There are some Biblical passages that can seem to support justification through something other than faith if the passages are taken in isolation. For example, Matthew 19:16-21 could be taken as evidence for salvation through selling your possessions and giving the money to the poor. John 6:53, if it's thought to refer to the eucharist, could be taken to prove justification through participation in the eucharist. John 13:8 teaches salvation through foot washing. Acts 2:38 teaches baptismal regeneration. Acts 8:17 teaches that we're justified through the laying on of hands. Etc.
I've often cited G.W.H. Lampe's work documenting that many sources of the patristic era took that sort of approach toward soteriology. See here, for example. Modern advocates of a view like baptismal regeneration will often cite patristic sources who allegedly agreed with them about baptism, but don't cite the similar comments those or other patristic sources made about the laying on of hands, anointing with oil, and other rites or works of some other type.
There are a lot of problems with interpreting the Biblical passages in question in the manner I've referred to above. One of the problems is that it results in multiple ways of being justified in contexts in which it makes more sense to think there's only one way.
Think of Romans 10, for example. I've argued elsewhere that there's a lot of evidence within the passage that Paul is arguing for justification through faith alone, apart from baptism. As I explain in that thread just linked (in the comments section), Paul has a particular group in mind, namely people with an ability to understand the gospel message. So, somebody like an infant or a person with a type of mental handicap that prevents an understanding of the gospel isn't relevant. Depending on what views you hold on other subjects, you could allow for something like the justification of people who die in infancy or the justification of the mentally handicapped. But that's a different issue, and it's not what Paul is focused on in Romans 10. In that passage, he's arguing for justification through faith alone (including justification apart from baptism) for the people he's discussing in that context. If you allow for those individuals to be justified in more than one way, you encounter some problems:
- All other things being equal, we prefer a simpler explanation. One means of justification is a simpler explanation of the passage.
- If Paul had some second means of justification in mind as an alternative to the primary means he was focused on, an alternative such as a minority of people being justified through baptism, that creates some inconsistencies in his reasoning that would be avoided if there's only one means of justification. Why would Paul fault his opponents for trying to be justified through works (Romans 9:30-10:4), only to go on to allow a minority of people to be justified through baptism (the evidence suggests baptism should be considered a work, including evidence from what Paul said earlier in Romans)? Why would Paul cite Deuteronomy 30 to support the notion that we can be justified immediately through a means in the heart (faith, Romans 10:6-11), only to go on to allow a minority of people to be justified later than immediately through a means outside the heart (baptism)? Why would Paul place justification in the prebaptismal context of hearing the gospel message proclaimed (Romans 10:14-17), only to go on to allow a minority of people to be justified in the later context of baptism? Paul could have been inconsistent like that or could have had a series of qualifiers in mind that he didn't refer to in Romans 10, qualifiers that would prevent him from being inconsistent, but both of those are less likely than the scenario in which Paul had only one means of justification in mind.
- Once you allow for two or more means of justification, there's an additional factor that has to be taken into account. In a scenario in which there are two means of justification, do they occur an equal amount of the time? Or is one more common than the other? Or do we not know? How you answer those questions has implications for how the means of justification should be discussed. Take, for example, the scenario I referred to above, in which people are usually justified through faith alone, but are justified through baptism as well a minority of the time. If passages like Acts 2:38 and 1 Peter 3:21 are supposed to lead us to the conclusion that baptismal regeneration occurs, it isn't enough for the advocate of baptismal regeneration to argue for the presence of that doctrine in those passages. He has to go on to also argue for the percentages involved. In other words, if only a minority of people are justified through baptism, why does Peter address his audiences in general in Acts 2 and 1 Peter 3 rather than singling out a minority of them? Why would there be an assumption of a majority justified through baptism in Acts 2, but an assumption of a majority justified apart from baptism in Romans 10? (Or, to cite a more striking example, why would Peter assume the normativity of justification through baptism in Acts 2, but assume the normativity of justification apart from baptism in Acts 10:43-48 and in the material in Acts 11 and Acts 15 referring back to the events of Acts 10?) I hold the position that passages like Acts 2 and 1 Peter 3 don't refer to baptismal regeneration. See here for my arguments regarding 1 Peter 3, for example. I see one consistent means of justification in all of these passages. But for those who want to allow for multiple means of justification, you have to address the percentages issue, not just the issue of whether baptismal regeneration is referred to in some passages. If your view has justification through baptism only occurring a minority of the time, then you need to explain the non-minority language of passages like Acts 2 and 1 Peter 3. On the other hand, if you want to claim that justification through baptism occurs most of the time, you need to explain the non-minority language used in passages referring to justification apart from baptism, like the ones cited above (Romans 10, etc.).
- There are many Biblical examples of people being justified through faith alone. See here (including the comments section). By contrast, there aren't any examples of an individual being justified at the time of baptism, at the time of participating in the eucharist, at the time of foot washing, etc. If there are multiple means of justification, we wouldn't expect one means to be exemplified so often while none of the other means ever get exemplified.
- Paul seems to reason on the basis that there's only one means of justification in Galatians. There's only one gospel (Galatians 1:6-9), and Paul's focus when referring to one gospel seems to be on the means by which justification is received (e.g., Galatians 3:2). As far as we can tell, Paul's opponents didn't deny Jesus' Messiahship, his deity, his resurrection, or anything like that. Rather, Paul's central dispute with them was the means by which we accept justification. And he wasn't just concerned about excluding works of the Mosaic law or some such thing. Elsewhere, he uses the illustration of being paid to do work (Romans 4:4), which isn't a reference to the Mosaic law or something like that, and he refers to how he's excluding all laws of work, not just one (Romans 3:27, Galatians 3:21-25). Besides, the Mosaic law is so broad as to include things like love for God and love of neighbor, so a large percentage of what people typically consider good works today are included in that law. Paul argued for our reception of justification by "hearing with faith" (Galatians 3:2), a prebaptismal context that he illustrates with the unbaptized Abraham (Galatians 3:6). As I've argued elsewhere, Paul's associating the reception of justification by faith and the reception of miracles by faith (Galatians 3:5) is likely influenced by the double healing phenomenon we see in the gospels and Acts. In those double healing passages, we see people justified through faith alone, apart from baptism, over and over and over again. Contrary to the claim that baptismal regeneration went into effect later on, Paul seems unaware of such a change. He thinks people are still justified through faith alone, as in the double healing passages. My main point here, though, is that Paul expects the Galatians to think of their justification as having occurred in one way. He doesn't anticipate that some will say they were justified through faith, others will say they were justified through faith and baptism, others will say they were justified through the laying on of hands, others will say selling their possessions and giving the money to the poor was part of what led to their justification, etc.
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