The following question has been crystallising in my mind of late: is righteousness a status God bestows or a property he acknowledges? This, it seems to me, is the issue which divides protestant / catholic belief. Protestants, particularly Reformed Evangelicals hold: not our righteousness is counted but Christ’s (see John Piper, Counted Righteous in Christ) because God justifies the ungodly as we read in Romans 4:
However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
Rom 4:5
I would seem that if God calls a sinner a saint, then that is so. The reformed answer to the Euthyphro Dilemma is: Good is what God says is Good. We Christians may be bad people, but we’re good in God’s sight because of faith and that’s what counts. Thus, the flip side of our sins not being counted (forgiveness) is that Jesus life get’s booked to our account.
This conclusion is confirmed each time I read or hear an evangelical teaching. I listened to a preaching today by a good pastor from the south of England regarding Romans 4. His key exegetical points were that Paul is showing:
- You can’t earn entrance into heaven
- If you think you’re good, you’re not
- It is by grace through faith all the way (Eph 2:8)
He illustrated the second point from Luke 18:9-14 where a tax collector beats his breast in repentance after a Pharisee boasts his righteous deeds before God. Jesus says that the tax collector “went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted”.
This really sums up evangelical thinking: Only God is truly Good and only when he justifies a person are they righteous. God declares someone righteous not because they are in fact righteous but because they have faith. Righteousness is a status bestowed and not a property discovered.
Now, it’s obvious that we all sin and need forgiveness. But is this the model for the Final Judgement? Will we stand before Christ, who will judge our deeds (Mt 24, 2 Cor 10), and, when things look bad, we fall on our knees and plea for mercy? Why can’t non-Christians do this? Or will Christians simply not be present at this horrible Judgement Day?
Many evangelicals have concluded that there is no real judgement for believers (Rom 8:1). There is an Awards Ceremony for Christians and a Terrible Judgement for the rest. Our sins are paid for and ignored because we believed and we’re only here to get awarded for good service by God. Evangelicals say Christians escape judgement and receive forgiven because of faith.
The closest thing I can find in Jesus teaching about this doesn’t quite match. In Matthew 7 Jesus says “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” and in Matthew 6:14 “if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you”. Disciples are taught that they escape judgement and receive forgiven because they have forgiven and not judged.
| |
Forgiven |
Not Judged |
| Reformed Tradition |
By Grace Through Faith on the Basis of the Cross |
| Jesus |
By Forgiving Others |
By Not Judging Others |
In case it was unclear Jesus re-iterated (Mt 6:15): if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. What does that mean for any evangelicals who don’t forgive but “trust in the Blood”!?
My point is not simply the glaring gap between human tradition and Jesus teaching. Rather it’s that the evangelical teaching is a seemingly arbitrary formal deal (faith for forgiveness) whereas Jesus teaching is a logical real deal (reciprocal forgiveness). Evangelicals think God justifies and forgives on the basis of faith but Jesus teaches forgiveness on the basis of certain “works”. Secular people cannot follow our “justification by faith” doctrine but they really get “do unto others” and expect God to award good behaviour and “forgive us as we forgive others”. Are they seriously misled? I would say they’ve understood the Lord’s teaching better than us.
OK, we can debate about whether forgiveness is a “work” or not but I know that in many evangelical circles forgiveness, a virtue, will be classified as “good works”, as one of those good things we try to do to earn God’s approval. Is that really so bad? My English preacher used Galatians 5 to show that our good works are just like circumcision – they annul Christ’s work.
But Listen to Jesus:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
Matthew 5:43-45
The main point of this verse is that God is benevolent towards all humans, good or bad, and so should we be. But the tacit assumptions are revealing and not generally shared by evangelicals:
- Sonship is earned by loving people
- There are just and unjust people
Again, we can debate whether or not “earned” is the right word but I expect love and prayer to be exactly the types of “good works” evangelicals keep telling us won’t get us to heaven. Prayer is typically associated with a religious duty and we know the bad Pharisees made long prayers (Mt 6). Yet here we have Jesus saying: “Do this, so that you will be sons of God”.
Of course sonship is not technically the same as forgiven and justified. Theoretically you could be adopted as a son by God with or without forgiveness and justification. However, biblically, these things go together (John 1:12, 2 Cor 6:18, Mt 6:8) – the justified are God’s family. Evangelicals treat sonship and justification as applying to the same group of people and I concur. But this makes passages such as Mt 5:43-45 above difficult for evangelicals who believe that faith and grace are all that is required. Indeed many of Jesus sayings, particularly Mt 25:31-46 is practically unintelligible for the Sola Fide group.
Think of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). He came home in repentance, pleaing for mercy. His father basically “justified” him by calling him “son” although the man acknowledged he did not deserve it. The father gave the status of sonship at the same time as forgiveness because he repented and pled for salvation (not because of his “faith”). This is Initial Justification, God’s “Welcome Home” to the repentant sinner. This is the topic of Romans 3:21 onwards.
Imagine now the scene many years later when the father stands up to speak of his son. He speaks about the things his son really did, how he helped develop the business, assisted his family, saved that sheep and praised his faithfulness. Perhaps the father will gloss over the failings but he surely won’t praise the son for deeds he never did, imputing righteousness as evangelicals understand it.
I conclude, with N.T. Wright (see Justification) that our present status before God as a result of Initial Justification by Faith is an anticipation of the final judgement where there will be a Justification by Works and that Paul has made this perfectly clear in, the oft neglected, or twisted Romans 2.
But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God “will give to each person according to what he has done.” To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism.
All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
Romans 2:5-13
Love unites. It is the union of diversity. To be united with the eternal is to be eternal. To have eternal life we must be united with an eternal life-giving God. Does God love all? Yes, God is love. Do all love God? No, many are ignorant of or even hate (the idea of a) God. Therefore not all are in a love relationship with God. So not all are united to God. Many are seperated from eternity.