Overview: My personal statement on justification
For last semester’s systematics 3 course I was required to write a very brief (no more than 5 pp.) “personal statement” on the doctrine of justification. Furthermore, the professor asked us to read Richard Gaffin’s By Faith, Not By Sight and a couple of chapters from N. T. Wright’s What St. Paul Really Said and to include some interaction with these books in our personal statement. (How one could accomplish this task in 5 pp. or less is beyond me!)
Being a Presbyterian, the leitmotif of my tradition’s application of Scripture to the question, How does God justify sinners?, is found in the Westminster Standards. So, my personal essay is an attempt to briefly explain the main parts of “justification” as defined by the Westminster Shorter Catechism question 33.
Self-Critique
I thought the point I made from Gaffin’s work about justification being a multi-dimensional/eschatological act is important; the grader, however, thought I didn’t interact enough with Gaffin’s book. (I plead the 5pp. requirement as too restrictive for the task I was asked to do.) Perhaps I could have done more to bring out Gaffin’s main emphases, especially that the Christian life (of which justification is surely an aspect) is at every point resurrection life.
My entry into the vast (and growing) corpus from N. T. Wright is puny. Perhaps this is partly the cause of the grader challenging my point on Wright’s ecclesiology. He or she did not like my statement in the third to last paragraph:
Rather, Wright’s definition of justification only offers sinners ecclesiastical acceptance in one another’s sight.
At this early point in my reading of Wright on justification (and I’ve got more than a long ways to go, I freely admit), I don’t care if he wants to re-define terms (like making “justification” an ecclesial concept rather than a soteriological concept) for his own creative pedagogical purposes, as long as–and here come my beef–he doesn’t do away with the substance of soteriology. Specifically, at least one aspect of soteriology’s substance that I find troubling in Wright’s formulations is that Christ’s active obedience is not as robust (explicit?) as it ought to be to reflect the New Testament’s presentation of the law-keeping Christ (as opposed to merely the penalty-paying Christ).
In my small theological experience thus far, Reformed covenant theology appears to let all of the aspects of Christ’s obedience come into their own in a robust manner that exceeds lesser formulations. (The first-second Adam motif comes to mind in terms of biblical theology; The covenant of life/works and covenant of grace comes to mind in terms of systematics.) Therefore, with my aforementioned qualifications/self-maledictions in mind, I am still waiting to see where Wright deals with the imputation of Christ’s obedience (in all of its aspects: law-keeping and penalty-paying) to the elect.
Read and Respond to my Paper
As always, I’d love to hear your comments, critiques, etc., as I seek to live more faithfully in Christ’s light. For those of you who have read more Wright than me, can you point me to where he discusses (or discounts?) Christ’s active obedience?
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