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Justification and Union with Christ, Part 9

The Relationship Between Effectual Calling and Justification

One way to see the necessity of making a distinction between objective and subjective justification is by reflecting on the ordo salutis of a particular subset of elect persons, namely, those not intellectually capable of hearing and understanding the external call of the gospel and responding in faith and repentance. This would include elect infants dying in infancy. This category of persons is mentioned by the Confession in the chapter on effectual calling:

Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth: so also are all other elect persons who are uncapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word (WCF X.3).

Taking our cue from the Confession, let���s divide the class of all elect persons into two categories: the intellectually capable and the intellectually incapable. Can we properly speak of intellectually incapable elect persons being effectually called? Surely not. You can see this by looking at the definition of effectual calling given in the Confession:

All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation, by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and, by his almighty power, determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ (WCF X.1).

The external call becomes efficacious to the intellectually capable through the preaching of the gospel addressing their minds, their minds being enlightened by the Spirit and their wills being renewed by the Spirit making them willing and able to believe. But surely the intellectually incapable elect cannot be effectually called in this sense. They are regenerated and saved, but they are not effectually called and made to exercise saving faith in Christ. (At least not in this life���presumably God grants them the intellectual capacity to exercise conscious faith at some later point, either in the intermediate state or at their bodily resurrection.) Thus we can say that all who are effectually called are regenerated, but not all who are regenerated are effectually called.

Now the very next chapter of the Confession is the chapter on justification, and the opening paragraph defines justification in connection with effectual calling:

Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth: not by infusing righteousness into them, 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 (WCF XI.1).

Clearly, this description of justification by faith only applies to the intellectually capable. ���Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth ��� by faith.��� God justifies them by faith, as they receive and rest on Christ and his righteousness. But this faith is the result of effectual calling, which is only for those intellectually capable of hearing the gospel and believing in it. Therefore, not everything in the Confession���s description of justification in XI.1 applies to ���elect persons who are uncapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word,��� such as elect infants dying in infancy. And yet surely this class of elect persons must have the righteousness of Christ imputed to them, even if they are not capable of being effectually called so as to rest on Christ and his righteousness by conscious faith. There is no question that the intellectually incapable must receive the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, even if they do not (in this life) actively and consciously exercise faith.

Let���s isolate that imputation from the broader experience of it for the intellectually capable who are effectually called and justified by faith. Once we���ve isolated that imputation, we realize it is also a part of the ordo salutis of the intellectually capable elect. That is what is meant by objective justification. Just as the non-conscious core of effectual calling is regeneration, so the non-conscious core of justification is imputation. All the elect, both the intellectually capable and the intellectually incapable, receive imputation and regeneration. But only the intellectually capable experience the conscious outworking of that in the form of effectual calling and justification by faith. Just as effectual calling is the manifestation of regeneration in conscious experience, so justification by faith is the manifestation of imputation in conscious experience.

I believe this distinction between imputation and subjective justification is the same as the distinction that Gaffin and Tipton make between the imputation of righteousness and the declaration of righteousness. The declaration of righteousness is a subjective reality in the forum of the conscience as the sinner receives the conscious assurance of the forgiveness of sins and the declaration of God that he is deemed righteous in the sight of God. The term declaration implies a speaking, but it is the Holy Spirit speaking through the gospel (Word and Spirit working together in our hearts). It is a subjective experience: ���God���s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us��� (Rom 5:5). But the declaration of God that he loves us and accepts us as righteous in his sight, is not a baseless assurance. It is grounded on something. And that ground, that basis, is the imputation of the righteousness Christ. When God declares us to be righteous, it is not a legal fiction; it is a verdict of divine justice, founded on the absolute truth of God because of Christ���s satisfaction and fulfillment of the law as our federal representative. Thus, the distinction between objective justification (or imputation) and subjective justification is one that even Gaffin and Tipton agree with in principle. And they would also agree that there is a legal priority to the imputation. It is on the legal ground of the imputed righteousness of Christ, that we receive all the benefits of salvation, including the declaration of righteousness. Imputation is the legal ground of the declaration of righteousness (aka subjective justification), which is received by faith.

Now, then, we come to the nub of the debate. Where does faith come from? All sides agree that it comes from regeneration/effectual calling and is the Spirit-wrought bond of existential union with Christ. Recall Gaffin���s formula: ���union with Christ by Spirit-wrought faith.��� Faith is the bond of the existential union with Christ, and that bond is created or wrought by the Spirit when he effectually calls us. But where does regeneration/effectual calling come from? Just as the declaration of righteousness comes to us as one of the blessings of salvation on the legal ground of the imputed righteousness of Christ, so with all the other benefits. The benefits of regeneration, effectual calling, and existential union with Christ by Spirit-wrought faith also come to us on the legal ground of the imputed righteousness of Christ. I don���t see how it can be any other way.

We agree that effectual calling and Spirit-wrought existential union with Christ are prior to subjective justification (aka justification by faith or the declaration of righteousness). It is only through effectual calling that we get faith and this Spirit-wrought faith is the bond of existential union with Christ. And since subjective justification is ���by faith,��� existential union with Christ is the context in which subjective justification is experienced by the intellectually capable elect person. Thus far there is no debate with the WTS school of Gaffin, Tipton et al.

But if we���re talking about the relationship between the imputation of righteousness and effectual calling (and the resulting Spirit-wrought existential union), then imputation is both logically prior to it and the legal ground of it. This is precisely what A. A. Hodge argued:

Regeneration and consequently faith are wrought in us for Christ���s sake and as the result conditioned on a previous imputation of his righteousness to that end (Outlines of Theology, 518).

In the case of intellectually incapable elect persons, such as elect infants dying in infancy, they have a much more restricted ordo salutis: imputation and regeneration occurring simultaneously but with imputation as the logically prior basis of regeneration.

In the case of intellectually capable elect persons, they have the fuller ordo salutis that we are more familiar with: imputation, regeneration, effectual calling, subjective justification by faith, adoption, sanctification, and glorification.

A subset of the preceding category of persons should be mentioned as well:  elect covenant children who do not die in infancy but come to faith over time through covenant nurture. Many elect covenant children (not all) receive imputation and regeneration at birth or even in the womb and later come to conscious faith and repentance as they come to understand the gospel so as to rest upon Christ and be subjectively justified or receive the declaration of righteousness in their conscience. Their ordo salutis is the same as the preceding, except that there is a time gap between imputation/regeneration and effectual calling/subjective justification.

The notion that imputation is the legal ground of regeneration, effectual calling, and existential union with Christ is not strange. It follows from the reality that Christ���s work is the fulfillment of the works principle. By his active and passive obedience (his obedience to the point of death), Christ completed all the requirements of the intratrinitarian covenant of works (aka the pactum salutis). As a result of fulfilling the law, he was vindicated and declared to be the law-keeping Second Adam, moving from the probation phase to the beyond-probation phase. This occurred when God raised him from the dead. His resurrection was his vindication or justification. When he was justified and raised and exalted to the right hand of God, he became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor 15:45). All the elect have Christ���s righteousness imputed to them and on account of that imputation, all the elect, who were spiritually dead in trespasses and sins, are spiritually raised up with Christ (e.g., regenerated). That���s why Paul taught that ���the Spirit is life because of righteousness��� (Rom 8:10). In other words, the regeneration of the Spirit is on account of imputed righteousness, the righteousness of Christ.

But, again, just to be clear, this is a logical not a temporal order. There is not even the slightest temporal gap between imputation and regeneration. It is what the Reformed scholastics called ���the order of nature.��� However, there can be a temporal gap between imputation/regeneration and effectual calling/subjective justification, as in the case of the elect covenant child who receives imputation and regeneration at birth (or even in the womb) but who later learns about Jesus and comes to believe and rest upon him and to manifest the fruits of repentance. There are many adult Christians who would say they cannot remember a time when they didn���t believe and have a hard time pinpointing the time when they first began to believe. It is likely that they were regenerated long before, and they manifested the fruits of that regeneration in the form of conscious faith and repentance as they matured intellectually and spiritually.

Justification and Union with Christ, Part 8

Exegetical Basis of the Objective/Subjective Justification Distinction

Now perhaps one might worry that the distinction is a neat scholastic distinction invented to ���save��� the federal system, but that it lacks an exegetical basis. But I would argue that is not so. In Paul���s theology, there is a close connection between justification and reconciliation. Paul uses the language of reconciliation in three important passages (Rom 5:1-11; 2 Cor 5:18-21; Col 1:20-22), and in the first two cases (Rom 5:1-11 and 2 Cor 5:18-21), it comes on the heels of or is immediately followed by language about justification and imputed righteousness. In the third passage (Col 1:20-22), it is arguable that the concept of justification is present in the nearby context (���qualified to share in the inheritance,��� Col 1:12-14). Paul is using the language of reconciliation, not as a separate benefit in the ordo salutis, but to shift to a different metaphorical frame, from the forensic metaphor of the courtroom (justification) to the more relational metaphor of war and peace (reconciliation). He does this in order to bring out the subjective dimension of justification, saying that we were once under the wrath of God (Rom 1:18), but now, ���having been justified by faith, we have peace with God��� (Rom 5:1).

However, the reconciliation metaphor also has a pronounced objective side in Paul���s thought. Paul emphasizes the objective aspect as that which has logical priority over the subjective. He says, ���We were reconciled to God through the death of his Son��� (Rom 5:10). It wasn���t through regeneration or through our faith-bond with Christ or anything wrought in us, but ���through the death of his Son��� that we were reconciled to God. In the Colossians passage, he makes it even more explicit in focusing on the objective work of Christ outside of us: ���He has now reconciled [you] in his body of flesh by his death��� (Col 1:22).

Another locution used by Paul in connection with reconciliation highlights the priority of the objective.  Paul says God reconciled us to himself: ���Through him to reconcile to himself all things��� (Col 1:20). ���Who through Christ reconciled us to himself ��� In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them��� (2 Cor 5:18-19). Then, having emphasized God���s work in reconciling us to himself, he moves to the gospel call: ���We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God��� (2 Cor 5:20). Objective reconciliation occurs first, even before our conscious experience of it by faith, as a sovereign action of God reconciling us ���to himself,��� and then, when we hear the word of reconciliation and believe in Christ, we become subjectively reconciled.

The article on the Greek words for ���reconcile, reconciliation��� in the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis is helpful in this regard:

The reconciliation created by God is thus an act attributed to divine initiative and not dependent on human peace-making. ���For if, while we were God���s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!��� (Rom 5:10). It is clear that the sinner was an enemy before the reconciliation took place. Human action, including even repentance and confession of sins, is not a work that initiates reconciliation and to which God reacts. Rather it [= reconciliation] is the work of God, to which we respond. (��������������������� in NIDNTTE, ed. M. Silva [Zondervan, 2014], 1.245)

This distinction between objective and subjective reconciliation, and the priority of objective reconciliation to subjective reconciliation, is explicit in Paul, and since reconciliation is merely another metaphor for justification, I would argue that this is a significant exegetical basis for the distinction between objective and subjective justification.

Justification and Union with Christ, Part 7

The Objective/Subjective Justification Distinction

In order to make sense of this, we have to understand the distinction between the objective and the subjective sides of justification. In his Systematic Theology (p. 517), Berkhof states that objective justification ���consists in a declaration which God makes respecting the sinner, and this declaration is made in the tribunal of God ... This active justification logically precedes faith and passive justification.��� Subjective justification, on the other hand, ���takes place in the heart or conscience of the sinner��� and ���logically, passive justification follows faith.���

I prefer to speak of ���objective justification��� and ���subjective justification,��� or even ���imputation��� and ���justification,��� thus reserving the term ���justification��� for the subjective experience of being justified by faith. Nevertheless, I believe this distinction is crucial because it is the key to maintaining the distinction between justification and sanctification, between the forensic and the renovative, as well as being able to keep the forensic logically prior to and the ground of the renovative.

Dr. Lane Tipton���s 2012 Inaugural Address is a critique of Berkhof���s distinction between active and passive justification. Tipton says,

We must maintain without any form of equivocation that believers are not personally justified until they are united to Christ by faith in their effectual calling ���. If active justification is a blessing of redemption applied (ordo salutis), and if active justification logically precedes faith, then active justification logically precedes faith-union with Christ. This is not possible from a biblical and confessional perspective ���. No aspect of forensic justification comes to believers (logically or temporally) prior to union with Christ by faith (WTJ 75 [2013]: 7, 8, 10).

Clearly, Dr. Tipton rejects active justification as understood within federal theology, but I am personally convinced of its importance and validity. I would not claim that it is the only legitimate Reformed view. There is clearly diversity within the Reformed tradition at this point. But it is a widely held position associated with the more systematic refinement of Reformed theology in terms of federal theology from the 17th century to the present. Berkhof is not alone in making this distinction. I believe the distinction can also be found in Ursinus, Maccovius, Owen, Turretin, Witsius, �� Brakel, A. A. Hodge, Bavinck, and Vos.

Here are some quotes from Bavinck in his Reformed Dogmatics (ed. John Bolt; trans. John Vriend) where he articulates the distinction between active and passive justification:

The imputation of the person of Christ along with all his benefits, therefore, preceded the gift of the benefits. Justification, in other words, did not occur as a result of or by faith, but with a view to faith. Before the elect receive faith, they have already been justified. Indeed, they receive this faith precisely because they have already been justified beforehand. (3.583)

Now to maintain this perfect righteousness of Christ and the full riches of the gospel, Reformed theologians, in speaking of actual justification, made a distinction between active and passive justification. (4.218)

Now the distinction between active and passive justification served to escape this nomistic pattern. Active justification already in a sense occurred in the proclamation of the gospel, in the external calling, but it occurs especially in the internal calling when God by his word and Spirit effectually calls sinners, convicts them of sin, drives them out toward Christ, and prompts them to find forgiveness and life in him. Logically this active justification precedes faith ���. And when these persons, after first, as it were, going out to Christ (the direct act of faith), then (by a reflex act of faith) return to themselves and acknowledge with childlike gratitude that their sins too have been personally forgiven, then, in that moment, the passive justification occurs by which God acquits believers in their conscience ���. While there is here a priority of order, it is coupled with simultaneity of time ���. Active and passive justification, accordingly, cannot be separated even for a second. (4.219)

Bavinck is clear in distancing his position from justification from eternity (3.591; 4.216). And while he does sometimes speak of objective justification as occurring in the historia salutis, i.e., in the resurrection of Christ, he makes clear that such is not ���full��� or ���actual��� justification. He views actual justification as purchased by Christ in history according to the terms of the pactum salutis, but as coming to fruition in the moment of the internal calling or regeneration.

A covenant of grace, a mystical union between Christ and his church, existed long before believers were personally incorporated into it���or else Christ could not have made satisfaction for them either. The imputation and donation of Christ and all his benefits by God takes place before the particular persons come to believe. Specifically, that imputation and donation takes place in the internal calling, and regeneration is the passive acceptance of this gift of grace. God also had to give that gift in order for us to be able to receive it. The very first gift of grace given us already presupposes the imputation of Christ, for Christ is the only source of grace, the acquisitor and distributor of the Spirit, who is his Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. (4.214)

This seems eminently Scriptural to me, especially the way Bavinck so strongly sees the pactum salutis as fulfilled in the historia salutis (the accomplishment of redemption) as the foundation for the ordo salutis (the application of redemption).

If it is true that the very first benefit of grace already presupposes communion with the person of Christ, then the imputation and granting of Christ to the church precedes everything else ���.  A bond was already forged between the mediator and those who were given him by the Father in eternity, in election, and more precisely in the pact of salvation (pactum salutis). Then, in the divine decree, a mystical union was concluded between them, and substitution occurred ���. The whole church, comprehended in him as its head, has objectively been crucified, has died, been resurrected, and glorified with him. All the benefits of grace therefore lie prepared and ready for the church in the person of Christ. All is finished: God has been reconciled; nothing remains to be added from the side of humans. Atonement, forgiveness, justification, the mystical union, sanctification, glorification, and so on���they do not come into being after and as a result of faith but are objectively, actively present in Christ. They are the fruits solely of his suffering and dying, and they are appropriated on our part by faith. God grants them and imputes them to the church in the decree of election, in the resurrection of Christ, in his calling by the gospel. In God���s own time they will also become the subjective possession of believers. (3.523)

How glorious and wonderful! All too often when we speak of being ���justified by faith,��� we fall into the misguided view that faith is a condition that God looks for and in response to which he grants justification. Bavinck writes: ���If in every respect justification comes after faith, faith becomes a condition, an activity that has to be performed in advance and cannot be purely receptive��� (4.221). But faith is merely a passive and receptive instrument. Indeed, the gift of faith itself is a result of regeneration by the Spirit, and our regeneration has been purchased by the merit of Christ. Therefore, even before we are regenerated, we are already justified (actively) in order that we may be regenerated and believe, and thus receive and rest upon Christ alone for righteousness. We do not receive and rest in Christ in order that we may be justified. Rather, we believe that we are justified.

As the Heidelberg Catechism puts it, ���True faith is ��� a firm confidence that not only to others, but also to me, God has granted forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness, and salvation, out of mere grace, only for the sake of Christ���s merits��� (Q. 21). Faith is not a condition I must meet in order for God to grant forgiveness and righteousness. It is a firm confidence that God ���has granted��� me forgiveness and righteousness.

Justification and Union with Christ, Part 6

The Ordo Salutis within Federal Theology

In my posts so far, I���ve been attempting to provide an objective summary of the debate between WTS and WSC on the issue of justification and union with Christ. I have more posts in store in which I hope to summarize some of the other contributors to the debate, particularly John Fesko and Michael Horton. But before I do that, I want to get my own perspective on the table. I assume it is already clear that my sympathies lie with the WSC school of thought, but I want to state it more explicitly. 

I hope I am not interpreted as rejecting the concept of mystical or vital union with Christ. Rather, following Reformed thought as clarified in the 17th century, I hold to a broader understanding of union with Christ that includes both a legal and a mystical dimension. Union with Christ is not reduced to the mystical or experiential side, but is grounded in a broader conceptual scheme, namely, federal theology.

Federal theology holds that there are two overarching covenants in Scripture, the covenant of works under the federal headship of the first Adam and the covenant of redemption under the federal headship of the Second Adam (aka the pactum salutis). Both covenants are covenants of the works variety, involving an eschatological reward contingent upon the passing of a probation. But where the first Adam disobeyed, the second Adam obeyed, passed the probation, and earned eternal life for his people. Just as we were condemned ���in Adam,��� so we are justified ���in Christ��� (1 Cor 15:22; Rom 5:18-19). Just as the sin of the first federal head was imputed to us via an immediate imputation that did not involve mystical union with him, so Christ���s righteousness is imputed to us by an immediate imputation that precedes and grounds mystical union. Our mystical union with Christ is a later phase of our broader legal, federal, and representative union. Our mystical union with Christ is grounded in our federal union with Christ.

Within this broader view of federal union with Christ, the imputation of Christ���s righteousness is the engine that leads in front and pulls all the benefits of the ordo salutis in its wake. In particular, the renovative benefits (regeneration, sanctification and glorification) follow as necessary effects or consequences of the imputed righteousness of Christ. Note that I did not say the renovative benefits follow as necessary effects or consequences of justification, but as necessary effects of the imputed righteousness of Christ. The reason I avoided the term ���justification��� is because that usually refers to ���justification by faith,��� that is, the sinner���s experience of being accepted by God by faith, and that is under the aegis of vital union. If justification is by faith, and if regeneration is the cause of faith, then regeneration is prior to justification in the subjective sense. But the imputation of Christ���s righteousness is under the aegis of the legal or federal union, and that federal union is prior to and grounds the vital union and all the renovative benefits that flow from vital union.

Here is a rough sketch of the ordo salutis as I see it. I���m not claiming it is scientifically precise and perfect.

Imputation (or active/objective justification)
Regeneration, which creates faith and establishes vital union with Christ by the Spirit
Passive/subjective justification by faith
Progressive sanctification
Glorification

The details can be massaged, but the main thing I want to affirm is that imputation (or active/objective justification) is the legal foundation of vital union and all subsequent events in the application of salvation. We must first be legally regarded in the court of divine justice as those who, in federal union with our Head, have fulfilled the probationary works principle. Righteousness is the basis of life. ���The Spirit is life because of righteousness��� (Rom 8:10). ���Those whom he justified he also glorified��� (Rom 8:30). When the probation of the covenant of works is fulfilled, in principle the reward has been earned and one now has a right to the eternal inheritance. We receive that right when we are reckoned as righteous, as law-fulfillers in federal union with the one who fulfilled the law in our place. That is imputation. As a result, we now have a right to the reward. The reward is life in all its fulness, ultimately the glorification of the body. But that reward is applied to sinners in a progressive manner, beginning first with their regeneration. Regeneration is the cause of faith, and by that faith we come to conscious reception and enjoyment of the righteousness of Christ and are subjectively justified. From that point onward, progressive sanctification ensues until we depart this life. Finally, at the resurrection, we are glorified. Indeed, we could say that regeneration and progressive sanctification are the inaugurated form of glorification. But that whole package of regeneration-sanctification-glorification is the renovative blessing of life that is earned by meritorious law-keeping and probation-passing. We must first be righteous before we can live. We must first receive the imputation of righteousness before we can enjoy the reward of righteousness. Christ has achieved for us the ���justification that brings life��� (Rom 5:18 NIV 1984).

I recognize that this sketch is controversial. I freely admit that Calvin didn���t put things precisely this way. It���s not explicitly stated this way in the Reformed confessions (although one could argue that it is implicit at points). I wouldn���t claim that this sketch of the ordo salutis is the only Reformed view. Nevertheless, I do think it is the logically consistent ordo salutis that flows from the clarity provided by the 17th century federal theology. Here a few quotes showing that the above ordo is not novel:

���Regeneration and consequently faith are wrought in us for Christ���s sake and as the result conditioned on a previous imputation of his righteousness to that end��� (A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 518).

���It is evident that a sinner cannot be regenerated and perform holy acts [such as faith], until in some sense his guilt is removed and his obligation to punishment remitted. In a word, he must be pardoned before he can be renewed and exert holy energies [like faith]���not consciously pardoned, but pardoned representatively in Christ ���. The ordo salutis is clearly settled by a strict construction of the federal scheme��� (John L. Girardeau, ���The Federal Theology: Its Import and Its Regulative Influence���).

���Before the elect receive faith, they have already been justified. Indeed, they receive this faith precisely because they have already been justified beforehand ���. [Maccovius] treats the benefits in the following order: active justification, regeneration, faith, passive justification, good works��� (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3.583).

���The mystical union in the sense in which we are now speaking of it is not the judicial ground, on the basis of which we become partakers of the riches that are in Christ ���. The judicial ground for all the special grace which we receive lies in the fact that the righteousness of Christ is freely imputed to us ���. Active or objective justification ��� is justification in the most fundamental sense of the word ��� a divine declaration that, in the case of the sinner under consideration, the demands of the law are met ��� in view of the fact that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to him ���. This active justification logically precedes faith and passive justification��� (Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 452, 517).

���God imputes Christ to the elect sinner in a forensic union, on the basis of which, God grants the sinner faith. Through this faith, the believer is mystically united to Christ��� (Matthew W. Mason, ���John Owen���s Doctrine of Union with Christ in Relation to His Contributions to 17th Century Debates Concerning Eternal Justification,��� Ecclesia Reformanda 1 [2009]: 68).

Justification and Union with Christ, Part 5

WSC���s Response to Garcia���s Review of CJPM

In the December 2007 issue of Ordained Servant, W. Robert Godfrey and David VanDrunen wrote a response to Mark Garcia���s critical review of CJPM. Godfrey and VanDrunen point out that what lies behind Garcia���s critique is his position on union with Christ: ���Garcia is part of a rather new Reformed theological approach that wants to focus all of Reformed theology on union with Christ.��� Garcia evidently thinks ���Calvin���s doctrine of union with Christ is the sledgehammer with which to crush CJPM.���

They divide their response into sections:  first, Garcia���s historical argument; second, Garcia���s theological argument.

Garcia���s historical argument is that there is no such thing as ���pan-confessionalism,��� that is, a doctrine of justification held in common by both the Lutheran and the Reformed theological systems. In reply, Godfrey and VanDrunen point out that the Lutheran and Reformed theologies do have significant differences in various areas, such as Christology and the sacraments, but they are in agreement on the doctrine of justification, and on the priority of justification to sanctification. They quote the Formula of Concord, which makes the same point as the Reformed confessions that ���good works always follow justifying faith, and are most certainly found together with it ��� for true faith is never alone, but hath always charity and hope in its train.��� (Cp. Westminster Confession���s affirmation that faith ���is the alone instrument of justification; yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love��� [WCF XI.2].)

Godfrey and VanDrunen argue that Calvin himself was a pan-confessionalist with regard to justification. He signed the Augsburg Confession. He had friendly letter exchanges with Melanchthon. He wrote a letter to the Lutheran ministers of Saxony and Lower Germany in 1556 in which he affirmed his agreement with the Lutherans on the doctrine of justification by faith. True, in the 1559 edition of the Institutes (3.11.5-12), Calvin did forcefully engage in polemics with the Lutheran theologian Osiander, who had argued that in justification we receive God���s essential righteousness. But this doesn���t make Calvin a critic of the authentic Lutheran doctrine of justification. The only way to read Calvin as critical of the Lutheran doctrine of justification is if one takes Osiander as the only consistent Lutheran���which is what Garcia argues. But this is an ���astounding��� claim in view of the fact that Osiander���s views were explicitly and officially rejected by the Lutheran churches themselves in the Formula of Concord.

In sum, ���Garcia represents Calvin���s attitudes to Lutheranism as consistently negative, which is simply not true.��� Calvin formulated his doctrine of justification in harmony with, not in opposition to, the Lutheran doctrine. If, by grounding justification in union with Christ, Calvin was establishing the doctrine of justification on a fundamentally different theological footing than in Lutheran theology, he didn���t seem to be aware of it.

What about Garcia���s theological argument that, in union with Christ, the two benefits of justification and sanctification are simultaneous and non-prioritized? Godfrey and VanDrunen affirm the doctrine of union with Christ, but the difference is that they understand and formulate the doctrine of union with Christ in such a way as to maintain the priority of justification over sanctification, whereas Garcia exalts union with Christ as an ���abstract doctrine.��� They write:

We would appeal to Garcia to uphold this sense of the priority of justification to sanctification in the ordo salutis. This is not a doctrine to be embraced in place of union with Christ, but our theology of union must be compatible with this doctrine. We ought not begin with an abstract doctrine of union, conceived independently of the concrete blessings of justification, adoption, and sanctification, and then deduce from this abstract doctrine the idea that justification, adoption, and sanctification must be received simultaneously through union without a defined relationship to each other.

This issue, for Godfrey and VanDrunen, is of vital importance. ���The very character and identity of the Christian life are at stake.��� Why is that? Because ���there is no such thing as the moral life for the non-justified.��� A person who is not justified is not at peace with God, and is constantly confronted with his guilt before God due to his failure to keep the law. Therefore, a non-justified person who seeks to live a moral life can only do so in the vain attempt to secure God���s approval on the basis of his own works of righteousness. But for the justified person, the moral life looks completely different. For the justified person, he ���pursues holiness not in order to be right with God, but as a response to God���s gracious declaration that he already is right with him.���

There is an order in the economy of salvation: justification precedes sanctification, not only in the obvious sense that justification is an instantaneous act of God at the outset of the Christian life, whereas progressive sanctification is a life-long process. Rather, justification precedes and grounds sanctification in the spiritual sense that, as Godfrey and VanDrunen write, ���people progress in their Christian lives as those who are justified.��� We are justified by faith alone. God justifies the ungodly (Rom 4:5). And then having been justified by faith alone, saving faith produces good works as the fruit and effect of justification by faith. This was the issue at the time of the Reformation, the point of difference with the Roman Catholic Church. If we put the order the other way, and say that we are justified only as we are sanctified, then we have fallen into the Roman Catholic view and we have lost the gospel.

Godfrey and VanDrunen engage in some helpful exegesis at this point as well, showing that this order (justification prior to sanctification) is taught in the Scriptures. They appeal to Luke 4:47, where Jesus says that the sinful woman���s love was the expression and evidence of that fact that she was forgiven and justified. They also point out that in Gal 5:13 Paul says we have freedom in Christ, that is, as those who are justified and adopted we have been set free from the law as a covenant of works, and so as those who are free, we are free to love. ���We love as those who have been freed through our justification.��� Paul says much the same thing in Rom 6:14 and 7:6. ���The reality of justification is the foundation for the sanctified Christian life.���

I mentioned in the previous post that Garcia made the charge that WSC���s position on justification as having priority over sanctification ���attribute[s] to justification a generative, transformational quality (in that sanctification is generated or produced by justification),��� thereby compromising the purely forensic character of justification. Godfrey and VanDrunen respond to this charge by stating that the contributors to CJPM never said that justification ���causes��� sanctification. It is not the position of WSC that justification has a ���generative, transformational��� power, as if justification itself (rather than the Spirit) accomplishes the work of sanctification in us. Rather, WSC is keen to defend the idea that ���the good works produced by believers in their sanctification are the fruits of justifying faith and that in the ordo salutis justification has a certain priority to sanctification.��� Garcia misunderstands the WSC position.

They quote from the OPC Report of the Committee to Study the Doctrine of Justification (2006) to flesh this out more. The priority of justification over sanctification is not that justification is more important than sanctification, nor is it a temporal priority, for all who are justified are also being sanctified. Rather the point is this:

While justification is the necessary prerequisite of the process of sanctification, that process is not the necessary prerequisite of justification. It is true to say that one must be justified in order to be sanctified; but it is untrue to say that one must be sanctified in order to be justified. Justification and sanctification bear a relationship to each other than cannot be reversed (pp. 60-61).

Finally, Garcia may be correct that Calvin taught a ���union-double benefit��� construction of the ordo salutis. But Calvin did not follow this through to Garcia���s conclusion that the two benefits are equally basic and non-prioritized. Godfrey and VanDrunen make this point, quoting the famous statement by Calvin that justification is ���the main hinge on which religion turns ��� For unless you understand first of all what your position is before God ��� you have no foundation on which your salvation can be laid, or on which piety toward God can be reared��� (Institutes 3.11.1).

Justification and Union with Christ, Part 4

Mark Garcia���s Critique of the WSC Position on Justification

In 2007, the faculty of Westminster Seminary California (WSC) published a collection of essays titled Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry (hereafter referred to as CJPM), edited by R. Scott Clark. The essays grew out of a conference that the seminary held in 2003 in response to recent controversies over justification, most notably the Federal Vision, which had just then broken onto the American conservative Presbyterian and Reformed scene.

In response to the publication of CJPM, Mark Garcia wrote a review article titled ���No Reformed Theology of Justification?��� published in Ordained Servant in October 2007. Garcia���s review article included some comments about another book on justification, The Way of Salvation by Paul Rainbow, but the inclusion of the Rainbow book did little to conceal the fact that the review was intended primarily as a polemical piece against CJPM. At the same time, Garcia was not identifying with the Federal Vision in every respect, and in fact distanced himself from it in upholding the imputation of the active obedience of Christ. Yet, strangely, he felt more of a burden to engage in polemics against WSC���s defense of sola fide, than to join hands with WSC in refuting the Federal Vision���s denial of sola fide!

Mark Garcia earned a Master���s degree at WTS in 2000 and did further postgraduate study at WTS in 2001. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Edinburgh in 2004, and his dissertation, titled Life in Christ: Union with Christ and Twofold Grace in Calvin���s Theology, was published by Paternoster in 2008. Garcia dedicated his book to Dr. Gaffin, and in the preface, he explains that Gaffin���s ���influence on my thinking [on the topic of Calvin and union with Christ] is reason enough to dedicate this project to him.��� The influence of Gaffin on Garcia is evident throughout Garcia���s published writings.

It is evident that Garcia is committed to the whole set of concepts that make up the Gaffin thesis. For example, in his dissertation, Garcia writes:

In Calvin���s framework ��� the life of obedience or sanctification by the Spirit does not flow from the imputation of Christ���s righteousness but from Christ himself with whom the Spirit has united believers. In other words, for Calvin, sanctification does not flow from justification. They are not related as cause and effect. Rather, together they are ���effects��� or, better, aspects of union with Christ (Life in Christ, 146).

He says the same thing in his review of CJPM: ���Sanctification does not result from justification, but is an aspect, like justification, of our union with Christ.��� It is from this point of view that he critiques the WSC position:

Despite the clear witness in the texts of the tradition, especially but far from exclusively in Calvin (see especially his commentary on 1 Cor. 1:30), that justification, sanctification, and any other graces of salvation are distinct, inseparable, and simultaneously bestowed aspects of union with Christ, the contributors to CJPM argue otherwise, and do so with evident passion. They prefer instead the classical Lutheran construct in which sanctification flows from justification.

Notice the language of ���distinct, inseparable, and simultaneous��� benefits. That is Gaffin���s language. The point of it is to say that union with Christ is primary. From union with Christ flow two benefits (the forensic and the renovative, justification and sanctification) that are distinct, inseparable, and simultaneous. Therefore, justification does not have priority over sanctification. It is not the cause of sanctification.

There are a number of inter-related claims here. Garcia is arguing the following:

Calvin taught the ���primacy of union, twofold non-prioritized benefit��� view. Garcia directs readers to his dissertation for that case.
Saying that sanctification flows from justification (i.e., prioritizing justification as the cause or legal ground of sanctification) is a Lutheran, not an authentically Reformed, construct.
There may be some parts of the Reformed tradition that have Lutheranizing tendencies (such as the Heidelberg Catechism and the WSC faculty), but these are not authentically Reformed. Calvin���s view is the authentic Reformed view.

And with that we come to what may be the heart of Garcia���s concern. Garcia writes: ���There is in fact no such thing as a ���Reformational��� or pan-confessional theology of justification��� shared by both the Lutheran and the Reformed systems of theology. Garcia thinks the Reformed system is, at a basic level, distinct from the Lutheran system. He thinks the differences between the two traditions are fundamentally incommensurate. The differences are in fact ���systemic,��� due to their different understandings of the place of union with Christ. In the Lutheran system, justification has controlling priority, and union with Christ and sanctification are effects of justification. In the Reformed system, according to Garcia, union with Christ has controlling priority, and justification and sanctification are distinct, inseparable, simultaneous, and non-prioritized effects of union with Christ.

The reason this is important for Garcia is that it impacts how one grounds sanctification, good works, and obedience in the Christian life. If one follows the Lutheran construct, then good works and obedience are merely the fruit of faith, or, to quote R. Scott Clark, ���merely evidence of sanctity and nothing more��� (CJPM, 253). But Garcia wants to argue that this ���merely evidence��� construction is ���unable to do full justice to the multitude of imperatives in the New Testament that are clearly ���Gospel,��� i.e., that commend (imperatively) obedience in some form as a condition for eternal life.���

Both Garcia and WSC believe in the necessity of good works, but they have a different view of the reason for the necessity of good works. For WSC, sanctification and good works are the result of a justification freely given and freely received. For Garcia, sanctification and good works are necessary, not as the result of justification, but as a result of union with Christ. This follows from his starting point regarding the distinct, inseparable, simultaneous, non-prioritized twofold benefit. ���Calvin makes clear,��� Garcia writes, that ���this necessity [of good works] is not grounded in justification but in the reality of union with Christ.���

Near the end of his review, Garcia adds an important point that needs to be addressed. He thinks that the Gaffin formulation (primacy of union, twofold non-prioritized benefit) is the only formulation that truly safeguards the doctrine of justification against the Roman Catholic error:

If we argue, with CJPM, that justification is the cause of sanctification, then we attribute to justification a generative, transformational quality (in that sanctification is generated or produced by justification) and thus, ironically in view of the driving concern in CJPM, compromise the purely forensic character of justification. This is the liability of the Lutheran model, but it is a liability that is entirely avoided in the Reformed model according to which justification and sanctification come to us as distinct, inseparable, simultaneous benefits of union with Christ, rather than one coming from the other.

Justification and Union with Christ, Part 3

Gaffin���s Interpretation of Calvin

In my previous post, I mentioned that I would summarize Gaffin���s essay, ���Justification and Union with Christ.��� This is Chapter 11 in A Theological Guide to Calvin���s Institutes, edited by David W. Hall and Peter A. Lillback (P&R, 2008) (hereafter cited as TG, for Theological Guide, followed by the page number). It is an important essay that covers much of the same ground as the Always Reforming essay, but with a more explicit focus on expounding Calvin���s teaching on justification and union with Christ.

Gaffin���s assignment in this essay was not to cover Calvin���s doctrine of justification as a whole (in his commentaries, sermons, and other writings), but to discuss his treatment of justification in the Institutes, Book 3, chapters 11-18. This chapter is therefore almost like a commentary on that section of the Institutes, dealing not only with the literary development of the Institutes in its various editions from the first edition in 1536 to the final edition in 1559, but also summarizing and expositing the flow of Calvin���s argument here. 

At the outset of this essay, Gaffin grants Calvin privileged status. He sees Calvin as ���an important fountainhead figure,��� whose treatment of the doctrine of justification is ���unsurpassed��� within ���the tradition of confessional Reformed orthodoxy��� (TG, 248). The status of Calvin within the Reformed tradition is an important question that the WSC school answers differently (cp. the title of Fesko���s book, Beyond Calvin).

Gaffin establishes that Calvin���s applied soteriology has a ���union-twofold grace��� structure. Union with Christ, of course, means vital union, the union that we have with Christ as Christ is grasped by faith. ���Union ��� does not exist apart from or prior to faith but is given with ��� faith��� (TG, 259). ���Union with Christ ��� is forged by the Spirit���s working faith in us ���. Faith is the bond of that union��� (TG, 259). Then, having grasped Christ by faith, we partake of a twofold grace, justification and sanctification. Gaffin says this ���union-twofold grace��� structure ���determines the framework��� of Calvin���s thinking with regard to redemption applied (TG, 253). ���This, at its core, is Calvin���s ordo salutis: union with Christ by Spirit-worked faith��� (TG, 259).  

Gaffin makes two observations on Calvin���s view of the relationship between ���union��� and ���the twofold grace.��� First, ���union with Christ has precedence in the sense that the twofold grace is rooted in union and flows out of it��� (TG, 253). Second, the two benefits of union with Christ, justification and sanctification, are distinct and inseparable.

Not only are they distinct and inseparable, they are also not causally prioritized with respect to one another, according to Gaffin���s reading of Calvin. He makes this point by pointing to a ���noteworthy feature��� of the structure of Book 3 of the Institutes. That noteworthy feature is the fact that Calvin treats the twofold benefit in an order that might seem ���counterintuitive��� (TG, 254) to our Reformed instincts���Calvin treats sanctification at length (chs. 3-10) before justification (chs. 11-18). Gaffin acknowledges that one factor is polemical. The Roman Catholic Church had repeatedly brought up the charge that the Protestant doctrine of justification leads to indifference to the pursuit of sanctification. Calvin responds to the charge of Rome ���by showing that faith ��� entails a disposition to holiness without explicit reference to its sole instrumental function in justification��� (TG, 255). Sanctification and the concern for godly living follows justification in time, ���but it is not simply a consequence of justification��� (TG, 255). Gaffin argues that Calvin ���can proceed as he has in this fashion, treating sanctification at length before justification, because for him ���justification and sanctification were given to faith simultaneously and inseparably, thought also invariably, so that the order of their presentation was discretionary������ (quoting George Hunsinger, ���A Tale of Two Simultaneities: Justification and Sanctification in Calvin and Barth���) (TG, 255).

In other words, discussing sanctification before justification wasn���t just a polemical strategy on Calvin���s part. It stemmed from a positive theological conviction. ���Calvin knows nothing of a justification that is first settled and then is only subsequently followed by sanctification��� (TG, 256). Calvin would acknowledge that justification is prior to progressive sanctification in the obvious sense that the former is an instantaneous declaration at the moment of effectual calling and the latter is a lifelong process. ���But this is not the same thing as saying, what Calvin does not say, that justification is the source of sanctification or that justification causes sanctification��� (TG, 256). The source or cause of both justification and sanctification, without giving causal priority to one over the other, is vital union with Christ.

How does Gaffin deal with Calvin���s statement that justification ���is the main hinge on which religion turns��� (praecipuum ��� sustinendae religionis cardinem) (Institutes 3.11.1)? Calvin seems to assign some sort of priority to justification over sanctification. To begin, Gaffin thinks the translation ���turns��� is misleading. Gaffin thinks this translation is better: ���the principal hinge by which religion is supported.��� Note, however, that Gaffin does not question the translation of the noun cardo as ���hinge.��� Furthermore, he acknowledges the use of the ���foundation��� metaphor in the next sentence. Translation matters aside, Gaffin argues that we ought not to lift the ���hinge��� and ���foundation��� metaphors out of context, because, as Gaffin has already shown, Calvin has made clear that union with Christ is the cause and foundation of the twofold benefit of justification and sanctification. Sure, justification is the principal hinge on which religion is supported, but ���the ���hinge��� of justification ��� is not a ���skyhook������ (TG, 257); it is anchored securely in vital union with Christ.

In the remaining section of the essay, Gaffin deals with the relationship between imputation and union with Christ. He argues that, for Calvin, justification involves two divine actions: first, God imputes righteousness to us; then, on the basis of that imputation, he reckons us as righteous (TG, 261). But both actions, the imputation and the reckoning, take place within vital union with Christ. Vital union is prior to and the precondition for both the imputation and the reckoning of righteousness (TG, 261-62). This might seem to make imputation somehow nonforensic (as George Hunsinger seems to suggest), but Gaffin resists that reading of Calvin and demonstrates that Calvin maintained that ���union is Spirit-forged, a pneumatic reality, but the imputation given with that union is not��� (TG, 264).

Gaffin finishes the essay with several pages examining Calvin���s critique of Osiander who had argued that the righteousness of Christ���s divine nature, his ���essential��� righteousness, is communicated to us by some sort of infusion or transfusion. Calvin���s critique of Osiander is ���so unsparing��� because he saw it as essentially the Roman Catholic view in different garb, that is, the view that our justification depends on Spirit-wrought righteousness resident in the believer rather than solely on the imputed righteousness of Christ (TG, 267).

Justification and Union with Christ, Part 2

Gaffin���s Thesis on Union with Christ

To understand this debate, we have to start with Dr. Gaffin and seek to understand his position on union with Christ. In this post, I am making my best effort to provide a fair and impartial description of his view as I understand it. Hopefully, if Dr. Gaffin or anyone who studied under him and agrees with his view were to read this description, they would say it is an accurate summary of his thesis on union with Christ. At least that���s my hope! If any readers think I have misrepresented his view, I would like to hear from them. They can use the comment section below.

For this description, I���ll be relying primarily on this article by Gaffin: ���Union with Christ: Some Biblical and Theological Reflections,��� in Always Reforming: Explorations in Systematic Theology, edited by A. T. B. McGowan (IVP, 2006). Hereafter I���ll refer to it as AR (for Always Reforming), followed by the page number. If you don���t have access to the AR book, Gaffin���s 2002 Inaugural Address, available online, is substantially the same, being an earlier version that he later edited and shaped into the AR essay. However, the original version doesn���t contain the critique of Federal Vision advocate Rich Lusk (which I mention below).

(Some of my readers will clamor that I shouldn���t ignore the more recent chapter contribution by Gaffin that was published in 2008: ���Justification and Union with Christ,��� in A Theological Guide to Calvin���s Institutes. Don���t worry, I���ll address that important essay in the next post. In this post, I want to get Gaffin���s central theological thesis on the table, before looking at the secondary issue of whether and to what extent Calvin supports it.)

We should start by defining what Gaffin means by ���union with Christ.��� This is a major terminological issue that surfaces repeatedly and can be a source of confusion unless we keep Gaffin���s definitions in view. Gaffin distinguishes three aspects of union with Christ (AR, 275): (1) predestinarian union, (2) redemptive-historical union, and (3) existential union.

Predestinarian union is just what the term implies. It is a union in the mind and decree of God, as Paul himself says: we were ���chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world��� (Eph 1:4). Redemptive-historical union has to do with the fact that when Christ died and rose again, he did so as our representative, and so Paul can say we ���died with Christ��� (Rom 6:8) and were ���raised with Christ��� (Col 3:1). Redemptive-historical union has to do with our involvement in redemption accomplished. Of course, our involvement is still at this point based on the decree of God and Christ���s appointment as our representative who died and rose again for us. We did not yet exist, but were contemplated in God���s mind so that Christ���s death and resurrection were reckoned as ours.

But now we come to existential union. Existential union is the union (or that aspect of the broader union) that has its inception at effectual calling and marks the beginning of the application of redemption to the elect. The distinction between redemption accomplished and redemption applied is very important to Gaffin. He even refers to the third aspect of union as ���applicatory��� union. The distinction between redemption accomplished and applied is firm, yet these are not three different unions but three aspects of the same union. But the third aspect of union with Christ, referred to as existential, mystical or vital union, is the one that is of the greatest concern to Gaffin.

As in many theological debates, it is critical to be clear in our use of terminology, otherwise confusion is inevitable. In this particular debate, when the phrase ���union with Christ��� is used without qualification, you have to ask yourself which aspect or historical moment of union is in view. More often than not, especially for Gaffin and his colleagues, the term is being used in a restricted sense to denote the third aspect of union���the existential, applicatory, vital or mystical union.

(An additional complication is that in historical usage going back to 17th century, the term ���mystical��� can sometimes be used in a broader sense, rather than in the narrow existential sense that is Gaffin���s focus. For example, John Owen speaks of Christ and the church/elect, coalescing into ���one mystical person.��� But he is using that phrase to refer to what Gaffin would call the redemptive-historical union. This is clear because Owen goes on to argue that this union is the foundation for the imputation of the sins of the elect unto Christ so that on the cross he might satisfy the justice of God. See his famous treatise, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, chs. 8-9, in Vol. 5 of his collected works.)

Let���s zero in on this narrow third union or aspect of union. What is existential union according to Gaffin? Existential union is defined as a Spirit-wrought faith-bond. The Spirit unites us to Christ in a vital bond of union and communion that is experienced in time by each individual elect person beginning the instant they are effectually called. One piece of exegetical evidence for this existential union (which I have heard Gaffin quote in audio lectures) is Rom 16:7. In this verse, Paul extends his greetings to Andronicus and Junia and notes that they ���were in Christ before me,��� implying that prior to their conversion they (and Paul) were not ���in Christ,��� but after their conversion, by the Spirit���s effectual working, they became united to Christ in a mystical, vital, and existential faith-bond. The key phrase for Gaffin is ���union with Christ by Spirit-wrought faith.���

Having defined what Gaffin means by ���union with Christ,��� Gaffin then makes the claim���and this is the crux of his thesis���that all the benefits of salvation, summarized as forensic and renovative benefits, i.e., justification and sanctification, are enjoyed by believers only in terms of existential or vital union with Christ. A key proof text for this interpretation is 1 Cor 1:30: ���Because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.��� The two benefits, justification and sanctification, are distinct yet inseparable and simultaneous, and both flow from union with Christ.

Further, there is no prioritization, whether chronological or logical, between the two benefits. Priority is given to union with Christ, but within that union the benefits themselves are equally basic. Gaffin writes that faith ���entails a disposition to holiness without particular reference to justification, a concern for godliness that is not to be understood only as a consequence of justification.��� He goes on to say that, for Calvin, the relative order or priority of justification and sanctification ���is indifferent theologically,��� because union with Christ by faith is prior to both and has ���controlling soteriological importance��� (AR, 284).

We must acknowledge that for Gaffin the two primary benefits of salvation in Christ, though equally basic, inseparable, and simultaneous, are in fact distinct. Justification is a forensic benefit granted by imputation, and sanctification is a renovative benefit in which the Spirit both breaks the dominion of sin (definitive sanctification) and transforms us into the image of Christ (progressive sanctification). Justification involves the imputation of the righteousness of Christ on the legal ground of the active and passive obedience of Christ, as well as a declaration of righteousness that has the righteousness of Christ alone in view. Sanctification, by contrast, is a change wrought in us by the Spirit. By making this distinction between justification and sanctification, Gaffin wants to maintain a Protestant position on justification and wants to put clear water between his view and that of the Roman Catholic Church, which denies forensic imputation and essentially collapses justification and sanctification into a single renovative and progressive work of the Spirit within us.

In his AR essay, Gaffin is very clear about this. He strongly criticizes Federal Vision advocate Rich Lusk, who had argued that union with Christ ���makes imputation redundant.��� Gaffin takes Lusk to task for this and argues that this is ���troubling and, I judge, more disturbing to a biblically sound doctrine of justification than the view which ignores or obscures union.��� He thinks Lusk���s view is more disturbing because ���it leaves us unclear about what is absolutely essential to our justification,��� namely, the truth that Christ���s finished, imputed righteousness, established by his obedience unto death, is ���the exclusive ground��� of our acquittal before the bar of God���s justice. By saying it is the ���exclusive��� ground, Gaffin means that even ���Spirit-worked righteousness,��� though integral to our salvation, is excluded from being the ground of our acceptance before God. (See AR, 286-87).

Nevertheless, as clear as Gaffin is on this, he insists on granting mystical union priority over justification. And so, as a result, he argues that the forensic imputation of righteousness is something that takes place ���within��� vital union with Christ. ���There is no imputation without union or antecedent to union��� (AR, 286). He adds, imputation is ���realized in union with Christ��� (AR, 286) and is ���a facet��� and ���an integral aspect��� of that union (AR, 287). Going back to my opening comments about the importance of defining our terms, it is crucial to keep in mind that although Gaffin does not add the descriptor ���vital��� or ���existential,��� that is what he is referring to when he says ���there is no imputation ��� antecedent to union.��� There is no imputation antecedent to vital union, that is, the Spirit-wrought faith-union.

(If there is any doubt about this, his former student and now successor to the Krahe Chair, Lane Tipton, made it clear when he said in his 2012 Inaugural Address, ���No aspect of forensic justification comes to believers (logically or temporally) prior to union with Christ by faith��� [WTJ 75 (2013): 10].)

Justification and Union with Christ, Part 1

Introduction

For the last 10 years there has been a debate, largely being carried on between certain faculty members of the two Westminster Seminaries, over justification and union with Christ.

On the east coast, there are a number of individuals associated with Westminster Theological Seminary (WTS) in Philadelphia. The principal architect of this position is Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., who since 2008 has been emeritus professor of biblical and systematic theology at WTS. Gaffin���s former students like Lane Tipton (who currently holds the Charles Krahe Chair of Systematic Theology at WTS), Mark Garcia, and William B. Evans are continuing his thought.

On the west coast, there is Westminster Seminary California (WSC), with John Fesko, Michael Horton, and R. Scott Clark as the primary interlocutors. They are critical of Gaffin���s construction of the ordo salutis and have attempted to provide a different interpretation of Calvin and of the Reformed tradition on the issue of union with Christ.

The debate arguably has antecedents, but Mark Garcia���s 2007 sharply critical review of Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry (a collection of essays written by the WSC faculty and edited by R. Scott Clark) seems to have been the spark. Robert Godfrey and David VanDrunen wrote a response to Garcia���s review. After that initial 2007 exchange, John Fesko and Michael Horton seem to be the most active published debate partners from the WSC side. Dr. Fesko has written by far the most on the topic and is a vocal critic of Gaffin and Evans, particularly of the way they read Calvin in relation to the entire Reformed tradition. His marvelous book Beyond Calvin (V&R, 2012) brings together many of his previously published peer-reviewed journal articles and mounts a forceful response to Gaffin, Garcia, and Evans.

The debate centers on the relationship between union with Christ and the double benefit of justification and sanctification. Gaffin has singled out the mystical, vital, or existential union with Christ and elevated it to a level of priority, primacy, and all-embracing significance for the ordo salutis. The debate is complex because it involves not only exegesis but also different interpretations of Calvin and the historical development post-Reformation Reformed dogmatics.

It should be acknowledged that there are different nuances held by the various scholars in each camp. On the WTS side, for example, William B. Evans has been a vocal critic of federal theology. In a manner reminiscent of the Torrance brothers, Evans argues that 17th century federal theology is a declension from Calvin due to the way it allegedly ���bifurcates��� forensic/federal union and vital/mystical union. It is hard to tell how much the others affiliated with WTS sympathize with Evans, but I have not seen Gaffin and Tipton attack federal theology in their published writings the way Evans does. In the WSC camp, there is likewise not perfect homogeneity of theological formulation. Michael Horton, for example, is unique, as far as I can tell, among the WSC faculty in advocating speech-act theory to explain the forensic foundation of union with Christ.

It���s also not clear how unified the two seminaries are among themselves with regard to this discussion. WSC seems more unified than WTS, but that could just be my subjective impression. Some faculty members at both schools haven���t participated in the debate in terms of publication. For example, the position of Carl Trueman is a mystery to me. He did write a contribution to the WTS book Justified in Christ (Mentor, 2007), but his focus was on John Owen���s doctrine of justification and he didn���t directly address the issues under debate.

Justification and Union with Christ Bibliography

���There is an ongoing debate between the Westminster campuses in California [WSC] and Philadelphia [WTS] as well as among some of their graduates on union with Christ and the ordo salutis, particularly the relationship between justification and sanctification. The difference of opinion has for the most part been cordial, but at times there have been pointed exchanges.���

So writes Dr. John Fesko in Ordained Servant in March 2009. Although there were antecedents, it seems to me that the current debate started in 2007 when Dr. Mark Garcia wrote a critical review of Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry (CJPM) by the WSC faculty. Since Dr. Fesko wrote those words, many more exchanges have taken place. I thought it would be helpful to provide a bibliography, with links where available. 

Perhaps the best place to begin is with the overview provided by a Baptist who is not affiliated with either WTS or WSC. He ultimately sides with the WTS school, but the first half of the article is an excellent summary of the debate, at least up to 2013:

Miller, Timothy. ���The Debate Over the Ordo Salutis in American Reformed Theology.��� DBSJ 18 (2013): 41-66.

 

The WTS School

I now proceed to provide the literature from both sides, starting with the WTS school of thought founded by Dr. Richard Gaffin.

Gaffin, Jr., Richard B. Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul���s Soteriology. P&R, 1987.

__________. ���Biblical Theology and the Westminster Standards.��� WTJ 65 (2003): 165-179.

__________. ���Union with Christ: Some Biblical and Theological Reflections.��� Pages 271-288 in Always Reforming: Explorations in Systematic Theology. Ed. A. T. B. McGowan. IVP, 2006.

__________. By Faith, Not by Sight: Paul and the Order of Salvation. Paternoster, 2006. Second Edition: P&R, 2013.

__________. ���Justification and Union with Christ.��� Pages 248-269 in A Theological Guide to Calvin���s Institutes. Ed. David W. Hall and Peter A. Lillback. P&R, 2008.

__________. ���Calvin���s Soteriology: The Structure of the Application of Redemption in Book Three of the Institutes.��� Ordained Servant (Nov 2009).

Carpenter, Craig B. ���A Question of Union with Christ? Calvin and Trent on Justification.��� WTJ 64 (2002): 363-386.

Edwards, William R. ���John Flavel on the Priority of Union with Christ: Further Historical Perspective on the Structure of Reformed Soteriology.��� WTJ 74 (2012): 33-58.

Evans, William B. Imputation and Impartation: Union with Christ in American Reformed Theology. Wipf and Stock/Paternoster, 2008.

__________. ���Three Current Reformed Models of Union with Christ.��� Presbyterion 41 (2015): 12-30.

Garcia, Mark. ���Imputation and the Christology of Union with Christ: Calvin, Osiander, and the Contemporary Quest for a Reformed Model.��� WTJ 68 (2006): 219-251.

__________. Life in Christ: Union with Christ and Twofold Grace in Calvin���s Theology. Paternoster, 2008.

__________. ���Imputation as Attribution: Union with Christ, Reification and Justification as Declarative Word.��� IJST 11 (2009): 415-427.

__________. ���Debating Justification Productively: A Review Essay.��� Review of Justification: Five Views, ed. Beilby and Eddy. SBET 31 (2013): 211-226.

__________. ���Union with Christ, the Reformed tradition, and Research: Reading Fesko.��� Response to Beyond Calvin, in a series of blog posts dated Dec 2013 through Jan 2014. 

Gospel Reformation Network, ���12 Affirmations & Denials on the Gospel and Sanctification��� (May 2014).

Tipton, Lane G. ���Union with Christ and Justification.��� Pages 35-50 in Justified in Christ: God���s Plan for Us in Justification. Ed. K. Scott Oliphint. Mentor, 2007.

__________. ���Inaugural Lecture: Biblical Theology and the Westminster Standards Revisited: Union with Christ and Justification Sola Fide.��� WTJ 75 (2013): 1-12.

Waddington, Jeffrey. Review of Union with Christ by Todd Billings; Covenant and Salvation by Michael Horton; and Life in Christ by Mark Garcia. The Confessional Presbyterian 5 (2009): 256-269.

 

The WSC School

We come now to the WSC school of thought, presented in alphabetical order by each scholar. It is obvious, however, that Dr. Fesko has written by far the most on this topic and is the most prolific critic of Dr. Gaffin and his colleagues.

Clark, R. Scott. Caspar Olevian and the Substance of the Covenant: The Double Benefit of Christ. Reformation Heritage Books, 2008.

Clark, R. Scott, ed. Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry: Essays by the Faculty of Westminster Seminary California (=CJPM). P&R, 2007.

Fesko, John. ���Calvin on Justification and Recent Misinterpretations of His View.��� MJT 16 (2005): 83-114.

__________. ���A More Perfect Union? Justification and Union with Christ.��� MR 16/3 (2007): 32-35, 38.

__________. ���Paul on Justification and Final Judgment.��� Ordained Servant (Oct 2007): 66-72.

__________. Justification: Understanding the Classic Reformed Doctrine. P&R, 2008.

__________. ���Vos and Berkhof on Union with Christ and Justification.��� CTJ 47 (2012): 50-71.

__________. ���Union with Christ: A Review Article.��� Review of Union with Christ by Robert Letham and Union with Christ by Todd Billings. Ordained Servant (Oct 2012).

__________. Beyond Calvin: Union with Christ and Justification in Early Modern Reformed Theology (1517���1700). RHT 20. V&R, 2012.

__________. ���Romans 8:29-30 and the Question of the Ordo Salutis.��� JRT 8 (2014): 35-60.

__________. The Covenant of Redemption: Origins, Development, and Reception. RHT 35. V&R, 2016.

__________. The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption. Mentor, 2016.

__________. ���Reformed Orthodoxy on Imputation. Active and Passive Justification.��� Perichoresis 14 (2016): 61-80.

__________. ���Union with Christ and Reformed Orthodoxy: Calvin vs. the Calvinists?��� Ordained Servant (Jan 2017).

Horton, Michael. Covenant and Salvation: Union with Christ. WJK, 2007.

__________. The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way. Zondervan, 2011. (Chapter 18: Union with Christ)

__________. ���Traditional Reformed View.��� Pages 83-111 in Justification: Five Views. Ed. James K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy. IVP, 2011.

__________. ���Calvin���s Theology of Union with Christ and the Double Grace: Modern Reception and Contemporary Possibilities.��� Pages 72-96 in Calvin���s Theology and Its Reception. Ed. Todd Billings and John Hesselink. WJK, 2012.

 

Support for the WSC position

Herman Bavinck, A. A. Hodge, and John Owen cannot be considered members of the WSC school, obviously, since they pre-date the debate, yet they clearly provide support for the same basic position. I find these three items to be incredibly helpful in the clarity they bring to these issues, especially the important distinction between active (or objective) and passive (or subjective) justification.

Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics. Ed. John Bolt. Trans. John Vriend. Baker, 2008. (See 3.523, 583, 591; 4.214-22)

Hodge, A. A. ���The Ordo Salutis.��� The Princeton Review 54 (1878): 304-21.

Mason, Matthew W. ���John Owen���s Doctrine of Union with Christ in Relation to His Contributions to 17th Century Debates Concerning Eternal Justification.��� Ecclesia Reformanda 1 (2009): 46-69.

 

Exchanges

Here are the main exchanges that I have found. After the overview by Timothy Miller, these exchanges provide an excellent entry point into the debate.

Garcia, ���No Reformed Theology of Justification?��� Review of CJPM. Ordained Servant (Oct 2007).
Godfrey and VanDrunen, ���Response to Garcia���s Review of CJPM.��� Ordained Servant (Dec 2007).

Wenger, Thomas L. ���The New Perspective on Calvin.��� JETS 50 (2007): 311-28.
Johnson, Marcus P. ���A Reply to Thomas Wenger.��� JETS 51 (2008): 543-558.

Fesko, ���A Tale of Two Calvins.��� Review of Life in Christ by Garcia. Ordained Servant (Mar 2009).
Gaffin, ���A Response to John Fesko���s Review.��� Ordained Servant (Mar 2009).

Fesko, ���Sanctification and Union with Christ: A Reformed Perspective.��� EQ 82 (2010): 197-214.
Cunningham, ���Definitive Sanctification: A Response to John Fesko.��� EQ 84 (2012): 234-252.

Evans, ���D��j�� vu All Over Again?��� WTJ 72 (2010): 135-151.
Fesko, ���A Response to William B. Evans.��� WTJ (2010): 391-402.
Evans, ���A Reply to J. V. Fesko.��� WTJ 72 (2010): 403-14.

Tipton���s critique of Horton, Christ the Center, Episode 200 (10/28/2011)
Horton���s response, Christ the Center, Episode 207 (12/16/2011)
Tipton and Horton conversation, Christ the Center, Episode 213 (1/20/2012)