Justification

If the Father Was not Angry with the Son at the Cross, with Whom Or with What Was He Angry?

January 8, 2019 by wagraham 5 Comments

John Calvin rightly affirmed that God was never “inimical or angry toward” Christ at the cross (Inst. 2.16.11). Instead, Francis Turretin explains that Jesus experienced the “want of the sense of the divine love” (Inst. 2:354). John Flavel also specifies that God withdrew his “sensible love” from Christ at the cross (Works, 1:410).

In short, Christ always had God’s love even at the cross. Christ willingly died for the joy set before him. Yet at the cross, he did not sense God’s love (though he always had it) because “the sense of the divine wrath and vengeance resting upon him” intercepted Christ’s sense of love (Turretin, Inst. 2:354).*

If not the Son, then with whom or with what was the Father angry? Here’s my answer. God was angry at sin and sinners, yet out of his great love for us he himself bore our sin and died as our substitute. As Michael Horton writes, the cross “was not a cathartic release of anger but a just satisfaction of God’s cosmic and covenantal righteousness” (Justification: 2:226). [Read more…] about If the Father Was not Angry with the Son at the Cross, with Whom Or with What Was He Angry?

Infused Righteousness: A Doctrine with Good Intentions Coopted to Bad Ends

December 31, 2018 by wagraham 2 Comments

Infused righteousness means that God imparts grace to a person so that this person can do good works. This particular understanding of grace arose in order to shut down any possible pelagian theology: Pelagians believe that by nature people can do good works that God looks upon with favour.

But if we can do good works by nature and so enter into God’s favour, that produces a twofold problem: first it denies that we are by nature sinners; second it makes our good works apart from grace meritorious before God. But the Bible denies both.

So faithful Christians used the language of infused righteousness to indicate that initial justification could only happen through the grace of God and not through any good thing in us.

John Owen Argues Someone Can Deny Imputation And Still Be Saved

December 30, 2018 by wagraham 2 Comments

John Owen argues that denying true doctrine does not mean that you are unsaved. He writes, “Men may be really saved by that grace which doctrinally they do deny; and they may be justified by the imputation of that righteousness, which, in opinion, they deny to be imputed.”

So someone may deny imputation by justification or other key doctrines and be saved. Why? He explains, “for the faith of it is included in that general assent which they give unto the truth of the gospel, and such an adherence unto Christ may ensue thereon, as that their mistake of the way whereby they are saved by him shall not defraud them of a real interest therein.”

The point is that assenting to the Gospel of Jesus that he died, rose, and ascended for and for our salvation sufficiently provides us salvation. Or in the Reformed idiom, assenting to the promise of God makes one a Christian. [Read more…] about John Owen Argues Someone Can Deny Imputation And Still Be Saved

Here’s How to Have Full Assurance of Your Faith

December 29, 2018 by wagraham 2 Comments

Love flows from saving faith. Yet the sole basis of our salvation and assurance lies outside of us. In real history, Christ died in our place and by the Spirit imputes his righteousness to us. So God sees us as he sees Christ. Christ is the sole basis of our salvation and assurance.

We may feel doubt. But doubt cannot be real in Reformed theology because Christ in real history attained our justification for us and for our salvation. We receive him in faith. Christ totally becomes ours. No subjective doubt can gainsay the reality that we are just in Christ. [Read more…] about Here’s How to Have Full Assurance of Your Faith

Book Review of Salvation by Allegiance Alone by Matthew Bates

May 15, 2017 by wagraham Leave a Comment

Bates, Matthew W. Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of Jesus the king. Grand Rapid: Baker Academic, 2017. ISBN: 978-0-8010-9797-3. Pp. xvi–234. Book Cover.

Matthew Bates wrote Salvation by Allegiance Alone primarily to rethink Protestant conceptions of faith, works, and the Gospel. Bates’ book, however, also engages with Roman Catholicism, which makes sense given Bates’ vocation. Bates is the assistant professor of theology at Quincy University, a Roman Catholic institution.

His previous publications include The Hermeneutics of Apostolic Proclamation and The Birth of the Trinity. His scholarly pursuits and his unique vocational position as a Protestant at a Roman Catholic institution give Bates an interesting platform from which he can critique both traditions. [Read more…] about Book Review of Salvation by Allegiance Alone by Matthew Bates