Potential Objections To The Immediacy Of Justification

I've written before about the Biblical theme of the nearness of redemption, the concept that you can be justified at any moment through a means you always have access to. That theme is inconsistent with baptismal regeneration and every other form of justification through works.

But somebody could raise an objection along the lines that what these passages (2 Corinthians 6:2, etc.) are addressing is the nearness of starting the process of getting justified, not obtaining justification itself. There are some problems with that view.

The passages use language suggesting they're about obtaining justification, not just starting to head in the direction of obtaining it. 2 Corinthians 5:20 mentions being "reconciled to God". As I've said before, Paul isn't satisfied with "the time" and "the day" in the Old Testament passage he cites in 6:2, so he goes on to accompany those phrases with "now" two different times. And what is it that we can get now? Salvation, not just starting down the path toward salvation. Similarly, what Paul is addressing in Romans 10 is "salvation" (verse 1), "the end of the law for righteousness" (verse 4), being "saved" (verse 9), "resulting in righteousness" (verse 10). He's addressing the accomplishment of those things, not just beginning a multistep process that ends in obtaining them. Romans 10 is about reconciling people to God, bringing the gospel to them and how they can obtain redemption through it. It's unlikely that Paul would only discuss the beginning of a multistep process of receiving justification and leave out the rest. (For a response to the idea that the confessing with the mouth in Romans 10 is a means of justification or warrants including baptism, see here.) Likewise, Paul's comments in Acts 17:27 make more sense if they're about finding God (which includes soteriology, though it isn't limited to that), not just starting the process of finding him. That Acts passage illustrates how the theme of the nearness of redemption is about the nearness of reconciliation with God, not just the nearness of beginning a process that will eventually lead to reconciliation.

Any interpretation of any document is a matter or probability, not certainty. So, somebody could always appeal to a possible alternative interpretation. You can always argue that an author had one or more qualifiers in mind that he didn't spell out, that he was being hyperbolic, or whatever. But the possibility of such an alternative interpretation doesn't make it equally likely or more likely than the interpretation it's competing with. It could be that, in the context I'm addressing in this post, Paul only intended to address how we begin the process of being reconciled to God rather than addressing how the process is completed, even though he used the language of completion. People do that sort of thing sometimes. But the language of completion makes more sense in a context involving completion. And appealing to a less natural interpretation becomes increasingly problematic the more you do it. There's a cumulative effect, including within a single passage, as we see with the multiple aspects of Romans 10 that most naturally are interpreted in a way that's inconsistent with baptismal regeneration.

A larger point should be made here about the evidence pertaining to baptismal regeneration in general. There's only a small handful of passages that allegedly affirm baptismal regeneration, and there are a lot of problems with how advocates of the concept interpret those passages. See here regarding 1 Peter 3:21, for example. The evidence against baptismal regeneration is much weightier than the evidence for it.

In this post and elsewhere, I've discussed how problematic passages like these ones in Romans 10 and 2 Corinthians 6 are for baptismal regeneration. In closing, I want to summarize some of the points I've been making in response to three potential views an advocate of baptismal regeneration could take.

First, let's consider a scenario in which these passages are thought to be addressing how we begin the process of moving toward justification rather than addressing the completion of the process. That sort of interpretation has the advantage of getting around the evidence that baptism isn't included in these passages. But it creates other problems. Since completing the process of obtaining justification is a more significant issue than starting the process of moving toward justification, somebody like Paul is more likely to be addressing the former than the latter. Why would Paul want to approach justification in the latter way to begin with, especially at as much length as he does in Romans 10? Why give so much space to discussing how to start the process of getting justified, without going on to mention the rest of the process? Furthermore, if completing the process of obtaining justification isn't what's being addressed, why are multiple types of language suggesting completion used over and over again?

Second, what about a scenario that claims baptism is involved in these passage? That interpretation has the problems I've described elsewhere. In Romans 10 alone, there are a few different contexts (and a larger number of instances within those contexts) in which baptism is conspicuous by its absence. It's also absent in the other relevant passages. And, as I've discussed elsewhere, the exclusion of works at the end of Romans 9 and the beginning of chapter 10 is most naturally taken to exclude baptism. Additionally, the appeal to the nearness of redemption in Romans 10:8-11 doesn't just involve chronological nearness, but also nearness in the sense that the means of obtaining justification is always immediately available (faith in the heart). It would undermine Paul's argument if he was combining that inward means of justification with an outward work (or sacrament, rite, or whatever you want to call it), like baptism. Faith alone, faith apart from baptism, makes the most sense of what Paul says in that context. Even if you think adding baptism can be reconciled with what Paul says, that wouldn't change the fact that adding baptism is a weaker explanation of Paul's comments. (Remember what I said above about how we're looking for the best explanation, not just a possible one.) Then there's the fact that in 2 Corinthians 6, Paul's emphatic appeal to how now is the time of salvation likewise is undermined by adding baptism and makes the most sense if faith alone, apart from baptism, is in view.

Third, what if an advocate of baptismal regeneration were to appeal to a hyperbolic interpretation? Depending on whether he's not including baptism in these passages or is including it, his interpretation would be subject to what I said about one of those two scenarios above. And there has to be a warrant for taking something as hyperbole. We don't begin with a default assumption that hyperbole is being used. So, what's the reason for thinking hyperbole is being used in a relevant way in these passages? When Paul uses the emphatic "now" in 2 Corinthians 6, for example, a non-hyperbolic interpretation is consistent with how we see people being justified throughout the Old Testament era, during Jesus' public ministry, with Cornelius and his associates in Acts 10, with the Galatians in Galatians 3:2, etc. Since a non-hyperbolic interpretation makes so much sense in the abstract and fits so well with salvation history, why are we supposed to think we should resort to a hyperbolic interpretation? Furthermore, why would anybody use the sort of forceful language Paul uses in 2 Corinthians 6 (or Romans 10) to describe the immediacy of being justified through baptism? It's not a form of justification that has much to do with immediacy. Many of the modern advocates of baptismal regeneration wait weeks or months to baptize people after they came to faith. That doesn't really bring the language of 2 Corinthians 6 to mind. Baptisms did tend to occur closer to the time of coming to faith in the earliest years of Christianity, but even that shorter passing of time doesn't warrant the sort of strong language about immediacy that we see in passages like Romans 10 and 2 Corinthians 6 (both immediacy in terms of being justified through a means that's always available to us and immediacy in the sense of chronology). And, to repeat what I said earlier, what we're after here is the best explanation, not just a possible one. A hyperbolic interpretation of a passage like 2 Corinthians 6 would be a weaker explanation than seeing the passage as a reference to faith alone.

One of the reasons why the early Christians put so much emphasis on the immediacy of justification probably was that the immediacy component provides such a contrast to the alternatives that were offered by their opponents, such as their Jewish opponents and the Judaizers. Being justified immediately upon faith offers a strong contrast to being justified through a multistep process involving faith and one or more works, like circumcision or baptism.