iustitia aliena

If you lost the link, it’s here.

“Christ for us” and “Christ in us”

According to an assertion of the great Roman Catholic historian of philosophy, Etienne Gilson, “For the first time, with the Reformation, there appeared this conception of a grace that saves a man without changing him, of a justice that redeems corrupted nature without restoring it, of a Christ who pardons the sinner for self-inflicted wounds but does not heal them.”  A surprising number of Protestants–including evangelicals–seem to share Gilson’s misunderstanding.

While Rome simply assimilated justification to sanctification, the Reformation position affirmed both as distinct yet inseparable gifts, G.C. Berkouwer replies to those who deny Luther’s interest in God’s gracious renovation of believers: “To anyone who has had a whiff of Luther’s writings this conception is incredible.  Even a scanty imitation is enough to be convinced that justification for Luther meant much more than an external event with no importance for the inner man.”

Like the relation of the doctrine of substitution in relation to other aspects of the atonement, forensic justification not only allows room for other benefits of Christ; it is their source and security.

The reformers saw “Christ for us” and “Christ in us” –the alien righteousness imputed and the sanctifying righteousness imparted–as not only compatible but as necessarily and inextricably related.  Those who are justified through faith are new creatures and begin then and there to love God and their neighbor, yielding the fruit of good works.  Reformed churches agree with the Lutheran confession that if sin has free sway over one’s life, “the Holy Spirit and faith are not present.”  However, it is not simply that justification and sanctification always go together in the application of redemption, as if they were parallel tracts; justification is the only reason that there can be any sanctification of sinful believers.  And both are granted in our union with Christ.  The real question, then, is whether justification is the source of new obedience or its result. In fact, presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice, according to Paul, is “our reasonable [logiken] worship” in the light of  ”God’s mercies” that have been explored to that point (Rom. 12:1).  It is the Good News that yields good works.  Salvation is not the prize for our obedience but the source.  In the light of God mercies in Christ, offering themselves as living sacrifices actually makes sense.

I have mentioned before that Scripture integrates drama, doctrine, doxology, and discipleship in ways that we easily overlook.  Christian faith and practice arise first of all out of a dramatic narrative: the unfolding plot of redemption from Genesis to Revelation.  This story gives rise to doctrines: specific conclusions that God himself reveals as to the meaning and implications of this divine drama.  The doctrines provoke us to faith, wonder, and praise.  Our sails filled with the gust of grace, we sail out of the harbor into the wide open spaces of the world, loving and serving our neighbors in thanksgiving and joy.  Without the biblical drama, the doctrine is abstract; without the doctrine, the doxology is much ado about nothing; without the doxology (shaped by the drama and the doctrine), discipleship is just another makeover: a few more fig leaves to conceal our nakedness.

Taken from Michael Horton’s Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World from the chapter ‘The Promise-Driven Life in page 155-156.

More resources (Download and streaming audio)

White Horse Inn broadcast –  The Heart of Christianity listen here.

White Horse Inn broadcast – Rightly Dividing the Word: Law and Gospel here.

Here.

HT: Peter Chen

Here’s what is on the back cover:

Michael Horton’s highly anticipated The Christian Faith represents his magnum opus and will be viewed as one of—if not the—most important systematic theologies since Louis Berkhof wrote his in 1932.

A prolific, award-winning author and theologian, Professor Horton views this volume as “doctrine that can be preached, experienced, and lived, as well as understood, clarified, and articulated.” It is written for a growing cast of pilgrims making their way together and will be especially welcomed by professors, pastors, students, and armchair theologians.

Features of this volume include: (1) a brief synopsis of biblical passages that inform a particular doctrine; (2) surveys of past and current theologies with contemporary emphasis on exegetical, philosophical, practical, and theological questions; (3) substantial interaction with various Christian movements within the Protestant, Catholic and Orthodoxy traditions, as well as the hermeneutical issues raised by postmodernity; and (4) charts, sidebars, questions for discussion, and an extensive bibliography, divided into different entry levels and topics.

It is already out for display at Christianbook.com here.

Posting on the same thread on Infant Baptism. I found this helpful as well from Horton’s A Better Way:

“Let me summarize what I regard as the most compelling arguments for infant bapism:

1. God has brought us into a covenant of grace, and although not all members of this covenant will persevere (i.e., they are not elect and have not been regenerated), they enjoy special privileges of belonging to the covenant people. This was true of Israel, and the New Testament simply applies this to the New Testament church as well (Deut. 4:20; 28:9; Isa.10:22; Hosea 2:23; Rom. 9:24-28; Gal. 6:16; Heb. 4:1-11; 6:4-12; 1 Peter 2:9-10).
2. Even though bringing someone under the protection of God’s covenantal faithfulness does not guarantee that that person possesses true, persevering faith (Heb. 4:1-11), that does not mean it is unimportant as to whether children of believers are given the seal of the covenant.
3. Children were included in the covenant of grace in the Old Testament through the sacrament of circumcision, and in the new covenant (called the “better covenant”), God has not changed in his good intentions toward our children (Acts 2:28). Circumcision has been replaced by baptism (Col. 2:11). Therefore our children must receive God’s sign and seal of covenant ownership.
4. The children of unbelievers are unholy, but the children of believers are set apart unto God. This is a distinction not only of the Old Testament (see the Passover, Exod. 12:42-51; also the distinction between the “house of the wicked” and the “house of the righteous,” especially in the psalms) but is continued in the New, where a believer’s children are regarded as holy (1 Cor. 10:2). How are they marked or distinguished from unbelievers, then? By the sign and seal of the covenant.
5. Household baptisms are common in the New Testament reports of such events. Surely at least some of them included infants. If so, this would have been perfectly consistent with the Jewish understanding of the Abrahamic covenant (above #4).
6. There is an unbroken record in church history support the practice of infant baptism, beginning with the earliest generations. There would surely have been a major controversy if the immediate successors of the apostles departed from apostolic practice on such a vital point. However, no such record exists.
7. If baptism were a testimony of the believer’s faithfulness to the covenant, it would not be capable of being applied to those who have no faithfulness to offer. However, baptism is the work of God, not of human beings. It is not chiefly a sign of the believer’s commitment to call out a people for himself. Because salvation is by grace alone, God acts in salvation prior to any choice or action (Rom. 9:12-16). Infant baptism is an extraordinary divine testimony to his prevenient grace. Consequently, it obligates those who are baptized to remain faithful to the covenant but does not make their faithfulness a prerequisite of their inclusion.
8. The reason there are so many examples in the New Testament of baptism only upon profession of faith is that the first generation is in view. As with Abraham’s circumcision, an adult trust in God’s promise and is justified—and only afterward is baptized. But also like Abraham, we present our household to receive the sign and seal. No orthodox Christian body would accept the practice of baptizing adults without a profession of faith.

So we already come to the New Testament expecting God to work with families across generations. New Testament believers, after all, belong to the covenant of grace that God made with Abraham: “For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith” (Rom. 4:13 NKJV). Paul elaborated: “And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty year later (than the covenant with Abraham), cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect…And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:17, 29 NKJV).

Many people reject infant baptism because they do not believe that it is clearly commanded in the New Testament. However, this is to ignore the first half of the movie! It is to miss the point that we are children of Abraham in the same covenant of grace. It would seem, therefore, that one should believe in applying the sign and seal of the covenant to our children unless there is an obvious New Testament passage forbidding it. The only thing that has changed from Old Testament promise to New Testament fulfillment is the external sign and its extension, on the basis of prophetic fulfillment (Joel 2:28; Gal. 3:28), to females.

When we do arrive at the New Testament, we not only discover that there are no passages announcing that the children are excluded from the covenant, but we find the contrary. Adult converts are to “be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins,” thereby receiving “the gift of the Holy Spirit.” But the very next sentence reads “For the promise is to you and to your children” (Acts 2:38-39 NKJV). After “the Lord opened [Lydia's] heart to heed the things spoken by Paul,” “she and her household were baptized” (Acts 16:14-15 NKJV). Later in the same chapter, the Philippian jailer embraces the gospel. “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” he asks Paul and Silas. They answer, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” …And immediately he and all his family were baptized” (vv. 30-31, 33 NKJV). Here is the pattern of Abraham and Isaac: The first generation of believers embraces the covenant of adulthood, after trusting the promise, while the following generations are presented for the initiation rite in their infancy.

Given the continuity of the covenant of grace in both testaments, we are not surprised to learn that when the head of the household became a believer, the children were given the mark of divine ownership. Notice how far Paul takes this in his counsel to a Christian wife of an unbelieving spouse: “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the wife is sanctified by the husband’ otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy” (1 Cor. 7:14 NKJV). When recognized in the light of the earlier scenes (viz., the avenging angel’s “passing over” the homes of the Israelites in Egypt wherever the blood appeared on the doorpost), this fits perfectly. Paul is saying that the presence of even one believing parent is “blood on the doorpost.” If believers are incorporated into Christ and his visible body along with their children, then they ought to receive God’s sign and seal.” 106-108, Michael Horton

inwoolee

Paedo or Credo here are a few things one must consider before throwing out Reformed paedobaptism as an incomplete, Roman Catholic aspect of Reformed theology:

1. 1500 years of Church history.
2. All the Magisterial Reformers were paedobaptists.
3. Household baptisms. It’s not as weak an argument as most people think. Check out Lee Iron’s Oikos formula.
4. Baptism as the new circumcision, the new sign of the covenant.
5. The condition to repent and believe before being baptized is given to those who are not within the new covenant. Quoting passages of the apostles’ requiring faith and repentance before baptism in the book of Acts does not go against paedobaptism. The issue is not whether people outside the covenant must repent and believe before they enter the covenant, but whether children of believers are within the external covenant.
6. Certainly infants being circumcised did not understand what was happening to them.
7. Not all Israel is Israel, thus circumcision was never meant to guarantee regeneration, but was a symbol of membership in the external covenant.
8. Not all people who make a profession of faith are truly regenerate.
9. The idea of the remnant in OT Israel shows that God made a distinction between true Israel and physical Israel, yet all who were under the covenant were circumcised.
10. Peter says that the promise is not for the men alone, but for their children.
11. The children of believers are holy.
12. Jesus loves the little children.

These are just some things that have been in my head. Gotta get back to studying.

J.Lim