Homer wrote:Righteousness, or justification, is either imputed to us or inherent in us. I do not see how it can be both. Are we righteous in God's eyes because we do righteous things or are we righteous because the things we do flow from our faith - they are an expression of our faith? There are unbelievers who (actively) do more good things than some Christians. Are these unbelievers righteous in God's sight?
We are righteous in God's eyes, after we have entered the narrow gate and travel the difficult road that leads to life. When we are on that road, we trust that God will enable us to eschew evil and live righteously through the sacrifice of his Son. Then we coöperate with His enabling grace (Titus 2). God wants a real righteousness not a pretending one — not a so-called covering, a robe of “righteousness” which we wear to shield us from God's eyes so that when he looks on us he does not see our sin but Christ's righteousness. From the beginning He wanted righteousness, not sacrifices and offerings. Yet, God is so gracious that He will accept the offerings which the immature present to Him. He accepted Abel and his offering. Why did He not accept Cain and his offering? Preachers will tell you that the reason was the Cain offered vegetables instead of meat. Is that what God told Cain when he got angry with God for not accepting him and his offerings? No. God said, “Cain why are you angry? If you
do well will you not be accepted? But if you do not do well, sin is couching at your door but you must master it.” Yes, God wanted righteousness from the beginning. Throughout the OT, he told the Israelites not to take advantage of the poor and the widows, but to support them, to be kind to strangers, etc. In the NT, Christ and His apostles instruct us to love others — even our enemies.
I believe the Old Covenant has been done away. We are under a new covenant, the Royal Law, the Law of Christ. Are we righteous because we are in compliance with a law that has some new commands and new things to do?
Yes, if we behave righteously we ARE righteous. The apostles did not teach “positional righteousness”, not even Paul in Rom 3 and 4. That idea is a mere interpretation base on the way current Protestantism, especially fundamentalism, has conditioned us. Rather Paul taught actual righteousness. (Romans 2)
The apostle John, also wrote:
Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. (1 John 3:7 ESV)
I can't imagine a clearer way of saying it. I can't imagine John or Paul either saying that we can be counted as righteous by believing without doing any righteous deeds. James also clearly indicated that faith without works is a dead faith. “Can that [kind of] faith save you?” he asked.
However, we won't succeed by mere self-effort. We will succeed only by coöperating with the enable grace of God made available through the sacrifice of Christ.
Paul said (Young's Literal Translation)
I do not make void the grace of God, for if righteousness be through law -- then Christ died in vain.
It's not “law” per se of which Paul is speaking, but thinking one can be righteous by trying to keep the law of Moses.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Working together with him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain. (2 Cor 5:21, 6:1)
So God “made His Son to be sin” so that we might “become the righteousness of God.” Surely when we become “the righteousness of God” this is an actual righteousness which we possess and not merely “positional righteousness” (a concept invented by man and not found in the New Testament). Now you may reply that if “becoming the righteousness of God” is our actual righteousness, then it follows that Christ “being made sin” must mean that He was made an actual sinner. That sounds reasonable — until you examine the verse which immediately follows:
Working together with him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain. (2 Cor 6:1)
How do we “work together with Him? Is it not by coöperating with His enabling grace so that we, receiving this enabling grace because of the sacrifice of Christ, work righteousness? If we do not coöperate, but attempt to receive His grace in some other way, we have accepted it in vain. It does us no good unless through it enables us to be delivered from sin.
It seems plain enough to me that we can not make ourselves righteous by compliance with God's laws; we never keep them perfectly. It seems to me you believe we are righteous because of our effort to keep them - that is what I mean by "instrumental".
No, I have never written that nor ever implied that. I think that's an interpretation of what I have written based on the mind set of those who hold to penal substitution and who seem to think that if you don't believe salvation results “from faith alone” then you must believe it results from self-effort in good works. I don't know how I can make the Christolic and apostolic position more plain. Neither faith alone nor self-effort alone saves us from our sin.
But what about Paul and James on faith and works?
I don't think Paul and James are talking about two different problems.
I see no contradiction at all. Paul and James are concerned with different problems. Paul's concern is in regard to how we are justified. Paul does not deny the necessity of good works, nor does he set works in contradiction to faith as a means of justification. They do not exclude each other in practice, but we must be justified (saved) because we deserve it or by grace because we do not. I see no other option.
I have tried to bring forth another option, but you seem unwilling to accept it as such. But first we have to understand that “justification” is not the attribution of positional righteousness but the practice of actual righteousness. Then we will be in a position to understand how through faith we can be justified (“righteousified”). When we can trust God to grant us His enabling grace made possible through the sacrifice of Christ, the process of salvation can continue.
But you say (if I understand you correctly) that justification is a completed act and not a process. That is true when justification has particular meanings, and it seems the word is used in at least two different ways in the New Testament. I have just looked up the word (δικαιοω) in all places where it occurs in the New Testament. Here are the meanings which I discovered:
To Show to be Right or Righteous
This meaning was used in the days in which the NT was written, just as it is the usual meaning as used in modern times. For example, as a teacher, I was able to justify my approach to teaching if I could show that it was in accordance with the requirements of the local school board as well as the Department of Education.
The following passages seem to be using the word in that way:
Mt 12:37 "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."
Lu 7:29 … and when all the people heard him, even the tax collectors justified God, having been baptized with the baptism of John.
This one cannot possibly mean either “to count God as righteous” (your meaning) or “to render God righteous” (my meaning) but rather “to demonstrate that God is righteous”.
Lu 10:29 … but he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, "and who is my neighbor?"
Lu 16:15 … and he said to them, "you are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts.
1 Tim 3:16 ASV And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness; He who was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the spirit, Seen of angels, Preached among the nations, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory.
To Render Righteous (I don't think "justify" in the New Testament ever means "To count as righteous").
Ro 3:26 it was to prove at the present time that He Himself is righteous and that He justifies him who has faith in Jesus.
Or “that He Himself is righteous and that He makes righteous him who has faith in Jesus.”
Now here is a most misunderstood passage because inaccurate translations:
For what does the scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him with a view to righteousness." [that is, with righteousness as the goal]. Now to one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted with a view to righteousness. (Romans 4:3-5)
All too often, because of the incorrect rendering “counted as righteousness” implies that God will count him as righteous because of his faith alone, as if it said that his faith is counted as righteousness, that is, instead of righteousness. If that were the case, the preposition would be “αντι”, but it's not. The preposition is “εις” which means “into” or “with a view to”. So Abraham's faith was the first step into a life of righteousness, a process which would continue throughout his life.
Ro 4:5 ... but to him who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted with a view to righteousness.
The same with us. When we entrust ourselves to Christ, believing that He will save us from sin, we are being “justified”, being rendered righteous. We don't struggle in self-effort to be righteous but simply trust in Him to grant us His enabling grace. The writer to the Hebrews instructed his readers how to access this enabling grace when we succumb to temptations to sin:
...for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:15,16)
Ro 5:9 much more then, being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
As we are being made righteous by the blood of Christ, God will not be angry with us, and need to correct us. For we are on the difficult road which leads to life, in the process of becoming righteous as God requires. Now some translations render this as “having been justified by his blood” on the basis that it is an “aorist” participle. But this is no basis for presuming that the action has occurred in the past. Here is what William D. Mounce, author of Basics of Biblical Greek has to say about the so-called “aorist” participle.
Most grammars use the term “aorist” participle because the participle is built on the aorist tense stem of the verb. This nomenclature is helpful in learning the form of the participle. However, it tends to do a serious disservice because the student may infer that the aorist participle describes an action occurring in the past, which it does not. It describes and undefined action. Because the participle is not in the indicative, there is no time significance to the participle. We suggest adopting the terminology “undefined participle” because it rightly emphasizes the true significance of the participle that is built on the aorist tense stem, its aspect. (William D. Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek, Chapter 28, p. 252)
But an especially interesting verse in relation to the matter of justification is Revelation 22:11
He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. (King James and similarly NKJV)
The interesting part is that the King James and New King James using the Textus Receptus, have translated δικαιωθητω ετι (let him be justified still) as “let him be righteous still”. Clearly they understood the word as continuing in righteousness, an actual righteousness, not a positional righteousness.
Back to the "when was I saved?" question. As you know the use of the aorist tense in the Greek, particulaly the aorist indicative, points to an event that has occured, a "passing from death to life". There is a point in time when we are "saved" or "justified" when before that point in time we were not.
There is indeed a point when we enter the narrow gate of salvation, when we begin on the difficult road which leads to life. But in so beginning we must persevere.
For we share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end. (Hebrews 3:14)
So there was a time when we were “justified” or had gone through the narrow gate “when before that point in time we were not.” But we were not “saved” at such a time. Rather we began the process of salvation. I don't think that means very much unless we stay on the difficult road. We should not be content with a false sense of security because we have been “justified”. Indeed, if we don't persevere, we will be in a worse state than we were prior to our “justification”.
And we read in 2 Peter:
For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. (2 Peter 2:20)
Jesus taught similarly concerning those who began to be His disciples but did not continue. He used this illustration:
For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build, and was not able to finish.’ (Luke 14:28-30)
Also:
Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62)
Since this post is already pretty long, I'll postpone discussing the letter to Diognetus.
