Friend: How does your church [faith] define and teach Justification

  • Thread starter Thread starter PJM
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Post 2 of
A Justification REACP from Ken Hensley’s BLOG
Ken is a convert to Catholicism, a theologian, teacher & former Protestant Minister.
What follows here is an edited portions of his BLOG on comparing Catholic & Protestant teachings & understanding on Justification. The site information is:
callingallconverts.com/martin-luther-misunderstood-st-paul-part-i-achieving-clarity/
Because of its length; it will necessarily be segmented into [GW} sequential post identified by sequence POST #’s 1through 10

I remember the professor offering some simple but powerful illustrations: Noah had to trust God (faith) and build the ark (obedience) in order to be saved through the flood (blessing). Abraham had to trust God (faith) and leave his home and family in Mesopotamia (obedience) in order to receive what God was promising him (blessing). Moses and the children of Israel had to trust God (faith) and sacrifice the Passover (obedience) in order to be delivered out of bondage in Egypt. Naaman the Syrian had to trust God (faith) and dip himself seven times in the Jordan River (obedience) in order to be cleaned of his leprosy.

The man blind from birth had to trust Jesus (faith), but in order to see again he also had to wash in the Pool of Siloam.

One thing that struck me at the time was how simple it was to find illustrations of this pattern of “faith, leading to obedience, resulting in blessing”. It was simple because this is simply what we see throughout Scripture.

Here’s the ocflict summary:
The Bible teaches
  1. Faith, leading to
  2. Obedience, resulting in
  3. Blessing
    According to Luther and classic Protestantism, here’s how we’re called to relate to God:
  4. We believe in Christ (faith)
  5. We are immediately justified (blessing)
  6. And then we proceed to live out our faith (obedience).
    Entirely different than what we see throughout the Bible.
With Noah and Abraham and Moses and the rest, obedience is part of what is needed “in order to” receive the blessing. In Protestantism, obedience instead becomes our response to having already received the blessing. It’s how we demonstrate our gratitude for the blessing of justification already received by faith alone and show that God is in our life
I remember asking myself the question: “If God wants to teach the world that his blessings must be received by faith alone, why did he fill the entire Bible with the stories of men and women who are never called to receive his blessings by faith alone but always by faith and obedience?”

A Justification comparison w Catholic vrs. Protestant understanding and explanation KEEP
http://www.openbible.info/topics/obedience_to_god
PULL THE ABOVE SITE UP AND WORK FROM IT

The author of Hebrews parades before us all these people who trust God and do what God tells them to do and therefore are blessed and instead of saying “But please ignore all these examples because, after all, these men and women were living under a system of ‘works’ and we’re living under a system of ‘grace’ and so the way they lived and related to God doesn’t really apply to us” — instead, what do we read? “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us…. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood…. Strive…for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:1-4, 14).

No. It was perfectly clear to me that the author of Hebrews wanted me to imitate Noah and Abraham and Moses. As they walked in the obedience of faith and were “approved as righteous” (11:4) and received God’s blessing, he wanted me to do the same.
Say to any Protestant that you believe we must trust God and obey him in order to receive his blessing and you will be considered a “legalist”. If you believe we must persevere in faith and the obedience of faith to receive eternal life, Protestants will say you’ve embraced a ”damning system of works-righteousness”.
In other words, not only is the old pattern no longer in force; it’s downright evil.

OK BUT: where are the BIBLICAL examples of Righteousness BEFORE Grace [Blessings]
 
POST 3 of
A Justification REACP from Ken Hensley’s BLOG
Ken is a convert to Catholicism, a theologian, teacher & former Protestant Minister.
What follows here is an edited portions of his BLOG on comparing Catholic & Protestant teachings & understanding on Justification. The site information is:
callingallconverts.com/martin-luther-misunderstood-st-paul-part-i-achieving-clarity/

Because of its length; it will necessarily be segmented into GW} sequential post identified by sequence POST #’s 1through 10

It was the simple reality that when I looked at the basic pattern we can see in Scripture of how people are called to relate to God, it’s not the “faith alone” pattern we see in Protestantism. Instead, it’s always “faith, leading to obedience, resulting in blessing”.

I saw this in the lives of Noah and Abraham and Moses and every person in the Bible.
And once I saw this, the questions that came naturally to mind were: If God wanted to teach the world that his blessings must be received by faith alone, in order that they might be by grace alone, and that God might receive all the glory, and that it borders on legalism to even imagine that our obedience would be required, why did he fill the entire Bible with the examples of men and women who are always called to trust him (faith) and do what he tells them to do (obedience) in order to receive his blessing — and present them not as examples of legalism but as positive examples for us to imitate in our lives?

Faith and Obedience in the New Testament
For instance, what was I to make of passages like Romans 2:7 and Galatians 6:6-7, where St Paul, the apostle supposedly most devoted to teaching justification by faith alone, describes eternal life as the reward one receives for “doing good?”

God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life (Romans 2:7).

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest, if we do not give up
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love? (John 15:10).
Then the King will say to those at his right hand, “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me…” (Matthew 25:31-46).
See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first (Hebrews 3:12-14).

He has now reconciled . . . in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him, provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, and shifting form the hope of the gospel which you heard…” (Colossians 1:22-23).

Therefore do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised (Hebrews 10:34-35).
Now, if Paul believed and taught this, then how is it that he turns around on a dime and warns his readers that God cannot be mocked, that a man will reap what he sows and that the ones who will reap a harvest of eternal life are the ones who persevere in “doing good?”

If the Lord Jesus believed and taught justification by faith alone in his imputed righteousness, how is that he describes the day of judgment as a time when God will judge each person according to his deeds?

I imagined Jesus speaking to the crowds of simple men, women and children who followed him. If it was crucial that they understand that their acceptance with the Father could only be by faith alone in his imputed righteousness, how could he look them in the eyes and say the kinds of things he said? “If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love.” “It’s those who do the will of my Father in heaven who will enter the kingdom of heaven.” “Enter the kingdom… for I was hungry and you fed me…”

I knew the explanations. But over time the explanations started to remind me of the explanations O.J.’s defense attorneys gave. Over time the explanations just didn’t seem to really work.
I could see that these New Testament passages sit naturally within a framework of faith, leading to obedience, resulting in blessing. I could see there was a natural fit, like a glove on a hand. I could also see that these passages don’t sit naturally within the framework of justification by faith alone. There’s not a natural fit.

Luther Fundamentally Misunderstood St Paul, Part 6: Imagine
Imagine I tell you a degree from Harvard will be granted to you the instant you express a sincere desire for it.
That’s right. From the moment you say “Yes,” in the eyes of the university you will be a Harvard graduate, credited with having faithfully attended all classes, completed all course work and passed all exams.
And then, imagine I also tell you, repeatedly and in a number of different ways, that in order for you to graduate from Harvard you must attend all classes, complete all coursework and pass all exams. Imagine I urge you, admonish you, plead with you to make sure you don’t allow yourself to become entangled in attending parties and screwing around and not doing your homework “because,” I emphasize, “you will graduate from Harvard only if you persevere in your studies to the end.”
Do you think you might be a little confused?
 
POST 4 of
A Justification REACP from Ken Hensley’s BLOG
Ken is a convert to Catholicism, a theologian, teacher & former Protestant Minister.
What follows here is an edited portions of his BLOG on comparing Catholic & Protestant teachings & understanding on Justification. The site information is:

callingallconverts.com/martin-luther-misunderstood-st-paul-part-i-achieving-clarity/

Because of its length; it will necessarily be segmented into GW} sequential post identified by sequence POST #’s 1through 10
And then I noticed that in the Bible everyone who was ever blessed by God had been required to trust him and do what he commanded them to do. I noticed that Noah had been required to trust God and build a boat in order to be saved through the flood. I noticed that Moses and descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been required to trust God and cross the desert in order to receive their promised inheritance. I noticed that Naaman the Syrian had been required to trust God and dip in the Jordan seven times in order to be cleansed of his leprosy. I noticed that the man born blind had been required to trust Jesus and wash in the pool of Siloam in order to receive his sight.

And somehow, no one seemed to feel this arrangement an “abomination.” No one was waving his arms and complaining that the man had “earned” his eyesight or that Noah was now “boasting” for all eternity about how he saved himself.

For instance, I was taught that our obedience is not a condition for receiving eternal life, that we have eternal life because the merits of Jesus Christ have been credited to us in the act of justification. And then, lo and behold I find St Paul warning the church in Galatia that each person will reap exactly what he has sown and that it is those who persevere in “doing good” and do not “lose heart” who will reap the harvest of eternal life (Galatians 6:6-7). I found him confirming this exact thought in his letter to the Romans: “To those who by perseverance in doing good, seek glory, honor and immortality, God will give eternal life” (Romans 2:7).

Then I found Paul telling the believers in Colossae that they will be presented holy and blameless before God “provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel” (Colossians 1:22-23). I found the author of Hebrews saying that we will share in Christ “if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end (Hebrew 3:14). I found Jesus saying, “If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love (John 15:10) and warning the Church in Ephesus: “But I have this against you. You have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place, unless you repent” (Revelation 2:4-5).

Finally, I was taught that because the sins we commit as Christians have already been forgiven and cannot possibly cause us to lose our salvation, while we should certainly avoid sin, sin is not something we should be overly concerned about. Instead we should focus our minds on how holy and blameless we are “in Christ” and understand that our righteous standing before God is secure.

And then I found the Apostle Paul writing, “I beat my body and make it my slave so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27). I found the author of Hebrews reminding me that in my struggle against sin I have “not resisted to the point of shedding blood” (Hebrews 12:4). I found him admonishing me to “strive” after holiness, “without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). And if that wasn’t enough, I found St Peter saying, “If you invoke as Father him who judges each one impartially according to his deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile” (1 Peter 1:17).

And why should we take sin this seriously? Is it because sin may give evidence that we’ve never “really” believed in Christ?
.

Despite the astonishing theological diversity of the late medieval period, a consensus relating to the nature of justification was maintained throughout…. It continued to be understood as the process by which a man is made righteous, subsuming the concepts of sanctification and regeneration…. The essential feature of the Reformation doctrine of justification is that a deliberate and systematic distinction is made between justification and regeneration… where none had been acknowledged before in the history of the Christian doctrine. A fundamental discontinuity was introduced into the western theological tradition where none had ever existed, or ever been contemplated, before. The Reformation understanding of the nature of justification must therefore be regarded as a genuine theological novum (emphasis added).

For nearly five centuries serious Reformation-minded Protestants have insisted that a correct understanding of justification as the imputation of Christ’s righteousness received by faith alone is so crucial that it’s at least questionable whether anyone who doesn’t believe it (for instance, a Catholic) could be a true Christian.
And now I learn that the idea was brand new with Luther?

Now I learn that the view of justification every Christian I knew held — and assumed to be the only view any right-thinking Christian could hold — was unknown to the first fifteen centuries of Church history?

Not impossible. It could still be what Scripture teaches. But it raises an interesting question: If Luther’s doctrine is simply the clear teaching of St Paul, why did no one see it before Luther? Put the other way around: if it took fifteen centuries for someone to see that this is what St Paul was teaching, how clear could it be that this is what St Paul was teaching?
 
PJM, was that post (20 onward) directed to me at all? I noticed it started with a /quote from me, but I’m not sure how it would apply at all (Mormons aren’t Protestants).
 
POST 5 of
A Justification REACP from Ken Hensley’s BLOG

Ken is a convert to Catholicism, a theologian, teacher & former Protestant Minister.
What follows here is an edited portions of his BLOG on comparing Catholic & Protestant teachings & understanding on Justification. The site information is:

callingallconverts.com/martin-luther-misunderstood-st-paul-part-i-achieving-clarity/

Because of its length; it will necessarily be segmented into GW} sequential post identified by sequence POST #’s 1through 10

Luther Fundamentally Misunderstood St Paul, Part 8: Justification in the Old Testament

Learning that Luther’s view of ‘justification’ was essentially brand new with him was a bit of a watershed moment for me.

It didn’t make me a Catholic. What it did was open me to the idea of looking again with fresh eyes at what Scripture had to say about justification. How strong are the biblical evidences in favor of Luther’s doctrine? How clear is it that justification should be understood as the ‘legal imputation’ of Christ’s righteousness? I was already familiar of course with the main passages and arguments, but learning that it had taken fifteen centuries for someone to see what Protestants took to be so clearly seeable in the New Testament (and especially in St Paul) that you’d almost have to be blind not to see it, well, this motivated me to take another look.

I began with the Old Testament.

WILL THE JURY PLEASE RISE

Deuteronomy 25:1 is a passage that appears in virtually every book written about justification by a Protestant theologian. The text is cited as evidence in favor of the Protestant conception that in justification we are ‘declared’ to be righteous (because Christ’s righteousness has been credited to us) and against the Catholic conception that in justification we are ‘made’ righteous.

“If there is a dispute between men and they go to court, and the judges decide their case, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked…” (Deuteronomy 25:1).

WILL THE JURY PLEASE RISE
Deuteronomy 25:1 is a passage that appears in virtually every book written about justification by a Protestant theologian. The text is cited as evidence in favor of the Protestant conception that in justification we are ‘declared’ to be righteous (because Christ’s righteousness has been credited to us) and against the Catholic conception that in justification we are ‘made’ righteous.

“If there is a dispute between men and they go to court, and the judges decide their case, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked…” (Deuteronomy 25:1).

There’s no doubt but that this passage supports the idea that ‘to justify is ‘to declare’ something as true. When a judge ‘justifies the righteous,’ he isn’t somehow making that person internally righteous. And when he ‘condemns the wicked’ he isn’t somehow making that person internally wicked. In both cases, what he’s ‘making’ is a declaration. To the righteous: “You are in the right. Go in peace!” To the wicked: “You are in the wrong. Off with your head!”

So the Protestant is correct in pointing out that the verb “to justify” (at least in the Old Testament) means “to declare one as being righteous,’ or ‘just,’ or ‘in the right” (all the same word in Hebrew).

But notice something: the declaration the judge makes is based on what he sees in the person.
He declares the ‘righteous’ to be ‘righteous’ because he sees him as actually being righteous. Not sinless. He’s not saying, “I see you as a sinless human being!” And neither is he saying, “I declare you righteous because the righteousness of this other person over there has been transferred legally to your account.” What he’s saying is, “So far as this court is concerned, you are in the right.”

This reading of Deuteronomy 25:1 fits beautifully with what we see in Isaiah 5:23, where the prophet mentions those “Who justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away the rights of the ones who are in the right.”

Clearly, Isaiah is not envisioning a situation here where people are running around infusing righteousness into the wicked and making them internally just. Nor is he envisioning a situation where people are taking an ‘alien righteousness’ (Luther’s term) and crediting that righteous to the accounts of the wicked, making them righteous in the eyes of God.
 
POST 6 of
A Justification REACP from Ken Hensley’s BLOG

Ken is a convert to Catholicism, a theologian, teacher & former Protestant Minister.
What follows here is an edited portions of his BLOG on comparing Catholic & Protestant teachings & understanding on Justification. The site information is:

callingallconverts.com/martin-luther-misunderstood-st-paul-part-i-achieving-clarity/

ABRAHAM RECKONED RIGHTEOUS

Now, in Genesis 15 we have the single most important example in the Old Testament of God declaring someone to be righteous. In fact, this is the key Old Testament passage Protestant theologians point to in support of their view of justification.

First, the setting. As Genesis 15 opens, Abraham is really struggling. After all, God has promised to make him the father of a multitude and nations and here he is almost a hundred years old with no offspring and a wife nearly as old and completely barren. The Lord takes him outside and says to him, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them… So shall your descendants be.” And then comes the crucial verse 6: “And he believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”

When Luther read this, and when Protestants read this, what they hear is, “Abraham believed God and God credited righteousness to his account.” They see this as a perfect illustration of someone being ‘justified by faith alone.’

However, think with me through the following three points and tell me if it doesn’t make more sense to read Genesis 15:6 as saying something very similar to what we just saw in Deuteronomy 25:1.

What does Genesis 15:6 actually say?
First, look at what the passage actually says when read in a straightforward and natural way.

It doesn’t say, “Abraham believed the Lord and Lord reckoned righteous to him.” What it says is: “Abraham believed the Lord and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” In other words, Abraham’s faith was reckoned as righteousness.

And since the word translated “reckoned” here can also be translated ‘credited,’ ‘imputed,’ ‘considered,’ ‘counted’ — any of these — the most natural reading is that the Lord looked at Abraham’s faith and counted his faith, reckoned his faith, considered his faith as righteousness. God declared Abraham to be a righteous man.

By the way, even if you choose ‘impute’ as your translation, the word doesn’t usually mean ‘legally impute.’ For instance, when my wife ‘imputes’ evil motives to me (it has happened several times) never even once has she meant that evil motives have been transferred in from another person and legally credited to me. She just means that she ‘considers’ my motives to be evil.

In the same way, I don’t believe this passage has anything to do with imputed righteousness in the Protestant sense. The idea that what Genesis 15:6 is talking about a moment in which Abraham believed and an alien righteousness was imported from the outside and credited to Abraham’s account, well, I think it’s this notion that being imported from the outside. It isn’t in the text

When exactly was Abraham justified?

Imagine the Protestant view is correct. Imagine that Genesis 15:6 really is describing the moment when Abraham was ‘justified by faith alone’ and God’s own righteousness or the righteousness of Christ was legally imputed to Abraham and he was ‘saved.’

What are we to make, then, of the fact that at the time this event took place, Abraham had already been walking in the steps of faith for something like twenty-five years?

Doesn’t the Protestant doctrine insist that justification is something that takes place only once and is completed at the moment one first believes? But Abraham responded in faith to God’s call all the way back in Genesis 12, when God appeared to him and commanded him to leave his family and follow him to a land he’d never seen and Abraham “went, as the Lord had told him” (Genesis 12:4). Are we to imagine that Abraham didn’t have ‘true faith’ back then and wasn’t ‘justified’ back then?
Conclusion

These are things I came to over time as I mulled over these passages with fresh eyes and read not simply what Protestant theologians had to say about them but (for the first time) what Catholic theologians had to say as well.

I knew that in Catholicism salvation is viewed as a process that involves not simply coming to Christ but remaining in him. “I am the vine and you are the branches. If you remain in me…” (John 15). I also knew that in Catholicism the declaration of God is viewed as based on what he actually sees as true in us, as God washes our hearts clean and gives to us the virtues of faith, hope and love. And so it made sense that God could look at someone like Abraham, maybe even numerous times throughout his life, see Abraham’s faith, his zeal, his obedience, his love and “reckon this as righteousness” — declare him to be a righteous man.

Exactly like when the Lord “found [Abraham’s] heart faithful . . . and made a covenant to give his descendants the land” (Nehemiah 9:8). Exactly like when the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone are righteous before me in this generation” (Genesis 7:1). God doesn’t have to see perfect righteousness to say that someone is righteous before him.

As evangelicals like to say, we’re not under law but under grace. God is merciful.
On the other hand, I didn’t see anything in the Old Testament that supported the idea that justification is all about the legal transfer of righteousness from one account to another. Worse, since I was still a Protestant minister at the time, it seemed that even the most important Old Testament illustration Protestants had been wheeling out for five hundred years to demonstrate that the Catholic view of justification is wrong and the Protestant view is right, backfired under close examination.
 
POST 7 of
A Justification REACP from Ken Hensley’s BLOG

Ken is a convert to Catholicism, a theologian, teacher & former Protestant Minister.
What follows here is an edited portions of his BLOG on comparing Catholic & Protestant teachings & understanding on Justification. The site information is:

callingallconverts.com/martin-luther-misunderstood-st-paul-part-i-achieving-clarity/

Because of its length; it will necessarily be segmented into GW} sequential post identified by sequence POST #’s 1through 10

IMPLIED RATHER THAN STATED
I pulled down from the shelf books on the doctrine of justification written by Protestant scholars.

Slight digression… I’ve noticed that some who respond to me on the side immediately launch into how I’m wrong because “Paul is clear in teaching that we are justified by faith and not works.” I have to remind them that this is not even what I’m talking about at present. Right now I’m talking about the meaning of justification, the nature of justification, what justification is.

After this we’ll talk about what Paul means when he says faith and not works. And what we have to say about that will make the ears of all who hear tingle. I promise. This is where I believe Luther completely misunderstood Paul. But back to justification…

So I went to the shelves and began to read, and the first thing that stood out was the realization that there is no passage in the New Testament where justification is actually described as the legal imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Not one.

Instead, it’s viewed as something implied.

Which of course would have to be the case, when you think of it. After all, if there existed some clear statement of the Reformation view, it wouldn’t have taken more than 1500 years for someone to formulate the doctrine.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with a truth being implied rather than explicitly stated. The question is whether the thing one sees as implied really is being implied. That’s the question. And for the life of me, I couldn’t see where the Reformation view was implied in the passages that were supposed by Protestant writers to imply it.

NOT EVEN IMPLIED
For example, it was common for them to cite passages in the New Testament where righteousness or justification (same Greek word) is described as being a “gift” and see that as somehow implying imputation. The idea was: since St Paul in Romans 5:17 speaks of “the free gift of righteousness,” this must mean that we are credited with Christ’s righteousness.

But this doesn’t follow at all. Why couldn’t righteous being a gift mean that God, as a gift, makes us righteous?

Protestants and Catholics alike view justification as God’s gift. We just have different views of what justification is. So the fact that it’s described as a gift doesn’t imply the Protestant view any more than it does the Catholic.

Protestant writers would point out that the verb “to justify” normally means in Scripture “to declare someone righteous” rather than “to make someone righteous.” Somehow this was seen as implying imputation.

But again, this doesn’t imply the Protestant view of justification any more than it does the Catholic view. It’s true (as we saw last week in Deuteronomy 25:1) that when a judge ‘justifies’ the righteous and ‘condemns’ the guilty, he isn’t making the righteous, righteous or the guilty, guilty; he’s declaring them to be what they are. But (again) he’s declaring them to be what we sees them as actually being. God could be ‘declaring’ us righteous because through faith in Christ he has begun a process of making us righteous and like with Abel, Noah and Abraham, he declares us to be what he now sees us to be — not perfectly but truly.

It’s hard for me to remember my exact thoughts, it’s been so many years. But I do remember reading the sections on justification in a number of Protestant works and being surprised at the kinds of things that were taken as evidence of imputed righteousness that didn’t evidence the Protestant view any more than they did the Catholic view.

In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 we find something similar, where Paul uses the word “justified” in a context where he seems to have transformation on his mind and not the mere declaration of a legal status.

He’s talking to the believers in Corinth about how they used to be “unrighteous.” He says they used to be immoral, idolaters, adulterers, revilers, robbers, etc. But no longer. What brought about the change? “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

Here’s the thing. If Paul thinks of justification in terms of the legal crediting of righteousness, and not as something that involves a real change in us, it’s strange that he lists ‘justification’ after ‘washing’ and ‘sanctification’ (“You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified”) and it’s strange that he describes all three as coming about “in the Spirit of our God.” We think of the imputation of Christ’s righteous as a work of the Father. Transformation is associated with the work of the Spirit.

It just sounds like Paul is talking here about real experienced internal change and not legal imputation. You Corinthians used to be immoral but now you’ve been changed by the Spirit of God through your washing, your sanctification, your justification, and you are no longer like that! Doesn’t sound like he’s thinking of justification in legal terms.
 
POST 8 of
A Justification REACP from Ken Hensley’s BLOG

Ken is a convert to Catholicism, a theologian, teacher & former Protestant Minister.
What follows here is an edited portions of his BLOG on comparing Catholic & Protestant teachings & understanding on Justification. The site information is:

callingallconverts.com/martin-luther-misunderstood-st-paul-part-i-achieving-clarity/

Because of its length; it will necessarily be segmented into GW} sequential post

PROTESTANTS IN REVOLT
Luther and serious Reformation-minded Protestants since had insisted that it was absolutely critical that justification be utterly distinguished from sanctification. Justification had to be understood as the legal imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Our renewal in the image Christ may be a process, but our justification, by which we are ‘saved,’ is not.

But when it came to presenting the actual evidence that the apostles thought of justification in these terms, it seemed to me as thin as the thinnest of soups. I didn’t see it. This didn’t make me Catholic, but it opened me to hearing the case for another way of putting the scriptural puzzle pieces together. What would be another way of thinking about justification?

Now, for twenty years I had been (primarily) reading the Reformers and their descendants. But now I was ready to hear what others had to say. I started reading Catholic theologians. At the same time I continued reading — and more extensively than ever — what more contemporary Protestant theologians were saying. During this time I learned something that was a real shocker. I learned that over the past several decades an increasing number of Protestant (not Catholic) biblical scholars have begun to question and, a number of them, abandon the doctrine of imputation as something not really taught in the Bible.

For instance, I read where New Testament scholar Robert Gundry said,

The doctrine that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to believing sinners needs to be abandoned…. The doctrine of imputation is not even biblical. Still less is it ‘essential’ to the Gospel… The notion is passe, neither because of Roman Catholic influence nor because of theological liberalism, but because of fidelity to the relevant biblical texts.
And apparently he wasn’t the only one. He went on to say that “Other recognized scholars could easily be added to the list, so many in fact that it would not exaggerate to speak of a developing standard in biblical theological circles.”

In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 we find something similar, where Paul uses the word “justified” in a context where he seems to have transformation on his mind and not the mere declaration of a legal status.

He’s talking to the believers in Corinth about how they used to be “unrighteous.” He says they used to be immoral, idolaters, adulterers, revilers, robbers, etc. But no longer. What brought about the change? “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

Here’s the thing. If Paul thinks of justification in terms of the legal crediting of righteousness, and not as something that involves a real change in us, it’s strange that he lists ‘justification’ after ‘washing’ and ‘sanctification’ (“You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified”) and it’s strange that he describes all three as coming about “in the Spirit of our God.” We think of the imputation of Christ’s righteous as a work of the Father. Transformation is associated with the work of the Spirit.

It just sounds like Paul is talking here about real experienced internal change and not legal imputation. You Corinthians used to be immoral but now you’ve been changed by the Spirit of God through your washing, your sanctification, your justification, and you are no longer like that! Doesn’t sound like he’s thinking of justification in legal terms.
PROTESTANTS IN REVOLT

Luther and serious Reformation-minded Protestants since had insisted that it was absolutely critical that justification be utterly distinguished from sanctification. Justification had to be understood as the legal imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Our renewal in the image Christ may be a process, but our justification, by which we are ‘saved,’ is not.

But when it came to presenting the actual evidence that the apostles thought of justification in these terms, it seemed to me as thin as the thinnest of soups. I didn’t see it. This didn’t make me Catholic, but it opened me to hearing the case for another way of putting the scriptural puzzle pieces together. What would be another way of thinking about justification?

Now, for twenty years I had been (primarily) reading the Reformers and their descendants. But now I was ready to hear what others had to say. I started reading Catholic theologians. At the same time I continued reading — and more extensively than ever — what more contemporary Protestant theologians were saying. During this time I learned something that was a real shocker. I learned that over the past several decades an increasing number of Protestant (not Catholic) biblical scholars have begun to question and, a number of them, abandon the doctrine of imputation as something not really taught in the Bible.

For instance, I read where New Testament scholar Robert Gundry said,

The doctrine that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to believing sinners needs to be abandoned…. The doctrine of imputation is not even biblical. Still less is it ‘essential’ to the Gospel… The notion is passe, neither because of Roman Catholic influence nor because of theological liberalism, but because of fidelity to the relevant biblical texts.
And apparently he wasn’t the only one. He went on to say that “Other recognized scholars could easily be added to the list, so many in fact that it would not exaggerate to speak of a developing standard in biblical theological circles.”
 
POST 9 of
A Justification REACP from Ken Hensley’s BLOG

Ken is a convert to Catholicism, a theologian, teacher & former Protestant Minister.
What follows here is an edited portions of his BLOG on comparing Catholic & Protestant teachings & understanding on Justification. The site information is:

callingallconverts.com/martin-luther-misunderstood-st-paul-part-i-achieving-clarity/

Because of its length; it will necessarily be segmented into GW} sequential post identified by sequence POST #’s 1through 10

THE SILENCING OF SCRIPTURE
For instance, Scripture was telling me (explicitly!) that Abel was “approved as righteous” because he offered to God an acceptable sacrifice (Hebrews 11:3); that Noah “found favor in the eyes of the Lord” because he was “a righteous man, blameless in his generation” (Genesis 6:8,9); that God found Abraham’s heart to be faith and therefore made a covenant with him (Nehemiah 9:8); that he saw Abraham’s faith and “reckoned it as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6).

This is what Scripture was saying. What Protestantism said was, “This is impossible. God is perfectly holy and demands perfect holiness. The imperfect faith and obedience of an Abel or a Noah or an Abraham is not sufficient basis for acceptance with God. We must have Christ’s perfect righteousness imputed to our account.”

Scripture spoke of all kinds of people as having lived in obedience to God’s commandments. God described Abraham as one who “obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws” (Genesis 26:5). Zechariah and Elizabeth were described as “both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly” (Luke 1:6). And there were plenty of others. In fact, not only were people spoken of as having kept the commandments of God; they were described as loving God’s commandments and delighting in them! “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97). “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul!” (Psalm 19). “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked… But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he mediates day and night” (Psalm 1).

This is what the Bible was saying. What Protestantism said was, “No one can keep the commandments of God because God, who is holy, demands perfect obedience. And no one can delight in God’s law. In fact, the commandments of God can only serve to drive us to despair so that we will seek to be justified by the imputed righteousness of Christ.”

Scripture, in both Old and New Testaments, was telling me in a thousand ways that the path to God’s blessing (including the blessing of eternal life) is the path of faith, leading to obedience, persevered in to the end — by the grace of God.
This is what Scripture was saying. What Protestantism said was, “No. We are justified by faith alone in the imputed righteousness of Christ. Justification takes place and is completed the moment we first believe.”

In short, Scripture was telling me all kinds of things Protestantism said were impossible or simply not true. Again and again, Scripture would open its mouth and the Protestant doctrine of justification would silence its voice.

PROTESTANTISM’S IRON BED
Maybe you’ve heard of Procrustes and his iron bed from Greek mythology.
Procrustes ran a little inn. When travelers passed by, he would invite them in for a pleasant meal and rest for the night. He had a special bed that, curiously, matched exactly the length of every person who lay on it. And the reason it did was that once Procrustes’ guest had climbed into his iron bed, he would bring out his tools and get to work on them. Those who were too short, he would stretch to make them longer. Those who were too tall, he would cut down to size, amputating as much of their feet and legs as was required to achieve the perfect length. In the end, everyone fit the bed the Procrustes. He made sure of it.

It seemed to me over time that within Protestantism as a system of thought, justification by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness functioned as a kind of “Procrustean bed.” It was the one thingassumed to be true. As it was for Luther, this doctrine was the unquestioned and all-controlling assumption, the fixed center. Everything else was interpreted in the light of it and so long as this doctrine wasn’t touched, it didn’t matter how many passages of Scripture had to be twisted out of shape and tortured and made to say something they weren’t saying — all so that they would “fit” this view of justification.

Well, at this point I was wide open to hearing what Catholicism had to say on the issue. Was there another way of putting the puzzle pieces together that didn’t create such havoc with the plain sense of Scripture?

THE CATHOLIC ANSWER
“Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy. These words might well sum up the mystery of the Christian faith. Mercy has become living and visible in Jesus of Nazareth, reaching its culmination in him.” – Pope Francis, Announcing the Year of Mercy
The surprisingly simple answer that Catholicism gave is found in these words of Pope Francis: “Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy. These words might well sum up the mystery of the Christian faith.”

Here’s what Catholicism (in essence) said to me: Yes, God is holy and yes, we must be holy to enter heaven — and we will be. But this doesn’t mean that in order for God to accept us now and declare us righteous in his sight we must be perfectly righteous ourselves or have a perfect righteousness legally credited to our account. The mystery of the Christian faith is that “Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy.” From the cross of Jesus Christ, a fountain of mercy has been opened. And when we come to Christ, he doesn’t have to legally impute righteousness to us; He forgives us. He forgives us and he changes us from the inside out.
 
POST 10 of
A Justification REACP from Ken Hensley’s BLOG

Ken is a convert to Catholicism, a theologian, teacher & former Protestant Minister.
What follows here is an edited portions of his BLOG on comparing Catholic & Protestant teachings & understanding on Justification. The site information is:

callingallconverts.com/martin-luther-misunderstood-st-paul-part-i-achieving-clarity/

Because of its length; it will necessarily be segmented into GW} sequential post identified by sequence POST #’s 1through 10

FAITH AND WORKS
So to the question: What does St Paul mean when he says, as he does in various places, that justification is by faith in Christ and “not by works” or “not by works of the law” or “apart from works” or “apart from works of the law?”

What Protestantism takes Paul to mean is that we don’t have to do anything to be saved. Just believe.

In other words, they take “works” or “works of the law” to refer to the general notion that one would have to do something to enter heaven, that the path for Christians is like the path was for Noah, Abraham and all the Old Testament saints: faith, leading to obedience, resulting in blessing. They read Paul as saying, “No, for Christians the path is faith alone.”

Rather than torturing you with a long inductive argument leading to a conclusion that remains mysterious until the end, this time I want to simply state what I believe Paul is saying in these passages and then present my Scriptural reasons for saying this. Here goes:

In these passages, Paul is not teaching that we don’t have to do anything in order to be saved. He’s not pitting faith against obedience when he says “faith, not works of the law.” He’s saying that Gentiles don’t have to become Jews in order to be saved.
Here’s my argument in five steps:

ONE: When we read the Old Testament prophets, we never find them complaining about Jews who think they need to obey God’s commandments in order to receive his blessings. Those are the good guys. The Jews they complain about – and rail against! – are those who think they don’t need to live the moral commands of God in order to receive his blessings, that being a descendant of Abraham and member of the covenant people of Israel is enough.

There were always those children of Abraham who, like Noah and Abraham, Moses and David, loved God, trusted him, and did their best to walk in his commandments. These were Psalm 119 kinds of people: “Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Ps 119:97).

But there were also those who did not. They thought they had it made in the shade (a technical Hebrew idiom) because they were ‘the right people.’ They assumed they would be blessed because they wore those badges of identity that marked them out as separate from the sinful gentile nations around them; primarily, circumcision, Sabbath, and the food laws.
These are the people the Lord is talking about when he says through the prophet Isaiah,

The multitude of your sacrifices – what are they to me? says the Lord. I have had more than enough of burnt offerings . . . I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats . . . Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations — I cannot bear your evil assemblies . . . Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.

Notice God does not say, “You guys keep thinking you have to do something in order to be blessed. What I want is faith alone.”

What God says is, “You guys keep thinking you don’t have to do something in order to be blessed. What I want is faithful obedience and not this arrogant reliance on your status as the descendants of Abraham and children of the covenant!”

TWO: When we come to the New Testament, we find John the Baptist dealing with exactly the same kinds of people and preaching exactly the same message as Isaiah.

Remember when the Pharisees and Sadducees come out to see John? What does he say to them?

He does not say, “Listen, you need to understand that you don’t need to do anything to be saved. You guys have got it all wrong thinking you need to please God with your obedience. What God wants is faith! Instead, he says to them exactly what Isaiah said to the Jews of his day.

Bear fruit that befits repentance, and do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham (Matthew 3:8-9).

Their problem (as in Isaiah’s time) is not that they think they need to obey God’s commandments in order to receive his blessing.

Their problem is the exact reverse: they think they don’t need to obey God’s commandments in order to receive his blessing. In their minds having “Abraham as our father” is all that matters. To which John responds, “No. I want to see true faith and true obedience in your lives. You need to stop presuming that being a Jew is enough.” As we read in verse 10, “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

The Ends, thanks for joining this dialog
God Bless you,
PJM
 
Re-asking this–

PJM, was that post (20-30) directed to me at all? I noticed it started with a /quote from me, but I’m not sure how it would apply at all (Mormons aren’t Protestants).
 
jane_doe said:
Re-asking this–

PJM, was that post (20-30) directed to me at all? I noticed it started with a /quote from me, but I’m not sure how it would apply at all (Mormons aren’t Protestants).
Click to expand...
NOT specifically:)

But I did think of you as I was doing it.

We’re discussing Justification and I thought this would add to the debate:)

God Bless you,

Patrick
 
PJM said:
NOT specifically:)

But I did think of you as I was doing it.

We’re discussing Justification and I thought this would add to the debate:)

God Bless you,

Patrick
Click to expand...
All good 🙂

Was there any particular part (<100 words) you wanted to talk about?
 
jane_doe said:
All good 🙂

Was there any particular part (<100 words) you wanted to talk about?
Click to expand...
So my friend, how does Mormon “justification” differ from the imputation thoughts of Protestants?

Correct me if I’m wrong,

But Mormons’s do not hold Jesus to actually be GOD?

Blessings,

Patrick
 
PJM said:
So my friend, how does Mormon “justification” differ from the imputation thoughts of Protestants?
Click to expand...
Well, as there are thousands and thousands of Protestant belief systems, I can not speak to them all. I’ll just touch on a few ideas—

Some Protestants believe that justification/salvation is a one-time discreet event. Mormons believe that, while the actual justification of your previous sins is a discreet event, we need to then become disciples of Christ, which is a life time journey. Inevitably, we will sin again, and need to continually surrender these sins to Christ, and be washed clean again.

Unlike some Protestants, Mormons believe that the certain rituals in the church are essential to justification and becoming a disciple of Christ. Catholics call these rituals “sacraments”, Mormons call them “ordinances”. They include things like being baptized, confirmation, the Lord’s Supper, and marriage.

Unlike some Protestants, Mormons believe that justification and salvation can be lost. Christ will not force us to be His disciples, and if a disciple decides to abandon the Lord, that is their choice.
PJM said:
But Mormons’s do not hold Jesus to actually be GOD?
Click to expand...
Mormons believe in Christ as God the Son.
 
jane_doe said:
Well, as there are thousands and thousands of Protestant belief systems, I can not speak to them all. I’ll just touch on a few ideas—

Some Protestants believe that justification/salvation is a one-time discreet event. Mormons believe that, while the actual justification of your previous sins is a discreet event, we need to then become disciples of Christ, which is a life time journey. Inevitably, we will sin again, and need to continually surrender these sins to Christ, and be washed clean again.

Unlike some Protestants, Mormons believe that the certain rituals in the church are essential to justification and becoming a disciple of Christ. Catholics call these rituals “sacraments”, Mormons call them “ordinances”. They include things like being baptized, confirmation, the Lord’s Supper, and marriage.

Unlike some Protestants, Mormons believe that justification and salvation can be lost. Christ will not force us to be His disciples, and if a disciple decides to abandon the Lord, that is their choice.

Mormons believe in Christ as God the Son.
Click to expand...
My dear friend,

Could /would you do me the great favor of reviewing these sites, and then affirming their degree of veracity on Mormon beliefs?

It’s been years since I did any research of the issue.

As the OP I’m trying to understand other faiths positions, so that I can be impartial and fair when discussing them.

main.nc.us/spchurchofchrist/fourteenfund.htm

exmormon.org/d6/drupal/fourteen

mormonnewsroom.org/topic/core-beliefs

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beliefs_and_practices_of_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints

If you’d care to expand this dialog send me a private message and I’ll share my e-mail address with you.

God Bless you,
Patrick
 
steido01 said:
Lutheranism is rather simple:

​

Of course, Lutherans also state that works are a necessary and natural product of having faith – we aren’t antinomians, despite what some hyperbolic polemic-types would have you believe, including some misguided Lutherans. While acknowledging that a good branch should bear good fruit, we would never attempt to “judge” a person’s faith by their works (From the Lutheran viewpoint, Pope Francis was correct when he asked “Who am I to judge?”) – that’d defeat the whole purpose of the Gospel! So Lutherans say we are justified by “faith alone,” but with the understanding that faith is never actually alone.

If you’re paying attention, you’ll note that this is remarkably similar to the Catholic view, and Pope Benedict has noted as much. The difference, then, is seemingly only semantic; Lutherans differentiate between Justification and Sanctification, whereas a Catholic might simply say ‘Justification’ in reference to both. However, that’s not the case either. The Catholic holds that when Baptism wipes away Original Sin, the human predisposition to actual sin is gone and any “sins” aren’t actually sin, but really just concupiscence. The Lutheran, on the other hand, says that Original Sin has made man totally depraved; man’s sin really is actual sin. The Catholic, then, is tied to a timeline of sorts in his understanding of Justification/Sanctification (hence popular theories like Purgatory after death). The Lutheran is a bit more mystic (not sure if that’s the best word choice, but that’s what I’m turning up at the moment), understanding himself to be simultaneously depraved because of Original Sin, yet saved through Baptism. Will Lutherans understand that a “purgation” of sorts takes place? Sure. But we won’t call it “Purgatory” and we don’t expect it to be a literal place.

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...
This is a far better explanation than I could give. I was simply going to say that the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s take was that " we are justified by grace through faith in Christ alone."
 
PJM said:
My dear friend,

Could /would you do me the great favor of reviewing these sites, and then affirming their degree of veracity on Mormon beliefs?

It’s been years since I did any research of the issue.

As the OP I’m trying to understand other faiths positions, so that I can be impartial and fair when discussing them.

main.nc.us/spchurchofchrist/fourteenfund.htm

exmormon.org/d6/drupal/fourteen

mormonnewsroom.org/topic/core-beliefs

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beliefs_and_practices_of_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints

If you’d care to expand this dialog send me a private message and I’ll share my e-mail address with you.

God Bless you,
Patrick
Click to expand...
I’ll send you a PM, as to not de-rail this fine thread.
 
LutheranScholar said:
This is a far better explanation than I could give. I was simply going to say that the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s take was that " we are justified by grace through faith in Christ alone."
Click to expand...
Great post!

Thanks and God Bless you,

Patrick
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top