Exercising The Soul

"For as inactivity hurts the body, so also inactivity as to what is good renders the soul more supine and feeble." (John Chrysostom, Homilies On Hebrews 10:5)

The Power Of Christ's Righteousness Imputed

"For, even as Jesus Christ is stronger than Adam was, so is his righteousness more mighty than the sin of Adam. And, if the sin of Adam was sufficient enough to make all men sinners and children of wrath, without any misdeed of our own, much more shall Christ's righteousness be of greater force to make us all righteous, and the children of grace, without any of our own good works; which cannot be good unless that, before we do them, we ourselves be made good" (The Benefit Of Christ's Death, 19)

"Hence also it is proved, that it is entirely by the intervention of Christ's righteousness that we obtain justification before God. This is equivalent to saying that man is not just in himself, but that the righteousness of Christ is communicated to him by imputation, while he is strictly deserving of punishment….This is most clearly declared by the Apostle, when he says, that he who knew no sin was made an expiatory victim for sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Cor. 5:21). You see that our righteousness is not in ourselves, but in Christ; that the only way in which we become possessed of it is by being made partakers with Christ, since with him we possess all riches….'As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous,' (Rom. 5:19). To declare that we are deemed righteous, solely because the obedience of Christ is imputed to us as if it were our own, is just to place our righteousness in the obedience of Christ. Wherefore, Ambrose appears to me to have most elegantly adverted to the blessing of Jacob as an illustration of this righteousness, when he says that as he who did not merit the birthright in himself personated his brother, put on his garments which gave forth a most pleasant odour, and thus introduced himself to his father that he might receive a blessing to his own advantage, though under the person of another [Genesis 27:1-29], so we conceal ourselves under the precious purity of Christ, our first-born brother, that we may obtain an attestation of righteousness from the presence of God." (John Calvin, Institutes Of The Christian Religion, 3:11:23)

"The righteousness of God here spoken of is just the doing and dying of the Lord Jesus. It is called the righteousness of God, because it is that of God himself. You remember when Christ was a child, it is said he was 'the mighty God' [Isaiah 9:6]…And, in the same manner, the obedience of Christ was the obedience of one who was God; and when he obeyed his parents [Luke 2:51-52], it was the obedience of one who was God….Those of you who are awakened sinners, here is a righteousness that can cover you; behold, for each of your crimson sins, here is a stripe of one who is God. And, brethren, more than that, here are acts of holy obedience to cover your naked soul, here are holy words to cover your unholy words, here are holy deeds to cover your unholy deeds. O brethren! here is a lifetime of obedience to cover your soul….So it is with you; if you have on this righteousness you will be covered, and when God looks down, he will see nothing but the glassy sea of his Son's obedience….When Paul approached the gates of Rome, when he looked at its marble baths, when he saw the multitudes flocking to the theatre, and when he saw the crowds bowing down to the statue of Jupiter or Minerva, the heart of Paul was touched, and why? Because the wrath of God was revealed from heaven against them, and he knew that he had in his hand that which could cover every sinner. O, said Paul, if I could get them to put on this righteousness!…It is like casting a stone into the deep; it sinks, and it is not seen." (Robert McCheyne, A Basket Of Fragments [Scotland: Christian Focus, 2001], 99-101)

The Righteousness of Christ imputed to believers

One of the sideshows from the recent Dave Armstrong threads involved a discussion of “the righteousness of Christ imputed to believers”. One of the commenters there said, “But you don't really care whether ‘the imputation of Christ’s righteousness’ is in the Bible or not, do you, John? Not really.” He also reiterated many times, “there just is no such thing as ‘the imputation of Christ's righteousness’ in scripture and no amount of verbal acrobatics can change that.”

Another commenter essentially quoted Roman Catholic doctrine: “Imputed righteousness is something that is not taught in the Bible. God's grace is infused and is able to actually clean and recreate a new heart in us as opposed to forensic justification which is the notion that God merely takes an eraser to our "account" and erases our sins.”

One of the better brief statements concerning the Reformed doctrine of “the righteousness of Christ imputed to the believer” is in John Murray’s Redemption Accomplished and Applied. The link here is to his chapter on Justification, but several of the specific pages which deal with that topic are missing. So I’d like to provide here the entire sweep of Murray’s argument that not only is the sinner’s sin forgiven in justification, but as well, the Righteousness of Christ is imputed to the sinner as well.

Murray deals effectively with the notion of why “our own righteousness”, even that given by God’s grace, is not sufficient for what God’s holiness entails:

The nature of the “righteousness of God”: Martin Luther was right

This is the “interpretation” of the “verse” on which the Reformation hinges. And Martin Luther got it right. The “infallible” “Church” got it wrong, and the world has never been the same.

I’m continuing to talk about Martin Luther’s “discovery” of “justification” and “the Theology of the Cross,” both of which emerged in his thinking at the same time, and which were inextricably related to each other. As McGrath (“Luther’s Theology of the Cross,” Oxford, UK: and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, ©1985, 1990) pointed out:

There are two aspects to Luther’s discovery of ‘the righteousness of God’. The first relates to the nature of this righteousness: Luther discovered a ‘wonderful new definition of righteousness’ which stood in diametrical opposition to human understandings of iustitia. The second relates to the mode by which this righteousness comes to the individual: man cannot perform good works which are capable of earning justification on a quid pro quo basis, but he can totally abase himself, and cry out to God for grace.

McGrath considered “the second aspect of the matter,” “mode”, first. And at these two links I talked shared that discussion:

The Righteousness of God
God’s wrath is his penultimate and not his final word

Beginning his discussion now of the “nature” of this “righteousness of God”, McGrath says:

It will be clear that Luther’s early insistence upon the necessity of destroying human preconceptions of iustitia through the opus alienum Dei leads us on to consider the nature of the ‘righteousness of God’. In the opening of the scholia [commentary] of his lectures on Romans, Luther states his conviction that the letter represents a programmatic assault upon human preconceptions of wisdom and righteousness.

Remember that it was not so clear-cut at all for young Martin Luther. Consider the world in which he grew up , and what “human preconceptions of wisdom and righteousness” were like:

The Righteousness of God

I’m continuing to talk about Martin Luther’s “discovery” of both “justification” and “the Theology of the Cross,” both of which emerged in his thinking at the same time, and which were inextricably related to each other. As McGrath (“Luther’s Theology of the Cross,” Oxford, UK: and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, ©1985, 1990) pointed out:

There are two aspects to Luther’s discovery of ‘the righteousness of God’. The first relates to the nature of this righteousness: Luther discovered a ‘wonderful new definition of righteousness’ which stood in diametrical opposition to human understandings of iustitia. The second relates to the mode by which this righteousness comes to the individual: man cannot perform good works which are capable of earning justification on a quid pro quo basis, but he can totally abase himself, and cry out to God for grace.

This is one of those McGrath statements that has been picked out of his various works and used by Roman Catholics with some glee – recently as David Anders has McGrath lamenting “The Protestant understanding of the nature of justification thus represents a theological novum.” It is a novum because, after Augustine got it wrong, Luther was the first one to get it right. The “infallible” Roman church had gotten it wrong for a thousand years and counting.

This may be a well-known to some readers, but I wanted to pass it along.

The Called to Confusion blogger David Anders specifically asks,

The Alien Righteousness of Christ

“By late 1514 Luther had arrived at the fundamental insight that the proper disposition for justification is humility” – Alister McGrath, Alister E. McGrath, “Luther’s Theology of the Cross,” Oxford, UK: and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, ©1985, 1990, pg 153.

Martin Luther’s “Theology of the Cross” is not a specialized or “side” theology. It is comprehensive attitude out of which arrives his way of understanding what God is doing in the world. It is the Biblical way of understanding God. (“Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord…. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”)

In the decades immediately prior to what became known as “Luther’s breakthrough”, late medieval theology had arrived at the understanding that “the basic condition which man was required to meet in order to be justified was by doing quod in se est” (“doing their best”). “The righteousness of God was understood to refer to the equity within the context of the covenant that God made with man ‘which defines God’s manner of dealing with humanity’”.

McGrath’s work is an effort both to provide an overview of the “backgrounds” of medieval theology, and an effort to understand Luther’s thought at various times, based on his various lecture notes and publications. It is an effort to understand “what he knew and when he knew it”. That’s a complicated effort, but my understanding is that McGrath’s scholarship over the years, on this topic, is both thorough and precise.

The hallmark of “Luther’s breakthrough” is his understanding of the phrase “the righteousness of God”. That phrase had a certain, well-defined meaning during the middle ages, and according to McGrath, Luther had a very secure understanding of it:

It is this understanding of ‘the righteousness of God’ which is represented by Martin Luther in the earlier part of his “Lectures on the Psalms (1513-15), as may be judged from his [marginal comment] on Psalm 9:9):

“Righteousness (iustitia) [“the righteousness of God”] is thus said to be rendering to each what is due to them. Yet equity is prior to righteousness, and is its prerequisite. Equity identifies merit, righteousness renders rewards. Thus the Lord judges the world ‘in equity’ (that is, wishing all to be saved), and judges ‘in righteousness’ (because God renders to each their reward).”

Luther here reproduces key aspects of [a late medieval] understanding of iustitia Dei (“the righteousness of God”): iustitia is understood to be based upon divine equity, which looks solely to the merits of humans in determining their reward within the framework established by the covenant. The doctors of the church rightly teach that, when people do their best (quod in se est), God infallibly gives grace (Alister McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, Third edition, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, ©2005, pg 88).

This late medieval teaching on justification (especially Gabriel Biel and the via moderna school of theology) was genuinely a Pelagian teaching that was widely accepted within the Church of the day. No, Trent did not define it this way either, but there was no definition at all, and such teaching was rampant within the Church of that day.

Luther’s theological breakthrough is intimately connected with his discovery of a new meaning of ‘the righteousness of God’, and it is important to appreciate that his earlier works are characterized by the teaching of the via moderna upon this matter. Luther’s later view that anyone attempting to do quod in se est sinned mortally remains notionally within this framework, while ultimately subverting its theological plausibility.

McGrath goes on to say, “the covenant-theology of the via moderna is based upon the presupposition that man is capable of doing quod in se est without the special assistance of grace.”

The origins of Luther’s concept of the ‘alien righteousness of Christ’ must be considered to lie in his holistic understanding of man. In particular, Luther argues that ‘flesh’ (caro) and ‘spirit’ (spiritus) are not to be regarded as man’s lower and higher faculties respectively, but rather as descriptions of the whole person considered under different aspects. Thus caro is not man’s lower nature, but the entire man (totus homo), considered as turned in upon itself (homo incurvatus in se) in its irrepressible egoism and its radical alienation from God. Similarly, spiritus is to be understood as referring to the entire man in his openness to God and the divine promises. For Luther, justification relates to the entire person, both flesh and spirit: although the individual comes to put his trust in the promises of God, he nevertheless remains a sinner. Thus the totus homo is iustus et peccator simul – a sinner inwardly, and yet righteous in the sight of God….The believer is righteous coram Deo [before God], even though this righteousness cannot be detected empirically: indeed, those whose righteousness can be detected empirically are righteous coram homnibus [before man] and yet unrighteousness coram Deo – the hypocrites. The Christian is a sinner in re, and yet righteous in spe: his righteousness is hidden, known only to God.

As the totus homo cannot be partially righteous coram Deo, his righteousness must be alien and extrinsic to him – it is a righteousness which is in no sense part of his person, or which can in any way be said to belong to him. It is this consideration which appears to underlie the concept of iustia Christi aliena…. Extrinsically, the believer is righteous, through the alien righteousness of Christ; intrinsically, he is – and will remain – a sinner. This concept of justifying righteousness is, of course, totally different from that of St. Augustine, as Luther himself fully appreciates. This element of Luther’s thought would be developed by Melanchthon into a doctrine of forensic justification, which would become normative for Protestant understandings of justification.

Thus, McGrath concludes this chapter on “The Righteousness of God”, “Luther’s insight into the true nature of the ‘righteousness of God’ represents far more than a mere terminological clarification: latent within it is a new concept of God. Who is this God who deals thus with man? Luther’s answer to this question, as it developed over the years 1513-1519, can be summarized in one of his most daring phrases: the God who deals with sinful man in this astonishing way is none other than the ‘crudified and hidden God’ (Deus crucifixus et absconditus) – the God of the theologia crucis. How Luther developed his fundamental insight into the true nature of his ‘righteousness of God’ into the theologia crucis, with all that this entails, is the subject of the following chapter (pg 147).

For anyone interested in the development of Luther’s thought, especially regarding Justification and “the alien righteousness of Christ”, Scott Clark of Westminster Seminary, California, has produced an article, Iustitia Imputata Christi, which goes into quite a bit of detail.

the great puzzle of the Bible

“Though our iniquities testify against us,
Act, O LORD, for your name’s sake” (Jeremiah 14:7)

“We acknowledge our wickedness, O LORD,
And the iniquity of our fathers,
For we have sinned against you.
Do not spurn us, for your name’s sake;
Do not dishonor your glorious throne” (Jeremiah 14:20-21)

How can Israel appeal to the honor of Yahweh’s namesake to forgive their sin when the essence of their sin is the dishonoring of his namesake?

…Romans 3:25-26

The Wrighteousness of God

"The Wrighteousness of God" by Gerald Bray