thoughts and ruminations while in exile (1 Pet. 2:11)

As I mentioned in one of my updates the other day, I received the latest release of Tabletalk magazine with a bit of excitement. This is because the good people over at Ligonier have decided to dedicate an entire issue to critiquing the views of NT scholar N. T. Wright. Contrary to what one might expect, the articles do not, in my judgment, throw Wright under the bus; rather, the articles are written by some of the finest scholars in the church, i.e. Tom Schreiner, D. A. Carson, Sinclair Ferguson, Roger Nicole, etc. All of these men have read Wright carefully and seek to be fair in their assessments.

The opening words in the issue come from John Piper, who wrote an entire book critiquing Wright's understanding of the doctrine of justification. Many in the scholarly world were appreciative of the fact that Piper submitted his manuscript to Bishop Wright so he could make corrections where he believed Piper had misrepresented his views. Piper says he was shocked when Wright responded with an 11,000 word response. Nevertheless, Piper did reach out to Wright to make sure he had represented his views fairly. When Wright published his own response to Piper, however, he did not submit his manuscript to Piper for review. Some NT scholars bemoaned this fact, stating that Wright should have returned the favor.

Sproul's Review

Sproul's review of Wright focuses on one main issue where he believes Wright is guilty of misrepresenting the Reformed understanding of justification by faith. Apparently Wright is fond of saying, "We are not justified by faith by believing in justification by faith." Sproul labels this "the King Kong of straw man fallacies." He goes on to say, "I am aware of no theologian in the history of the Reformed tradition who believes or argues that a person can be justified by believing in the doctrine of justification by faith. This is a pure and simple distortion of the Reformed tradition." From here, Sproul goes on to outline the Reformed understanding of justification. While some may think this is a bit elementary, I am still shocked that some people do not understand what Christians mean when we say we are justified by God's grace alone through faith alone. I would dare suggest that many professing Protestants are practically Roman Catholic in their understanding of salvation. But that's for another post, so I'll move on.


Justification by Grace through Faith

In explaining the historic Protestant understanding of justification, Sproul writes, "The doctrine of justification by faith alone not only does not teach that justification is by believing in the doctrine of justification by faith alone, but in fact, teaches that which is totally antithetical to the idea." Many Protestants tend to be confused by this because they assume that when we say, "Justified by faith," we mean, "Justified by believing." This is a complete error. As Ligon Duncan states, "Justified by faith does not mean we are justified on the basis of our belief, on account of our belief, or on the ground of our own believing--that would be another way of saying we are justified by something we do." Such a quote may shock some people. "Rather," Duncan continues, "the doctrine of justification by faith says we are justified by God's grace, not because of works, but because of Christ's work--the saving benefits of which we receive by faith."

Therefore, as Sproul continues he notes, "'Justification by faith alone' is theological shorthand for saying justification is by Christ alone." Thus, to set the record straight, the historic Protestant view of justification (which we believe and confess to be the biblical view) is that a person is declared righteous by the imputation of Christ's righteousness. That is to say, a person is declared righteous (not made righteous) because of the work of Christ on his/her behalf. This righteousness is received through the sole instrument of faith, which is itself a gift (Eph. 2:8 [I'm aware that in the Greek construction of the sentence "pistis" is feminine and "touto" is neuter. However, more than one NT scholar has pointed out that "touto" does not refer precisely to the noun "pistis" but to the entire preceding sentence)[1].


The historic Protestant position is in direct contrast to the Roman Catholic view, which teaches that initial justification comes through the instrument of baptism; then, if a person receives the sacraments of the Catholic Church (which infuse grace into a person), along with using his/her free will to cooperate with grace, he/she MAY (or may not) receive final justification. If they have not received enough grace they may spend thousands, or millions, of years in purgatory. The debate which continues to this day between Roman Catholics and Protestants is over what the sole instrument of justification is. Classical Protestantism, however, unequivocally states that baptism plays no part in a person's right standing with God; the sole instrument is faith. Non-Roman Catholic churches which teach that baptism plays a part in a person's salvation are teaching false doctrine in our view., i.e. we would disagree with the statement that a person is saved by grace through faith at baptism, as Jack Cottrell teaches.

While good works necessarily flow from a person's justification, they play no part in a person's justification. As R. Scott Clark rightly notes, "Anyone who says that good works are part of the instrument or ground of justification has denied the gospel of Christ."

I will continue to post summaries of what the authors in Tabletalk are saying about Wright's views. As far as this post is concerned, let it be known that Protestants do not believe a person is justified by faith because they believe in justification by faith.

Recommended Reading, see Justification: Understanding the Classic Reformed Doctrine by J. V. Fesko

1. S. M. Baugh says, "This use of the neuter pronoun to take in the whole of a complex idea is quite common in Greek (e.g., Eph. 6:1); its use here makes it clear that faith, no less than grace, is a gift of God."