JUSTIFICATION: PART 3

How is the doctrine of justification by faith traditionally understood?

The traditional evangelical, reformed doctrine of justification by faith differs in a number of ways from the version of it that I have presented in the previous two chapters. The more commonly taught version of it goes something like this:

'Jesus died not for His own sins but to endure the punishment that we deserved for our sins. The result is that when someone repents of their sins and asks God for forgiveness, He justifies them. On the one hand, He passes a verdict that has legal standing in the royal courts of heaven and in doing so He declares that our sins - past, present and future - have been punished in the person of Jesus upon the cross and that there is now no further punishment due to us for our sins. And on the other hand He declares that Christ's perfect righteousness - His life of perfect obedience - has been imputed to us - credited to our account so that He no longer looks upon us as sinners but as clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ. The Great Exchange has taken place. Christ has taken our sins upon Himself and we have received His perfect righteousness. When we are justified by God, something permanent happens - something that cannot be changed. There is a verdict given that cannot be overturned. No matter what happens the verdict stands.'

In previous chapters I have dealt extensively with the idea that Jesus was punished in our place and explained why I do not believe this to be what the Bible teaches. He made atonement for our sins - yes, but this does not mean that He took the punishment we deserved.

I have also explained why I have difficulty with the idea that because Jesus has taken the punishment for all our sins - past, present and future - on the cross, there is no longer any punishment left for us. The problem is that this suggests that we are now free to live as we please without fear of any further condemnation.

I have also suggested that justification should not be seen as a once-for-all declaration that cannot be changed. Yes, it is a verdict that has legal standing in the courts of heaven but it is a verdict that is linked to our faith. As long as our faith remains living and active, the verdict remains in force. But if we lose or abandon our faith there is no longer any guarantee of right standing with God.

Fourthly, I have shown that those described as 'righteous' in the Bible were not sinlessly perfect. Righteousness means 'right standing' with God rather than sinless perfection. The righteous are those who live by faith. Their faith has been 'credited to them as righteousness'.

In this chapter we will consider the idea that Christ's perfect righteousness is imputed - or credited to - the sinner upon his or her conversion. The concept of 'imputed righteousness' is central to the doctrine of justification by faith as understood by most evangelical reformed scholars and Bible teachers. But as you will have gathered, I do not believe it is what the Bible teaches.

Is Christ's righteousness imputed to us?

The idea is that Christ lived a life of perfect obedience to the law and to the Father's will. He lived a life of perfect righteousness - the life that I should have lived but did not. By faith my sins are imputed (credited) to Him so that He was treated as if my sins were His - and His righteousness is imputed (credited) to me so that I am treated as if His perfect righteousness were mine. This is what Martin Luther describes as the Great Exchange. In exchange for my sins I have received the gift of His perfect righteousness.

But this whole idea regards 'righteousness' as some kind of ethical quality, which, as we have seen, it is not. It is simply 'right standing' with God which is 'credited' to all who believe on account of their faith. Neither in Genesis 15: 6 nor in Romans 4: 5 is anything other than faith credited as righteousness. The text does not say that someone else's righteousness is credited to the person concerned on the basis of their faith. No - it was Abraham's faith that was credited to him and it is our faith that is credited to us as righteousness, not the perfect righteousness of Christ.

Besides, if Christ obtained this righteousness for us through his obedience to the law, then Paul could not have described the righteousness that comes from God by faith, as being 'apart from the law' (Romans 3: 21). Whether it was us or He who obeyed the law perfectly in order for us to be declared righteous, this righteousness came through the law and not apart from it.

And again, my biggest objection is that if we see Christ as living a perfect life for us - i.e. in our place - this means that we no longer have to live the life that God requires, doesn't it? He has done it for us! 

So where does this idea come from? Apart from the verses we have already looked at in which faith is said to be credited as righteousness, John Piper, one of those who teach the doctrine of imputed righteousness, finds support for it in four New Testament verses which we shall now examine.

• Romans 10: 4 (NRSV): 'For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.' The word translated 'end' here is the Greek word 'telos' which can either mean 'termination' or 'goal'. It seems likely that what Paul is saying here is similar to what he has said elsewhere: 'The law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith' (Galatians 3: 24). In other words, the goal ('telos') of the law was to lead us to Christ.

• Philippians 3: 9: '...not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in (or through the faithfulness of) Christ - the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.'  As Forster and Marston say: 'There is not the slightest indication here that Christ's ethical life is imputed to us by some kind of legal fiction.'1

• 1 Corinthians 1: 30: 'It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.' NT Wright argues that if we claim that this verse teaches the imputed righteousness of Christ: 'we must also be prepared to talk of the imputed wisdom of Christ, the imputed sanctification of Christ, and the imputed redemption of Christ'.2 And in a similar way, Michael Bird argues that 'there is no need to infer that righteousness is imputed any more than the holiness, redemption and wisdom are imputed.'3

These objections are answered in an article by Matthew Olliffe of The Gospel Coalition Australia.4  However, his answer relies on his view that 'imputation is the normal way Paul says a person receives the special righteousness of God in Christ' and we have already shown that this is not the case.

• 2 Corinthians 5: 21: 'God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.' In a previous chapter we looked a quote from Warren Wiersbe which showed that his understanding of the verse is that our sins were imputed to Christ and His righteousness imputed to us. But we saw that when Paul says that 'He became sin for us' he did not mean that Christ literally became sin - for otherwise He would no longer have been the perfect, spotless lamb of God - but that He gave His life as a sin offering for us. The second half of the verse says that this was so 'that we might become the righteousness of God'. For Wiersbe and many others, this means 'so that Christ's righteousness - His life of perfect obedience - might be credited to our account'.

But the verse does not say 'so that we might receive the righteousness of God'. It says 'so that we might become the righteousness of God'. Paul is not referring here to the righteousness God gives us - but to God's own righteousness. God has demonstrated His righteousness -  His faithfulness to the promises given to His people - by reconciling us to Himself through the death of His Son. And, as those who have now been reconciled to God, we have become the manifestation of His righteousness on earth as we display its fruit in our lives and we have become agents of His righteousness as we appeal to others also to be reconciled to Him.

This fits with the context of 2 Corinthians 5 in which Paul says that God 'reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us' (5: 18, 20).

Just as Isaiah's sins were atoned for, by means of a coal taken from the altar of sacrifice, so that He could be cleansed and sent out as God's messenger to the people of his day, so too our sins have been atoned for through the sacrifice of Jesus not only so that we might be reconciled to God ourselves but also so that we might be equipped to bring the message of reconciliation to others.

2 Corinthians 5: 21 is simply an extension of the thought in verses 18-20. 'God made Him who had no sin to be a sin offering for us so that in Him we might become (the manifestation on earth) of the righteousness of God.'

'Becoming' rather than 'receiving' the righteousness of God' therefore involves much more than a change in our legal status. It involves the transformation of our lives. God's intention is that in the power of the Spirit who now lives within us, we increasingly embody His righteousness in our attitudes and actions and so become agents of His righteousness in the world around us.

What's wrong with the doctrine of imputed righteousness?

There are two major problems, as I see it, with the doctrine of imputed righteousness.

It is unbiblical

The idea that Christ's perfect righteousness is imputed to us, or transferred to our account, is simply not taught in the Bible. It is our own faith, not Christ's sinless perfection, that is 'credited' to us as righteousness.

Jesus obeyed the law in order to become the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Because of His sacrifice, our sins are no longer counted against us. But this does not mean that His good works are counted as ours. Paul says that the righteousness we have received is ‘apart from law’ and is ‘by faith’.

It is unhelpful

John Wesley writes:

'The doctrine which I believe has done immense hurt, is that of the imputed righteousness of Christ in the Antinomian sense. The doctrine which I have constantly held and preached is, that faith is imputed for righteousness.'6

Commenting on this, Jesse Morrell says:

'Wesley is in agreement with various moral government theologians, that the phrase 'imputed righteousness' means pardon and acceptance from God when we put our faith in Christ, that our faith is imputed as righteousness and we are henceforth treated as righteous because of that faith (by which faith we will live righteousness and produce good works) and not that Christ’s personal obedience to the Torah is transferred to our account. And that the phrase 'righteousness of God' refers to God’s method of justifying sinners, not the obedience that the Son rendered to the law during his earthly life.

The idea that Christ’s works of the law are transferred to the account of the believer, so that they are justified by perfect works of the law, and do not need to repent of their sins and live holy lives, and that they are righteous in God’s eyes even while they are sinning, has done great damage to the church.7

And George Otis Jr says:

'The theological doctrine of ‘imputed righteousness’ has been grossly distorted in our day. We are told that God looks at us through the blood of Christ and sees us as righteous, regardless of our actual state… Let’s stop kidding ourselves. God sees us exactly the way we are. If we are living in obedience, He sees it. If we are living selfish, unholy lives, we can be sure he sees that too.'8

The cross of Jesus does not free us from any obligation to live holy lives. Rather, as we unite ourselves by faith to Jesus, we commit ourselves to living to please God as He did and to identifying ourselves with Him in His life, death and resurrection so that by the power of His Spirit we may 'die to sin and live to righteousness' (1 Peter 2: 24) in the way that He has modeled for us. Any gospel that suggests that because Jesus has lived a perfect life for us we no longer have any obligation to live up to God's righteous standards is mistaken.

Notes

1. God's Strategy In Human History: Volume 2 by Roger Forster and Paul Marston

2. What St Paul Really Said by Tom Wright

3. Progressive Reformed View by Michael F Bird in Justification: Five Views by James K Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy (eds)

4. https://www.au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/1-corinthians-130-imply-imputed-righteousness 

5. https://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0256-95072016000200005

6. The Miscellaneous Works of the Rev. John Wesley, Volume 2

7. https://crosstheology.wordpress.com/john-wesleys-warning-against-imputed-righteousness

8. The God They Never Knew by George Otis Jr.