Justification by Faith Alone
This article was first published in The New
Southern Presbyterian Review, edited by Wayne Rogers (Spring 2005). It
is an excellent treatment of the Reformed Doctrine of Justification.
Justification by
Faith Alone
By W. Gary Crampton, Th.D.
The doctrine of justification by grace alone (sola
gratia), through faith alone (sola fide), by Christ alone (solus
Christus) was at the very heart of the Reformation. Martin Luther
called it the article by which the church stands or falls. Calvin
referred to is as “the main hinge on which religion turns,” and “the sum
of all piety.”
The Roman Catholic Church, at the Counsel of Trent (1546-1563),
recognized the doctrine of justification as the central doctrine at
issue between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. In the words of John
Gerstner, “this doctrine is the core of the gospel; it is
indispensable.”
The Protestant church stood upon this major tenet of Christianity,
whereas Roman Catholicism fell away by rejecting it.
Basically, there are five prominent, different,
and conflicting views regarding this doctrine: liberalism,
neo-orthodoxy, antinomianism, Roman Catholicism, and biblical
evangelicalism.
The first view, liberalism, denies the need of faith in Jesus Christ for
salvation; whereas the remaining four views claim that a profession of
faith in Christ as Savior is necessary. The liberal may have faith in a
number of things, especially himself, but he does not believe that there
is need of Christ as Savior. As J. Gresham Machen pointed out in his
book Christianity and Liberalism,
liberalism is a works righteousness religion; whatever salvation is
necessary, it can be earned by one’s own efforts. Liberalism is a form
of Pelagianism, and it should not be considered to be Christian in the
biblical sense of the word.
Second, there is neo-orthodoxy, which is
sometimes referred to as the “theology of paradox.”
Neo-orthodoxy is a theological movement which denounces both liberalism
and orthodoxy, and attempts to bridge the gap between the two. It is a
failed attempt. Here there is an alleged need for faith in Jesus Christ
for salvation, but there is a great deal of ambiguity as to who Christ
is. Is He truly God, and a member of the Trinity? There is no definitive
answer within the neo-orthodox camp. So we must ask, in whom then are we
putting our faith? It seems that we are left with a logical paradox,
both with our faith and the object of our faith. Further, in
neo-orthodoxy “saving” faith is not necessarily followed by good works.
A person can genuinely profess faith in Jesus Christ without his life
being changed to the point where he is truly walking in accordance with
the commandments of Jesus Christ. This is another gospel altogether.
Neo-orthodoxy is not Christianity.
Third, antinomianism, which is predominantly
found in Dispensationalism (although it is by no means restricted to
it), avers that justification is by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.
Antinomians also stress the “fiducial” nature of saving faith in Jesus
Christ as He is revealed in Scripture. Some explanation is in order:
First, not all faith is justifying faith. There are several kinds of
faith spoken of in Scripture, only one of which is genuine faith.
Historical faith is one kind of non-justifying faith. All that is
involved here is an historical assent to the truth claims of the gospel.
Even the demons have this kind of faith (James 2:19). Scripture also
speaks of a temporary faith, which is non-justifying. This kind of faith
does not endure. Temporary faith comes and goes, and it leaves in times
of persecution (Matthew 13:20-21). Then there is miraculous faith, which
believes in or even performs signs and miracles (1 Corinthians 13:2).
Paul tells us that even the Antichrist can perform such “lying wonders”
(2 Thessalonians 2:9). This too is a non-justifying faith. Second,
orthodox Christianity maintains that justifying faith involves three
elements: knowledge (notitia), assent (assensus), and
trust (fiducia). It is not enough to know the truth about Jesus
Christ; nor is it sufficient to merely assent to the gospel message (as
in historical faith), as essential as these are. Saving faith is that
which also wholeheartedly acquiesces to the Christ revealed in
Scripture. Biblical conversion involves a whole-souled commitment.
Justifying faith is a faith that makes a fiducial response to the gospel
promises. It is a faith that endures (Matthew 10:22), and puts no trust
in signs and wonders (John 6:26-29). It is a faith that produces
spiritual fruit, “some thirty-fold, some sixty-fold, and some a hundred”
(Mark 4:20). In general, this is taught, and correctly so, by
antinomians.
Where is the error in this system of thought? It
is in the defective view of the necessity of good works. A denial of the
necessity of good works in the process of sanctification following
justification, is a denial of genuine saving faith, for “faith without
works is dead” (James 2:26). This is not to say that antinomians
are opposed to good works; many of them are zealous for good works. But
when the antinomian school asserts that there can be justification by
faith without “necessary” good works, it vitiates the doctrine of
justification by faith, for a non-working faith is not saving faith.
Antinomianism, then, is another gospel.
Fourth, is Roman Catholicism. First, whereas in
biblical Christianity, as stated in the Westminster Shorter Catechism
(Q. 33), “justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein He
pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in His sight, only for
the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith
alone,” in the Roman view justification is infused into the
believer who thereby becomes righteous.
The believer, then, may lose his state of justification by falling away
from the faith. This is a false view of justification.
And second, in Romanism one is justified by faith
plus works.
The faith required in Roman Catholic dogma is more intellectualistic
than fiducial, and what is worse, meritorious good works are said to
complete faith; the works are prior to justification, rather than
following after justification. Works become foundational for
justification; they are not “necessary” good works, they are meritorious
good works. The believing sinner is able to achieve his own
justification; he earns his salvation. This, of course, is a fatally
erroneous teaching.
Fifth is evangelical Christianity, which teaches
that justification is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ
alone. The evangelical view is admirably expressed in the Westminster
Confession of Faith (11:1-2):
Those whom God effectually calls, He also freely justifies: not by
infusing righteousness into them [as in Roman Catholicism], but by
pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as
righteous, not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for
Christ’s sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing,
or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness, but
by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they
receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith; which faith
they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.
Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is
the alone instrument of justification; yet it is not alone in the person
justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is
no dead faith, but works by love.
It is clear that when the Westminster divines
speak of justification by faith alone, they are not saying that faith is
in any sense meritorious. Faith is that which unites one to Christ who
alone saves. Faith means trusting in Christ who alone justifies.
Justification is by God’s grace (sola gratia), through faith (sola
fide). As stated by the Confession (11:2), faith “is the
alone instrument of justification,” not the cause of it.
Further, justification is forensic; it is a legal
act. Justification is imputed, not infused (as in Roman Catholicism). As
Paul teaches in 2 Corinthians 5:21, it is an alien righteousness which
justifies; it is Christ’s righteousness: “For He [God the Father] made
Him [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him [Christ].” The guilty sinner is “declared”
righteous, in Christ, by God. And notice is also made that the
evangelical position teaches, as per 2 Corinthians 5:21, that
there is a double imputation which occurs in justification. Christ’s
righteousness is imputed to the elect, while at the same time, their
sins are imputed to Him. It is not enough that the elect sinner be
forgiven (his sins taken away), he must also be declared righteous as
the perfect righteousness of Christ is imputed to him. Again to cite the
Shorter Catechism (Q. 33), in justification, not only does God
“pardon all our sins,” but He also “accepts us as righteous in His
sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received
by faith alone.”
Evangelicalism also teaches that a genuine saving
faith involves a fiducial response to Jesus Christ, the Son of God and
Son of Man, “as He is offered to us in the gospel.”
As explained by the Westminster Larger Catechism (Q. 72):
Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by
the Spirit and Word of God, whereby he, being convinced of his sin and
misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to
recover him out of his lost condition, not only assents to the
truth of the promise of the gospel, but receives and rests upon
Christ and His righteousness, therein held forth, for pardon of sin, and
for the accepting and accounting of His person righteous in the sight of
God for salvation.
And as taught in the Confession (11:2),
evangelicalism maintains that although justification is by grace alone
through faith alone, a justifying faith is “not alone in the person
justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is
no dead faith, but works by love.” That is, saving faith will yield good
works: “The root of the righteous yields fruit” (Proverbs 12:12).
Justifying faith is not faith plus works (as in Roman Catholicism), nor
is it faith without works (as in antinomianism); it is faith that works.
The works, however, are not works of merit, but of necessity. Saving
faith will “necessarily” produce good works, because justification and
sanctification are inseparable. The Genevan Reformer, John Calvin,
stressed the importance of both justification and sanctification (which
involves “necessary” good works). According to Calvin, justification and
sanctification are inseparably related; sanctification necessarily flows
from justification:
Christ justifies no one whom He does not sanctify at the same time….Thus
it is clear how true it is that we are justified not without works yet
not through works, since our sharing in Christ, which justifies us,
sanctification is just as much included as righteousness…the Lord freely
justifies His own in order that He may at the same time restore them to
true righteousness by sanctification of His Spirit.
And further stressing the necessity of good
works, he commented:
But although works tend in no way to the cause of justification, yet
when the elect sons of God were justified freely by faith, at the same
time their works are esteemed righteous by the same gratuitous
liberality. Thus, it still remains true, that faith without works
justifies, although this needs prudence and a sound interpretation; for
this proposition, that faith without works justifies is true and yet
false, according to the different senses which it bears. The proposition
that faith without works justifies by itself is false, because faith
without is void.
Jonathan Edwards on Justification by Faith
Alone
No one ever set forth a more biblical explanation
of this doctrine than did Jonathan Edwards, in his sermon on Romans
4:5: “But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies
the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,” titled
“Justification by Faith Alone.” Soli Deo Gloria has published this
sermon,
which was originally preached as a series of sermons in 1734, and was
used by God to trigger the Awakening of 1734-1735. In this book,
Edwards’ sermon is arranged in six chapters, wherein, after introducing
the doctrine, he studies the meaning of the doctrine, the proof of the
doctrine, the relationship between obedience and saving faith, various
objections to the doctrine, and the importance of this doctrine. It is
the intent of this article to study the New England divine’s doctrine of
sola fide by using this book, while at the same time buttressing
our study by some of his other works.
As we will see, the New England Puritan’s work is
in accord with the Reformational teaching set forth in the Westminster
Standards, comprised of the Westminster Confession of Faith (his
“favorite creed”),
and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms. Edwards subscribed
to the theology of these Standards;
they were his “dogmatic heritage,” which he adhered to,
the “existing foundations” from which he worked.
As noted by Samuel Logan, when Edwards began this
sermon, there were two major problems that faced him and his
congregation: Arminianism and Antinomianism,
the same problems which face the church of the early 21st
century. First, Arminianism denounces all of the “five points” of
Calvinism: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement,
irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints.
But Arminianism also asserts that one’s good works precede
justification, thereby making them meritorious. This is the same error
we see in Roman Catholicism.
This being so, Edwards and the Puritans in
general, considered Arminianism, properly understood, as “another
gospel.”
C. C. Goen referred to “the Arminian threat” as “a subtle form of
salvation by works.”
Arminianism was considered to be a form of Neonomianism, where faith is
seen “as a new kind of obedience, and the gospel as a new kind of law.”
And the “grace sufficient for salvation is viewed as conditional on the
human performance of faith.” Herein the gospel it turned into law, and
faith is turned into obedience.
Early in his life, Edwards had written his
Master’s thesis at Yale on the subject of justification, titled “A
Sinner is not Justified in the Sight of God Except Through the
Righteousness of Christ Obtained by Faith,” wherein he argued against
the Arminian or Neonomian scheme of “justification by sincere
obedience.”
Later in his life he continued to see the danger of the Arminian view of
justification. In this errant theology, he wrote, “men’s salvation is
attributed wholly and entirely to men,” and “none at all of the praise
of it is due to God…..By them [the Arminians], salvation is so far from
God that it is God that gives opportunity to obtain salvation, it is God
who gives the offer and makes the promises; but the obtaining the thing
promised is of men.”
It is “another gospel,” which is “pernicious and fatal” (146, 154).
Therefore, commented Logan, “Edwards’s remarks on the doctrine of
justification by faith alone must be understood, in at least one sense,
as his response to a genuine Arminian challenge.”
Second, the sermon under study must be understood
in light of the challenge of antinomianism. As noted, to deny the
“necessity” of good works is just as much another gospel is asserting
the meritorious nature of works. This is precisely the view explained by
the Westminster Confession of Faith (11:2): Saving faith “is
never alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all
other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but works by love.”
Commenting on the necessity of good works, Gordon Clark wrote: “Faith is
the root and works are the fruit. We cannot be saved without them [good
works].”
Edwards was of the same opinion. In a sermon on
Genesis 6:22, he preached: “Men cannot be saved for any works of theirs,
and yet they are not saved without works.”
Wrote Logan: “The matter of the necessity and visible relationship
between justification and sanctification remained critical for Edwards”
throughout his ministry.
John Gerstner claimed that “of the twelve hundred plus sermons that
Edwards wrote, I estimate that sanctification was the central and most
emphasized theme.”
In fact, so thorough and penetrating is the New England theologian’s
exposition and analysis of this aspect of soteriology, that some
scholars, such as Thomas Schafer, have suggested that Edwards confutes
and conflates justification and sanctification.
But this is not the case at all. As Conrad Cherry pointed out, “it is
indeed true that Edwards makes faith and justification by faith
dependent on a type of sanctification,” but the “sanctification upon
which the act of faith (through which one is justified) is dependent, is
the gift of God’s Spirit which resides within man as the principle of
his act.”
Morimoto agreed: Edwards was “in agreement with the standard
understanding of the Reformed ordo salutis [order of salvation].
While recognizing the essential continuity, Edwards distinguishes
sanctification from regeneration and places it after justification.”
Jonathan Edwards, in contradistinction to the
Antinomianism of his day, and in full agreement with Calvin and the
Westminster divines before him, boldly stood for the biblical doctrine
of the inseparable relationship between justification and
sanctification, both of which are dependent on the grace of God, in
Christ. Whereas in justification, Christ’s righteousness is imputed, in
sanctification it is infused.
As taught in the Westminster Larger Catechism (Q. 77), “although
sanctification be inseparably joined with justification, yet they
differ, in that God in justification imputes the righteousness of
Christ, in sanctification, He infuses grace, and enables to the exercise
thereof.” Said Edwards:
There is a two-fold righteousness that the saints have: an imputed
righteousness, and it is this only that avails anything to
justification; and an inherent righteousness, that is, that holiness and
grace which is in the hearts and lives of the saints. This is Christ’s
righteousness as well as imputed: imputed righteousness is Christ’s
righteousness accepted for them, inherent holiness is Christ’s
righteousness communicated to them.
This inseparable relationship of justification
and sanctification is very evident in his sermon series on Romans
4:5.
In chapter 1, “The Introduction to the Doctrine”
(1-4), Edwards begins by clearly teaching that “justification respects a
man as ungodly.” God, “in the act of justification, has no regard for
anything in the person justified, such as godliness or any goodness in
him, but that immediately before this act God sees him only as an
ungodly creature.” He goes on to preach that Romans 4:5 makes it
abundantly clear “that gospel grace consists in the reward being given
without works,” and this means that, “not only works of the ceremonial
law are excluded in this business of justification, but works of
morality and godliness” as well. “It is evident,” said the New England
divine, “that the subject of justification is looked upon as destitute
of any righteousness in himself,” and that “God, in His sovereign
grace,” is pleased to “impute” or “reckon” or “count” the righteousness
of another (Christ) to the sinner. And this is done by means of faith
alone in Jesus Christ. The main doctrine is thereby set forth: “We are
justified only by faith in Christ, not by any manner of virtue or
goodness of our own” (1-4). Elect sinners, then, are saved by an alien
righteousness being imputed to them: “The imputation of Christ’s
righteousness” (62). “God accepts them [elect sinners] for the sake of
the worthiness and amiableness of Christ, and the infinite love that God
has to Him.”
As we will see later in this sermon, when Edwards
spoke of justification by faith alone, he did not mean that one’s faith
is in any sense meritorious. On the contrary, faith unites to Christ who
is the only Savior. “God does not give those who believe a union with or
an interest in the Savior as a reward for faith, but only because faith
is the soul’s active uniting with Christ” (17). Edwards explicitly
denies that there is any “merit of congruity, or indeed any moral
congruity at all” involved in saving faith (19), as is taught in Roman
Catholicism. Neither faith nor repentance justify “as a work, for the
nature of the one [repentance] is to renounce works, and the nature of
the other [faith] is to depend on the work of another,” i.e., Christ.
Rather, “faith is the condition of salvation because it trusts in Christ
and ascribes salvation to Him.”
Faith means trusting Christ alone who justifies. The ground of
justification is Christ’s vicarious righteousness and sacrifice.
Ultimately salvation is by works, but it is by Christ’s works, not those
of the elect sinner: “We must indeed be saved on account of works – but
not our own. It is on account of the works which Christ has done for
us.”
Edwards’ eye, wrote Carl Bogue, “is clearly on the central biblical
truth that Christ fulfilled the condition of our righteousness and hence
our justification.”
And clearly for Edwards, saving faith is one that
involves trust (fiducia). Saving faith, he wrote, “is the whole
soul’s active agreeing, according, and symphonizing with this truth [of
the gospel].” It is an “adhering to the truth, and acquiescing in it.”
It is an “embracing the promises of God, and fiducial relying on them,
through Christ for salvation.”
“There is a difference,” preached Edwards, in a sermon on Matthew
16:17, “between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and
having a sense [taste] of its sweetness.” The same is true regarding
saving faith: There is “a true sense of the divine and superlative
excellency of God and Jesus Christ, and of the work of redemption, and
the ways and works of God.” There is “a true sense of the divine
excellency of the things of God’s Word [which] does more directly and
immediately convince us of their truth.” When one has this “sense,” he
acquiesces to the “light of the glorious gospel of Christ.”
Carl Bogue, therefore, rightly concluded: “Jonathan Edwards reflects the
essence of the Scriptures when he attributes salvation to the absolute,
sovereign grace of God. The Reformation cry of sola gratia and
sola fide reverberates throughout his writings.”
As is evident, for the New England divine, union
with Christ is the central issue involved in soteriology. “By virtue of
the believer’s union with Christ, he does really possess all things.”
“For union with Christ, or a being in Christ, is the foundation of all
communion with Him.”
And it is the absolute sovereignty of God which brings about this union.
In a sermon on Galatians 3:16, Edwards
preached that the union of the elect with Christ is established in God’s
eternal election, but it is applied when the elect sinner trusts in
Christ: They are “given to Christ from eternity,” but they are “not
actually in Christ until they have believed in Him.”
The same thought is expressed in the Romans 4:5 sermon, wherein
Edwards preached about a supra-temporal covenant “between the Father and
the Son,”
in which the plan of redemption of elect sinners in Christ “was
virtually done in the sight of God.” Yet, it is not until these elect
sinners “believe” that they “are admitted to partake with Christ in His
justification” (71-72).
This is the teaching we find in the
Westminster Confession of Faith (3:5-6):
Those of mankind that are predestined unto life, God, before the
foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable
purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, has
chosen in Christ, unto everlasting glory….As God has appointed
the elect unto glory, so has He by the eternal and most free purpose of
His will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are
elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually
called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit working in due season,
are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power through faith
unto salvation.
So Edwards is very much in line here with the
teaching of Reformed theology, as expressed in the Confession, he
just stresses this union more than most.
According to Edwards, “God the Father makes no covenant and enters into
no treaty with fallen man distinctly by themselves. He will transact
with them in such a friendly way no other way than by and in [union
with] Christ Jesus as members and as it were parts of Him.”
And in the sermon on Romans 4:5, he preached:
This relation or union to Christ whereby Christians are said to be “in
Christ”…is the ground of their right to His benefits….God does not give
those who believe a union with or an interest in the Savior as a reward
for faith, but only because faith is the soul’s active uniting with
Christ, or is itself the very act of union on their part. God sees it as
fitting that, in order for a union to be established between two
intelligent active beings or persons, so that they should be looked upon
as one, there should be the mutual act of both, that each should receive
the other, as actively joining themselves one to another. God, in
requiring this in order for us to be united to Christ as one of His
people, treats men as reasonable creatures, capable of acting and
choosing, and hence sees it fit that they should be looked upon as one
in law. What is real in the union between Christ and His people is the
foundation of what is legal; that is, it is something really in them and
between them, uniting them. That is the ground of the suitableness of
their being accounted as one by the Judge (17-18).
The salvation of the elect (both Old and New
Testaments),
and everything that they possess, has to do with their relationship with
Christ. He is their federal head, and they are in union with Him.
In chapter 2, Edwards discusses “The Meaning of
the Doctrine” of justification (5-22). He asks the question, “what is
meant in Scripture by being justified?,” and then goes on to answer that
a person is said to be justified when he is approved by God, not only as
being “free from the guilt of sin” (negative righteousness), but also as
“having that righteousness belonging to him that entitles him to the
reward of life” (positive righteousness). In other words, it is not
enough for a person to be forgiven his sins to be justified, he also
must be declared righteous (i.e., double imputation) (5-6).
When God created man (Adam), He entered into a
covenant of works with him. As taught by the Westminster Confession
of Faith (7:2): “The first covenant made with man was a covenant of
works, wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him [as the federal
head of the entire human race] to his posterity, upon perfect and
personal obedience.” Or in Edwards own words, “perfect obedience is the
condition of the first covenant [of works].”
If Adam, as the federal head of the entire human race, “had finished his
course of perfect obedience, he would have been justified,” i.e.,
declared righteous (6). Positive righteousness would have been imputed
to him, and to those he represented – the entirety of humanity. As
Edwards explained it elsewhere: “If Adam, our first surety, had
fulfilled the covenant [of works] made with him, which was made with him
as a public head for himself and his posterity, then his posterity…would
all have had a title to eternal life; by virtue of the promises made to
Adam, their surety, all would have had a title by virtue of that one
covenant.”
Adam, however, broke the covenant with God and
fell in sin; thus, he and all of his posterity fell from the state of
original righteousness. The guilt of Adam’s sin was imputed to himself,
and it was also imputed to all of his descendants, because they
participated in Adam’s transgression by their own consent. It is due,
taught Edwards, to the “constituted oneness or identity of Adam and his
posterity in this affair,” that all mankind (with the sole exception of
Christ) is guilty before a holy God.
“The first depravity of heart [Adam’s], and the imputation of that sin,
are both the consequences of that established union” of Adam and His
posterity. The “root and branches” are considered as one, “according to
God’s wise constitution.”
Fallen man is now “without any goodness or excellency in himself, but
with a total and universal hatefulness.” He is “altogether, yea
infinitely, vile and hateful.” Men are “infinitely sinful and abominable
creatures in God’s sight,” with an “infinite guilt,” and all of their
“righteousness is nothing, and ten thousand times nothing” (61, 151). Or
said another way, mankind is in a moral state of “total depravity,”
unable to do anything that pleases God. Man is in desperate need of a
Savior.
In His mercy, God entered into another covenant
with the elect immediately subsequent to the Fall, i.e., the covenant of
grace. As stated by the Westminster Confession (7:3), in this
covenant God “freely offers unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus
Christ, requiring of them faith in Him, that they might be saved; and
promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto life His Holy
Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe.” In Edwards’ words:
The first covenant [of works] failed of bringing men to the glory of
God, through man’s instability, whereby he failed of perseverance…. But
God had made a second covenant [of grace] in mercy to fallen man, that
in the way of this covenant he might be brought to the glory of God,
which he failed to do under the other…. Therefore God introduces another
better covenant, committed not to his [Adam’s] strength, but to the
strength of one that is mighty and stable [Christ], and therefore is a
sure and everlasting covenant…. The first was only to make way for the
second.
This being the case, Christ too, as the second
and final Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45-47), had to obey the law of God
perfectly, fulfilling the covenant of works, both for Himself and for
His elect people. Then, and only then, would He be “justified” (declared
righteous), and the elect would also be secured in His victory. Thus,
Christ, having lived a perfectly obedient life, when “He had been put to
death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit (1 Peter 3:18), then He
who was manifest in the flesh was justified in the Spirit (1 Timothy
3:16).” And when Christ was raised from the dead, He was justified, not
only “as a private person, but [also] as the surety and representative
of all who would believe in Him. So that He was raised again not only
for His own justification, but also for ours, according to the apostle
in Romans 4:25” (7).
Jonathan Edwards, then, clearly maintained that
justification is a forensic or legal act, wherein the elect sinner is
declared righteous by an alien righteousness, i.e., the righteousness of
Jesus Christ, which is imputed to the believer. “Justification,” he
preached, “is manifestly a forensic term, as the word is used in
Scripture, and a judicial thing, or the act of a judge” (67). In defense
of the Edwardsian doctrine of justification, Robert Jenson wrote:
Edwards knows that the language of “justification” is juridical language
in Paul’s use and in the use of the Reformation, and he adheres to the
rules of the metaphor. So also the justice given by God’s justification
is strictly “imputed” justice, in the purest style of…Calvinistic
teaching: God chooses to reckon Christ’s righteousness to the sinner,
and so the sinner is judged righteous.
Edwards, along with a number of Reformed
theologians, including the Westminster divines and John Calvin, taught
that the covenant of grace is conditional.
That is, there are non-meritorious obligations placed upon the
recipients of divine revelation. As noted in the Westminster
Confession of Faith (7:3), God “freely offers unto sinners life and
salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in Him that
they may be saved.” And in the words of the Larger Catechism (Q.
32), God “freely provides and offers to sinners a Mediator, and life and
salvation by Him; and requiring faith as the condition to
interest them in Him.” Man must respond to the call of the gospel; he is
obligated to do so. Fallen man, however, in his state of total
depravity, is incapable of so responding. Therefore, as the Catechism
goes on to say, God “promises and gives His Holy Spirit to all His
elect, to work in them that faith, with all other saving graces.”
John Calvin also taught that the covenant of
grace is conditional. All covenants are two-sided. God gives commands as
well as promises. The latter are pledged by the sovereign God; the
former are to be obeyed by His vassals. Covenant breakers will be cut
off from God’s covenant community (the church), whereas covenant keepers
will receive divine blessings.
At the same time, said the Reformer, we must recognize that while the
covenant of grace is conditional, even to the elect, God is the one who
supplies their need so that they are able to keep the covenant.
This is the Edwardsian view:
In efficacious grace we are not merely passive, or yet does God do some,
and we do the rest. But God does all, and yet we do all. God produces
all, and we act all. For that is what He produces, viz. our own
acts. God is the only proper author and fountain; we only are the proper
actors. We are, in different respects, wholly passive and wholly active.
In the Scriptures the same things are represented as from God and from
us. God is said to convert, and men are to convert and turn. God makes a
new heart, and we are commanded to make us a new heart. God circumcises
the heart, and we are commanded to circumcise our own hearts; not merely
because we must use the means in order to the effect, but the effect
itself is our act and our duty. These things are agreeable to the text,
“God works in you both to will and to do” [Philippians 2:13].
In God’s covenantal dealings with mankind, faith
and other graces (such as obedience and perseverance) are “conditions”
of salvation. But they are non-meritorious “conditions,” because they
all come as a gift of God. In a sermon on 1 Corinthians 1:29-31,
Edwards preached that “it is God that gives us faith whereby we close
with Christ.”
And elsewhere he wrote:
We must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and accept of Him as offered
in the gospel for a Savior. But, as we cannot do this of ourselves,
Christ has purchased this also for the elect. He has purchased, that
they shall have faith given them; whereby they shall be [actively]
united to Christ, and so have a [pleadable] title to His benefits.
Here Edwards differentiated his teaching from
that of Arminianism, wherein such “conditions” are in some degree
meritorious. Arminianism is a form of neonomianism, wherein faith is a
kind of good work, and the gospel is a new kind of law. Hence, he
strongly opposed “the Arminian scheme of justification by our own
virtue.”
Moreover, all of the conditions are only so in
the sense that “without which it shall not be, and that with which it
shall be.”
“In one sense,” taught Edwards, “Christ alone performs the condition of
our justification and [entire] salvation; in still another sense faith
is the condition of justification; in another sense other qualifications
and acts are conditions of salvation and justification too.” Indeed,
“there are many things that accompany and flow from faith, with which
justification shall be, and without which it will not be, and which are
found to be put in Scripture in conditional propositions with
justification and sanctification, in multitudes of places” (9).
But again, the New England divine stressed that
faith and every grace that the believer has is a gift of God. It is due
to the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit that the saints are
enabled to persevere to the end and be saved. The grace of perseverance
is so “contained in the first act of faith” that it cannot possibly fail
(90). By God’s grace, saving faith unites the believer with Christ in a
“natural fitness” whereby the elect sinner is assured of his ultimate
salvation (18-19). As necessary, then, as these other graces are in
Edwards doctrine of justification by faith alone (and they are
absolutely necessary), they are nevertheless gracious gifts of God, and
therefore non-meritorious, non-causal, non-justifying; they are in no
sense instrumental in justification. Said Edwards: “”that which makes
our obedience the matter of our justification…[is] contrary to the
gospel doctrine of justification.”
Thus, the Puritan divine clearly distinguished between non-causal
conditions of justification, and the cause of justification. And there
can be no question that he “affirms that the grace of God is the only
cause of justification.”
Edwards acknowledged that although there are a
number of non-causal conditions of salvation, the conditionality of
faith is unique, because it does what the other conditions can never do:
it is “the instrument by which we receive Christ” (11). At this point,
the Puritan divine has a minor difference with the language of the
Westminster Confession (11:2), which teaches that “faith, thus
receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone
instrument of justification.” Edwards argued:
Yet it must be acknowledged that this is an obscure way of speaking, and
there must certainly be some impropriety in calling faith an instrument
wherewith we receive or accept justification; for the very persons who
thus explain the matter speak of faith as being the reception or
acceptance itself. And if this is so, how can it be the instrument
of reception or acceptance? Certainly there is a difference between the
act and the instrument. Besides, by their own descriptions of faith,
Christ, the Mediator by whom and by whose righteousness we are
justified, is more directly the object of this acceptance and
justification, which is the benefit arising therefrom more indirectly.
And therefore, if faith is an instrument, it is more properly the
instrument by which we receive Christ than the instrument by which we
receive justification (10-11).
As John Gerstner stated, however, “there seems to
be no great difference here between Edwards and the Reformed tradition.”
In the remainder of chapter 2, Edwards continues
to focus on the unique condition of faith and the importance of the
doctrine of the believer’s union with Christ, pointing out that this
union whereby Christians are said to be “in Christ,” is “the ground of
their right to His benefits.” There is “a legal union between Christ and
true Christians,” wherein the merits of Christ and His perfect
righteousness “belong” to the believer. Justifying faith, then, “is that
by which the soul, which before was separated and alienated from Christ,
unites itself to Him.” Moreover, “God does not give those who believe a
union with or an interest in the Savior as a reward for faith, but only
because faith is the “soul’s active uniting with Christ” (13-17).
Somewhat distinct in the Puritan sage’s doctrine
of the union that believers have with Christ is his view of “fitness” or
“suitableness.” In fact, it is fair to say that the concept of fitness
and harmony pervade his thought. From Genesis to Revelation we see that
there is one overarching plan of God, wherein all of His providential
dealings in His created universe “fit” together in perfect “harmony,”
and Christ is central to all.
Here in the doctrine of justification, Edwards
taught that there are two types of fitness: moral and natural. A person
is morally fit when his own holiness or excellency would commend him to
God. In this sense, only Christ is morally fit. “There is nothing in
man,” he wrote, “regarding a moral fitness for a state of salvation, or
a being in Christ. The moral fitness or suitableness to any good or
happiness is alone in Christ.”
Natural fitness, on the other hand, is that
fitness which exists when a person is united to Christ through faith. In
the eyes of God it is “fitting” that salvation and union with Christ
belong together. “God looks on it as fitting (by a natural fitness) that
he whose heart sincerely unites itself to Christ as his Savior should be
looked upon as united to that Savior, and so to have an interest in Him,
and not from any moral fitness between the excellence of such a
qualification as faith and such a glorious blessedness as having an
interest in Christ….God’s making such a constitution is a testimony of
His love of order” (18-20).
In chapter 3, “The Proof of the Doctrine”
(23-86), Edwards reiterates his earlier teaching by stating that “such
is our case, and the state of things, that neither faith, nor any other
qualifications or action or course of actions, does or can render it
suitable that a person should have an interest in the Savior, and so a
title to His benefits, on account of any excellence therein, or in any
other way than as something in him may unite him to the Savior” (23).
All sin is infinitely great because it is
committed against an infinitely holy God. The sinner is infinitely
guilty, thereby rendering him worthy of infinite punishment. Man’s only
hope is “the love, honor, and obedience of Christ towards God [which]
have infinite value because of the excellence and dignity of the
[divine] person in whom these qualifications were inherent” (25). “The
positive righteousness of Christ, or that price by which He earned
merit,” through His perfect obedience to the entirety of the law of God,
“was of equal [infinite] value with that by which He provided
satisfaction; for indeed it was the same price.” Moreover, Christ’s
“sufferings were looked upon as of infinite value, and equivalent to the
eternal sufferings of a finite creature” (82). Herein the Son of God
merited salvation in behalf of His elect people. God must save man; man
cannot save himself.
Fallen man, taught the Puritan Sage, is still
living under the covenant of works (James 2:10; Galatians
3:10). Like Adam he is duty bound to perform perfect obedience; yet he
is incapable of doing so. It is essential that someone of infinite worth
before God fulfill the covenant of works for Himself, and for those who
will be saved. And that someone is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Part of the opposition to the orthodox view
expressed by Jonathan Edwards was an early form of the 20th
and 21st century “New Perspective on Paul” movement (NPP),
championed by men such as J. D. G. Dunn, E. P. Sanders, and N. T.
Wright.
These 18th century false teachers (along with the latter day
NPP advocates) maintained that when Paul spoke against works of the law
(Romans 3:28; Galatians 3:10; Ephesians 2:8-9), he meant “only
works of the ceremonial law, or those observances that were particular
to the Mosaic administration” (35). Edwards defended the Reformational
and Puritan teaching that Paul’s polemic against the works righteousness
of the Pharisees has to do with the whole of the law of God: moral as
well as ceremonial: “The apostle [Paul],” he wrote, “does not mean only
works of the ceremonial law, when he excludes works of the law in
justification, but also the moral law, and all works of obedience,
virtue, and righteousness whatsoever” (38), and he marshals a series of
eleven arguments against this errant teaching (38-58).
First, there are times when Paul speaks of the
“works of the law,” but there other occasions where he uses the more
general term “works” (Romans 4:6; 11:6; Ephesians 2:8-9), thereby
indicating that it is works in general that deserve a reward that the
apostle is opposing in his conflict with the Pharisees. Second, in
Romans 3:9-20, the apostle quotes from a number of Old Testament verses,
asserting that both Jews and Greeks are guilty of breaches of the moral
law; he concludes that “therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will
be justified in His [God’s] sight.” Here it is not the ceremonial law,
but the moral law which is “the deeds of the law [by which] no flesh
will be justified.”
Third, in Romans 2:12, Paul writes “for as
many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law.” That it
is the moral law which the apostle speaks of is evident from verses
14-15, where he goes on to say “for when Gentiles, which have not the
law, do by nature the things contained in the law which show the work of
the law written in their hearts.” It is the moral law, not the
ceremonial law, that is written in the hearts of all men; the moral law
is that which the Gentiles have “by nature.” Further, later in the same
chapter Paul condemns the Jew who would consider himself to be “an
instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having the form of
knowledge and truth in the law” (verse 20), while at the same time he
commits adultery, idolatry, and sacrilege (verses 21-23), all of which
are violations of the moral law.
Fourth, in Romans 3:20, in his condemnation of
works righteousness, Paul says that “by the law is the knowledge of
sin.” And the law by which a person comes to the knowledge of sin is the
moral law, not the ceremonial law. He affirms this is Romans 7:7,
where he rehearses events in his own life saying “I had not known sin,
but by the law,” and then goes on to say “for I had not known lust,
except the law had said, “you shall not covet.’” The forbidding of
coveting mentioned here is a clear reference to the tenth commandment of
the moral law.
Fifth, in Romans 4:13-16, the apostle
writes that “the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there
is no transgression.” This is another clear reference to the moral law,
for in the seventh chapter of Romans, Paul tells us that it is
the moral law that “brings about wrath”; “But sin, that it might appear
sin,” he states, “was producing death in me through what is good [i.e.,
the moral law], so that sin through the [tenth] commandment might become
exceedingly sinful” (7:13).
Sixth, in Romans 3:26-28 (and elsewhere) when
Paul says that man cannot be justified by works of the law, he is ruling
out all of man’s virtue, goodness, or excellence. The Jews of that day
were boasting, not only of their adherence to the ceremonial law, but of
their moral righteousness as well. This is evident in Luke 18,
where the Pharisee that Jesus speaks of is maintaining his moral
uprightness with regard to his keeping of the moral law. He thanks God
that he is not an extortioner and an adulterer, and he boasts about his
tithing and fasting, all of which have to do with the moral law of God
(verses 11-12).
Seventh, in Galatians 3:10, where the
apostle says: “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the
curse,” and then goes on to quote Deuteronomy 27:26, “for it is
written ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which
are written in the book of the law to do them,’” it is obvious that he
is speaking of the works of the law with reference to the whole law, not
just the ceremonial law. In verse 13 of the same chapter, he writes:
“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse
for us,” and again cites a passage from Deuteronomy (21:23) to
make his point: “for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a
tree.’” This is another reference to the whole law, not just the
ceremonial law.
Eighth, in passages such as Romans 9:31-32; 10:3;
and Luke 18:9, we read of persons trusting in their own righteousness
for their salvation. Even if this were merely a reference to the
ceremonial law (which it is not), it would still be a form of legalism
which is condemned by Scripture. No matter what the righteousness of
one’s own doing refers to, it is forbidden by Paul in Titus 3:5 (“Not by
works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His [God’s]
mercy He saved us”), and comes under the condemnation of God.
Ninth, in Titus 3:3-7, when the apostle
says that we cannot be justified “by works of righteousness which we
have done,” it is clear that he does not mean only works of the
ceremonial law, because he lists some of these “works” in verse 3:
“various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and
hating one another,” which are violations of the moral law. Then too,
when Paul mentions “works of righteousness which we have done,”
he shows that it is all of man’s works that are excluded, not just works
of the ceremonial law. Further, the works of the ceremonial law were
never intended to be done as works of righteousness (even under the Old
Covenant administration), they were only falsely supposed to be so by
the Jews. And now under the New Covenant era, when the ceremonial law
has been abrogated by the cross work of Christ, there cannot possibly be
any righteousness in them at all. No, says the apostle, one is not
justified by any goodness or righteousness of his own, but only
“according to His [God’s’] mercy…and by His grace” is anyone justified
(verses 5, 7).
Tenth, when the apostle condemns any form of
works righteousness, he must refer to one’s sincere obedience, because
perfect obedience is not possible since the Fall of man. But a sincere
obedience would necessitate an obedience to any kind of law, moral as
well as ceremonial. And it is clear that the Old Testament saints were
not justified by any works of the ceremonial law, when Paul writes:
“Even David describes the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputes
righteousness without works, saying ‘Blessed are they whose iniquities
are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin’” (Romans 4:4-6). Justification by any
kind of works is denied by David in the 32nd Psalm.
Eleventh, in Romans 10:5-6, Paul contrasts
two ways of justification: one by works of the law and the other by
faith in Christ: “For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of
the law, ‘The man who does those things shall live by them.’ But the
righteousness of faith speaks in this way…” The way of righteousness by
the law, “the man who does these things shall live by them” cannot
possibly only refer to the ceremonial law, because the ceremonial law
was never given that a man “shall live by them.” This was true only of
the moral law, which was given as a way of life for God’s people.
Having done away with any idea that the works of
the law that Paul speaks of have to do with the ceremonial law, Edwards
goes on to show the impossibility of justification by any form of
“sincere obedience,” while at the same time, honoring and exalting the
perfect righteousness of Christ (58-86). “To suppose that we are
justified by our own sincere obedience, or anything of our own virtue or
goodness, derogates from gospel grace…For it is the declared design of
God in the gospel to exalt the freedom and riches of His grace, in that
method of justifying sinners” (58). To contend, as do the Arminians,
that one’s sincere obedience plays a role in justification, derogates
from God’s glory, because in the biblical plan of justification, God’s
grace is freely given in the person and work of Christ. Any role that
sincere obedience would play in justification would detract from the
graciousness of God. Such teaching also denies that Christ’s perfect
obedience is necessary for one to stand in the presence of a holy God;
therefore, it derogates the role of Christ as Mediator. “Imperfect
righteousness cannot answer the law of God we are under…. Every law
requires perfect obedience to itself, and every rule whatsoever requires
perfect conformity to itself” (69).
As noted in chapter 2, Edwards, along with the
Westminster divines and Reformed orthodoxy in general, contended that
double imputation occurred in the cross work of Jesus Christ. In what is
sometimes referred to as His “passive obedience,” not only did Christ
atone for the sins of His elect people in His sacrificial death, but in
His “active obedience,” He first lived a perfectly obedient life,
fulfilling the covenant of works in behalf of the elect (116). It is not
enough that the elect be forgiven of their sins; they must also have a
positive righteousness imputed to them. Then they may be declared
righteous.
Christ, by His suffering the penalty [for sin], and so making atonement
for us [the elect], only removes the guilt of our sins, and so sets us
in the same state in which Adam was in the first moment of creation; and
it is no more fitting that we should obtain eternal life only on that
account than Adam should have the reward of eternal life, or a confirmed
and unalterable state of happiness, in the first moments of his
existence without any obedience at all. Adam was not to have the reward
merely on account of his being innocent; if so, he would have had it
fixed upon him as soon as he was created, for he was as innocent then as
he could be. But he was to have the reward on account of his activeness
in obedience – not on account merely of his not having done ill, but on
account of his doing well….So on the same account we do not have eternal
life merely because we are devoid of guilt, which we are by the
atonement of Christ, but because of Christ’s activeness in obedience and
doing well. Christ is our second federal head, and is called the second
Adam…because He acted that part for us which the first Adam should have
done (65).
It is due to both the active and passive
obedience of Christ that the believer can be declared righteous in the
sight of God (74-77). Through faith, “believers, as soon as they believe
are admitted to partake with Christ in His justification.” They are
“legally one” in union with Christ (71, 68).
In chapter 4, “The Place of Obedience” (87-97),
Edwards goes to some length to show that the “evangelical obedience” of
the believer does not contribute anything to his justification. The
believer’s “good works” are non-meritorious. They are “expressions of
[saving] faith” (87, 97). Whereas justification takes place “by the
first act of faith,” the “perseverance” of the saints is a continuance
of the same saving faith; it is inseparably “connected with
justification.” As Jesus taught in John 15, just as the branch
must abide in the vine in order to receive its life-giving sap, so also
the believer must abide in Christ to receive continual spiritual
nourishment from Him (88-89).
So although the sinner is actually and finally justified on the first
acts of faith, yet the perseverance of faith even then comes into
consideration as one thing on which the fitness of acceptance to life
depends. God, in the act of justification which is passed on a sinner’s
first believing, has respect to the perseverance, as being virtually
contained in that first act of faith….God has respect to the believer’s
continuance in faith, and he is justified by that, as though it already
were, because by divine establishment it shall follow; and being by
divine constitution connected with that first faith, as much as if it
were a property in it, it is then considered as such, and so
justification is not suspended….And that it is so, that God in the act
of final justification which He passes at the sinner’s conversion has
respect to perseverance in faith and future acts of faith, as being
virtually implied in the first act, is further manifest by this: that in
a sinner’s justification, at his conversion, there is virtually
contained forgiveness as to eternal and deserved punishment not only of
all past sins, but also of all future infirmities and acts of sin that
the sinner shall be guilty of. And this is because that first
justification is decisive and final. And yet pardon, in the order of
nature, properly follows the crime, and also follows those acts of
repentance and faith that respect the crime pardoned, as is manifest
from both reason [i.e., it is rational] and Scripture (89-90).
In other words, as Jesus taught in Matthew 10:22
(“he who endures to the end will be saved”), even though the
perseverance of the saint is a condition of salvation, a genuine
Christian will surely persevere because God will preserve him to the end
so that his salvation will be certain. When the elect sinner first
believes, with a saving faith, God justifies him, and this guarantees
that he will endure to the end. The saint is duty bound to persevere,
but by God’s grace he will most certainly do so. It is fit and orderly
in God’s purpose for it to be this way. Edwards’ view here is similar to
that of the Westminster Confession of Faith (17:1-2):
They, whom God has accepted in His Beloved, effectually called, and
sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally, nor finally, fall away
from the state of grace: but shall certainly persevere therein to the
end, and be eternally saved….This perseverance of the saints depends not
upon their own free will, but upon the immutability of the decree of
election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father;
upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ; the
abiding of the Spirit, and of the seed of God within them; and the
nature of the covenant of grace: from all which arises also the
certainty and infallibility thereof.
According to the Puritan sage, every act of
repentance, faith, and obedience is a faithful act which flows from and
is contained in the first act of faith wherein the believing sinner was
justified. When Jesus Christ enjoins believers to pray for the
forgiveness of sins (Matthew 6:12), which are prayers of those whose
sins have already been forgiven in their justification, He is doing so
because the later acts of repentance flow from the first act of faith
and repentance. This is perhaps most evident in the life of Abraham. The
patriarch was justified in Genesis 12 when he forsook his own country in
obedience to God’s commandment (Hebrews 11:8). But in Genesis 15:6, we
read that when Abraham believed God regarding the promise that he would
have his own son, “Abraham believed in the LORD, and He [God] accounted
it to him as righteousness.” According to the apostle Paul in Romans 4
and Galatians 3, this was another act of the same justifying faith that
Abraham exhibited in Genesis 12. The act of faith in Genesis 15, even
though it was long after the patriarch’s first act of faith, was an act
of faith which flowed from that first act. This is precisely what the
apostle Paul teaches in Romans 1:17 (“For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall
live by faith’”): “That God in justification has respect not only to the
first act of faith, but also to future persevering acts” as well
(96-97).
According to Jonathan Edwards, “persevering in
holiness of life is implied in justifying faith,” because a genuine
“justifying faith” is necessarily a “persevering faith.” Because God is
a holy God, who delights in holiness and hates sin, “therefore He would
appoint no way of justification but such as tended to promote holiness.”
It is not unusual, then, to contend that “perseverance in faith is thus
necessary to salvation not merely as a sine qua non, or as an
universal concomitant of it, but by reason of such an influence and
dependence.” This being so, “a truly Christian walk and the acts of an
evangelical, childlike, believing obedience are concerned in the affair
of our justification, and seem to be sometimes so spoken of in
Scripture, that is, as an expression of a persevering faith in the Son
of God, the only Savior.” But we must understand that “the obedience of
a Christian, so far as it is truly evangelical and performed with the
Spirit of the Son sent forth into the heart, has all relation to Christ,
the Mediator, and is but an expression of the soul’s union with Christ”
in saving faith. And “every such act of obedience…is only a new,
effective act of reception of Christ, and adherence to the glorious
Savior” (95-96).
In chapter 5, we come to “Objections Answered,”
wherein the New England divine deals with six particular objections
which may be raised regarding his doctrine of justification by faith
alone (98-144). Objection 1 concerns itself with the numerous passages
of Scripture, such as Romans 2:7 (“To them, who by patient
continuance in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and immortality,
eternal life”), wherein justification is said to hinge on faithfulness
to the covenant promises of God. Edwards’ response is that there is an
inextricable relationship between saving faith and evangelical
obedience. Perseverance is a condition of salvation, which in no way
undermines justification by faith alone. Every act of obedience is
included in the believer’s first act of faith in justification. It is
“fit” that good works evidence saving faith, while at the same time,
they do not merit justification.
Objection 2 states that if one’s own obedience is
necessary to prepare him for heaven, then it would appear that this
obedience is what recommends him to heaven. But this is not the case,
says Edwards. The fact that justified sinners are duty-bound to perform
good works in order that they may partake of heavenly bliss, does not
mean that God accepts these sinners as righteous because of the good
works. Necessary good works are not meritorious good works.
Objection 3 maintains that some Scripture
passages, such as Matthew 10:42 (“And whoever gives one of these
little ones a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I
say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward”), expressly speak of
eternal blessings being bestowed as rewards for the good deeds of the
saints. First, argues Edwards, receiving a reward for one’s good deeds
is a different thing than being justified for such good deeds, because
it is a result of one’s justification that he is able to receive eternal
rewards. The acceptableness of good works as a reward in this case, is
not antecedent to justification, but follows it. God accepts the good
deeds and rewards them because the recipient is already in a justified
state in union with Jesus Christ. The spiritual loveliness of elect
sinners is only due to their relationship with the Son of God; apart
from this, even their best duties are defiled in sin. So, although it is
true that the saints are rewarded for their good works, it is for
Christ’s sake alone that this is so. As Edwards explained elsewhere:
That the holiness and good works of the saints are rewardable is what is
merited and purchased by the righteousness of Christ. His righteousness
not only purchased the holiness itself but also purchased that it should
be rewardable. It is from Christ’s righteousness that their holiness
derives its value that it has in the eyes of God.
Calvin expressed the same view as follows:
Believers are, after their call, approved of God also in respect of
works….For the Lord cannot fail to love and embrace the good things that
He works in them through His Spirit. But we must always remember that
God “accepts” believers by reason of works only because He is their
source and graciously, by way of adding to His liberality, deigns also
to show “acceptance” toward the good works He has Himself bestowed.
But Edwards has more to say on this. We have
already seen that the Christian has the righteousness of Christ imputed
to him in justification; he also has an inherent, imparted, or infused
righteousness unto sanctification. And both of these are as a result of
his union with Christ. This being so, the inherent righteousness of the
believer is seen as lovely in the eyes of God, even though only as a
secondary or derivative loveliness.
Therefore, the good works of the believer are
rewardable as God sees them “in Christ.” In fact, the redeemed sinner
“in Christ” is decidedly more lovely due to his union with Christ than
he would even be if he were free from sin on his own. God, then, will
reward the paltry works of the believer, “in Christ,” with a reward even
more glorious than He would have rewarded Adam’s obedience if he had
persevered in holiness. And the reward will be due to the fact that God
looks upon the believer’s good works as done “in Christ.” God “looks on
these glorious benefits as a meet testimony of His regard for the value
which their persons have in His sight. But He sets this value upon their
persons purely for Christ’s sake. They are such jewels, and have such
preciousness in His eyes, only because they are beheld in Christ” (113).
Further, the reward bestowed upon the believer
for his good works in this secondary or derivative sense, will be in
different respects, amounts, and ways. Christ purchased perfect
blessedness for each and everyone of the elect. At the same time,
however, He purchased various degrees of perfect blessedness for them.
In this sense, the saints are to be seen “as so many vessels of
different sizes, cast into a sea of happiness, where every vessel is
full; this Christ purchased for all. But after all, it is left to God’s
sovereign pleasure to determine the largeness of the vessel.” And God
will give “higher degrees of glory as reward for higher degrees of
holiness and good works because it pleases Him; and yet all the
happiness of each saint is indeed the fruit of the purchase of Christ’s
obedience” (116-117).
Objection 4 has to do with those passages that
seem to teach that a person is granted a right to eternal life because
of his “moral” rather than a “natural” fitness. Matthew 10:37-39 are
adduced as such an example: “He who loves father or mother more than Me
[Christ] is not worthy of Me. And He who loves son or daughter more than
Me is not worthy of Me. And He who does not take up His cross and follow
after Me is not worthy of Me.” But, maintains Edwards, these words do
not imply that if a man loves Christ above family members he would be
considered as worthy. They only imply that if a man does not so love
Christ he will be considered as unworthy of Christ’s kingdom. A person
who believes in Christ is not rewarded for his moral fitness, but those
who profess faith in Christ with a spurious profession are thrust out of
His kingdom for the moral unfitness of their disbelief. Salvation is
promised to saving faith in the promise of the gospel, but damnation is
threatened to those who do not so believe (John 3:18-19). The words
spoken by Christ in Matthew 10:37-39, are not intended to show the
worthiness of loving Christ above one’s family; rather, they are
designed to make the hearers aware of their unworthiness when they make
a profession of faith in Christ as their Lord and Savior, and yet think
less of Him than they do their own family.
Objection 5 asks the question, “If justification
is by faith alone, why is repentance spoken of in Scripture as a
condition of salvation?” The problem here, avers Edwards, is that such
objectors are separating faith and repentance, making them into two
distinct conditions. We must distinguish between faith and repentance,
but we must never separate them. Jesus makes this very clear in Mark
1:15, where we read: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is
at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” So does Paul in Acts 19:4:
“Then Paul said, ‘John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance,
saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come
after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.’” Saving faith and repentance go
together, and both are necessary for conversion. “There is something in
faith, or closing with Christ, that respects sin, and that is
evangelical repentance. That repentance which in Scripture is called
‘repentance for the remission of sins’ is that very principle or
operation of the mind itself called faith, so far as it is conversant
about sin” (124).
In actuality, the Greek word used in the New
Testament for repentance is metanoia, which means “a change of
mind.” Genuine repentance involves a change of mind regarding one’s
spiritual state; the penitent sinner turns away from his sin, confessing
it to God, and then turns to Christ for his salvation. As Paul preached
to Agrippa: “Therefore, king Agrippa…I declared first to those in
Damascus and in Jerusalem, and throughout all the region of Judea, and
then to the Gentiles, that they should repent [and] turn to God”
(Acts 26:19-20). In repentance, “our minds must be changed so
that we may believe, and so may be justified” (124).
In Scripture, repentance is spoken of as pardon
from sin, and is in this sense not distinct from “conversion” itself.
This is evident in a number of New Testament passages: Matthew 9:13;
Luke 13:3; 15:7, 10; 16:30; Acts 11:18; 17:30, and 2 Peter 3:9. It is
“plain that in these and other places, ‘repentance’ means ‘conversion’”
(123).
Finally, there is Objection 6, which has to do
with James 2:14-26. Here it is alleged that James is teaching
justification by faith plus works: “Was not Abraham our father justified
by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?….You see then that
a man is justified by works, and not by faith only” (verses 21, 24). But
if this were so, said the Puritan Sage, then the Bible would contradict
itself (which is impossible), because Paul teaches that justification is
by faith alone, without works of the law (Romans 3:28). And there “is no
one doctrine in the whole Bible more fully asserted, explained, and
urged than the doctrine of justification by faith alone, without any of
our own righteousness” (136).
How then do we reconcile James and Paul? The
answer is found in the fact that James and Paul are using the word
“justification” in different senses. Paul uses the term with regard to
“declared” justification, and James uses is with regard to
“manifestative” or “demonstrative” justification. When James uses the
word justification “it is that works are here spoken of as justifying as
evidence” of saving faith. “It is by works that our case appears to be
good; but by faith our case not only appears to be good, but becomes
good, because thereby we are united to Christ” (137). This is evidenced
in James 2:18, where the apostle writes: “Show me your faith
without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” A similar
concept is found in Proverbs 20:11: “Even a child is known by his
deeds, by whether what he does is pure and right.”
However, if someone denies that James and Paul
are using the word justification in different senses, the two apostolic
teachings can still be reconciled. James 2:26 asserts that “faith
without works is dead.” So if there are no works, then there is no
saving faith, because a justifying faith is a faith that will
necessarily perform good works. In this sense, preached Edwards:
Man’s salvation is not only indissoluby connected with obedience, and
damnation with the want of it, in those who have opportunity for it, but
depends upon it in many respects. It is the way to salvation, and the
necessary preparation for it; eternal blessings are bestowed in reward
for it, and our justification in our own consciences and at the day of
judgment depends on it as the proper evidence of our acceptable state,
and that even in accepting us as entitled to life in our
justification….God has respect to this obedience as that on which the
fitness of such an act of justification depends, so that our salvation
as truly depends upon it as if we were justified for the moral
excellence of it. And besides all this, the degree of our happiness to
all eternity is suspended on and determined by the degree of our
obedience. So this gospel-scheme of justification is as far from
encouraging licentiousness, and contains as much to encourage and excite
to strict and universal obedience, and the utmost possible eminence of
holiness, as any scheme that can be devised, and, indeed, unspeakably
more (144).
But, as noted, these good works, which are
essential, are works of “necessity,” not works of “merit.” They are
non-causative, non-justifying works.
Furthermore, all good works, to be considered
good works in the biblical sense of the term, must be done with the
purpose in mind of glorifying God. As John Piper explained, with
Edwards, God is “absolutely indispensable in the definition of true
virtue.” If God is not “at the center of all moral considerations,” then
there is “no virtue.” “Edwards could not conceive of calling any act
truly virtuous that did not have in it a supreme regard to God.”
Michael McClymond concurred: “Edwards insisted that genuine morality
requires genuine religion [i.e., Christianity], and that the love of
humanity is specious apart from the love of God.”
A “truly virtuous mind,” wrote Edwards, “being as
it were under the sovereign dominion of love to God, does above all
things seek the glory of God, and makes this his supreme, governing, and
ultimate end” in all that he does. Even the good works done in love that
a Christian exercises toward his fellow man, are done out of a love
which is focused on glorifying God. “From love to God springs love to
man, as says the apostle (1 John 5:1).” No “affection whatsoever
to any creature, or any system of created beings, which is not dependent
on, or subordinate to a propensity or union of heart to God, the Supreme
and Infinite Being, can be of the nature of true virtue.” If there could
be a “cause determining a person to benevolence towards the whole world
of mankind, or even all created sensible natures throughout the whole
universe, exclusive of…love to God…it cannot be of the nature of true
virtue.”
Edwards’ view on the relationship between saving
faith and good works is the same as is taught by the Westminster
Confession of Faith (16:2; 14:2): “These good works, done in
obedience to God’s commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true
and lively faith,” which are done to “glorify God.” A converted person
is one who, not only “believes to be true whatsoever is revealed in the
Word [of God],” but he is also one who is found “yielding obedience to
the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises
of God for this life, and that which is to come.”
God calls us, said the New England divine, to a
“universal obedience,” i.e., an obedience that seeks to keep God’s
commandments in every area of life, not just some parts of it. Such
obedience “is the proper evidence of our acceptable state” with God.
Those who are unwilling “to live universally in obedience to God’s
commands, it is not best that they should…treat themselves as if they
were godly.”
The need for the converted man to continue to
“press into the kingdom” of God was a constant focus of the Puritan
divine. In a sermon on Galatians 5:6, he preached:
There is no room left for anyone to say that they have faith which
justifies and that they need take no care about works and so to give
themselves the liberty in sinning because they are not under the law but
under grace; for though it is only faith that justifies yet there is no
faith that justifies but a working faith; so that it is impossible for
any person should be saved without works as if they were justified upon
the account of their works. It is as impossible that men should be saved
without an evangelical, and sincere obedience under the second covenant
[or grace] as it was that they should be saved without a perfect
obedience under the first covenant [of works] [albeit for a different
reason].
And in a sermon on Philippians 3:17,
Edwards used the apostle Paul as the prime example of this kind of
“pressing”:
The apostle [Paul] did not only thus earnestly seek salvation before his
conversion and hope, but afterwards [as well]. What he says in the third
[chapter] of Philippians of his suffering the loss of all things, that
he might be found in Christ, and its being the one thing that he did to
seek salvation; and also what he says of his so running as not
uncertainly, but as resolving to win the prize of salvation, and keeping
under his body that he might not be a castaway; was so long after his
conversion and after he had received hope of his good estate.
If being already converted excuses a man from seeking salvation any
more, or makes it reasonable that he should leave off his earnest care
and labor for it, certainly the apostle might have been excused, when he
had not only already attained true grace, but such eminent degrees of
it. To see one of the most eminent saints that ever lived, if not the
most eminent of all, so exceedingly engaged in seeking his own salvation
– it ought for ever to put to shame those that are a thousand degrees
below him, and are but mere infants to him, if they have any grace at
all; that yet excuse themselves from using any violence after the
kingdom of heaven now, because they have attained already, easing
themselves of the burden of going on earnestly to seek salvation with
this, that they have got through the work, they have got hope.
The apostle, as eminent as he was, did not say within himself, “I am
converted, and so am sure of salvation. Christ has promised it to me;
what need I care any further about obtaining salvation? Yea, I am not
only converted, but I have obtained great degrees of grace.”...The
apostle knew that though he was converted, yet there remained a great
work that he must do, in order to his [final] salvation. There was a
narrow way to eternal glory, that he must pass through and never could
come to the crown of glory any other way. He knew that it was absolutely
necessary for him earnestly to seek salvation still; he knew that there
was no going to heaven in a lazy way.
And therefore he did not seek salvation the less earnestly, for his
having hope, yea, and assurance, but a great deal more. We nowhere read
so much of his earnestness and violence for the kingdom of heaven before
he was converted as we do afterwards….
Most certainly if the apostle was in the right way of acting, we in this
place are generally in the wrong. For nothing is more apparent than that
it is not thus with the generality of professors but that it is a common
thing after they think they are safe, to be abundantly less diligent and
earnest in religion than before.
Chapter 6, “The Importance of the Doctrine”
(145-154) concludes the sermon on Romans 4:5. There are many in
the church, said Edwards, who do not seem to think that the controversy
over the doctrine of sola fide is of great importance. Scripture,
however, “treats this doctrine as a doctrine of very great importance”
(146). In this final chapter, Edwards points out that since the Fall,
all men are in need of a Savior. He agreed with the Westminster
Confession of Faith (1:1) that:
Although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do
so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men
inexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God
and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased
the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal Himself, and
to declare that His will unto His church; and afterwards, for the better
preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure
establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the
flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same
wholly unto writing: which makes the Holy Scripture to be most
necessary.
In Edwards own words:
This is the main thing for which fallen men stood in need of divine
revelation, to teach us how we who have sinned may come to be again
accepted of God, or, which is the same thing, how the sinner may be
justified. Something beyond the light of nature is necessary for
salvation chiefly on this account. Mere natural reason afforded no means
by which we could come to the knowledge of this, it depending on the
sovereign pleasure of the Being whom we had offended by sin. This seems
to be the great drift of that revelation which God has given, and of all
the mysteries it reveals, all those great doctrines that are peculiarly
doctrines of revelation, and above the light of nature. It seems to have
been very much on this account that it was necessary that the doctrine
of the Trinity itself should be revealed to us, that by a discovery of
the concern of the several divine persons in the great affair of our
salvation we might better understand and see how all our dependence in
this affair is on God, and our sufficiency all in Him and not in
ourselves….What is the gospel but the glad tidings of a new way of
acceptance with God unto life, a way wherein sinners may come to be free
from the guilt of sin and obtain a title to eternal life? And if, when
this way is revealed, it is rejected, and another man’s devising is put
in its place, without doubt it must be an error of great importance, and
the apostle [Paul] might well say it was “another gospel” (149-150).
How important is this doctrine? It is a doctrine
dealing with matters of eternal consequence. The Arminian doctrine of
justification, wherein man’s good works precede (rather than following)
justification, according to Paul (Galatians 1:6-9), is another
gospel; it is a fatal teaching. The view espoused by the Puritan Sage is
a gospel of grace, leading to everlasting life. The Arminian view is a
legal gospel, which is no gospel at all, and it leads to everlasting
death.
All Christians, then, “should strive after an increase of knowledge, and
none should content themselves without some clear and distinct
understanding in this point. But we should believe in general, according
to the clear and abundant revelations of God’s Word, that it is none of
our own excellence, virtue, or righteousness that is the ground of our
being received from a state of condemnation into a state of acceptance
in God’s sight, but only Jesus Christ and His righteousness and
worthiness received by faith. This I think to be of great importance
(145).
Soli Deo Gloria
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