We know that justification entails the forgiveness of sins. “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven” (Rom 4:7). And we saw in the previous post that the forgiveness of sins was bestowed in baptism (cf. Acts 2:38-39; 22:16). We see now that baptism unites us to Christ’s death and resurrection, which together serve as the principle works of God in Christ meriting our justification. So when we come to Romans 10, and we hear Paul asserting that “the righteousness based on faith says, ‘Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?” ’ (that is, to bring Christ down) or ‘ “Who will descend into the abyss?” ’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead),” we see the language of the effect of baptismal grace, which unites us to Christ in His death and resurrection. We understand that Paul is saying that our faith is able to lay us down with Christ in the grave, and raise us back up again with Him in heaven, precisely because the gift of grace that God bestows in baptism makes our faith in Him a justifying faith, a saving faith that unites us to Christ. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal 3:27), and because of this baptism you now have “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col 1:27). And “If… you have been raised with Christ [through faith in baptism], seek the things that are above, where Christ is… For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:1; 3).
Your brother in Christ,
Pete
From Wayne Grudem’s
Systematic Theology:
Code:
When we say that God imputes Christ’s righteousness to us it means that God
thinks of Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us, or regards it as belonging to us. He
“reckons” it to our account. We read, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to
him as righteousness” (Rom. 4:3, quoting Gen. 15:6). Paul explains, “To one who
does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as
righteousness. So also David pronounces a blessing upon the man to whom God
reckons righteousness apart from works” (Rom. 4:6). In this way, Christ’s
righteousness became ours. Paul says that we are those who received “the free gift of
righteousness” (Rom. 5:17).
This is the third time in studying the doctrines of Scripture that we have
encountered the idea of imputing guilt or righteousness to someone else. First, when
Adam sinned, his guilt was imputed to us; God the Father viewed it as belonging to
us, and therefore it did.2 Second, when Christ suffered and died for our sins, our sin
was imputed to Christ; God thought of it as belonging to him, and he paid the penalty
for it.3 Now in the doctrine of justification we see imputation for the third time.
Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us, and therefore God thinks of it as belonging to
us. It is not our own righteousness but Christ’s righteousness that is freely given to us.
So Paul can say that God made Christ to be “our wisdom, our righteousness and
sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). And Paul says that his goal is to be
found in Christ, “not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which
is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Phil.
3:9). Paul knows that the righteousness he has before God is not anything of his owndoing; it is the righteousness of God that comes through Jesus Christ (cf. Rom. 3:21–
22).4
It is essential to the heart of the gospel to insist that God declares us to be just or
righteous not on the basis of our actual condition of righteousness or holiness, but
rather on the basis of Christ’s perfect righteousness, which he thinks of as belonging
to us. This was the heart of the difference between Protestantism and Roman
Catholicism at the Reformation. Protestantism since the time of Martin Luther has
insisted that justification does not change us internally and it is not a declaration based
in any way on any goodness that we have in ourselves. If justification changed us
internally and then declared us to be righteous based on how good we actually were,
then (1) we could never be declared perfectly righteous in this life, because there is
always sin that remains in our lives, and (2) there would be no provision for
forgiveness of past sins (committed before we were changed internally), and therefore
we could never have confidence that we are right before God. We would lose the
confidence that Paul has when he says, “Therefore, since we are justified by faith we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1).5 If we thought of
justification as based on something that we are internally we would never have the
confidence to say with Paul, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). We would have no assurance of forgiveness with
God, no confidence to draw near to him “with a true heart in full assurance of faith”
(Heb. 10:22). We would not be able to speak of “the free gift of righteousness” (Rom.
5:17), or say that “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom.
6:23).
Continued in the next post…
