that God punish all sin and reward all meritorious works.
But the righteousness of God is not the justice of God, but is God acting to set man right with God Himself and is synonymous with salvation. The Biblical concept of the righteousness of God is the act or activity of God whereby He puts or sets right that which is wrong. [11] In the Scriptures, the righteousness of God is not an attribute of God whereby He must render to each what is he has merited nor a quantity of merit which God gives, but is the act or activity of God whereby He puts or sets right that which is wrong. Very often in the Old Testament it is the action of God for the vindication and deliverance of His people; it is the activity in which God saves His people by rescuing them from their oppressors.
“In thee, O Lord, do I seek refuge; let me never be put to shame; in thy righteousness deliver me!” (Psa. 31:1)
“In thy righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline thy ear to me, and save me!” (Psa. 71:2)
“143:11For thy name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life! In thy righteousness bring me out of trouble! 143:12And in thy steadfast love cut off my enemies. and destroy all my adversaries, for I am thy servant.” (Psa. 143:11-12)
Thus the righteousness of God is often a synonym for the salvation or the deliverance of God. In the Old Testament this is clearly shown by the literary device of parallelism which is a characteristic of Hebrew poetry. [12]. Parallelism is that Hebrew literary device in which the thought and idea in one clause is repeated and amplified in a second and following clause. This parallelism of Hebrew poetry clearly shows that Hebrew poets and prophets made the righteousness of God synonymous with divine salvation:
“The Lord hath made known His salvation: His righteousness hath he openly showed in the sight of the heathen.” (Psa. 98:2 KJV)
“I bring near my righteousness, it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry; and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory.” (Isa. 46:13 KJV)
“My righteousness is near, my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust.” (Isa. 51:5 KJV)
“Thus saith the Lord, keep ye judgment and do justice [righteousness]: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed.” (Isa. 56:1 KJV; See also Psa. 71:1-2, 15; 119:123; Isa. 45:8; 61:10; 62:1)
From these verses it is clear that righteousness of God is a synonym for the salvation or deliverance of God.
Very often in the Old Testament the Hebrew nouns, tsedeq and tsedaqah, translated “righteousness,” is derived from the Hebrew verb, tsadaq. [13] Although the Hebrew verb is usually translated “to be righteous” or “to be justified,” the verb has the primary meaning “to be in the right” rather than “to be righteous.” (Gen. 38:26; Job 11:2; 34:5) [14] The causative form of the verb hitsdiq generally translated “to justify” means not “to make righteous” nor “to declare righteous” but rather “to put in the right” or “to set right.” (Ezekiel 16:51-55). Thus it very often has the meaning “to vindicate” or “to give redress to” a person who has suffered wrong. Thus the Hebrew noun tsedeq usually translated “righteousness” means an act of vindication or of giving redress. When applied to God, the righteousness of God is God acting to put right the wrong, hence to vindicate and deliver the oppressed. Thus the Biblical concept of the righteousness of God is the act or activity of God whereby He puts or sets right that which is wrong.
The righteous acts of the Lord, or more literally, the righteousnesses of the Lord, referred to in Judges 5:11; I Sam. 12:7-11; Micah 6:3-5; Psa. 103:6-8; Dan. 9:15-16, means the acts of vindication or deliverance which the Lord has done for His people, giving them victory over their enemies. It is in this sense that God is called “a righteous God and a Savior” (Isa. 45:21 RSV, NAS, NIV) and “the Lord our righteousness” (Jer. 23:5-6; 33:15-16).
A judge or ruler is “righteous” in the Hebrew meaning of the word not because he observes and upholds an abstract standard of Justice, but rather because he comes to the assistance of the injured person and vindicates him. For example, in Psalm 82:2-4 (NAS):
“82:2How long will you judge unjustly And show partiality to the wicked? 82:3Vindicate the weak and fatherless; Do justice [judgment] to the afflicted and destitute. 82:4Rescue the weak and needy; Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.”
(Psalm 82:2-4 NAS; See also Psa. 72:4; 76:9; 103:6; 146:7; Isa. 1:17.)
For the judge to act this way is to show righteousness. (See Psa. 72:1-3.) A judge in the Old Testament is not one whose business it is to interpret the existing law or to give an impartial verdict in accordance with the established law of the land, but rather he is a deliverer and thus a leader and savior as in the book of Judges (Judges 1:16-17; 3:9-10). His duty and delight is to set things right, to right the wrong; his “judgments” are not words but acts, not legal verdicts but the very active use of God’s right arm. The two functions of a judge are given in Psalm 75:7 (NAS):
“But God is the judge: he puts down one and exalts another.” (Psalm 75:7 NAS).
Since this is a statement concerning God as a judge, it could be taken as a general definition of a Biblical judge. In Psa. 72:1-4 these two functions of Biblical judge are given to the king of Israel.
“72:1Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king’s son. 72:2May he judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment. 72:3The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. 72:4He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and break in pieces the oppressor.” (Psa. 72:1-4 KJV)
These same two functions are ascribed to the future ruler of Israel, the Messiah, according to Isaiah 11:3-5 (RSV).
“11:3And His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what His ears hear;
11:4but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and He shall smite the earth with a rod of His mouth; and with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked. 11:5Righteousness shall be the girdle of His waist, and faithfulness the girdle of His loins.” (Isa. 11:3-5 RSV)
His righteousness is shown in His judging the poor, that is, in the vindication of those who are the victims of evil, the poor and meek of the earth, and in the smiting of the wicked who oppress them.
The righteousness of God is not opposed to the love of God nor does it condition it. On the contrary, it is a part of and the proper expression of God’s love. It is the activity of God’s love to set right the wrong. In the Old Testament this is shown by the parallelism between love and righteousness.
“But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear him, and His righteousness to children’s children.” (Psa. 103:17). (See also Psa. 33:5; 36:5-6; 40:10; 89:14.)
God expresses His love as righteousness in the activity by which He saves His people from their sins. In His wrath He opposes the sin that would destroy man whom He loves. In His grace, He removes the sin: the grace of God is the love of God in action to bring salvation ( Titus 2:11; Eph. 2:8). Thus the righteousness of God may be considered as the proper expression of the grace of God. For in His righteousness God acts to deliver His people from their sins, setting them right with Himself.
There is a difference between the righteousness of God in the Old Testament and that in the New Testament. In the Old Testament the righteousness of God is the vindication of the righteous who are suffering wrong (Ex. 23:7). God vindicates the righteous who are wrongfully oppressed. In the Old Testament, the righteousness of God requires a real righteousness of the people on whose part it is done. In Isa. 51:7, the promise of deliverance is addressed to those “who know righteousness, the people in whose hearts is my law.” Similarly, in order to share in the promised vindication, the wicked must forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and return unto the Lord (Isa. 55:7). In the New Testament, the righteousness of God is not only a vindication of a righteous people who are being wrongfully oppressed (this view is in Jesus’ teaching in Matt. 5:6; 6:33; Luke 18:7), but also a deliverance of the people from their own sins; it is also the salvation of the ungodly who are delivered from their ungodliness (trust in a false god) and unrighteousness. The righteousness of God saves the unrighteous by setting them right with God Himself through faith (Rom. 1:17a).
This Biblical concept of the righteousness of God must be carefully distinguished from the Greek-Roman concept of justice. The righteousness of God in the Scriptures is not an attribute of God whereby He must render to each what he has merited nor a quantity of merit which God gives, but God acting to set right man with God Himself. 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 Christ earned by His active obedience before He died on the cross and is imputed to the believer’s account. 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 Biblical concept of the righteousness of God. This legalistic misunderstanding reduces and equates the righteousness of God to justice, that is, the giving to each that which is his due to them with a strict and impartial regard to merit (as in Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics). It is this concept of righteousness that gave Luther so much trouble.
In the English language, the use of “justify” to translate the Greek verb dikaioo and the use of “justification” to translate the Greek verbal noun dikaiosis seems to imply that the righteousness of God is the Greek-Roman concept of justice. The English language has no verbal noun or verb of the same root as the English word “righteousness” to translate the Greek verbal noun or verb. This deficiency of the English language does not mean that the righteousness of God is the Greek-Roman concept of justice.
The Biblical concept of the righteousness of God is God acting in love for the salvation or deliverance of man. 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 Jesus Christ, particularly in His death and resurrection, for salvation (Acts 4:12; I Thess. 5:9; I Tim. 2:10; 3:15; Heb. 5:9). Because He is the act of God for our salvation, Jesus Christ is the righteousness of God (I Cor. 1:30). The gospel or good news is about this manifestation of the righteousness of God. The gospel tells us about God’s act of salvation in the person and work of Jesus Christ (I Cor. 15:3-4; Eph. 1:13).
But the gospel is not only about the righteousness of God manifested in the past on our behalf, but in the preaching of the gospel the righteousness of God is being continually revealed (apokalupto) in the present.
“For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is being revealed from faith unto faith” (Rom. 1:17a ERS).
The revelation that is spoken of in this verse is not just a disclosure of truth to be understood by the mind, but it is a working that makes effective and actual that which is revealed. Hence, the revelation of the righteousness of God is that working of God that makes effective and actual that which is revealed, that is, the righteousness of God. [15] In other words, the revelation of the righteousness of God is the actualization of God’s salvation. And the righteousness of God is revealed when the salvation of God is made actual and real, that is, when salvation or deliverance takes place. Thus in the preaching of the gospel there is taking place continually an actualization of the righteousness of God. In other words, salvation or deliverance is taking place as the gospel is preached. This is the reason that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16. Compare Rom. 1:16-17 with Isa. 56:1 which is, no doubt, the source of Paul’s concepts and words in these verses.)
The gospel not only tells us about this manifestation of the righteousness of God, but also in the gospel the righteousness of God is being continually revealed or made effective and actual (Rom. 1:17a). 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.
But from the 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. Accordinng to Christian legalism, 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 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 by 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. And 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 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 that is 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 and he needs to be made 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 the dead. Only God can do that, and God the Father 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, “because of which [death] all sinned” 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 (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 death is what hinders this, 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 to God with Him, 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, but 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.
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 called justification (Rom. 4:25; 5:18). Justification is not just a pronouncement or declaration about something but it is an act that brings about something; it is not just a judical declaration that a man is righteous before God but is a setting of a man right with God: a bringing him into a right relationship with God. Justification is then essentially salvation: to justify is to save, to justify the ungodly.
“And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.” (Rom. 4:5)
(Isa. 45:25; 53:11; see Rom. 6:7 where dikaioo is translated “freed” in RSV).
This close relationship between these two concepts of righteousnness and justification is more obvious in the Greek because the words translated “justification” and “righteousness” have the same roots, not two different roots as do the two English words. (See my Word Study on “righteousness”.) The Greek verbal noun dikaiosis, translated “justification” occurs in the New Testament twice only at Romans 4:25 and 5:19. The majority of occurences of the Greek verb dikaioun usually translated “justify” is in Paul’s letters to the Romans (fifteen times) and Galations (eight times). Outside the Pauline letters, the Greek verb is found in the New Testament eleven times in all, and most of these occurences are not relevant to the theological issue. James is the only New Testament writer besides Paul who explicitly discusses justification, and he clearly does not mean what Paul meant by it. Thus, the doctrine of justification is peculiar to Paul, although the basic idea which Paul expounded by means of it is fundamental to the whole New Testament and was taught by Jesus Himself. Instead of a doctrine of salvation by one’s own merits and works, Jesus Himself taught a doctrine of justification of sinners by the righteousness of God. It is the theme of such parables as the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32; note that the Pharisaic doctrine of merit upheld by the elder son, vv. 25-39), the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:9-14; note the Greek verb dedikaomenos in verse 14), the Laborers in the Vineyard (Mat. 20:1-16), and the Great Supper (Luke 14:16-24). Paul alone of the New Testament writers picked up and developed the Isaianic concept of divine righteousness (Isa. 53:11), which works salvation. Paul conceived of the righteousness of God, after the manner of Isaiah, as an energizing power of God (Rom. 1:16-17) that sets a man right with God, saving him by faith.
The revelation of the righteousness of God (Rom. 1:17) is justification (Rom. 3:24). 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 called justification.
Justification is by the grace of God.
“3:24Being justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, 3:25whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood.” (Rom. 3:24-25 ERS),
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.
“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared,to all men.” (Titus 2:11 NIV).
Hence justification is the true expression of the grace of God and is 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). The whole legalistic theology is a misunderstanding of the righteousness of God and justification by faith, and is therefore unbiblical and 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 of justification by faith obscures the grace 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. 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. Neither was eternal life earned by the active obedience of Jesus Christ nor did Jesus Christ satisfy the demands of the law, either in precept or penalty, in our place. 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. 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 law or legal righteousness. Christ fulfilled it by love, for “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:8, 10).
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END NOTES
[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
Weimer ed., XXXIII, 561. Dated 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, p. 29.
[5] Luther, Answer to Duke George’s Latest Book
quoted in Hyma, pp. 28-29.
[6] Luther, Sermon on Matthew XVIII-XXIV, 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,
Complied by Ewald M. Plass
(St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), p. 1225.
[9] What Luther Says, Vol. III, p. 1225-1225.
[11] Alan Richardson,
An Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament,
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), pp. 79-83, 232-233.
[12] Edward J. Young, An Introduction to the Old Testament
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1950), pp. 281-282.
See also Gleason L. Archer, Jr., A Survey of Old Testament Introduction,
(Chicago: Moody Press, 1964), pp. 418-420.
[13] C. H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans
(London and Glasgow: Fontana Books, 1959), p. 38.
[14] C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks
(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1964), p. 46.
[15] Burton on Galations in the ICC in contrasting phaneroo and apokalupto points out that
“for some reason apokalupto has evidently come to be used especially of a subjective revelation, which either takes place wholly within the mind of the individual receiving it, or is subjective in the sense that it is accompanied by actual perception and results in knowledge on his part:
Rom. 8:18; I Cor. 2:10; 14:30; Eph. 3:5.”
Ernest deWitt Burton,
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galations, in
The International Critical Commentary
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896), p. 433.
He goes on to say that
“phaneroo throws emphasis on the fact that that
which is manifested is objectively clear, open to perception.
It is thus suitably used of an open and public announcement, disclosure or exhibition:
I Cor. 4:5; II Cor. 2:14; 4:10-11; Eph. 5:13.” Ibid.
The use of the word apokalupto by Paul in Rom. 1:17 thus seems to place an emphasis on something happening to the individual receiving the revelation. The word “subjective” is probably not the right word to use to describe this event because it suggests that the source of revelation is from within the individual, the subject. Clearly the revelation that Paul is speaking of is from without the individual, and from God. But it does make a difference, a change; a response does take place in the person receiving the revelation. It does bring about that which is revealed, salvation.