It is a healthy thought exercise to reflect on how the biblical writers change our perspective on Scripture. The hermeneutic of the prophets and apostles is a hermeneutic of surrender. A surrender to the authority and intentional meaning of Scripture from its authors. A reader response hermeneutic is, by comparison, a subjective way of reading the text of Scripture to suit preferences and to shape messages or meaning toward inner personal thoughts, desires, or objectives. Efforts to conform the meaning of Scripture incidental or contrary to the biblical writers’ intended messaging toward instruction, counsel, or pastoral agendas is a defective and unacceptable approach to “interpretation.” The biblical writers extensively sought the intended meaning of what the patriarchs, prophets, and poets wrote and did. Rules of proper hermeneutical interpretation were applied for obedience, faith, and practice to include the development of further narratives and genres to form Spirit-inspired Scripture.
The extent to which the biblical writers were expositors of Scriptural truth cannot be overstated. Their contribution to Scripture’s theological and exegetical groundwork is thoroughly abundant and significant, as made evident by the depth and range of intertextual synthesis. From the Old Testament and the New, biblical writers were thoroughly immersed in Scripture present in their time, and they were exceptional exegetes. Each was able to assemble meaningful theological thoughts from the guidance of the Holy Spirit and by conscious interpretive efforts to produce theologies that would extend to millions across generations. The prophets and apostles developed theologies that provide a framework for continuing biblical interpretation of immeasurable value. Not only of enormous historical significance but of covenantal weight that assures God’s glory and redeemed humanity’s salvation.
There is a continuity of basic, deep, and intricate Scriptural meaning interwoven throughout the Bible. The patterns by which biblical writers wrote, inferred, referenced, overlapped, reinforced, and synchronized theological messaging are interrelated across time, languages, and translations. Scriptural intertextuality is the relationship between texts in a coherent sense of the reading. Still, there is more to its structural value because God’s Word, the Bible, is a supernatural book. As it is written, the implanted word received has the power to save souls (Jas 1:21). It is also a record of Jesus’ life and His work, miracles, teachings, and transformative power. The Word is a source of spiritual nourishment (Deut. 8:3, Matt 4:4). It reports on the fulfillment of ancient prophecies and foretells apocalyptic warnings and promises. It is a self-witness testimony to the wisdom of God, and it shall never pass away.
From the pactum salutis to the ordo salutis, the biblical writers wrote expressions of God’s mercy, grace, and wisdom for people who hunger for Him and objective truth. It’s not an academic book. Or merely a guidebook on godly living. God’s Word is a treasure. It is a storehouse of promises. It is a well of living water. It is a conduit to peace. It bears the fruit of praise for worshipers who love the living and triune God.
What is justification? Or justification before God by faith? To quote, justification is “a forensic (legal) term related to the idea of acquittal, justification refers to the divine act whereby God makes humans, who are sinful and therefore worthy of condemnation, acceptable before a God who is holy and righteous. More appropriately described as “justification by grace through faith,” this key doctrine of the Reformation asserts that a sinner is justified (pardoned from the punishment and condemnation of sin) and brought into relationship with God by faith in God’s grace alone.”1
Justification According to Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans
The walkthrough of Paul’s letter to the Romans concerning the doctrine of justification is especially helpful in reinforcing personal convictions about the truth of God’s Word and His covenant promises. The author, Andrew Naselli, offers an exceptional essay about what Paul meant about justification among crucial principles throughout his letter to the Romans. The theological messaging of Romans, as presented by Naselli, is thoroughly contextual as various relevant passages are traversed across both the Old and New Testaments. Moreover, as justification by grace is widely supported by the work of Christ and various New Testament writers, the author details how Paul’s theology contributes to the doctrine of justification.
Naselli’s paper isn’t an exposition of the book of Romans as a commentary or a comprehensive treatment of the subject matter it contains. The author sequentially takes large sections of the book to fully develop the meaning of justification to the church in Rome, but more widely to those of Asia-minor during the first century. Paul’s exhaustive letter concerning justification and soteriology applied to the early church just as it does today. To build the faith and development of believers, Paul makes a persuasive and compelling case about the differences between the Old Covenant and the New before he writes about implications beginning in chapter 5.
The condition and circumstances of sinful humanity condemned before righteous God characterizes the desperate situation relieved by the mercies of God through Christ Jesus, His Son (Matt 3:17). As Paul begins his letter about the sinful condition of people inclined to self-destructive and offensive behaviors, he further reveals the righteousness of God the further he progresses toward good news for those who believe and abide in Christ. Paul’s recitation of the Old Testament that all people are sinful and no one does good (Rom 3:10,12, Ps. 14:1–3; 53:1–3) shows that intervention apart from the law was clearly and desperately needed. The old covenant law has taught us that Christ was necessary to bring us to God so that we might be justified by faith (Gal 3:24). The need to transition from law to grace becomes apparent as people become justified by faith alone, just as Abraham was. As the spiritual children of Abraham, heirs to the Kingdom of God, attain justification just as he did by faith or believing in God. The Abrahamic covenant was fulfilled in Christ by His imputed righteousness to those who believe in Him by faith. Even the ungodly, as made clear from Romans 4:5.
Justification by Faith
The means by which God imputes righteousness for justification is through faith (Rom 3:25). Supported by how Abraham was justified and counted righteous by believing in God, Paul would have to assert that what applied to Abraham applies to his offspring (Gal 3:29). Specifically, external righteousness that comes from faith is transferrable to his offspring as the righteousness of Christ becomes imparted to believers. Even while Abraham was a wandering Aramean, his belief in God informed him and his family where to go and that pleased God, where righteousness was imputed or infused into an ungodly man. While there were various errant and sinful behaviors of Abraham during his journeys recorded in Genesis, there was the presence of grace upon him from God. Since he believed in God, Abraham was credited as righteous by grace through faith as a gift (Eph 2:8-9).
As Paul wrote to the Church in Rome, we can infer that he spoke to both Jews and Gentiles. Everyone was given a path to peace with God as reconciliation became possible through faith in Christ, who died for the ungodly (Rom 5:6). As justification was accomplished through Jesus’ blood, the Messiah’s sacrifice was pleasing to God (Isa 53:10; see BDAG) as believers in Christ were saved from His wrath (Rom 5:9). Naselli makes further observations about what Paul wrote about the outcome of justification. He indicates explicitly that believers have peace with God and access to Him through Christ. Those who abide in Jesus rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, their sufferings, and God Himself.
After Paul’s brief parenthetical account of the law and sin (chapter 7) and its devastating consequences, he pivoted to a theological understanding of condemnation and justification as opposites. Where Christ either perfectly fulfilled the law, or people keep the law through Spirit’s enabling, depending upon your perspective, the sovereignty of God is at work to call people to Him as justified and without condemnation. The certainty of believers before God includes their justification within an unbreakable chain of inevitability. Namely, the well-known golden chain of redemption from beginning to end assures the final eschatological completion of each person in Christ (Rom 8:28-30). God’s actions redeemed people are foreknown then predestined, called, justified, and glorified as an astonishing sequence of theological beauty. In fulfillment of total reconciliation, His people attain justification and are made righteous through faith to become secured in the love of Christ (Rom 8:35-39). No one can condemn His people redeemed to Him through Christ or bring a charge against them as the favor of God rests upon those reconciled (Rom 8:32-34).
Finally, Naselli focuses on a remaining section of Paul’s letter to the Romans concerning justification. Romans 9:30-10:13 specifically aims to contrast believing Gentiles to unbelieving Israel, who were God’s chosen people. To demonstrate the difference between a right standing by the faith of believers or alienation by works of righteousness, Israel tried to satisfy the Mosaic law. It was an impossible and futile effort as they had failed to satisfy all earlier covenants as a nation many times before. Israel did not believe in Jesus as their Messiah but rejected Him. In the Old Testament, God’s people of Israel didn’t accept His gift of righteousness and justification by faith.
Theological Facts of Justification
—Naselli’s narrative discourse on the theology of justification is adapted to a table assembled below for ease of review about theological facts.2
Item
Justification
Theological Facts2
References
1
Meaning
Justification is judicial, not experiential.
Rom 5:15-19
2
Meaning
Justification includes forgiveness.
Rom 4:6-8
3
Meaning
Justification includes imputation.
Rom 4:1–8; 5:15–19
4
Meaning
Justification is vertical, not horizontal.
Rom 1:17; 3:21–26; Rom 9:30–10:13
5
Need
Justification is necessary because all humans without exception are sinners under God’s condemning wrath.
Rom. 1:18–3:20
6
Basis
Justification is based on God’s imputing Christ’s righteousness to believing sinners —which is possible because of propitiation.
Rom. 4:1–8; 5:15–19 Rom 3:25–26
7
Basis
Justification is based on God’s imputing Christ’s righteousness to believing sinners—which is possible because God raised Christ from the dead.
Rom 4:1–8; 5:15–19 Rom 4:24-25
8
Basis
Justification is based on God’s imputing Christ’s righteousness to believing sinners—which is possible because of union with Christ.
Rom. 4:1–8; 5:15–19 Rom 3:24; 5:12–21; 8:1
9
Means
Justification is a gracious gift that sinful humans cannot earn.
Justification is accessible by faith alone in Christ alone.
Rom 1:17; 3:22, 25; 4:3–5, 9–25; 5:1–2; 9:30–10:13
11
Means
Justification occurs through redemption.
Rom 3:24
12
Accessibility
Justification is accessible to everyone without ethnic distinction.
Rom. 3:22–23, 29–30; 4:9–17; 10:11–13
13
Results
Justification is now inseparably connected to freedom from the law.
Rom. 3:19–21; 7:1–25; 9:30–10:13
14
Results
Justification is inseparably connected to peace with God.
Rom 5:1
15
Results
Justification is inseparably connected to the most deeply rooted and satisfying rejoicing.
Rom 5:2-11
16
Results
Justification is inseparably connected to progressive sanctification.
Rom 6:1-23
17
Results
Justification is inseparably connected to assurance that God will finish what he planned, accomplished, and applied.
Rom 8:28-39
18
Future
Justification is definitive and will be final when God publicly vindicates believers.
Rom 2:13; 5:18; 8:30, 32-34
19
Goal
Justification ultimately glorifies God.
Rom 11:36
Jesus accomplished these feats of redemption to bring out immense heartfelt gratitude. Where we have nothing but surrender to His kindness and immeasurable love. The theological treatise Apostle Paul sets forward to the Romans applies to everyone today who would confess Christ, invite Him to live within, abide by His teachings, and every day abundant mercies.
The Means of Salvation
Author Brandon Crowe of Westminster Theological Seminary wrote a paper entitled, “By Grace You Have Been Saved through Faith.” This title corresponds to what Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:8a, “For by grace you have been saved through faith” (ESV), to echo how the whole passage begins. The remainder of the verse reads, “And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8b-9). With complete clarity about what it means to be justified before God (i.e., “saved”), what God spoke through Apostle Paul’s words carries soteriological significance. Because of God’s active involvement among people, both grace and faith are together a gift for individual salvation resulting in eternal life with Him. To walk by faith while under grace as a means of justification is thoroughly supported by additional Pauline letters to the early church.
This very well-known passage concerning justification is supported by letters from Paul he wrote while traveling to developing churches along the Aegean sea and the surrounding interior cities of Asia Minor. He spoke of principles with confidence and authority about what it was to attain salvific standing before God from congregations, towns, homes, individuals, and while in prison. The principles were directly related to God’s acts of justifying the ungodly to return people to Him who were otherwise forever lost. Believers in Christ redeemed through His redemptive work who live lives of faith have the grace to attain salvation in life and from God’s wrath against sin.
Inclusive of all people, both Jews, and Gentiles, the spread of the gospel from Galatia to Corinth and back across the Mediterranean, the specifics involving the work of Christ are especially explicit from 1 Cor 15:1-4, where Paul writes of the gospel message that extends to everyone along his missionary journeys. This gospel message is about the ministry and sacrificial death of Jesus on a cross and His resurrection, ascension, and coronation. The gospel is about reconciliation to God through faith and repentance. Where faith is necessary for justification, Paul consistently spreads the gospel message to the churches in Galatia, Corinth, Thessalonica, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae, and numerous specific individuals recorded within scripture. Not to mention the various unrecorded locations he visited and individuals he spoke to, there was a pattern of Paul’s gospel message reflected in scripture elsewhere (e.g., Troas, Berea, Tarsus). Everywhere he went, the point of the gospel was reconciliation and justification to involve numerous additional theological teachings such as sanctification, social inclusion, eschatology, church formation, and church discipline.
Of particular interest was Paul’s instruction concerning false teaching and the message of grace that did not include human merit or performance. In contradiction to works of the law, Paul spoke of God’s grace that characterized new covenant faith and practice. The new nature of people free from sin previously held captive by the law was now under grace to produce justification and sanctification through repentance. As Paul wrote each letter addressed to specific churches by geographical locale, the forgiveness of sins and deliverance from sinful living were brought out as a matter of pressing instruction and attention for corrective action or as an underlying subtext about fruitful living and more well informed theological understanding.
Crowe organizes his paper about salvation by grace through faith by each of Paul’s letters. He does that to highlight the point that the doctrine of justification is not a stand-alone perspective from his letter to the Romans. All of Paul’s letters as a corpus of doctrine are necessary for a robust and defensible understanding of justification. Each geographical category Paul addresses pertains to circumstances present during their ancient cultural context, but even today, intended for scriptural truth about God’s total redemptive work as a whole of humanity. Through sovereign intent, the principles that reinforce the work of justification through Christ involve the pastoral epistles and the non-Pauline texts of scripture.
The Doctrine of Justification to the Churches in Galatia
The formative churches within Galatia were East of the Aegean Sea and North of the Mediterranean coast, where modern-day Turkey is. The churches of Galatia included the locations where Paul traveled during his first and second missionary journeys from Antioch to bring the gospel to people. After establishing churches and fellowship of believers was formed among the towns, he wrote to them about various topics. A key among them was concerning justification by faith. The church then and today, informed by Galatians 2:16, reveals the most essential scriptural point that works of the law do not justify a person. While Paul’s message concerned works of the law about Jewish requirements of the Mosaic covenant, the reader of his letter further reads later, “for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Gal 5:6). Written or interpreted more concisely, only faith working through love counts for anything. As the basis for good works, love is not salvific but purely evidence of authentic faith that justifies a person before God.
Further, throughout the letter to the Galatians, Paul sets up an exhaustive refutation of works-righteousness to destroy its value of interest among people who may continue to think that salvation is achieved or earned. Justification is not a synergistic effort as one somehow “partners with God” to attain salvation. Salvation is given by grace through faith and not from “works” an individual does. A careful examination of Greek Lexicons (BDAG and LSJ)3 specific to the grammatical use of “works” within Ephesians 2:9 renders definition as an action, deed, duty, or accomplishment. Definitively, Paul completely removes any faint notion that justification, and therefore salvation, is merited by deeds, actions, fulfillment of duty, achievement, or accomplishment.
The Doctrine of Justification to the Churches in Corinth & Thessalonica
As previously noted above, it was to the Corinthian church that the gospel was again presented to readers who were not regenerated (1 Cor 15:1-4). The message of redemption that involved justification was stressed in Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth as contentious issues were present from the leadership at the time. While the church was addressed with specific issues involving discipline and various doctrines of the faith, the matter of justification was touched upon as it was with the Galatians. A few sections of Paul’s letter bring further attention to justification by inference in various passages as follows.
A careful reading of 1 Corinthians 1:30 brings into view a phrase that is less than obvious about justification. The verse reading that includes the terms “in Christ” specifies a positional statement inferring justification.4 The text “in Christ” within 1 Cor 1:30 corresponds to the same language earlier in the letter as “the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” (1 Cor 1:2). At both locations of the text, Paul uses the terms in Christ to indicate a unity with Jesus as saints are recognized, sanctified, and holy just as He is. Therefore, by inference and reason, it is concluded that justification is attributed to the representative righteousness of Christ to believers. While this is likely better suited to a discussion about the imputation of Christ’s righteousness upon believers, it doesn’t serve a reader well to miss the point of justification by indirect association.
In Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, he does specifically use the term justification, nor does he use the language of the doctrine as he does later in his letters elsewhere. Current research indicates that 1 Thessalonians was one of the first letters he wrote.5 As Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica, he spoke of the necessity of escaping God’s wrath to come (1 Thess. 1:9–10; 2:16; 4:6; 5:1–11; 2 Thess. 1:8–9). To infer the urgency of justification made secure from eternity past (Rom. 10:20–21; Eph. 1:4; 1:5; 1:11), the “brothers loved by God” (1 Thess 1:4) are sanctified by the Holy Spirit among God’s sovereignly elected by grace through faith. The justification of God’s chosen people by means of faith was established from eternity past as the firstfruits of a new humanity. Those divinely elected to be saved were marked as sanctified “by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (2 Thess 2:13). Therefore, this “marking” is the event or process of justification accompanied by sanctification to present God’s people holy before Him.
Paul’s language in 2 Thessalonians 2:14 is key to the meaning and efficacy of salvation. More specifically, “To this” directly appeals to the crucial understanding of salvation appointed to Christians who were called and chosen through the gospel. Justification made certain through the course of redemptive events assured the calling of the saints to the glory and pleasing interests of God. The Father elects, the Son loves, and the Holy Spirit makes holy while unbelievers are marked and excluded from salvation.6 Accordingly, the means by which Christians were to escape God’s wrath involved the sovereign necessity and urgency of justification. The process God uses to bring His people to Him through Christ involves appointed belief and the work of the Spirit as necessary for salvation. In between the points of believer election and glorification are justification and sanctification.
The Doctrine of Justification from the Prison Epistles
Paul’s letters to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon were written from prison while he was in captivity. By divine will, Paul underwent a period of trials and sufferings for the gospel (Acts 9:16), and the sovereign intent of Paul’s isolation while in prison included the work of his letters for formative instruction, theology, exhortation, training, and correction that would positively affect millions through time. Beginning with each church in Asia Minor, the development of the Kingdom of God grew from seeds of inspired truth to involve the doctrine of justification.
To the Church in Ephesus
To be delivered from the wrath of God, justification is necessary. And for justification to be accomplished, the forgiveness of sins is required to satisfy God’s justice (Eph 2:1-9). The gift of God is given to the elect who believe by both grace and faith in Christ. Christ Jesus claimed God’s people through His death and resurrection to make clear the gospel message where appointed people are brought to God to salvation by belief (i.e., grace through faith). Populating the Kingdom is the work of God (Eph 2:10) to justify those appointed to Him by His love, wisdom, and mercy. By faith alone, people are delivered from God’s wrath and made spiritually alive. As made possible by the forgiveness of sins by the atonement of Christ, the human contribution to this process is the gift of grace and faith. The gift accepted is a vehicle by which God justifies through Christ.
To the Church in Philippi
Technically speaking, the meaning of “justification” comes from a forensic (legal) term related to the notion of acquittal for a crime committed by divine act where God makes sinful humans subject to wrath acceptable before Him who is holy and righteous. The righteousness of God (Phil 3:9) stands separate from the righteousness of the law as the old covenant transitions to the new. Acceptable to God is only the righteousness that comes from God (i.e., faith in Christ) to justify believers. The righteousness attained by faith in Christ is the “righteousness from God” that justifies. There is no scriptural support to indicate any other contributing factors toward justification.
On the contrary, “righteousness from the law” serves to illuminate the inadequacy of works as people are entirely unable to satisfy its requirements. Christ has satisfied the law, and it is by His righteousness that His people become justified by faith in Him. For this reason, believers must reject their own works as having salvific merit and instead become “found in Him” (Phil 3:9) as Paul was to attain the forgiveness of sins and justification. To imitate Paul in this regard is to have one’s righteousness originate from Christ based on faith. Conformance to Christ in this way is to accept His righteousness and God’s forgiveness through Him to attain justification for salvation leading to eternal life.
To the Church in Colossae
Paul wrote at length about the forgiveness of sins as a requirement for acceptance before God. And Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae is no exception (Col 2:13-14, 3:13). He wrote of justification in this letter concerning the deliverance and the forgiveness of the sins (Col 1:14) of people appointed to eternal life through faith in Christ. Moreover, Paul speaks of deliverance from an evil age (Col 1:13) or “domain of darkness” (ESV) to Christ’s kingdom. As the process of redemption constitutes transfer from one state of being to another, the work of justification is necessary to undergo rebirth from being dead in sin to alive in Christ (Rom 6:11). Through Paul’s letter, he also stresses the need to put to death the work of sin as the deliverance concerns both an escape from death but also the wrath of God (Col 3:5-7).
The Doctrine of Justification from the Pastoral Epistles
The written work of Paul to the churches in Rome, Achaia, Macedonia, and Asia-Minor is a body of work about justification that must be taken together for a comprehensive meaning of the doctrine spanning hundreds of years. However, as scholars continue to pick at Paul’s written work and the authenticity of New Testament epistles, it is inexcusable to dismiss the letters to Timothy and Titus, who were both written about during his travels and missionary work. These letters carry the weight of canonicity and are a necessary contribution to the entire biblical testimony of Christ, faith, and practice.
Letters to Timothy & Titus
As Paul was a spiritual father to Timothy, he confided in him about his own sinfulness. Paul wrote of himself as the foremost of sinners. That is to say, he confessed to being the chief of sinners who blasphemed and violently persecuted the church (Acts 8:1-3, 1 Tim 1:13, 15; 1 Cor 15:9-10). In contrast, Paul also wrote that he was blameless regarding the law (Phil 3:6) and bore a clear conscience before God (Acts 23:1, 24:16). So what is the difference between the two?
On the one hand, he was chief of sinners, but on the other hand, he held a clear conscience before God. Was Paul sinless after his conversion on the Damascus road (Acts 9:1-8)? No, because he still contended with his flesh and was being made perfect. However, Paul was in perpetual grace, cleansed, forgiven, and justified before God through Christ. Not that Paul would then ignore the law or live a life of antinomianism, but he did believe in Jesus for eternal life to receive mercy. He was set free from sin, and Jesus selected him to become the Apostle to the Gentiles and serve as an example of Christ’s perfect patience to those who would believe in Him (1 Tim 1:16). Since Paul was the chief of sinners, Jesus makes a remarkable statement in the life of a highly sinful man about what He does to justify people for reconciliation and redemption by grace through faith apart from the works of the law.
Believers in Christ must abide in Him and persevere as He justifies everyone according to the Spirit who has vindicated Him (1 Tim 3:16). Said another way, you cannot out sin the grace of God and the perfect work of Christ by His death and resurrection. Putting to death sin and fighting it toward sanctification is made fruitful as believers who remain in Christ abide in Him. He has accomplished redemption and justification for everyone in Him as He lived a perfectly sinless life. Since He lived as Man who encountered temptation without sin, yet died to carry the sins of people to the grave while He was without sin, He rose from the dead to take with Him the sin He carried on behalf of everyone who believes for justification by faith.
It was Christ’s perfect obedience and holiness taken with Him to the cross where the sin of everyone who believes in Him would be abolished for all time (2 Tim 1:8-14). The forgiveness and abolition of sin make possible justification by faith in Christ Jesus, who reconciles believers to God. Furthermore, Jesus brought with Him the sin of believers where the spiritual consequences of death were crucified. Just as sin was abolished, so was death to produce spiritual immortality through the gospel (2 Tim 1:10). So anyone who believes in Christ and is found in Him benefits from His death and resurrection to eternal life (1 Cor 15:21).
Finally, Paul’s correspondence to Titus is consistent with previous letters carefully read to understand justification by grace through faith. To press the point further, Titus 3:7 specifically echoes the same terminology of Eph 2:8, “by grace,” as justification makes believers heirs of eternal life. According to the mercy of God, believers in Christ are saved not because of works, as earlier made clear, but by justification by grace through faith, for the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5).
Penal Substitutionary Atonement
The essay from Stephen J. Wellum entitled Behold, the Lamb of God is described as “Theology Proper and the Inseparability of Penal-Substitutionary Atonement from Forensic Justification and Imputation.” The author makes numerous scripturally supported claims that the atonement of Christ was a process of redemption that involved a payment of legal penalty by payment through substitution. Christ paid for people’s sins through His payment of the penalty to force an acquittal through declarative justification. The clear biblical support for Christ’s redemptive work as substitutionary support has Old Testament precedent and theological grounding. As justification is by faith in Christ (Rom. 3:28, 30; 5:1; Gal. 2:16; 3:8, 24), people escape condemnation and attain peace with God (Rom. 4:2; 5:1; 8:1).
The author makes the case that justification is possible through substitutionary atonement and the imputation of righteousness. The theory of penal substitutionary atonement (or “vicarious atonement”) is a theory prominent among protestant evangelicals who believe that Christ died in the place of sinful people to appease the wrath of God. Where the penalty of sin is death, Christ Jesus paid the penalty at His crucifixion on behalf of people guilty of sin who are subject to judgment. Another legal term, imputation, carries a meaning of credit or debit in a religious sense to believers who attain justification by atonement. As given by the biblical example of Leviticus 17:4, the death of an ox, lamb, or goat killed outside the camp was to become a bloodguilt imputed to the man guilty of the killing if the dead animal is not offered to the LORD as a gift. This imputation upon the guilty man represents the transferability of a debit to the man found in violation of God’s law concerning sacrificial offerings. Regulations concerning atonement in Leviticus are loaded with inferences concerning imputational atonement around sacrificial sin offerings.
A further point made is that justification and imputation go beyond the forgiveness of sins. There are two scriptural principles of justification that have a bearing on redemptive status and understanding beyond atonement. First, there is freedom and reconciliation where God has no further animosity or wrath toward sinful people whose sins are covered (Acts 13:39; Rom. 4:6–7; 5:9–21; 2 Cor. 5:19). Second, as justification involves redemption, there is a purpose to which believers become heirs as God’s children. The theological support from Paul’s letters to the church is clearly articulated for interpretation according to their intent. Romans 5:1-2 is a single pair of verses that reinforce both principles of justification to include access to God with joy through Christ Jesus.
The Reformers and some patristics held to substitutionary atonement among alternate atonement theories. Compared to the Governmental and Socinian views of the atonement, penal substitution is restorative to holy God who requires justice and truth to satisfy necessary retribution due to His nature. As full justification before God requires complete payment for sin, justice is satisfied by substitutionary for atonement, and Christ’s perfect obedience becomes imputed to believers for redemption and reconciliation. In the Arminian view, God could have chosen another method or means of justification other than through God as Christ Jesus having the blood of a perfectly innocent man to satisfy retributive justice from holy God by His nature. Perfect obedience and complete payment of sin are not required to satisfy God’s justice to prevent necessary wrath because of who He is. It is on these grounds that Christ’s imputed righteousness is rejected. To the Arminian (Methodist, Nazarene) view of justification, sinners are justified before God through Christ, satisfying God’s rectoral justice plus faith and repentance from a believer. Christ does not bear the penalty of divine retributive justice for us, nor is our guilt imputed to him and his righteousness to us (Wellum, 367). And Christ suffered and died, not as a satisfaction for the exact penalty, but as a token of God’s concern to uphold God’s moral law. The governmental view of atonement favors rectoral justice over retributive justice as it “dismisses the atonement of Christ as an exact payment of the penalty demanded by the retributive justice of God and His expressed law” (Wellum,368). This difference is a striking point of opposition as God withdraws the necessity of full payment and imputed righteousness and instead receives the repentance of believers directed toward Him by faith in Christ.
The penal-substitutionary position requires an inseparable relationship between it and forensic justification and imputation. In contrast, the Socinian-Classic Liberal Postmodern view of justice denies the sacrificial death of Jesus to satisfy fully God’s justice to prevent His due wrath against sin. The Socinian view also denies imputed righteousness to sinners. The repentance of believers is elevated over the position of Christ’s imputed righteousness as God forgives sinners and raises to eternal life believers who follow Christ and live virtuously. The Socinian view of Christ’s atonement emphasizes God’s love, mercy, and grace over justification. To Socinians, Christ died as a moral example, and there are various other reasons for His death other than to satisfy God’s retributive justice against sin.
There are three points of interest to consider for a plausible warrant and coherent view of penal substitution and the doctrine of justification. All three center around the triune God and the relationship that exists within His being. First, the trinity includes the Son, who is in eternal relationship with the Father and Holy Spirit. The Son has an immeasurable weight of significance as He redeems humanity to reclaim God’s chosen people through belief. Christ’s integral work within triune God demonstrates the love of God (John 3:16) and the presence of the Spirit at the cross. Second, the pactum salutis is the covenant of redemption that exists to fulfill the plan of salvation for those who would believe and become redeemed (Ps. 139:16; Eph. 1:4, 11; 1 Pet. 1:20). The satisfaction of justice the holiness of God requires is not detached from the trinitarian intent of redemption from His sovereign will. The existence of sin in its rebellion against God cannot be permitted to exist or remain through His creation. Third, the triune God is LORD over all the universe. Everything shall be in subjection to Him, and His righteousness demands the punishment of sin. His nature is holy, righteous, and just and while He keeps His promises, He must remain true to His name, glory, and essence. Everything and everyone shall honor and adhere to God’s moral standard. Yet, since He is kind, loving, and merciful, He redeems people through a process of justification that requires atonement for sin. The presence of sin and evil must be fully accounted for to satisfy the necessary removal and destruction of all rebellion and rejection of truth. Sin is enmity against God, and it must be removed from His people through faith in Christ and His process of justification through the atonement He ordained.
Catholic Doctrine of Justification
An understanding of the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification comes from a necessary awareness of what occurred at the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ, 1999) that occurred much later. Ruptures of the catholic church during the Protestant Reformation and Eastern Orthodox separation were due to accretions in unbiblical doctrines. The grievances of Luther listed by the 95 theses nailed to the door at the church door of Wittenberg were indicative of the wild departures from apostolic tradition, doctrines, and faith practices. Through the centuries, Roman Catholic teachings about justification, Scripture, faith, sin, authority, and worship became contentious points of opposition insurmountable over the text of Scripture that informed and shaped Protestant theology.
The Council of Trent, or the Concilium Tridentium, was a gathering of the Roman Catholic authorities to establish a Counter-Reformation or response to Protestant theology emergent outside Catholicism. The Council of Trent was a 25-session council meeting held in Trento, Italy, situated squarely within the Reformation Era (1545-1699). Its objectives were to reaffirm and update Catholic doctrines to codify its views and traditions against Protestant beliefs and doctrines forming around Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and others. While there were various points of contention, meritorious works were necessary as a part of saving grace. The doctrine of justification within the Catholic Church was a highly contested matter at the Council of Trent, where the teachings of Catholicism were affirmed along with various other matters of objection among the Reformers.
To elaborate further on the doctrine of justification within the Catholic Church, Trent referred to three stages or states of justification it held as necessary for salvation. First, human free will must assent to the grace God predisposes to people, which is only done through baptism or the desire for it. A person can either accept and cooperate with the grace of God to believe and become justified by faith or reject it. The second stage involves the work of a baptized believer who must work hard to maintain justification until the end of life. Faith and works accompany a person’s efforts to keep the commandments (free or forgiven of venial or mortal sin). That is to say, a person is not justified by faith alone, but a justification for salvific merit includes grace, faith, and good works. The third stage involves lapses in justification as persons fall into sin. The sacraments of penance, confession, priestly absolution, and making satisfaction remain necessary for continued justification that attains to salvation. From Trent, these three stages are the framework of the Catholic Church’s doctrine of salvation (i.e., to which a person is forgiven and placed into right standing before God and saved).
Before the JDDJ in 1999, the first and second Vatican councils convened as separate ecumenical efforts to soften its language and posture to evangelicalism, secularism, and modern culture itself. The first Vatican Council (Vatican I, 1869-1870) was called to deal with advances in science, liberalism, and rationalism. It sought to form a constitution (Dei Filius) around the divine inspiration of Scripture and the primacy of the Roman Catholic pope’s office and its infallibility (Pastor Aeternus). The second Vatican Council (Vatican II, 1962-1965) was assembled to promote the Catholic Church’s renewal and update its teachings, discipline, and organization. At the same time, the outcome of Vatican II involved changes to its liturgy and how it engaged with other churches within the covenant community. Moreover, the Roman Catholic Church Catechism on justification (Article II) specifies the necessity of faith as conferred in baptism (CCC 1992) and merit for the attainment of eternal life (CCC 2010), or by inference, the necessary justification to salvation.
The JDDJ was an event that sought to bring healing and unity to the Christian community. The joint declaration concerning the doctrine of justification involving both Lutheran and Catholic churches was not by consensus. There were numerous objections from those among the Catholic ranks. The Catholic Church needed to make various equivocations, concessions, and clarifications after the JDDJ was signed and put into effect. No change to the Roman Catholic doctrine on justification was made, while Lutherans made concessions about the necessity of baptism for justification (article 28 of the JDDJ). The grace of Jesus Christ is “imparted” at baptism according to article 30 to render a person eligible or open to accept or reject. Therefore, JDDJ, while it sought Christian unity and healing, it upheld the Trent declaration that grace is within a synergistic process of salvation.
According to Anthony N. S. Lane, in his book Justification by Faith in Catholic-Protestant Dialogue: An Evangelical Assessment, the following 15 issues were analyzed and identified between Catholics and Protestants. Among all of these issues, no changes or adjustments in Catholic doctrine were made from the JDDJ. Together they involve the doctrine of justification and the unreconciled differences between Catholics and Evangelicals.
Unresolved Differences of the JDDJ
Analysis of Subject Areas
1. The status of theological language
2. Taking charge of the biblical tension
3. The interpretation of historical precedent
4. The role of justification in the overall theological system
5. The consideration of human inability
6. The definition of justification
7. Imputation
8. The permanence of sin in the Christian
9. Faith alone
10. Baptism
11. Law and gospel
12. Lapse and the restoration
13. Merit and reward
14. Assurance of salvation
15. Magisterium
For purposes of ecumenical unity, some interpret articles 5 and 11 of the JDDJ as complimentary, while others view them in tension with one another. Article 5 refers to the jointly accepted biblical doctrine of justification held by Protestants, but article 11 continues to recognize that cooperation of infused grace is necessary through baptism. More plainly, from the JDDJ, Catholics in article 5 recognize faith is necessary for justification, but it also accompanies a synergistic process of cooperation through baptism where a believer on his merit must perform. To conclude the difference between the Lutherans and Catholics who signed the JDDJ, justification is not by faith alone. Whereas Reformed theology maintains that salvation is attained by faith alone, Protestant interpretation of Scripture does not support the doctrine of justification as held by the Roman Catholic Church.
Second Temple Works Righteousness
The perspective that Second Temple Judaism was a grace soteriology runs counter to what Paul and the author of Hebrews wrote about old covenant stipulations concerning Mosaic Law that involved obedience, ritual sacrifices, and ceremonial obligations. In contrast, as the Abrahamic covenant included offspring and land, and his belief was counted as righteousness (Gen 15:6), there was later the period of levitical sacrificial offerings for remediation of sin and uncleanliness as a limited Old Testament form of atonement. Yet Old Testament sacrificial offerings could never take away sins, and the only thing that justifies people before God is Jesus Christ (Heb 10:1-18). The period of the law before Jesus’ ministry work was thoroughly about works of the law as the people of Northern and Southern Israel paid heavily for covenant disobedience as they would not return to God in repentance from idolatry, religious ritualism, and social injustice. The period of judgment was a means to demonstrate Israel’s inability to keep the law and that a new covenant would become necessary as foretold within the Adamic covenant (Gen 3:15).
The period of second temple Judaism overlapped with the arrival of Christ and His ministry during the first century. It was then the prophet’s message would become fulfilled about God’s law written on the hearts of His people (Ezek 11:19, 36:26, Jer 31:33, Heb 8:10). The fulfillment of the law arrived through Christ, who would usher in a covenant of grace to rest upon the Kingdom of God on Earth for those who would believe by faith in Him. Christ was the fulfillment of the law and prophets (Matt 5:17) so that grace, not law, would prevail within the hearts of His people as believers who love Him does what He says.
Writers and advocates of the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) follow E.P. Sanders’ work of “covenantal nomism.” First introduced in 1977, Sanders’ work entitled “Paul and Palestinian Judaism” offered the terms Covenantal and Nomism to claim that second temple Judaism accepts salvation by grace as valid, but its maintenance was through Mosaic Law. Specifically, the Mosaic covenant involved the free grace of God, as shown to Israel, but it was necessary to sustain law-keeping and keep oneself in the covenant to inherit salvation. The term nomism (from the Greek nomos, law) originates from the notion that ethical and moral observance of the law involves personal conduct. In his Systematic Theology, Grudem defines Covenantal Nomism as the belief of Jews during the time of Christ who obeyed Mosaic laws out of gratitude to remain God’s people. Still, an initial inheritance of salvation was by election and grace. To remain the people of God, it was necessary to “stay in” or continue in the faith by satisfying the Mosaic law to maintain the covenant. Covenantal Nomism is correlated to a marriage covenant where marriage is maintained by effort, continued intimacy, and consummation once vows are made.
In contrast to Covenantal Nomism, Variegated Nomism involves Jews within 2nd temple Judaism who held that salvation was through law-keeping by various ideas. To both attain and maintain salvation, legalism extended through the lives of individuals by different means of covenantal adherence. The distinction between the two rests upon the various forms of Judaism that held a keeping of the law by covenant, gratitude, and faith, to set a person on a path of justification involving progressive sanctification for final eschatological salvation. Both reject the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and personal belief (union with Christ) as considered righteousness.
As Robert J. Cara sets the record straight about grace and works righteousness within the second temple period, he calls attention to numerous extra-biblical and ancient rabbinic sources. Writings discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), pseudepigraphical literature, the Mishna (rabbinic oral traditions foundational to Judaism), and the Tosefta (supplemental to the Mishna) offered exhaustive evidence about the necessity of righteous acts and merit by law-keeping to attain eschatological salvation. Cara further contests James Dunn’s views about “covenantal faithfulness” as he refers to the scheme of works righteousness contrary to biblical principles of salvation by grace through faith.
Cara further elaborates upon N.T. Wright’s perspective about “getting in” and “staying in” the new covenant provided you perform what is right and good before God.” (Cara, 163) N.T. Wright specifically writes (4QMMT C 30-32):
“If through prayer and the moral strength that God supplies (C 28–29) you keep these precepts, you will rejoice at the end of time, in finding that the advice given, this selection of commands, was on the right track. That is when (C 31) ‘it will be reckoned to you as righteousness when you perform what is right and good before him.’”
This position is works-righteousness theology. It contradicts the verbiage written concerning Abraham and God’s covenant with him, “And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6, Rom 4:9). This “believed” the LORD is explicitly defined by the root manuscript Hebrew language to “have trust in, to believe in, God.” Moreover, Paul’s use of the term “faith” for justification coincides with that type of belief resulting in eschatological salvation.
For further in-depth review, see James D. G. Dunn, “4QMMT and Galatians,” concerning The New Perspective on Paul, 339–45 (originally published in NTS 43, no. 1, 1997); and N. T. Wright, “4QMMT and Paul: Justification, ‘Works,’ and Eschatology,” in History and Exegesis ed. Sand-Won Son (New York: T&T Clark, 2006). Root rationale concerning works-righteousness theology stems from the contributions of Dunn and Wright as they build upon Sander’s insistence on justification through initial covenantal grace followed by required merit and performance for salvation.
Augustine of Hippo vigorously opposed the views of Sanders, Dunn, and Wright as the New Perspective on Paul advocates for a covenantal faithfulness to earn salvation. As the British monk Pelagius believed people were able to live holy lives to merit salvation by good works, Augustine recognized the theological error in contradiction to the authoritative perspective of Paul concerning salvation by grace through faith alone. While NPP adherents are not full-blown Pelagians, they are semi-Pelagians as they advocate a synergistic approach to the salvation of humanity. The synergistic work of God and mankind for individuals to attain salvation by works-righteousness infers a partial efficacy of Christ’s sacrificial work at His execution. Jesus fulfilled the law, and believers by faith who love Him live by the Spirit to abide in Him and do what He wants under the new covenant of grace.
Inseparability of Justification and Sanctification
The essay from R. Lucas Stamps entitled Faith Works is subtitled as “Properly Understanding the Relationship between Justification and Sanctification.” The paper examines three views of the relationship between justification and sanctification. Conflation, separation, and integration of the two are examined for their scriptural merit for understanding and practical rationale. First, to understand sanctification, a theological definition is in order. Sanctification is a process of being brought into complete conformity with Christ. It is the mode of being by which a person is set apart and made more holy. Christians spiritually transformed by justification are rendered holy through Christ but continually grow in sanctification as they strive toward holiness. Sanctification involves cooperation with the indwelling Holy Spirit within a believer’s life with participation in the disciplines of Godly living. To include immersion in the Word of God, prayer, fellowship, worship, training, outreach, charity, and more, the life of a believer becomes less in conformance to the values of the world to live a holy and moral life in honor of God. Further removed from sin, believers are sanctified in pursuit of holiness, as described by the Westminster confession.
Westminster Confession of Faith Definition of Sanctification
They, who are once effectually called, and regenerated, having a new heart, and a new spirit created in them, are further sanctified, really and personally, through the virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection, by His Word and Spirit dwelling in them: the dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified; and they more and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to the practice of true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.
With an understanding of the different perspectives around broad and coarse relationships between justification and sanctification, it’s necessary to recognize that Reformed soteriology is a distinct soteriological position where both are separated to achieve an intended purpose. Reformers separate the remission of sin and imputation of Christ’s righteousness (justification) from the practice of personal righteousness and the holy pursuit of living (sanctification). To the Reformers, justification is a conversion event for a change of positional status, while sanctification is a washing of regeneration and renewal of the inner person by the indwelling Spirit.
Reformers’ objections to the Augustinian tradition about justification brought strong opposition from the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent. While the Reformers held to a forensic (legal) understanding of justification for the remission of sins, the Tridentine model of atonement was, by contrast, an entirely different perspective from the Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church (RCC) from the Council of Trent saw justification as a curative or healing event or process to restore a person’s status before God. The canons and decrees from Trent that RCC adopted involved the following understandings about soteriological atonement: 7
“Justification translation from that state in which man is born a child of the first Adam, to the state of grace and of the adoption of the sons of God through the second Adam, Jesus Christ our Saviour.” [This movement from sinful nature to grace] “cannot, since the promulgation of the Gospel, be effected except through the laver of regeneration or its desire.”
In this definition, a “laver” refers to a bowl of rinsing and washing for ritual use by a priest. And the author draws attention to the RCC’s adherence to Trent as it adopted its position of justification around regeneration as a curative matter that involved a spiritual washing at conversion. As Titus 3:5 makes use of the phrase, “by the washing of regeneration,” or more fully and explicitly, “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” It is, therefore, apparent that justification and regeneration by washing are combined or fused into a single redemptive meaning. However, as Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, he separated the terms “washed,” “sanctified,” and “justified” by the Spirit of God to make a point that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:11, 1-11). Therefore, the discontinuity between Scripture and the declaration of Trent that conflates the relationship between justification and sanctification does not appear to hold an exclusive claim on the nature of the relationship other than tradition in the absence of scriptural authority.
The second perspective on the relationship between justification and sanctification entirely severs the correlated necessity between them. Antinomian rejection of requirements of the new covenant responsibilities ignores the inner working purpose of sanctification and works of grace for personal holiness. A process of sanctification separate from saving faith renders it unnecessary in the mind of an Antinomian believer who holds to a “free grace” conviction. Saving faith from an Antinomian perspective views faith as mental assent to the truth of God. At the same time, the work of Christ for justification is limited in reach without concern for personal holiness and perseverance. Without a heart’s desire to live in holiness according to Christ’s instructions, the severed relationship between justification and sanctification contradicts what Scripture says about holiness or sanctification (Heb 12:14) that follows justification.
Finally, Stamps brings attention to the integration between justification and sanctification from a position of Reformed theology. He notes that Calvin asserted that justification and sanctification are not separate. However, Calvin also maintained they are yet distinct. He went on to claim that justification holds a higher priority than sanctification. He viewed justification as foundational toward sanctification as salvation is necessary to assure a meaningful life of sanctified living. Union with Christ is necessary as a foundational position in which growth or a life course in sanctification takes place with necessary grounding. In this way, Calvin refers to both justification and sanctification as a double grace by necessity in which both are at work in a believer (Stamps, 518). As God is holy, He instructs His redeemed people to be holy (Lev 19:2).
The Ordo Salutis
Under the tradition of Reformed soteriology, the golden chain of redemption (ordo salutis) articulated in Romans 8:29-30 offers a sequence of thought around Pauline theology:
“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”
The clear separation between “conformance to the image of the Son” (sanctification) and “he also justified” indicates a functional partitioning by a definition of terms in this passage to indicate linear activity. Or the presence of concurrent and overlapping work to satisfy Christ’s desire to become firstborn among God’s offspring. In a sense, the salvific work of Christ is both from spiritual death and from captivity to sin after justification. There is a unity in the saving work of God that is inseparable.
A believer that becomes born-again has a transformative experience that is followed by necessary work from the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s presence within a person isn’t passive but active to assure spiritual formation toward increasing sanctification for the interests of God where people progressively become satisfied in Him. From a careful reading of Ephesian 2:10, it is abundantly apparent that we are created as the workmanship of God to perform good works and so that Christ Jesus would “show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us” (Eph 2:7). God wants to be in fellowship with His people. He loves His children, and He wants to dwell among us. To do that, He has informed us about how He intends to do that through both justification and sanctification.
Citations
______________________ 1 Stanley Grenz, David Guretzki, and Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 69. 2 Andrew David Naselli, “The Righteous God Righteously Righteouses the Unrighteous: Justification according to Romans,” in The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands or Falls: Justification in Biblical, Theological, Historical, and Pastoral Perspective, ed. Matthew Barrett (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 230-235. 3 Henry George Liddell et al., A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 683.; William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 390. 4 G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (GrandRapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 475. 5 Brandon Crowe, “‘By Grace You Have Been Saved through Faith’: Justification in the Pauline Epistles,” in The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands or Falls: Justification in Biblical, Theological, Historical, and Pastoral Perspective, ed. Matthew Barrett (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 261. 6 Crossway Bibles, The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008), 2318. 7 The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, trans. H. J. Schroeder (Charlotte, NC: TAN Books, 1978), 31.
In Matthew Barrett’s book, The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands or Falls, contributing author Andrew Naselli makes a stratospherically important point about the centrality of Paul’s theology on justification. He calls attention to Luther’s notes about the matter.1 Luther wrote of Romans 3:21-26 as follows, “the chief point, and the very central place of the Epistle [to the Romans], and of the whole Bible.” Specifically, Naselli uses Moo’s observations about Martin Luther’s notes on Paul’s passage to the Romans. The passage is critical to our study of justification. The heart of the doctrine is “the righteousness of God that empowers the gospel to mediate salvation to sinful human beings.”2
So as a matter of course, this section of Romans 3:21-26 must be carefully parsed. To ruminate on it and let it saturate every part of our capacity to reason and accept truth.
Romans 3:21-26 Justification by Faith
21But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ 23 for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; 26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Parsed Outline (Naselli, 221-222)
God’s righteousness is revealed from the OT law and the prophets. (Rom 3:21)
All have sinned yet have access to God’s righteousness through exclusive faith in Christ. (Rom 3:22-23)
Source of justification made clear through faith in Christ received as a free gift to people redeemed by His blood to satisfy God’s justice and wrath (propitiation). “In-Christ-redemption is the instrument of grace to bring about justification.… Justification occurs through in-Christ-redemption, which is the instrument of grace.”3 (Rom 3:24-25a)
Integrity of God plus his character as righteous and just to hold back His anger to appease righteous divine wrath against sin. The just and justifier gives righteous status to people as He passed over sins committed and atoned for through the blood of Christ. So here it is revealed the gospel is an expression of God’s attributes of righteousness and justice. (Rom 3:25b-26)
Just as Luther, Moo, and many other expositors have made super clear, Naselli offers the four-point review above of what Morris called the most important single paragraph ever written.”4
The polemic to a proper understanding and acceptance of the doctrine of justification rests upon a new covenant biblical principle of soteriological meaning.
The New Perspective on Paul (NPP) is an effort to redefine justification as made clear by the apostle Paul (Rom 3:21-26). Not so much to affect what justification does in terms of its salvific merit but to redirect it toward the interests of cultural Marxism and liberation theology. In the form of Sanders’ covenantal nomism, NPP attempts to necessitate the maintenance of salvation by orienting it toward the cultural well-being of people (a State interest). Justification becomes fundamentally about ecclesiology and not soteriology (Cara, 231). Paul has explicitly and authoritatively informed millions over thousands of years that justification is vertical, not horizontal (Romans 1:17, 3:21-26, 9:30-10:13).
NPP is an effort to detach the meaning and warnings of scripture concerning justification to suit the interests of society, culture, and the State around liberation theology. A theology of grievance concerning the “marginalized” (i.e., feminism, marriage, sex, gender, and abortion activists coupled with ethnic and racial disparities that need attention). That which divides people of truth is diabolical. That which intermingles and draws them to darkness is satanic.
Cultural Marxists who capture and guide woke social justice ideology shape progressive Christians to form various ecclesiological efforts. Marxism pushes toward a revisionist understanding of biblical justification through cultural pressures for reparational and restorative institutional and theological “justice” to acquire its desire for power. To NPP, justification is about social order toward the interests of liberation theology advocates who want unfettered lifestyles and egalitarian insistence contradictory to explicit biblical language about what’s unacceptable and forbidden to profane the Imago Dei.
On April 14th, 2022, Carl R. Trueman posted an article entitled “Rowan Williams and our Sentimental Age.” In this article, Trueman makes it completely clear that the esteemed academic scholar (Williams) has advocated for State mandated LGBT lifestyle acceptance within the church. The current Arch Bishop of Canterbury favors same-sex “marriage.” N.T. Wright, a prominent advocate of NPP, is a bishop of the Anglican church. Many pastors and priests across all denominations advocate for the ghetto of theological exploration to recast doctrine toward social interests. Specifically to render people susceptible or trapped by the false social doctrine of NPP.
________________ 1 Andrew David Naselli, “The Righteous God Righteously Righteouses the Unrighteous: Justification according to Romans,” in The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands or Falls: Justification in Biblical, Theological, Historical, and Pastoral Perspective, ed. Matthew Barrett (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 220–221. Here Naselli quotes Douglas Moo’s observations in the Luther Bible with Luther’s margin notes (Epistle to the Romans, 1st ed, 281n1). 2 Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996), 219. 3 Constantine R. Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 114. Campbell skillfully synthesizes justification and union with Christ; see 388–405. 4 Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press, 1988), 173.
Truth is subjective to many people and relative to Christians and atheists alike. Subjectivism, as such, is the rejection of objective truth for a wide array of reasons. Atheists and anti-theists generally share a secular creed tacit in nature to declare there is no God. There is no objective truth. There is no ground for Reason. There are no absolute Morals. There is no ultimate Value. There is no ultimate Meaning. There is no eternal hope.1 In the mind of those who hold a worldview of subjectivism, everything is permitted without social constraints—notably, including people who attend and lead churches who do not accept the authority and truth of Scripture as God’s word. To “believers” or “Christians” who live as there is only limited objective truth, do so from a position of upholding the mantra of diversity, equity, and inclusion as a necessary and overriding social doctrine to shape false faith and errant practices.
Anti-theists or atheists outright opposed or indifferent to the existence of God make it clear and consistent that Christians who believe in God are deluded, misguided, or just people who never really grew up. Christians, across the board among every denomination or tradition without exception, hold varying degrees of acceptance concerning the objective truth of the gospel and Scripture. Consequently, most congregations are egalitarian. Very many favor same-sex marriage, tolerate promiscuous lifestyles, advocate homosexuality, ordain female pastors, adopt critical theory, accede to social justice violence, liberation theology, feminism, and numerous other conditions of social decay within the church. In contradiction to Jesus, our Messiah, and Apostles James, John, Peter, Paul, and others were crystal clear about objective truth concerning the gospel, repentance, sin, and Godly living. A survey of social media interaction among too many clergies and laity across a wide swath of denominations, from conservative to liberal ideologies, informs the culture of social positions opposed to objective truth as made clear through the authority of God’s word as His voice of instruction, redemption, and warning to humanity. The poison of subjectivism is thoroughly ingrained within the culture and the church. Where C.S. Lewis informs his readers that beliefs about moral judgments which are exclusively subjective to the individual or community are the poison of subjectivism that eventually leads to the destruction of society, beginning with traditional Christian morality.2
This post offers a defense of objective truth as made clear through the intent and meaning of canonical Holy Scripture as transmitted from ancient manuscripts. Conversely, when Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “what is truth,” he spoke from a position of cynically subjective understanding to show itself as spiritually vacant from Christ and His word as Truth. To define truth is itself an objectivist position. An alternative or relative definition of truth per se to the subjectivist is unwanted or strained at best. According to Aristotle, truth is defined in terms of ordinary people in a pragmatic sense, “To say that what is is not, or that what is not is, is false; but to say that what is is, and what is not is not, is true; and therefore also he who says that a thing is or is not will say either what is true or what is false.” 3
Jesus defined Himself as the embodiment of Truth (Jn 1:14, 17, 14:6, 1 Jn 5:20). As transliterated from Greek as alētheia, He spoke of Himself in conformance to reality. His being as the embodiment of truth concerns Himself as Messiah and all He claimed, especially about a person’s access to eternal life and God the Father. True God revealed in Christ Jesus was and is made objectively evident “as what is is, and what is not is not, is true,” as Aristotle has put it. Not from subjective rationale stemming from alternate theories of truth to escape revelatory details of actual reality with corresponding metaphysical and philosophical support. “Telling it like it is” corresponds to facts about a matter objectively ascertained independently of a knower and his consciousness. Truth, in general, presupposes commonsense notions of reality, and if anything does not conform to reality, as a practical matter, theory or otherwise, that is by definition false.4 Therefore, a person can consequently frame observation of reality and its corresponding truth in terms of denial or acceptance.
Alternative theories of truth to counter subjectivistic thought, or subjective truth, can offer some perspective as conversations involving disbelief among atheists or unbiblical and sinful behaviors from Christians become evident or come up in conversations. The “what is true for me is not necessarily true for you” holds no credibility in opposition to objective truth. Four theories are generally understood to render universal and religious subjectivism meaningless.
First, a pragmatic theory of truth is Truth that works relatively. It’s a relativistic form of thought that ultimately becomes impractical because it devolves into an unending pursuit of pragmatic or destructive outcomes as an ongoing means to an end until circularity or exhaustion is reached. Second, the empiricist’s theory of truth is what someone would view truth as a function of sensory perception. Without empirical evidence to support rationalistic assertions concerning God and spiritual or supernatural objects of faith, false conclusions are made a priori that such terms and meaning are incomprehensible. Third, rationalists’ view of truth concerns human reason as the judge of reality and must distinctly be understood within cognitive reasoning alone. It is the denial that many truths cannot be proved, such as the law of noncontradiction. Finally, the coherence theory of truth that considers various sets of ideas can yield contradictory conclusions that are actually incoherent. Facts the way they really are can correspond to coherence theory, while a situation evident from another perspective can demonstrate otherwise to produce another contradiction. Coherence theory generally relies upon presuppositions of truth without objective and comprehensive facts as evidentially valid.
Individual abandonment of objective truth would cause a further precipitous decay within society and civilization in general. Atheist and Christian denials of truth as revealed through Creation and God’s word for purposes of convenience, preferences, or social utility erode an ability to comprehend revelation by grace either way. People are not created as necessary beings, but contingent beings grounded by actual alētheic existence with objective truth as a divinely instituted construct and requirement. Without being in fellowship with God, who expects acceptance and adherence to objective truth, both atheists and professing Christians naturally arrive at a place of confusion and misery, often eternally. The objective truth of the gospel and Scripture points to Jesus, who wants people to accept objective truth and come into fellowship with Him and the Father for salvific purposes. People who deny objective truth, or passively dismiss it, have no room for repentance and recognition of sin as made explicit by the authority of Scripture.5 To deny objective truth is what Apostle Paul warns about as a matter of principle with eternally damning consequences (Rom 1:18-32).
Paradoxical truth does not contradict objective truth as revealed and made evident in a natural sense throughout creation. Collisions in faith and reason do not somehow run up against the consistency of logic, but merely point to an inability to process observations and arrive at coherent conclusions due to the limitations of human cognition. While Richard Niebuhr’s (1894-1962) theological work attempted to shape knowledge of objective truth within a relativistic framework, he reasoned that universal truth could be obtained through historical traditions and relativism. Partially to explain the Western drive of denominationalism, he took a specific long-term interest between unity and diversity within the church. It was splintering at a growing rate in the 1950s, and he sought to bring the church into wider cultural acceptance within secular society to suit modern life. 6 The proliferation of church denominations is in the thousands. The largest convention in the U.S. (Southern Baptist Convention) is in a crisis of unity due to its partial acceptance of objective truth. For the same reason, Episcopalian and Lutheran churches have lost hundreds of thousands of members over the course of recent years. Other denominations have become more fragmented.
By further comparison, John Stott (1921-2011), an Anglican priest of evangelical tradition, wrote, “In our post-modern era, the self-confidence of the Enlightenment has gone, the very concept of objective ‘truth’ is rejected, and all that remains are purely personal and subjective opinions.” He wrote this perspective in 2001 to indicate the trajectory of social culture downstream from the church. Consequently, the state of civilization is in upheaval with violence, gender dysphoria, political unrest, political corruption, wars, and corporate greed, unlike any time before in history. Every bit of which serves as evidence of a departure from objective truth as the grounding of faith and morality in obedience to God’s prescriptive order. Consider entertainment and the state of academic institutions. Consider the widespread and deep infestation of subjectivism within local churches at the hands of leaders who believe what God has revealed in His Word but have not surrendered to objective truth to the growing demise of society at large.
Citations
________________ 1 Gary DeMar, ed., Pushing the Antithesis: The Apologetic Methodology of Greg L. Bahnsen (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2007), 67. 2 Dr. Alan K. Snyder, “Lewis’s “Poison of Subjectivism” in Our Day” Southeastern University, Lakeland Florida, Accessed 11 April. 2022. https://ponderingprinciples.com/2017/12/16/lewiss-poison-of-subjectivism-in-our-day/ 3 Aristotle, Metaphysics, Books I–XIV; Oeconomica; Magna Moralia, ed. Jeffrey Henderson, trans. Hugh Tredennick and G. Cyril Armstrong, vol. 1, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 1933–1935), 201. 4 Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics, The IVP Pocket Reference Series (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2003), 135. 5 John R. Franke, “Recasting Inerrancy: The Bible as Witness to Missional Plurality,” in Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy, ed. J. Merrick, Stephen M. Garrett, and Stanley N. Gundry, Zondervan Counterpoints Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013), 288. 6 Daniel G. Reid et al., Dictionary of Christianity in America (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990). 7 John Stott, The Incomparable Christ (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2001), 66.
The interpretive grounds and soteriological purpose of the Trinity are based solely upon the authority and meaning of Scripture revealed by God as transmitted by the biblical authors. From the Old Testament to the New, God revealed Himself as three persons in one essence. And the biblical authors wrote about that under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit. From creation, through the covenants, redemptive history, and eschatological trajectories, each person of the Trinity was at work as recorded throughout Scripture.
Doctrinal Assertions
There are four ways, among many, to understand the doctrine of the Trinity.
There is One God, Elohim, Plural (Deut 6:4)
There is One God, Eternal, Immutable, Transcendent (Heb 7:3)
There is One God, Exclusive, Distinct (Isa 45:5)
There is One God, Modeless (John 17:5, John 1:1, John 14:26)
Doctrinal Approaches
The Trinity is revealed by divine presence, activity, and instruction; not derived through human attainment of knowledge, reason, or inference.
A. Subjects of Scripture
Structured summarization of Trinitarian functions and assessment of affected topics (i.e., deconstructed doctrines without the Trinity):
God the Father Doctrine of God
Pneumatology Doctrine of the Holy Spirit
Christology Doctrine of Christ
Angelology Doctrine of Creation (bene-elohim)
Anthropology Doctrine of Man
Hamartiology Doctrine of Sin
Soteriology Doctrine of Human Salvation
Eschatology Doctrine of Last Things
Bibliology Doctrine of God’s Word
Ecclesiology Doctrine of the Church
B. Storyline of Scripture
Genesis to Revelation, the Scriptural presence of the Trinity and its productivity (i.e., coherent involvement of the Trinity through biblical events) were prominent for the overall creative and soteriological purpose among both old and new covenants. Specific events communicated through the various literary genres involved all three persons of the Trinity.
Tracing events through scripture narratives across generations to corroborate the existence and work of the Trinity is an interpretive necessity through the formation of comprehensive biblical theology.
C. Statements of Scripture
Explicit attestations concerning the Trinty – Individual truths, promises, and themes are consistent throughout the Bible. The doctrinal implications of the relational nature between the members of the Trinity affect covenants, marriages, parenting, contracts, mediation, communication, and relationships.
The Glory of Triune God
While the soteriological purposes of God are highly evident throughout both the Old and New Testaments, what we recognized about His glory is, I am convinced, a part of a larger meta-narrative. There is much more at work than what we realize. James Hamilton Jr writes an excellent biblical theology around the salvation of people as a central theme throughout Scripture. Hamilton’s work is an exhaustive book-by-book horizontal examination of how triune God attains glory in salvation through the judgment of disobedient people.
He writes from the various events that coalesce into biblical theology, but I happen to think there is a vertical narrative as made evident by revelatory detail. Especially from a first-century New Testament perspective. A solely human-centered theology presents a limited one-dimensional horizontal perspective, but the soteriological value of comprehensive biblical theology speaks to who God is and what He has done for humanity as recorded in the pages of Scripture. I have nothing but heartfelt gratitude for Hamilton’s work. I study a range of his materials.
I’m highly sympathetic to Karl Barth (renowned most influential theologian of the 20th-century). He didn’t like the phrase, “systematic theology” because it suggested to readers a root of human reason to discern spiritual truth to shape harmful ecclesiological outcomes (like socialist liberal tolerance and acceptance of the Jewish holocaust). He got a lot of pushback from that among socialists and liberals within his time (thus his “Church Dogmatics”). It’s also why we see “Reformed Dogmatics” (Bavinck) and other similar titles from Reformed theologians who object to liberalism or socialist thought stemming from Aristotle and Kant (i.e., modernity and the ensuing enlightenment).
Assumptions about the supremacy of human thought and reason outside what specific truths, principles, and imperatives are revealed in Scripture can form categories of doctrine that misguide church polity and social structures contrary to the explicit interests of God as recorded in His Word, the Bible. Modernity and post-modern thought contribute to a low view of Scripture. – For example, a complementary perspective concerns God’s glory in the realm beyond ours (a vertical dimensionality). While Hamilton comprehensively and deeply writes about the redemptive human history (a horizontal dimensionality), Michael Heiser writes of nations reclaimed (salvation) through a process of judgment for God’s glory. Where those judged are not human, but spiritual as Yahweh reclaims humanity for His interests. See video: Heiser’s Biblical Theology (Biblical & ANE Cosmology).
There are distinctions between Eastern and Western doctrines of the Trinity that reveal a separation of thought about its internal relations. The Eastern (Greek) and Western (Latin) formations of Trinitarian theology amount to historically propagative thought from Augustine, Aquinas, and Rahner, among others. Yet the most grounded and meaningful interpretive understanding of the triune God originates from Scripture. Throughout the Old and New Testaments, God was revealed as persons who performed specific work within Creation to interact with humanity as recorded across many centuries. Recognition of God down through time is made clear through distinctions between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The way God is in Himself is trinitarian.
From the gospel of John, it is clear that the Son is begotten of God the Father as incarnate (Jn 5:26) God coequal yet in temporal subordination to accomplish a function of outworking love between them toward humanity (Jn 5:19, 8:28, 1 Jn 4:9). Jesus begotten of the Father is also indicative of a derivative subordination function of the Holy Spirit. Just as Jesus was sent for a specific purpose, the Holy Spirit was sent to accomplish another function. However, they together remain present as God through what objectives are achieved throughout history. It is by Eastern Greek thought that the Trinity is a metaphysical procession where the Son and Holy Spirit proceed as persons to cause existence. Whereas the causation of everything is of a hypostasis referring to each concrete and distinct trinitarian persons who share a single diving nature or essence. Hypostasis is a theological concept in contrast to the doctrine of the hypostatic union of Christ to describe the bringing together of Jesus’ divine and human nature.
In the tradition of Latin or Western theology, the approach to understanding the Trinity concerns a principle of personhood to describe the members of God as a single substance. Paul, the apostle, referred to God as God, Lord Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit to indicate his frame of reference as a worshiper. Within Paul’s thought, the essence of the Trinity is Scripturally evident as individual names as positional or relational to him. In comparison to “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit,” Paul consistently wrote of the Trinity from the standpoint of a created being in reverence to God as three persons holding office separately as One (i.e., the Father as God, the Son as Lord, and Holy Spirit as Holy Spirit). John and Jesus referred to the persons as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to exemplify the Eastern approach to suggest a less formal way of identification as compared to the title or function designation through Paul.
While there is explicit scriptural support for persons of the Trinity sent and begotten, there is an interpretative view of the doctrine about how procession occurred. From eternity past, in a temporal sense, a mutual decision was made about Creation involving the redemption of chosen people through belief. There “was” an original decision together made about what was to occur through the entire sinful course of history. Salvation would be made possible through One becoming incarnate and Who would accomplish specific work through mutual submission and eternal symmetry as three persons. Without distinction concerning origination, the three as One God is ever explicitly made as such in Scripture or by revelatory detail. Other than statements and declarations of interpersonal unity and identity, expressed description of triune presence is never revealed as understandable within humanity’s three-dimensional domain. Sent and begotten God acted to produce Creation in the sense that subordinate functional objectives were met without any notion of inferiority in status or nature of aseity, presence, and limitless co-eternal power to accomplish salvation for glory and love.
This afternoon I finished reading the entirety of God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity (342-pages). The whole effort was time well spent because it concerns the doctrine of the Trinity upon which various other doctrines rest. The book was a comprehensive look at the doctrine and the Trinity itself from the author (Millard Erickson, 1995) yet from the perspectives of various 18th, 19th, and 20th-century theologies as well. Moreover, the scope of the book covered the councils of Nicea (325 A.D.) and Constantinople (381 A.D.) to assert the relevance and consequences of the doctrine, including the safety and survival of Rome.1
While the book thoroughly covers the history of the doctrine’s development and its interpretive approaches, it highlights with careful attention the importance of what it is and what it does. The well-known and highly influential German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg (1923-2014) asserted without hesitation that the doctrine of the Trinity is the most important among all doctrines by comparison. With numerous historical citations involving early church patristics, Erickson traverses the formulaic development of the doctrines from the first through fourth centuries. The apostolic fathers, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Origen, and Athanasius formed instruction and traditions around the doctrine to counter opposing thoughts and assertions about the triadic form of God. Furthermore, over decades, modalism, tri-theism, Arianism, and other disputes concerned the developing church where the formation of the doctrine of the Trinity had to become a priority to settle.
From the earliest understanding of authoritative and inspired Scripture, the biblical meaning of the doctrine appeared on a scale. A valid and necessary interpretation of the Trinity was at rest on a sort of conceptual fulcrum on a scale. Move too much one way in understanding and interpretation slides to a form of modalism (liberation theology & feminism), move in the opposite direction on the scale, and interpretation moves to tri-theism, or Arianism. While tri-theism tends to be an errant way of thinking about the Trinity today, Arianism purported that Jesus could not have been truly God. The teaching of Arius (335/336 A.D.) was deemed heretical at the council of Nicea in 325 A.D.
Erickson enumerates the numerous passages that biblically reference the doctrine of the Trinity from the Old to New Testaments. Historical and cultural narratives concerning the nature and triadic unity of God across Old Testament covenants involved God’s interaction with individuals, groups, tribes, and nations. To further extend the presence of God as triune in the New Testament, numerous gospel and Pauline references point to the truth of God’s Being as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as separate yet One. The various triadic passages and references within Pauline writings and the baptismal formula set the doctrine’s foundation to assure interpreted revelation for humanity to recognize God as He is.
To further narrow the meaning of the triadic union of God, the gospel of John makes extensive reference to the relationship between all members of the Trinity. In contrast to the Old Testament, the members of the Trinity are identified explicitly to indicate their function, momentary subordination, incarnation, and the relationship between each other and humanity. Taken together, the compiled meaning of God’s identity as revealed in Scripture is nothing short of astonishing and profound. The testimony of Old and New Testament witnesses to God, His activity, and work through the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles made a punctuated and alarming impression about reality beyond day-to-day recognition that is certain to last until the Parousia.
As Greek and Latin recognition of the revelatory witness began, numerous approaches to the understanding of the Trinity ensued. Philosophical assertions about the metaphysical nature of Trinitarian theology took shape from early Greek thought to more scholastic and postmodern perspectives. Erickson does an exceptional job outlining the substance of various contributors to philosophical and theological engagement. From Aquinas and Kant to Schleiermacher, Barth, Rahner, and more contemporary contributors of Henry, Davis, and Lacugna, different competing perspectives are presented, emphasizing a process of elimination given biblically grounded rationale. Tradition, utilitarian, or social preferences carried no interpretive weight with the author.
To make a case for the understanding and correct interpretation of the doctrine of the Trinity, the author covers various objections to the Trinity in painstaking detail. Moreover, the author effectively argues for the necessity of instruction on the doctrine as a matter of pressing discipleship or catechesis. A proper understanding and interpretation of the doctrine are foundational and practical as it concerns prayer life, worship, apologetical contention, interpersonal relationships, and church governance. The doctrine of the Trinity is such a crucial area of instruction that it affects the future health and development of the Church and Christianity in general.
[1] Erickson cites on page 13: Adolf Harnack, History of Dogma (New York: Dover, 1961), 4:60–67.
Throughout section three of God in Three Persons – A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity, Erickson offers comprehensive and compelling scriptural evidence for the Trinity as a way to understand the identity and interwoven roles of each member. Each in a single essence as God, they together and separately work from distant history to first century and contemporary activity through God incarnate as Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit within the new covenant context. Recorded historical accounts of various events and narratives involving God in different forms of persons and pluralities bring a fuller understanding of the nature of God’s unity. Still today, through the work of the Holy Spirit, God’s involvement in a new covenant context from the first century to the present and future fulfillment of promises, there is a reconciliation evident as a continuum of combined effort.
Through a plurality of presence, as God manifests in Spirit and observed corporeal reality from the Old Testament, there is a continuing thread of literary witness accounts of what occurred as a matter of course. The fulfillment of prophecies and historical events factually confirmed assembled in Scripture to involve God at work in the lives of people point to covenant promises kept. During that progression of time, it revealed the essence and nature of God’s unity and plurality to carry meaning formative to what He does to redeem people and build His kingdom. The presence of the Trinity in the Old Testament is communicated as divine truth to offer concrete interpretive recognition of both states of plurality and unity. Story after story involves nature or Being to produce the highest confidence in the doctrine of the Trinity.
It is also trustworthy as accurate the correspondence of Christ’s witness to what and who God is. The New Testament and especially the gospel of John is replete with writings that attest to the same manner of recognition about how to view God as Creator, Spirit, and Incarnate Word. Historical, biblical, and extracanonical writings offer a significant depth and range of rationale concerning triadic references important to developing Christianity down through the centuries. Whether from the synoptic gospels, Pauline texts, or other books and letters of Scripture, numerous triadic passages of interest involved many people firsthand. Corroboration from affected societies, cultures, individuals, synagogues, and churches that were immersed in the time of Jesus, James, Peter, Paul, John, and later others produced a way of recognizing who God was and how He was made evident by what was accomplished.
It was not by happenstance that the gospels were written with a commonality of meaning meant for consistent interpretation of the triadic nature of God’s existence. There is a certain sense of security and relief in recognizing Trinity’s meaning as “persons.” The Father bestows everything upon the Son and Holy Spirit except for being the Father. Likewise, the Son and Holy Spirit everything to each without yielding identity is a form of interrelated communication and mutual communion. The interrelated nature of God as a society of persons is together shared love and not an exclusive one-to-one arrangement; as Erickson wrote love, to be love must have both a subject and an object. The triadic expression of unconditional love and interrelated selflessness further explains the nature of God as love. As presented in Scripture (1 John 4:16), God is love, yet distinct individual beings not separate or isolated from one another.
To the extent that separation is impossible within the Trinity, the Son took on flesh to become incarnate God, fulfill the triadic work on Earth, and return to His position ascendant in a resurrected and glorified body to become the firstborn of the dead. A new Adam to fulfill the Genesis 3:15 covenant where the love of triune God becomes shared with humanity.
In my reading this week, an author at length wrote about God’s metaphysical and logical nature of existence. Specifically, it concerns the intelligibility and coherence of the doctrine of the Trinity when considering the doctrine of God. Relying upon Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Schleiermacher to frame philosophical and theological thought within the framework of human reason, 18th and 19th-century conclusions were prescribed around philosophy and theology from a human-centered rationale. Doctrines of religion were not spiritual but pragmatic and narrow from perspectives constrained by the limited domains in which they exist. To philosophical and humanistic reasons that deny spiritual and metaphysical realities as merely speculative in thought are generally dismissed from secular worldviews arising from Kant. Schleiermacher, a prominent liberal theologian, developed his doctrinal positions from Kant to surmise that religion is subject to feeling and experience as validated by human interaction or engagement.
Kantian epistemology brought further liberal reason that doctrines were subject to religious consciousness. The truth of spiritual realities was contingent upon receptive and permissive human acceptance or interaction. While supported by theological and biblical truth, God as a “Trinitary” Being is necessary in all possible worlds. Creation (humanity) is entirely contingent on the physical, abstract, and metaphysical realities they are set within. These are not theological judgments to which Trinitarian and Christological doctrines are formulated. They are from revelatory truth made from God’s presence within creation. The testimonial witness of the patriarchs, prophets, Christ, and apostles carry far more significant credibility and bearing of truth without our realm of existence than the philosophical and scientific speculations and descriptions concerning our limited 3-dimensional space of reality. Consciousness as emergent within physically contingent beings is a constructed object. The noetic equipment serves as an interface of the mind and spirit to recognize God and truth as expressed.
As a sort of checkmate against liberal notions of God’s existence speculatively within people’s minds (as expressed by the doctrine of the Trinity). Or by a process theology that claims God exists unchanging and infinite as only governed by the laws of the universe (Erickson, 122), there are biblical truths and philosophical reasons to conclude otherwise. For example, see Peter van Inwagen’s views about contingency theory that points to the necessity of God (video (Links to an external site.)) to dismiss dependency upon contingent beings (liberal view of theological pragmatism). Or by the existence of God as Being outside Creation in its entirety (real, physical, abstract, metaphysical, spiritual) as stated by a primitive sense of where in this video (Links to an external site.) (4D space). Or watch the full video (Links to an external site.) here to understand how space constrains perception outside our realm of existence.
Logic as a construct is abstract and not a physical thing to experience. Meaning, God created EVERYTHING perceptive, imagined, or observed by His created beings, sentient or otherwise. I’m not entirely convinced that God is neither logical nor illogical but alogical. To help further, I still have this book, Infinity, Causation, & Paradox (Links to an external site.), on my bookshelf to delve through. The author covers topics such as Satan’s apple and Beam’s paradox (probability and decision theory), divine motivation, knowledge, and action. That is to infer God is to be outside of Creation for Him to create everything (including time, space, and the laws that govern the universe). By comparison, Millard Erickson’s book God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity often communicates from a process theology framework (at least section two). Moreover, at times, the book presupposes that eternal God exclusively operates within temporality and the presence of time. Eschatologically speaking, for example, where His people will take on resurrected bodies that are no longer subject to the second law of thermodynamics (i.e., entropy or decay and death) present throughout the universe. The states of all three persons of the Trinity within a single essence as Elohim exist as a personal identity, without modal functionality, in Spirit to create and encounter. God as Trinity is transcendent, immutable, and immanent.
So basically, in my view, Kant and Schleiermacher were well-intentioned but often in error. But more than that, counterproductive as speculations presented to others built erroneous systems of thought off the mark from the truth of the Creator as Trinitary Being in perichoresis by “His” aseity. Even our perception of Him as given to us by the pronoun “His” is anthropomorphic (i.e., human-centered) as a divine act of will, grace, and mercy as He is the source of all such attributes, including love.
Getting beyond the what and how (science, philosophy) to the why (philosophy, theology), I often think its futile were it not for God’s Word and His Spirit within us. With all our searching for God as a people who grope in the dark (Isa. 59:10), here is such a poignant point to remember as the doctrine of the Trinity is modeled to us.
“Jesus replied, ‘If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.’ ” Not only does obedience to Jesus’ words bring a relationship to both the Father and the Son; the words are not even simply the Son’s words, but belong to the Father. The relationship between the Father and the Son is such that to be related to one is to be related to the other, but they are not simply different names for the same person. They are two closely related persons, whose actions are very much intertwined (Erickson, 201).”
Jesus’ spoken words for you in Scripture are from Creator God who gave His son to take our sins. It just doesn’t seem enough to understand the sacrifice on its face for what it did, but also the gravity of temporary intentional loss of perfect love between all members of the Trinity. When I think about that exchange, it kills me. Makes me think that nothing else matters whatsoever.
As many have observed throughout centuries past, the doctrine of the Trinity isn’t explicitly identified as a term or concept to present to us how we are to identify or interpret God. In his book, God in Three Persons – A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity, Millard Erickson presents to readers the biblical basis for the existence of the Trinity.1 In defense of the doctrine of the Trinity, Erickson lists several vulnerabilities concerning some views of Richardson’s work on the subject.2 The work involves process theology which is a philosophical theology concerning the world having two natures. To describe process theology as the “primordial” transcendence of God and the “consequent,’ or imminent nature by which God is part of the cosmic process.3 While Erickson lists many valuable points of refutation or objections against a process theology interpretation of the Trinity, and he also makes sound biblical arguments about the existence of the Trinity implicit from the patriarchs, prophets, Christ, and the apostles. Within this monograph, and from his work Making Sense of the Trinity, 3 Crucial Questions, exact details and references are made about the case for the Trinity as a formative doctrine by which humanity is to recognize God.4 The doctrine of the Trinity assembled from Scripture as the revealed Word of God presents to people across all time the nature of Trinitarian existence.
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are the same essence who have separate identities and are knowable as God. God, by name YHWH, is a single Being comprised of three together in perfect relationship and essence as one. Readers of Scripture see the interaction between members of the Trinity as God is revealed to people within Creation. He interacts with generations of individuals and nations through various covenants, interventions, and creative efforts to redeem humanity from corruption by the errant free will of persons. Erickson meticulously addressed the biblical problems caused by Richardson’s interpretation of the Trinity. There were eight separate enumerated issues around Richardson’s arguments covered by Erickson. From a range of erroneous thoughts around the authority of Scripture to human-centered logical arguments that arrive at modalism, there were numerous counterpoints of biblical evidence and interpretation. Erickson gives explicit reason for how Richardson works from false premise to conclude flawed outcomes of reason.
The doctrine of the Trinity matters pragmatically as it is a model of the relationship between God and His created beings. Invited into fellowship between Creator and created beings, the redemptive process itself is a part of the creative work to derive creatures with a free will made eligible and acceptable to God. The love of others, marriage covenants, and vows to involve the perfect form of relationship has implications about how people are to live out loyalty and obligations centered upon love and commitment. The doctrine of the Trinity provides a theological grounding for human interaction as imagers of God who will at some point be in fellowship with Him as He intended and promised from His revealed Word.
Contested thoughts around the pragmatic interests of people without concern for the Creator is an exercise in futility. The self-serving philosophical rationale that ingratiates itself with interest to improve the human condition doesn’t go far enough because everyone dies. Worse, everyone dies from a position of corruption and suffering by obvious and continued rebellion against natural order in defiance of its Creator (sin), if not just from creation itself. People unredeemed without purpose from God who live and die with philosophical and metaphysical convictions are still empty, albeit temporarily satisfied by answers to practical problems. That is to say, soothe yourself with pseudo-intellectual reasons to ignore God and His revelatory essence to abide in self with contradictory interests.
Objections to Trinitarian Christianity and its uniqueness have concentrated around feminism and liberation theology, where they together form an alternative to “extremities of patriarchal trinitarianism” (Erickson, 147). A range of feminist cases that argue for feminist theology stems from objections around the male gender identity of the trinitarian doctrines explicitly communicated in Scripture. Concepts of domination, power, and authority as masculine traits to express God as a trinitarian form of Being contradict the interests and preferences of females who conceive God as almighty Creator. Their efforts are then to appeal to a tradition of female social prominence and recast it into feminine consciousness. As gender-Trinity is set aside to reshape worship and objects of worship, idolatrous forms of veneration emerge.
Historical female interests in poetry, myth, legend, ritual, and nature worship were elements of common interest in magic to practice goddess worship (Erickson, 144). By what is sometimes known as witchcraft extending back 35,000 years, objections to patriarchal trinitarianism of the last 5,000 years arrived later on the scene to oppose female power according to developing feminine thought. Universal Trinitarian Christianity, with its heritage and bedrock patriarchal foundation, formed its doctrinal system to arrive at well-formed beliefs altogether Scripturally and objectively anchored. In contrast, feminine interest in goddess religion throughout the centuries (pagan, Greco-Roman, and contemporary) was more subjective without concrete tethering to Truth. In the mind of the historical feminist, male patriarchy was and is ascendant to function as a repressive force to which liberation becomes necessary in common cause with liberation theologians who believe a different gospel contrary to the revealed Word of God in Scripture. To deny Scripture as patriarchal (or toxically masculine) and dismiss its authority is to abandon or forsake complementarian order. It is an intentional effort to exchange female will to power for feminist claims toward the worship of feminine deity in the name of liberation. The erasure of a masculine trinitarian concept contrary to the historical work of God interpreted through Scripture is a less than obvious aspiration of historical female theologians.
The formation and acceptance of generic religion as an objection to the uniqueness of Christianity is yet another effort to bring the Creator and creation into subjection to social interests. It is the removal and dilution of the Trinity as unique to Christianity as it must give way to a homogenous interreligious discussion because exclusive claims are viewed as unacceptable. As it is with feminists who view the masculine trinitarian view of Christianity as objectionable, there are those within Islam, Hinduism, and other religions unable to accept the Trinitarian doctrine and theological traditions. Consequently, to those who object and instead press toward a generic religion or a homogenous spirituality, it is Christianity that must conform to social expectations more palatable to belief in an effort to satisfy its interests. The assimilation of new values to transform human understanding of the Christian faith is a necessary sociological pursuit in the mind of those who object to the doctrine of the Trinity as it is participative of creation having exclusive obligations to YHWH, the only God.
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Citations
1 Millard J. Erickson, God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1995), 100. 2 Cyril C. Richardson, The Doctrine of the Trinity (Nashville: Abingdon, 1958). 3 Stanley Grenz, David Guretzki, and Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 95–96. 4 Millard J. Erickson, Making Sense of the Trinity, 3 Crucial Questions (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2000), 15–16.
Two years ago, when I joined the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), I was required to affirm the inerrancy of Scripture. While I’m not a literalist or fundamentalist, I still willingly and whole-heartedly embrace the doctrine of inerrancy as essential to faith and practice (as upheld by CSBI). Not expedient for strained acceptance, but essential. I publicly confess that the truth of God’s word is inspired, inerrant, infallible, sufficient, reliable, authoritative, and clear from the intent of the biblical authors. I utterly delight in God’s word. As necessary for truth and reason, epistemic and existential knowledge of God through divine encounter is shaped by being conformed to Christ.
Yesterday I finished carefully and completely reading through Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy (about 325-pages). Sometimes I take notes and highlight areas of the book to fully ingest the meaning of the subject matter, which I did this time. Aside from my written work reviewing the material, I have numerous notes for continuing interest. To get the various perspectives from prominent members of three evangelical and two secular academic institutions, I’ve taken a macro and micro look at the different topics and perspectives it contains. The five participants came from scholars who wrote their essays as respected and influential people from Cambridge (Vanhoozer), Harvard (Enns), Oxford (Franke), Queensland University (Bird), and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Mohler). Each participant has a Ph.D., and all of them vary widely about the doctrine of inerrancy. While all five participants are self-identified evangelical, their distinctions are between conservative and liberal worldviews.
Franke and Enns would call evangelicalism to a postconservative society-centered way of faith and practice concerning interpretive and sapiential meaning. Conversely, Vanhoozer and Mohler have a God-centered view of faith and practice with a more objectively truth-based historical-grammatical approach to sapiential interpretation. While Bird appears somewhere in between the two pairs. Vanhoozer and Mohler embrace an authorial intent hermeneutic, while Bird does as well to a limited extent contingent upon validated merits of biblical meaning. While it isn’t apparent if Enns and Franke apply a reader-response form of interpretation, they both seem to advocate an altogether different categorization of interpretation for social utility. Enns and Franke are not hostile to truth. They are deconstructive of Truth in exchange for small t – truth.
The reading readily shows who subscribes to truth in relativistic terms and who wants to define it or redefine it to suit social interests for a plurality of cultural and missional outcomes. To the liberal worldview, Enns and Franke appear to subordinate evangelicalism as an instrument of society to satisfy and affirm a divergence of human interests. The others are more sensitive to the value and necessity of theological doctrines that arise from revelatory truth. Including the doctrine of inerrancy, but even further retroactive to other doctrines of the faith to reshape Christian thought, commitments, and trajectories. By inference, Enns (Harvard) and Franke (Oxford) have hyper-radical ideologies concerning Christianity and therefore do not fully accept the core tenets of the faith. Their departure from evangelicalism appears inevitable. Otherwise, what they profess is in contradiction to their beliefs and worldview.
All participants had much to say about the doctrine of inerrancy and the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy (CSBI). Those who were not U.S. citizens rejected the CSBI for various reasons, while it seems apparent there’s a not-invented-here (NIH) perspective at work. Some residents outside the U.S. can have a sense of resentment that the CSBI originated from American evangelicalism. If the statement were to become otherwise revised from a global (worldly) perspective, it would become shaped toward infalliblistic interpretation at best, while the doctrine of inerrancy would become surrendered entirely. While “progressive” or postliberal “Christians” decry colonialism or imperialistic export of Western or American foundations of theological doctrines, there is an oppositional posture toward Christ’s commission concerning the gospel and discipleship. Paul the Apostle, an Israelite Hebrew, originated cross-national mission work that spanned languages, cultures, time zones, historical religious commitments, and indigenous (Gentile) people groups to spread the gospel, plant churches, and develop the spiritual well-being of believers in Christ. He took absolute Truth to a harvest field of people for the Kingdom without liberal or “progressive” impediments. Instead, he faced cultural and philosophical opposition, much like we see among academics and scholars today. Particularly against the doctrine of inerrancy.
The following are chapter notes from the book, “Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy.” The book is a compilation of essays from R. Albert Mohler Jr., Peter Enns, Michael F. Bird, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, and John R. Franke. The general editors are J. Merrick and Stephen M. Garrett. The textbook is in the Counterpoints of Bible & Theology Series. It was published in 2013 by Zondervan.
Chapter One: When the Bible Speaks, God Speaks: The Classic Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy
The editors of the book “Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy” have put together a conversation in written form between academics who discuss the doctrine of inerrancy. The discussion is structured in a counterpoint format where four contributors frame the narrative by an opening statement to challenge thought and debate. Participants of the discussion include four prominent individuals within an academic context who bring together multiple perspectives about what inerrancy is. And if it is a valid way to understand and accept Scripture, its merits or flaws. Participants include Albert Mohler Jr (President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), Michael F. Bird (Anglican Priest, Theologian, and NT Scholar), Peter Enns (Author, Biblical Studies Professor), John R. Franke (Theologian, Professor of Religious Studies), and Kevin Vanhoozer (Theologian, Systematic Theology Professor).
As anyone would understand the term inerrancy, a common definition is generally accepted as follows: “The idea that Scripture is completely free from error. It is generally agreed by all theologians who use the term that inerrancy at least refers to the trustworthy and authoritative nature of Scripture as God’s Word, which informs humankind of the need for and the way to salvation. Some theologians, however, affirm that the Bible is also completely accurate in whatever it teaches about other subjects, such as science and history.”1 In comparison, the Second Vatican Council defines it as: “Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings2 for the sake of salvation.” 3 To further recognize Protestant or Evangelical attestation of inerrancy, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (CSBI) is widely understood as informative to clarify what is meant and accepted as Scripture inerrant of facts and truth.
Mohler offered the prescriptive “When the Bible Speaks, God Speaks: The Classic Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy” to open the first of a five-part series of declarations. He makes a case for inerrancy as Scripture is a testimony to itself while serving the faith and needs of the Church. To anchor the testimony of God’s Word as trustworthy, Mohler makes a further compelling and persuasive point that Scripture corresponds to God’s personal nature as his own self-revelation (44).
According to Mohler, our comprehension and understanding of God’s Word to support formulaic doctrines are not freestanding. A theology stems from God’s Word as it produces a realism to “affirm the irreducible ontological reality of the God of the Bible.” As “God wrote a book” (45), Mohler affirms that human authors were guided into truth and protected from all error by the Holy Spirit. The absence of error, as a result, explains the propositional value of inerrancy. As such, the terms infallible and inerrant reject the claims the Word of God is theologically incorrect or without truthfulness in its intent to bring salvific, theological, and historiological messaging to its readers.
Therefore, it is affirmed by the CSBI that the Word of God constitutes plenary inspiration for faith and practice. It is helpful as it is authoritative for belief and instruction.
Chapter Two: Inerrancy, However Defined, Does Not Describe What the Bible Does
As ideological fencing was placed by Pharisees who set up regulations around the Mosaic law, they did so to provide insulative barriers at some distance to prevent people from breaking the Old Testament covenant after their return from Babylonian exile. By comparison, it intuitively seems like evangelicals set up theological fencing around the doctrine of inerrancy to prevent people from corrupting the closed Biblical canon and the interpretive meaning of Scripture for valid soteriological purposes. As Enns referred to John Frame’s view about inerrancy as a theologically propositional idea, he wrote that he would rather do away with the term but could not do so because of certain corruptions to follow from theologians (scholars).4
Before Enns began to deconstruct each of the three test cases of Biblical inerrancy initiated by Mohler in chapter one, he spent considerable effort on the disharmony of evangelicals over inerrancy (i.e., socially liberal objections to Scriptural authority) and the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (CSBI). He grieves over the disconnect between academics and inerrantist evangelicals over the doctrine of inerrancy, and he makes clear that it sells the Bible short. Enns also declares that inerrancy sells God short as it is merely a theory of inferior purpose. In his view, it’s a doctrine that needs to be scrapped as it preempts discussion about scholarly conclusions about Scripture’s accuracy, facts, and truths (or at least evangelical interpretation of it). Through Enns’ perspective, it is clear that some academic scholars are certain inerrantists are intellectually dishonest (84) and a disservice to culture as ineffectual spiritual witnesses.5
To add further detail to Enns’ objections to the CSBI, he walks through each of its four assertions point-by-point. All four assertions pertain to the authority of Scripture, its witness of Christ and the Holy Spirit, its commitments to faith, life, and mission, and discontinuity between lifestyle and faith claims of inerrantists. Stemming from each, as there is his distinction made between authority and inerrancy, this is deconstruction. As God’s testimony of himself is true, His Word is undoubtedly accurate without error by extension. Conversely, Enns supposes that as inerrantists view the inseparable linkage between authority and inerrancy, that is a perspective should require a defense. The type of authority recognized by inerrantists is questioned in a further effort to dilute the purpose and intent of the CSBI as merely an affirmation document. The CSBI carries no creedal weight, but it is simply a point of reference or a marker to ascertain what someone concludes or supposes about the nature of Scripture, its truth claims, self-witness, and testimony. Enns and like-minded evangelicals prefer to eliminate the doctrine to render it subject to open-ended critical interaction.
While Enns wants to see “a valid definition of the word truth” (87), he wants Scripture held up to critical review without immunity to our interpretive cultural assumptions. It appears he wants the plain truth and meaning of Scripture and its message rendered impotent to guide and protect believers. Consider the interchange between Jesus and the religious leaders of John 8:12-58 as it concerns how He defines Truth of Himself and that of the Father. By His verbal expression of meaning, it is absolute and without error.
Finally, in so many words, Enns says he genuinely wants to introduce a way to make Scripture compatible with scholars’ research concerning ANE facts, archeological discoveries, and literary analysis of ancient civilizations. So Enns wrote what he thought about an “incarnation model” as an alternative in opposition to the doctrine of inerrancy. An “incarnation model” was set up as a counterpoint to an “inerrancy model” to frame the discussion with a new category of false or foreign meaning. As if generations of the doctrine of inerrancy had no bearing, it was set up as an objective comparison or alternative to inerrancy overall to include the CSBI statement. Contributors Bird, Franke, and Vanhoozer’s views about what Enns wrote weren’t comprehensive or well developed, but they revealed a tension between the doctrine of inerrancy and the incarnation model as if there was something to explore further according to Enns’ perspective.
To consider what the incarnation model implies, Bird’s restatement of John Webster’s view is an eye-opening refutation: “this incarnational model is, as John Webster calls it, ‘Christologically disastrous.’ It’s disastrous because it threatens the uniqueness of the Christ event, since it assumes that hypostatic union is a general characteristic of divine self-disclosure in, through, or by a creaturely agent. Furthermore, it results in a divinizing of the Bible by claiming that divine ontological equality exists between God’s being and his communicative action.”6 Moreover, Irenaeus of Lyons (130-230 A.D.), a disciple of Polycarp, separated incarnation between the Word and Christ within his work Against Heresies. He wrote of the incarnation of Jesus but not of the Word itself to exclude incarnational participation. To quote Irenaeus, “For they will have it, that the Word and Christ never came into this world; that the Saviour, too, never became incarnate, nor suffered, but that He descended like a dove upon the dispensational Jesus; and that, as soon as He had declared the unknown Father, He did again ascend into the Pleroma.” 7
Chapter Three: Inerrancy Is Not Necessary for Evangelicalism Outside the USA
The book’s third part, Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy, entitled “Inerrancy is Not Necessary for Evangelicalism Outside the USA,” concerns Michael F. Bird’s views on American understanding of inerrancy concerning the CSBI. Without much interaction with inerrancy in general as a contribution to the work of the book about Biblical Inerrancy, there is an absence of the distinction. The work of chapter 3 in the text is primarily a discourse on affirmations, objections, and concerns about the CSBI. As Bird narrows his thoughts around the particulars of the CSBI, he goes well beyond the purpose and intent of the Chicago Statement’s purpose of upholding the doctrine of inerrancy. Bird takes exception to various points of CSBI inerrancy verbiage around the Biblical creation account in Genesis. He would presumably agree that the truth and principles of inerrancy refer to the trustworthiness and authoritative nature of God’s word as authoritative.
From Bird’s various perspectives, he would not entirely affirm what the Bible infers about other subjects such as science and history. In fact, Bird’s views about inerrancy are better stated as a better categorization of veracity. From the inner witness of the Church by the Holy Spirit, Scripture’s “divine truthfulness” (158) is a way to set aside the claims or proclamations of negative statements in defense of “inerrancy.” Whether on its own merits or as an apologetic expression of the CSBI by American evangelicalism concerning the doctrine inerrancy or inspiration of Scripture.
What the Bible says about itself pertains to its use and inspiration (2 Tim 3:16). Among the various genres of Scripture, the Old and New Testaments are attestations of divine truth whether in narrative, poetic, prophetic, apocalyptic, epistolary form. Scripture best interprets Scripture and reservations about exceptions concerning inerrancy as it does so, whether supported by the CSBI or not, isn’t productive on the grounds of harmonization, literary discrepancies, nation of origination, or supposed contradictions without historiographical refutation. Particularly when so much antipathy exists around the meaning and purpose of God’s Word as it is intended by define revelation for God’s glory and for salvific outcomes. The doctrine of inerrancy doesn’t claim for itself authority over matters concerning self-contradictory postmodern assertions (i.e., opposition to absolute truth and authority). The CSBI and the doctrine of inerrancy are assembled to support a high view of Scripture toward confidence for its intended purpose.
Some objections to inerrancy appear to stem from the term itself. As the Word of God is without error and reliable as God is Truth, Bird calls attention to its comparative infallibility and inspiration. Bird doesn’t indicate that the Word of God is with error or without truth, nor does he suggest that it is uninspired. His reservations are around what interpreters understand about the idea of inerrancy and how that pertains to conclusions involving life and practice. Particularly across cultures of different nationalities that do not hold to the doctrine of inerrancy, especially as it is defined and understood in the West or America more narrowly.
The difference between inerrancy and infallibility is essential and necessary to recognize and understand. To put it clearly, inerrancy, at a minimum, refers to the trustworthy and authoritative nature of God’s word for salvific purposes. By comparison, infallibility refers to Scripture’s inability to fail in its ultimate purpose of revealing God and the way to salvation. It is counterproductive to conflate the two terms or to use them interchangeably. The doctrines of infallibility and inerrancy are not for a social utility or to shape social justice initiatives for society or the State. While Catholicism shares the same definition of inerrancy as Protestantism, it differs in defining infallibility. Infallibility within Catholicism includes the church (i.e., the magisterium and its dogma) under the pope’s authority.
Bird’s assessment and criticism about tirades against God’s Word is exactly the correct posture against those who stand in opposition to its truth, authority, reliability, and inspiration of Scripture. However, it isn’t so much secular culture or atheists who so much pose a harmful threat to the doctrines of inerrancy and infallibility as does Christian academics or scholars, well-meaning or not. It is for internal reasons of mishandling God’s Word that it is served by assertive statements of inerrancy to prevent its surrender to a multitude of professing Christians who have a large range of worldviews (including liberalism, or socialism) and would rather see God’s Word rendered insufficient and irrelevant to a postmodern society. Professing Christians, especially progressive Christians, are just as readily inclined to make God’s Word into its own image as secular society.
Unrelated Note: In support of feminist egalitarianism, Bird makes an inflammatory assertion that complementarians enable abuse: Article
Chapter Four: Augustinian Inerrancy: Literary Meaning, Literal Truth, and Literate Interpretation in the Economy of Biblical Discourse
As affirmed by Vanhoozer, the doctrine of inerrancy has an important presupposition. That most important presupposition is: God speaks. Or, more specifically, God the Creator communicates through human language and literature as a means of communicative action to people. Vanhoozer also points out that the works of the Trinity are undivided (opera trinitatis ad extra indivisa sunt) as triune discourse indicative of communicative action involving subjects, objects, and purpose. He makes the case that language is functional and cognitive in nature to support the intent of divine revelation. Therefore, it is recognized that Scripture is a corpus of written communicative work consisting of historical assertions, commands, and explanations. According to Carl Henry (20th-century theologian), Scripture is propositional, but it is also trustworthy as true as it is a correspondence of Christ’s witness to what and who God is.
Inerrancy is a claim that the Bible is true and trustworthy through critical testing and cross-examination. Just as Augustine speaks of the incarnation as humans give tangibility of thoughts as words, Christ is the exact imprint of God’s being (Heb 1:3). Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15) and what Christ speaks is Truth because He originates as God from the Father who is Truth and communicates truth. Whether verbally while with us in Creation or in Scripture by the testimonies of eye-witness accounts of his verbal speech acts. Within the old or new covenants, by God’s presence or His Spirit among people, He cannot lie in Scripture as His personal veracity is made clear through the inspiration of the Canon.
As made evident through divine revelation, truth is a correspondence of covenantal and redemptive meaning. The modes of its conveyance have a bearing on the methods of truth messaging by which it is delivered and understood. Allegory, metaphors, poetic expressions, and narrative discourses together establish the means of language utilized to accomplish its desired intent. Therefore, as Vanhoozer proved, it isn’t helpful when critics of inerrancy confuse matters by suggesting that inerrantists believe every word of the Bible as literal truth. Vanhoozer distinguishes between “sentence meaning” and “speaker, or writer meaning” when readers seek to understand what the author is doing or saying within Scriptural messaging. Analogies defy critical assertions about literalist interpretations of meaning.
Literalism, irrespective of context, can produce contradictions in meaning. Or it can confuse the intent of messaging through various linguistic methods, especially as prophecies and parables were verbally uttered and recorded in Scripture to convey imagery or parallel thoughts and ideas to achieve Spiritual understanding among listeners or readers. The communication method and its content are intentional, just as the assembly, formation, and preservation of God’s Word are true, sure, and lasting for those of faith to believe.
Inerrancy doesn’t claim to affirm or validate scientific or philosophical observations and constructs precisely. Observations of physical behaviors and explanations of metaphysical reality originating from beings in natural order don’t have reach to ascertain spiritual truth and meaning as propositioned and asserted from God’s Word. Supposed contradictions in Scripture that serve as proof-text “gotchas” do not subvert the inerrant truth and meaning of intended spiritual messaging, and theological truth held out as spiritually factual from different authorial perspectives. Even with elaborate and effective explanations to reconcile apparent differences, there isn’t much acceptance to recover veracity among many who object to the doctrine of inerrancy.
Whether believers or unbelievers interpret Scripture according to cognitive reason and comprehension for rational thought and conclusion, gathered facts can become assembled incorrectly to arrive at false notions of belief or disbelief. To quote Vanhoozer, “God’s words are wholly reliable; their human interpretation, not so much” (224). To further explain, biblical inerrancy requires biblical literacy. It is a yoke of burden that people of postmodern culture view Scriptural literality by its terms and expectations of meaning. People within modern society expect a reality of the time of the Old and New Covenants to conform to how things are expected today. The claims of inerrancy do not imply there is only one way to map the reality of the world correctly, either then or now. Proper hermeneutical stands separate from inerrancy as necessary to understand and accept Truth from Scripture.
Chapter Five: Recasting Inerrancy: The Bible As Witness to Missional Plurality
John R. Franke’s contribution to the evangelical conversation around inerrancy is driven by his aspirations around what he calls a plurality of truth toward God’s missional objectives. By missional theology in keeping with the mission of God, Franke means humanitarian relief and advancement as chief of concerns. When Franke speaks of missional imperatives that involve the gospel and discipleship, it is always within a social and cultural context to improve the human condition. To Franke, the meaning of Scripture as inerrant is not so much about its salvific relevance as humanity is lost in sin and stands condemned without redemption. The authority of Scripture as a witness to the mission of God comes from the truth claims of Christ and the veracity of His words as He is the incarnate expression of God.
Franke’s sympathy toward postmodern theology explains his objections to static biblicism. The Spirit continues to speak through Scripture as he puts it but doesn’t offer thoughts about the meaning and purpose of Holy Spirit inspired Scripture for the actual gospel purpose of salvation and restoration of people to God. Franke’s contribution rests very much on the here and now for people in terms of missional objectives, not the already but not yet. The concern isn’t so much that people are perishing and headed toward hell, as it is their earthly well-being. The concern should rather be primary-secondary prioritization from a missional perspective. The truth of the Old and New Covenant’s meaning entirely revolves around how humanity would return to God. The confidence believers have about what Christ does to reconcile people to God comes from truth spoken and written without error and infallibly. With authority, believers can meet people’s spiritual and physical needs by missional endeavor rooted in sound theology and a commitment to the truth claims of Christ and God’s Word at work.
As Franke writes, “I believe that inerrancy challenges this notion and serves to deconstruct the idea of a single normative system of theology” (277), he is revealing his thoughts about what postmodern progressives do to reject conformity to the text of Scripture “for the sake of systematic unity.” The assertion illegitimate interpretive assumptions make clear postmodern thought, as there is no acceptance of universal truth. According to Franke, truth must be plural to accomplish contextual missional objectives relative to individual interpretation from Scripture. As conventionally defined by Protestants and Catholics, the doctrine of inerrancy is recast by Franke as an open and flexible tradition for pluralistic perspectives, practices, and experiences. It is unacceptable to Franke that the whole Bible is interpretive as an inerrant description of the gospel and Christ’s commands to love God and neighbor. Essentially, it is his call to redefine inerrancy such that the Bible is what we make of it and not what the authors intended.
Franke’s final thoughts about the cultural relevance of the gospel bring further alarm as he calls on his readers to surrender universal and timeless theology. He attempts to message a desire to redefine inerrancy to accomplish a culturally relativistic notion of God’s Word. That is, to rewrite Scripture to shape truth suitable for cultural conditions toward various human interests aside from salvific reconciliation. Where truth as concrete or abstract meaning carries less utility to accomplish objectives and instructions explicitly set forth by the Creator. Objectives and instructions delivered through human language expressed in truth as God is truth that must be accepted and theologically contextualized without compromise. It is crucial to ensure there is no loss or corruption of meaning. It is necessary to further God’s kingdom and bring people together in redemption toward their salvation and physical well-being without surrendering absolute truth and our acceptance of Scriptural authority.
Citations
__________________________ 1 Stanley Grenz, David Guretzki, and Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 66. 2 cf. St. Augustine, “Gen. ad Litt.” 2, 9, 20: PL 34, 270–271; Epistle 82, 3: PL 33, 277: CSEL 34, 2, p. 354. St. Thomas, “On Truth,” Q. 12, A. 2, C.Council of Trent, session IV, Scriptural Canons: Denzinger 783 (1501). Leo XIII, encyclical “Providentissimus Deus:” EB 121, 124, 126–127. Pius XII, encyclical “Divino Afflante Spiritu:” EB 539. 3 Catholic Church, “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation: Dei Verbum,” in Vatican II Documents (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2011). 4 John M. Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013), 598. 5 Cited by Enns: “For a focused critique of the CSBI (and its later sister document the Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics 1982), see Iain Provan, ” ‘How Can I Understand, Unless Someone Explains It to Me?’ (Acts 8:30–31): Evangelicals and Biblical Hermeneutics,” BBR 17.1 (2007): 1–36. See also Carlos Bovell, Rehabilitating Inerrancy in a Culture of Fear (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2012), 44–65; Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “Lost in Interpretation? Truth, Scripture, and Hermeneutics,” JETS 48, no. 1 (March 2005): 89–114. For an appeal for a more prominent role the Chicago statements should play in evangelicalism today, see Jason Sexton, “How Far beyond Chicago? Assessing Recent Attempts to Reframe the Inerrancy Debate,” Themelios 34 (2009): 26–49.” 6 Peter Enns, “Inerrancy, However Defined, Does Not Describe What the Bible Does,” in Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy, ed. J. Merrick, Stephen M. Garrett, and Stanley N. Gundry, Zondervan Counterpoints Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013), 125. 7 Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 427.
