Resurrection and Justification Part 1
An excerpt from “Saved By His Life” - a new paper I am working on:
Since the Protestant Reformation, “justification by faith” has been the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae—the article by which the church stands or falls. Stressing the significance of this doctrine, Martin Luther once said,
“[Justification is] the chief article of Christian doctrine. To him who understands how great its usefulness and majesty are, everything else will seem slight and turn to nothing. For what is Peter? What is Paul? What is an angel from heaven? What are all creatures in comparison with the article of justification? For if we know this article, we are in the clearest light; if we do not know it, we dwell in the densest darkness. Therefore if you see this article impugned or imperiled, do not hesitate to resist Peter or an angel from heaven; for it cannot be sufficiently extolled.”
Though a significant point of controversy between Catholic and Protestants since the 16th century, in recent years, the meaning of this “chief article” has been a matter of significant discussion even amongst Protestants. What does it mean to be justified? What is the problem that necessitates justification? How is justification achieved? How does it become effective in an individual’s life? What does it accomplish?
An oversimplified and clichéd response, but nevertheless moderately reflective of what a common evangelical believer would profess, might be as follows: The problem necessitating justification is that humans are in rebellion against God as expressed in sin. Because God is righteous, sin by nature provokes the wrath of God, before which, no human can stand. Justification is achieved by Jesus’ substitutionary death on the cross, whereby he bears the wrath of God for us and makes propitiation for us before God. This becomes effective in an individual’s life by repenting of and forsaking one’s rebellion and by believing in God. This accomplishes the forgiveness of one’s sin and acceptance before God, thus enabling one to go to heaven upon death and to spend eternity with God.
This summary, expressed in “gospel” presentations and systematic theologies, broadly and vaguely depicts what is with what is more precisely called the penal-substitutionary model of atonement. When this description of the “what” and “how” of justification is represented as the sole or primary understanding of justification, many peculiarities in Paul are “unearthed” which do not seem to correspond to this logic. Paul seems to have a broader understanding of the problem of the human condition than simply being “rebellion against the honor of God.” He talks about “futile thinking” and “foolish hearts” (Rom. 1:21), disordered passions (Rom. 1:24), lacking “knowledge of God” (Rom. 1:28), being “under a curse” (Gal. 3:10,13), being “in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world” (Gal. 4:3), being dead (Eph. 2:1), being “foreigners and strangers” (Eph. 2:19), and being under the “dominion of darkness” (Col. 1:13). He sees the work of God in the Messiah, not only in court-room images, but also in military, familial, relational, political, biological and architectural images. This work does not simply accomplish forgiveness for us, but through the cross we have been “delivered from the present evil age” (Gal. 1:4), rescued “from the dominion of darkness” and brought into “the kingdom of [God’s] beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). Furthermore, several cryptic yet explicit passages describe how Jesus was “raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25) and that we are “saved by his life” (Rom. 5:10).
In such, we are not merely forgiven, but are given participation in a cosmic redemption, which is often the climax of Paul’s discussions of “individual salvation”. In Romans, the “righteousness of God” that is revealed in the gospel ultimately builds to the time when “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). In 2 Corinthians 5, the non-reckoning of sin is intimately linked with the arrival of the New Creation. Paul’s discussion in Ephesians about being “chosen before the foundations of the world,” and “adopted to sonship” in Jesus by whom we have “redemption through his blood” all leads to the eternal purpose of God “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under The Messiah” (Eph. 1:10). In Colossians 1, the purpose of the Messiah’s work on the cross is to “reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”
Related posts
« Heaven is Important…But it’s not the End of the World
Resurrection and Justification Part 2 »
