Monday, April 13, 2020

the core of the Gospel


Justification

When I began writing this, I only intended to cover the main points of Calvinism—sovereignty, sin, election, and perseverance. As I investigated Arminian theology, however, I found so many discrepancies between basic scriptural truths and Arminianism that I had to expand my original outline. When God justifies us, he forgives us and declares us righteous. Wesleyans believe that God only forgives us in justification but he does not declare anyone righteous. Wesleyans believe that God requires us to achieve righteousness to gain our redemption. Finney believed that no one is justified and only a life of perfect holiness will redeem us. Most Arminians believe that, once justified, a believer may forfeit this forgiveness and perish eternally. This is basically the same as not being justified at all. Arminians believe in salvation by works.

If we are not completely justified by Christ’s work and God requires some kind of righteousness on our part, whether we do this by his Spirit or not, he saves us by our works. If we can lose our salvation, then our salvation depends on our works. Whether some sin committed or some righteousness omitted, salvation depends on us, and therefore on our works. If we lose our salvation through some lack of faith, this still amounts to a salvation that depends on something we do, or something we have, or some righteousness in us, and therefore we lose our salvation by our sin, and therefore our salvation depends on our righteousness and not Christ’s death. If anyone believes they save themselves by their righteousness, if any church teaches that believers lose their salvation, then they have abandoned the entire message of the Gospel. Thomas Watson said—
Justification is the very hinge and pillar of Christianity. An error about justification is dangerous, like a defect in a foundation. Justification by Christ is a spring of the water of life. To have the poison of corrupt doctrine into this spring is damnable.[1]
We can easily see why Arminians err this way. If a man has free will, whether given by God or not, then he is not a sinner, and he can save himself by his works. If we trust in free will, we trust in our ability, and we do not trust in God to redeem us. Arminians also fear justification because they believe it leads to unrestrained sin. They do not trust the Holy Spirit to work in the heart of a believer to remove his sin and lead him every day to Christ.

Partial Justification

John Wesley believed that God forgives our sin yet he does not declare us righteous. “The plain scriptural notion of justification is pardon, the forgiveness of sins,” he says.[2] God forgives us through the sacrifice made by Christ. Wesley leaves some ambiguity in the discussion, however, as he repeatedly says “past sins” when referring to forgiveness, as if God requires righteousness from us as a condition of our continued justification.
[Justification] is that act of God the Father, hereby, for the sake of the propitiation made by the blood of his Son, he ‘showeth forth his righteousness (or mercy) by the remission of the sins that are past.’”
To him that is justified or forgiven, God ‘will not impute sin’ to his condemnation…His sins, all his past sins, in thought, word, and deed, are covered, are blotted out.
‘Thou shalt be saved’ from condemnation, from the guilt and punishment of thy former sins, and shall have the power to serve God in true holiness all the remaining days of thy life.[3]
Wesley did not believe that God completely justifies us. He adds a second condition to justification in “The Righteousness of Faith” when he says, “By the ‘righteousness which is of faith’ is meant, that condition of justification (and in consequence, of present and final salvation, if we endure therein unto the end.” We only remain justified and are “finally” saved if we endure to the end. In Wesley’s mind, we remain justified if we persevere as Christians until death. God saves us if we do not fall away. In another sermon, Wesley describes God’s salvation. “Ye are saved from sin,” he says, “from the guilt of all past sin,” and “from the fear, though not from the possibility, of falling away from the grace of God, and coming short of the great and precious promises.”[4]

I had to read this more than once. Wesley says that God saves us from the fear but not the possibility of falling away. Why do we not fear falling away when we face the possibility of it? This is complete nonsense. If we can fall away, we will fear falling away. Elsewhere Wesley says that God condemns us if we do not live righteously. In “The First Fruits of the Spirit,” Wesley says, “There is no condemnation on account of [the believer’s] past sins,” and “They are not condemned for any present sins, for now transgressing the commandments of God. For they do not transgress them.”[5] He continues, “So long as ‘he keepeth himself’ herein, ‘that wicked one toucheth him not.’” God does not condemn the believer because the believer does not sin. Read his words in “Salvation by Faith”:
He that is born of God by faith sinneth not by any habitual sin, nor by any willful sin, nor by any sinful desire. ‘He that is born of God doth not commit sin,’ and though he cannot say he hath not sinned, yet now ‘he sinneth not.’[6]

So long as we live in holiness and righteousness, God does not condemn us. Wesley says that the Law condemns only those who break it, therefore God condemns us when we transgress his law.
Now it is evident, he is not condemned for the sins which he doth not commit at all. They, therefore, who are thus “led by the Spirit, are not under the law” (Gal. 5:18): not under the curse or condemnation of it; for it condemns none but those who break it. Thus, that law of God, “Thou shalt not steal,” condemns none but those who do steal. Thus, “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy,” condemns those only who do not keep it holy.[7]

Wesley uses verses from two separate contexts to show that God does not justify us unless we fulfill two conditions: faith and righteousness. In other words, God only accepts us if we are righteous. Faith is the easy part; now, just go and be righteous! God justifies us by faith, and then we maintain our justification by living righteously. At no time does God either declare us consider us righteous, just forgiven. Keep in mind, forgiveness wipes the slate clean, while righteousness writes obedience on this proverbial slate. We need both for complete redemption. Wesley believes that God does not declare us righteous because we are not righteous. Justification does not make us actually righteous nor does God declare us righteous. He says, “[Justification] is not the being made actually just and righteous. This is ‘sanctification.’”[8] He continues
Least of all does justification imply that God is deceived in those whom he justified; that he thinks them to be what, in fact, they are not; that he accounts them to be otherwise than they are. [He does not] believe us righteous when we are unrighteous.[9]
God never declares us righteous. We are justified if we believe and if we persevere in a righteous life till death. We earn our salvation. Wesley even quotes Paul’s words and denies that Paul means what he literally says. In Romans 4, Paul tells us that God “credited” Abraham’s faith as righteousness. He repeats this five times while using different forms of the verb “credit” eleven times, yet Wesley insists that God does not declare us righteous, only forgiven.
The very moment God giveth faith to the “ungodly” that “worketh not,” that “faith is counted to him for righteousness.” … But “faith is imputed to him for righteousness,” the very moment that he believeth. Not that God (as was observed before) thinketh him to be what he is not.[10]
Wesley says that God “imputes” Christ’s righteousness to us, but while some take this to mean that God declares us as righteous as Christ, Wesley understands this to mean we are merely forgiven. Wesley frequently speaks of God imputing Christ’s righteousness to us and he finally explains his meaning. He says, “All believers are forgiven and accepted, not for the sake of anything in them, or of anything that ever was, that is, or ever can be done by them, but wholly and solely for the sake of what Christ hath done and suffered for them.”[11] Wesley does not believe that God has imputed Christ’s righteousness to our account as if to declare us righteous because he believes God only forgives our past sins.
Ye are saved from the guilt of all past sin.
There is no condemnation on account of [the believer’s] past sins.
All the sins thou has committed from thy youth up, until the hour when thou wast “accepted in the Beloved,” are driven away as chaff, are gone, are lost.[12]
He will not declare us righteous if we are not actually, presently living righteously. “Imputation” in Wesley’s mind does not actually credit us with the righteousness of Christ, but only with forgiveness. He does say God accepts us, but only to the extent that we live obediently. How can God accept us if we are not righteous? We must continually earn our justification with righteousness. Though Wesley repeatedly declares God initially justifies us by faith and because of nothing in ourselves and nothing we do, he also says that we do not remain justified without good works. Wesley says that God condemns us when we doubt his mercy and we must believe and repent again.
If it be said, “But sometimes a believer in Christ may lose his sight of the mercy of God;” I answer, supposing it so to be, supposing him not to see the mercy of God, then he is not a believer: For faith implies light, the light of God shining upon the soul. So far, therefore, as any one loses this light, he, for the time, loses his faith. And, no doubt, a true believer in Christ may lose the light of faith; and so far as this is lost, he may, for a time, fall again into condemnation. But this is not the case of them who now “are in Christ Jesus,” who now believe in his name. For so long as they believe, and walk after the Spirit, neither God condemns them, nor their own heart.[13]
If you doubt, you burn. Any sin condemns you. If you stray in the least, you perish eternally unless you repent again, and until you re-repent, you will burn in hell forever. James Arminius himself confirms this.
The regenerate are capable of grieving the Holy Spirit by their sins, so that, for a season, until they suffer themselves to be brought back to repentance, he does not exert his power and efficacy in them … If David had died in the very moment in which he had sinned against Uriah by adultery and murder, he would have been condemned to death eternal.[14]
Finney confirms this as well: “Present, full, and entire consecration of heart and life to God and his service is an unalterable condition of present pardon of past sin, and of present acceptance with God.”[15] Wesley’s justification is nearly identical to the Mosaic covenant and certainly identical to the Catholic doctrine of grace and works. In the Old Testament, the priests made daily sacrifices to atone for the sins of the people (Hebrews 7.27; 10.11). In Wesley’s covenant, we must repent and believe and then when we sin again, we are condemned again until we repent and believe again. Wesley substitutes the literal daily sacrifice with the daily sacrifice of repentance and good works. God does not save us through faith alone but through faith and works. Only the continuing obedience of the believer will guarantee his salvation. Otherwise, we perish as if we had never believed.

Antinomianism and Universalism

Finney, like Wesley, despised the reformers’ idea of imputed righteousness. He refused to believe that one act of faith could attain “perpetual justification” of Christ’s obedience added to our account. He also believed that God forgave only our past sins, and that he requires “perseverance in obedience to the end of life” as a second condition of our justification.[16] He fervently equated the Gospel doctrine of justification to the heresy of antinomianism.[17]

If nomos (Greek) denotes law, then antinomianism is lawlessness. Charles Hodge describes antinomianism as “the neglect of moral duties.”[18] If God declares us righteous once and for all, we will clearly descend into unrestrained lawlessness, for what motivation do we have to live in righteousness? If all our sins from birth to death are atoned for, why will we live for Christ? What possible reason do we have to love Christ, to honor him, to give our lives in sacrificial obedience, if Christ has given his life for us, if we are absolutely forgiven and have the righteousness of Christ imputed to our account? Finney and Wesley saw no possible reason for the believer, after his first act of faith, humble and repentant, to continue in obedience without the fear of condemnation looming ominously and constantly overhead.

Yet these men did not believe that the Holy Spirit brings men to Christ. They believed that men chose God of their own will—Wesley believing in the light of conscience somewhat regenerated, and Finney the unregenerate natural will—and that men needed nothing further to lead them to Christ than either knowledge, or desperation, or the faint “wooing of God’s tender love” of Walls and Dongell that gives up at the slightest resistance. The Holy Spirit did not change the heart of a man to grant him faith and repentance, so why would he change the heart of a man to grant him obedience post-justification? Why would he need to? Arminians believe they have all they need to live for Christ because they make the crucial initial decision. They are ultimately righteous in themselves because they ultimately decided for themselves. Yes, God provides some measure of impetus in the conviction, but men ultimately decide on their own, of their own will, by whatever spark of faith they muster themselves. When God “enlightens” two men equally, yet only one chooses to believe, to whose credit do we assign this belief? Surely not to God, for that denotes the undesirable notion of unconditional election. God will not unjustly give one man more faith than another. We must conclude that the believing man only believed because he in his natural constitution, distinct from the other man, possessed faith while the other did not. He was more righteous, more repentant, or more humble—whatever. If this man can choose to believe in God, and had no true, distinct, radically heart-changing, resurrecting help from the Holy Spirit, then he can continue to believe and live in obedience with no true help from the Holy Spirit. If this man knows himself to be permanently justified, receiving the righteous obedience of Christ to his account, yet having no true help, no real change of heart by the power of God, then he will obviously fall into sin. He needs the constant threat of eternal wrath in order to motivate him to righteousness.

Wiley echoes a similar sentiment, while unwittingly adding subtle tendencies to universalism in his doctrine of justification. This “penal satisfaction theory,” as it is known, “leads logically into antinomianism…If Christ’s active obedience is to be substituted for that of believers, it shuts out the necessity of personal obedience to the law of God.”[19] We do not obey because we need to secure salvation, however. John said we obey because God loves us (1 John 4.19). We obey in order to glorify God (1 Corinthians 10.31; 1 Peter 4.11). Paul served God because the love of Christ compelled him, not by any need to secure righteousness in order to appease God (2 Corinthians 5:14, 15). Our works do not justify us therefore God does not require them of us to secure our salvation (Romans 3.24; Ephesians 2.8). Our obedience proves our salvation but it does not provide it (James 2.14-26; Galatians 5.22-23; Matthew 7.20).

While Wiley does not believe that any believer receives Christ’s righteousness, he believes that everyone receives forgiveness. As I mentioned earlier, Wiley believes that Christ’s death secured justification for all mankind. He quotes Thomas Summers, who says, “The atonement is the satisfaction made to God for the sins of all mankind, original and actual.”[20] He then quotes William Pope who says that the atonement is the satisfaction “of the divine displeasure against the world, and therefore the sin of the world is no longer a bar to acceptance.”[21] Though Wesleyans believe that sinners only benefit from the atonement if they believe, Wiley later tells us that
The atonement is universal. This does not mean that all mankind will be unconditionally saved, but that the sacrificial offering of Christ so far satisfied the claims of the divine law as to make salvation a possibility for all.[22]
Of course, Wiley clarifies that this salvation remains conditional in its application, but elsewhere he describes “an unconditional diffusion of grace to all men” as reconciliation for the entire world.[23] To clarify, God needed to give us this gift of reconciliation—not Christ’s righteousness, because he will not, or forgiveness, because this requires faith—in order to allow us to live and propagate after Adam’s sin.
Had not the intervention of the Second Adam been foreseen, universally making and constituting righteous all who were made and constituted sinners, Adam would never have been permitted to propagate his species, and the race would have been cut off in its sinning head.[24]
God forgave everyone immediately after Adam’s sin so that he would not immediately destroy Adam. Where does scripture teach this? Wesleyan theology teaches that believers do not receive the righteousness of Christ, but every human in creation is righteous, while all do not believe. Men must still believe in order to be forgiven. I am as confused as you are. While Wiley denies universalism, that God saves all regardless of individual faith or repentance, he believes that all are righteous and none are condemned, or something like that.[25]

Righteousness and Forgiveness

To God we owe everything. There is nothing that we have that did not originate from him. He created the universe; he gives us strength and breath and “every good thing.” Every minute of our lives, we owe him every ounce of strength, wealth, time, thought and resource that belongs to us. Only to him do we owe this kind of devotion and when we do not devote every bit of ourselves to him, we sin. If we sin, we owe God a debt of life, while still we owe this devotion of righteousness. If God only forgives us, at best we enjoy a neutral state before him. He does not condemn us, but neither does he accept us. Because of Adam, we could never have paid both parts of this debt. This is the debt we owe to God and Christ paid it for us. He was the only one who could. Christ paid the debt of death and obedience. If Christ paid it, then it is completely paid and we owe nothing to God regarding this debt. If God chose us and loves only us, then Christ paid for only those whom he loves, but if he paid it for all, then all are saved. Watson tells us
[Justification] is an act of God’s free grace, whereby he pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us, and received by faith alone.[26]
Calvin believed that the Mosaic Law had two purposes: to reveal the devotion and honor we owe God but also to help us “rid ourselves of any illusions about our own strength and abandon all trust in our own righteousness.”[27] Pride and ambition puffs us up, while self-love blinds us that we cannot learn humility or admit our misery apart from God. God is entitled to glory, reverence, love and fear. “The truest honor we can do him is to practice righteousness, holiness, and purity,” he says. He continues, “Our crude powers of understanding and our gross arrogance made it necessary for the Lord to hand down to us his written law.”[28] If the Law explains how we obey God, then our failure to obey becomes a legal debt, and consequently, justification must involve a legal payment.

Wesleyans commonly object to this “penal satisfaction,” as it logically leads to either heretical or Calvinist ideas. “The Penal substitutionary theory leads of necessity, either to universalism on the one hand, or unconditional election on the other,” says Wiley.[29] He continues
Such an atonement cancels all punitive claims against the elect, and by immediate result frees them from all guilt as a liability to the penalty of sin… If the claims of justice are satisfied, they cannot again be enforced.[30]
The Wesleyan tells us that God indeed does perpetually justify us. As Paul says, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8.1). Wiley describes another Calvinist conclusion from this justification.
If Christ died for all men, then all are unconditionally saved as universalism maintains. If all are not saved, as the Scriptures clearly teach, then the only alternative is a belief in the atonement as limited to the elect.[31]
Christ paid the debt, not for an unnamed, nonspecific group of anonymous people who may or may not ever believe in him, but for a specific group of elect individuals that God himself chose and whom he guarantees will believe because he will bring them to salvation. Wiley objects to this kind of justification because it leads to either blatant heresy (universalism) or Calvinism. He says, “The Scriptures declare that Christ died for all,”[32] but close investigation reveals in every instance where the epistles say “Christ died for all,” that Paul and Peter speak of Christ dying for his church. After all, the epistles were written to the church and not to the world at large.
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
One died for all, therefore all died.
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God.[33]
Arminians like to insert “may” into these verses, turning them into hypothetical possibilities.
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all may be made alive.
They also change “us” to “every person in Creation,” turning them into universal statements, while simultaneously trying to avoid universalism.
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring everyone to God.
As the self-proclaimed apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 13.46; Ephesians 3.1), Paul frequently mentions “Jews and Gentiles” in his writings (Romans 3.29; 9.24) or “Jews and Greeks” (Romans 3.9; 1 Corinthians 1.24), and when he says “all,” he means both groups, not necessarily every person ever born. God saves Jews and Gentiles alike. We see this in Acts as well (Acts 10; 11.18; 13.44-49). Otherwise, how do we interpret, “One died for all,” or “All will be made alive”? Arminians must interpret these to teach universalism if they want to be consistent.

Solid scriptural exegesis reveals that to justify is to declare someone righteous. Since Christ paid our penalty, God declares us righteous—justified under the Law. Erickson says, “A righteous man is one who has been declared by a judge to be free from guilt. The task of the judge is to condemn the guilty and acquit the innocent (Deuteronomy 25.1).”[34] God is our Judge (Psalm 9.4; Jeremiah 11.20). The New Testament speaks of men justifying God,[35] so obviously justify must mean something other than forgiveness. Paul uses justify in the same sense multiple times in his epistles (Romans 3.20, 26, 28; 5.1; 8.30; 10.4, 10; Galatians 2.16; 3.24).[36] Erickson lays out the evidence for declarative justification:

1.       Righteousness is a matter of formal standing before the Law and a judge.
2.       Paul’s juxtaposition of justify and condemn (Romans 8.33-34) along with Christ’s similar usage in Matthew 12.37: “By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” No one argues against scripture using condemn as a declarative term.
3.       Multiple passages where justify means “to defend, vindicate, or acknowledge to be right,” as in Luke 7.29 and Romans 3.4.
4.       Evidence from the language itself.[37]

Compare the evidence for the Calvinist view to that for the Arminian view. The biblical evidence clearly proves that God forever justifies a specific people, chosen by him, who only believe because he has chosen them. Arminians reject this on weak scriptural grounds because they want God to save a random group of nonspecific people, undetermined by him but by them. God cannot be just if he elects some and excludes others so they prefer to elect themselves. They refuse to believe that this is impossible. Once God potentially justifies them, they also prefer to complete their justification themselves.

God declares us righteous because he imputes Christ’s righteousness to us. Grudem says that “God thinks of Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us. He ‘reckons’ it to our account.”[38] The New American Standard Bible translates this as “credits” in Romans 4. The Greek word means “to count, collect, reckon, calculate” and “implies an activity of the reason that, starting with ascertainable facts, draws a conclusion, especially a mathematical one or one pertaining to business.”[39] In a sense, we have an account before God and he credits our account with the righteousness of Christ. Though we did nothing to earn this righteousness, it genuinely and permanently belongs to us on the basis of our faith in Christ. As Thomas Watson says, “Justification is inamissibilis; it is a fixed permanent thing. It can never be lost.”[40]
Abraham believed God, and it was credited as righteousness.
To the one who believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.
David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.
Faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.
It is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace.
With respect to the promise of God, he did not waiver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, he was also able to perform. Therefore it was also credited to him as righteousness.[41]
Paul tells the church of Ephesus that they “are saved by grace through faith, and that not of [themselves], it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2.8-9). God saves us through faith in order that he be glorified and not us. We do not work to earn our salvation and we do not work to keep it. God forever saves us by grace through faith because of Christ’s death and obedience.


[1] Watson, Divinity, 226.
[2] Wesley, “Justification by Faith,” II.5.
[3] Wesley, “Justification by Faith,” II.5; “The Righteousness of Faith,” I.10.
[4] Wesley, “Salvation by Faith,” II.2-4, emphasis added.
[5] Wesley, “The First Fruits of the Spirit,” II.1, 4.
[6] Wesley, “Salvation,” II.6.
[7] Wesley, “Fruits,” II.4.
[8] Wesley, “Justification,” II.1.
[9] Ibid, II.4.
[10] Wesley, “Justification,” IV.5.
[11] Ibid, II.5.
[12] Wesley, “Salvation by Faith,” II.3; “Fruits,” II.1, III.3.
[13] Wesley, “Fruits,” III.3.
[14] James Arminius, The Writings of James Arminius: Volume Two, translated by James Nichols, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1956), page 502. How does anyone bring themselves back to repentance without the efficacy of the Holy Spirit? Our own inherent faith. Then why did we fall away in the first place? Are we sinners or not?
[15] Finney, 369.
[16] Ibid, 367.
[17] Ibid, 371-372.
[18] Hodge, Systematic Theology: Volume III, page 241.
[19] Wiley, Christian Theology: Volume II, page 248-249.
[20] Ibid, 271.
[21] Ibid, 272.
[22] Ibid, 298.
[23] Ibid, 130, with footnote.
[24] Ibid, 132, quoting Summers.
[25] Ibid, 132. Incidentally, Roger Olson, not a universalist, wishes universalism were true. “I do not embrace it myself except as a hope,” he says. Other Arminians, most notably Clark Pinnock, also express veiled nods to universalism. Quoted from https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2019/09/what-if-universalism-were-true-a-question-for-evangelical-christians-especially/
[26] Watson, 226.
[27] Calvin, 109.
[28] Ibid, 110.
[29] Wiley, Theology: Volume II, 246.
[30] Ibid, 247.
[31] Ibid. Finney agrees with this conclusion: “If Christ suffered for them the full amount deserved by them, then justice has no claim upon them. And since it is undeniable that the atonement was made for the whole posterity of Adam, it must follow that the salvation of all men is secured” (Finney, 374). If Christ paid our debt, then either all are saved or only the elect.
[32] Ibid.
[33] 1 Corinthians 15.22; 2 Corinthians 5.14; 1 Peter 3.18.
[34] Erickson, 955.
[35] Luke 7.29, a literal translation from the New King James Version. Most modern translations read as some form of “declared God just” or “agreed that God’s way was right.”
[36] Grudem, 723.
[37] Erickson, 957.
[38] Grudem, 726.
[39] Verlyn D. Verbrugge, Editor, New International Dictionary of Theology: Abridged Edition, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), page 338.
[40] Watson, 229.
[41] Romans 4.3, 5, 6, 9, 16, 20-22.

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