Category: Soteriology

37. Q. What do you confess when you say that he suffered?

A. During all the time he lived on earth, but especially at the end, Christ bore in body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race.1 Thus, by his suffering, as the only atoning sacrifice,2 he has redeemed our body and soul from everlasting damnation,3 and obtained for us the grace of God, righteousness, and eternal life.4

1 Is 53; 1 Tim 2:6; 1 Pet 2:24; 3:18. 2 Rom 3:25; 1 Cor 5:7; Eph 5:2; Heb 10:14; 1 Jn 2:2; 4:10. 3 Rom 8:1-4; Gal 3:13; Col 1:13; Heb 9:12; 1 Pet 1:18, 19. 4 Jn 3:16; Rom 3:24-26; 2 Cor 5:21; Heb 9:15.

It is during Lent that we find ourselves concentrating on those truths of Christianity that if they are brought up at all are brought up in a light and tertiary manner as if they are secondary issues. Huge Churches are built on the basis of not touching the issues that surround Lent. However, as we learn it is these subjects that often are at the heart of the Christian religion. We have taken up a couple of those truths the last two weeks. We looked at the subject of Repentance and the necessity, that because we are creatures, and because we are never completely free from the effects of Adam’s fall, our leaning into life should be characterized by repentance. We noted that because we always fall short of God’s perfect standard of righteousness in all that we think, do or say, our lives should be characterized as one of repentance.

Last week we considered the Lenten theme of humility. We said that if pride is the mother lode of all other sin then humility is the Round-up that kills pride. We spent some time considering the plethora of Scripture that reminds Christians over and over that God resists the proud by gives grace to the humble…. to the Scriptures that teach we are to clothe ourselves with humility. We insisted that it is only the Christian who ever pursues humility since the non-Christian, by definition, lives with self at the center of his whole existence. We insisted, that like repentance, the Christian life is one of constantly pulling the weed of self.

Most importantly, we noted that the Cross is at the center of repentance and humility. If we are to learn repentance and humility we must be students of the Cross. The Cross exposes our need for repentance reminding us of God’s righteous and holy standard by which sin is judged. If the price of sin was the Cross and if we grow in that understanding, then sorrow for our sin that issues in repentance is the hum of our lives.

Our repentance doesn’t improve our standing with God, but it reflects a growing gratitude for the Cross, and this gratitude demonstrates itself by a lifestyle of repentance and ever-growing obedience.

When we learn the Cross, we also learn humility. It is impossible to carry a proud and haughty mien when we consider the humility that Christ suffered. The Cross teaches that there Christ paid for all our pride, and the Spirit poured out because of the Cross works in God’s people to put to ever increasingly put to death pride, selfishness, and the desire to live with ourselves at the center.

This week we take up the subject of suffering. This is another motif of Lent along with Repentance and humility. This week we will take up the suffering of Christ and next week we will consider the call to our own suffering.

During all the time he lived on earth, but especially at the end, Christ suffered bearing the Wrath of God.

Here we find some surprised that it could be said that Christ suffered during all the time he lived on earth, thinking that the only suffering of Christ would have been restricted to when He entered into His passion … perhaps starting at Gethsemane and continuing on through the Cross. The Catechism teaches here that thinking is not accurate.

Here our Christian theologians introduce the distinction between Christ’s active and passive obedience. Here is a distinction that seeks to not isolate the whole of Christ’s obedience one aspect from another, but rather seeks to give us handles to better understand the suffering of Christ.

When we talk about the active obedience of Christ we mean the obedience Christ offered up during life with regard to His perfect obedience to the requirements of God’s Law. When we speak of the passive obedience of Christ we are referring to the fact that Christ, in spite of His perfect obedience to the Law during His life, Christ received the due penalty for God’s law having been violated.

Now, it is easier to think of Christ’s suffering under the distinction of His passive obedience whereby Christ suffers vicariously in our place for our sins. On the Cross Christ suffers the wrath of God as a sin offering, suffering as our substitute for the sin of the elect. The suffering in his passive obedience is not a suffering He deserves in Himself but a suffering He is required to meet as our representative – as in our place.

This passive substitutionary obedience and suffering is clearly taught in passages like,

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. II Cor. 5:21

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. I Pt. 3:18

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” Gal. 3:13

So, it is easy enough, to trace the suffering of Christ in relation to His passive obedience … In and through His passive obedience Christ suffers the just penalty of the wrath of God against Sin. In His passive obedience Christ on the Cross is the representative sinner vicariously suffering for the sins of the elect.

But now we pause to ask if the Catechism is correct by teaching that Christ suffered during all the time on earth? Scripture here points us in a direction that confirms the Catechism’s teaching when Isaiah writes;

He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. (Is. 53:3)

The Scripture teaches here that Christ suffered as despised and rejected. Christ is characterized as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief and for anybody who has knows even a wee bit of sorrows and grief, certainly we understand the suffering of that.

Jesus Himself speaks of His suffering when He teaches;

If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me first. / If you were of the world, it would love you as its own. Instead, the world hates you, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. / Remember the word that I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you as well; if they kept My word, they will keep yours as well.

Here again is that idea of the suffering Messiah. Who would gainsay that universal hatred is indeed suffering – especially when that hatred is completely unjust? Yet, here is Christ testifying to His own suffering… His own persecution.

Now, the Catechism does teach that His suffering was especially at the end but the suffering at the end was of a piece with all the suffering the Lord Christ underwent during His whole life.

So, when we think of the active obedience of Christ wherein He fulfills all the demands of the law in our place we also think of the suffering of our Lord Christ. We are reminded that this suffering in His active obedience was a suffering that was redemptive – that is to say it is suffering in our place and for us. It remains a vicarious suffering.

We are reminded then of the suffering Messiah. We see His suffering as He lived His life in a world that was in unremitting rebellion against His Father. We see His suffering in His tears over the death of His friend Lazarus and in the lament we find Him anguishing over the refusal of Jerusalem to repent. These could not be isolated moments of suffering. Our Lord Christ healed the sick, delivered the possessed, raised the dead but in the doing of all that would He not have suffered seeing the weight of sin’s curse and its effect on creation?

In teasing this out … the suffering found in both the active and passive obedience of Christ we learn that the Catechism is Scripturally correct in putting in our mouths and in our memories the truth that;

“During all the time he lived on earth, but especially at the end, Christ bore in body and soul the wrath of God against sin”

The Hymn writers teach us the same;

Man of Sorrows
What a name
For the Son of God who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim
Hallelujah, what a Savior

There is something else going on here in the Catechism as it reflects Scripture that is going on here. In the Catechism’s question and answer with its emphasis on the suffering of the Lord Christ is pointing us towards the fact that the Christian faith is definitionally cruciform. By this I mean that the Catechism, when it teaches us about Christ’s suffering, in it’s relating that suffering to Christ and His being the sin-bearer.

There is a subtle point I want us to see here. It is subtle but vitally important all the same. By connecting Christ’s suffering as being related to bearing God’s wrath against sin the Catechizers, following Scripture, teaches us that the heart of the Christian faith is Christus pro me – Christ for me…. or in the corporate … “Christ for us.”

The Christian life though it is definitionally inclusive of “following Christ,” does not find its beating heart in a definition that Christianity means following Jesus.

I bring this out because I heard Tucker Carlson, say this week;

“A Christian is one who follows Jesus.”

Tucker Carlson

We give Carlson some latitude because he is young in the Christian faith. However, this is not the heart of what it means to be a Christian. No … this is the liberal definition of Christian. Liberals are forever asking “What would Jesus Do.” It is the Biblical Christian who promotes instead as the main question; “What did Jesus do.” And the answer to that question is the Gospel … is the primary definition of Christianity. What Jesus did is in the incarnation he added a Human nature, with the purpose of obeying all God’s law perfectly vicariously (in the place of) His people as conjoined with the purpose of suffering the just penalty of God’s wrath against both our sin nature and all our sinful acts that flow from that sin nature.

The proper definition of Christian is one who owns the sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ for their sins. That needs be the first thing that is said when someone asks “what is a Christian.” A Christian is someone who confesses;

A. During all the time he lived on earth, but especially at the end, Christ bore in body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race.1

Now, let us begin our descent in landing this morning by noting the whole theme of Christ’s suffering being substitutionary. I haven’t used that word yet in this morning though I have frequently used the words “vicarious” and “vicariously.” This is a word, like propitiation, that we seldom use anymore in our communication. As Christians though it needs to be in our vocabulary because it is at the heart of our Christian faith.

Vicarious communicates the idea of substitution and so, vicarious suffering refers to the concept of enduring pain or hardship on behalf of others.

We have heard already the verses that teach that Christ suffered in our place, in our stead, on our behalf, in our place … or simply for us.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, I Peter 3:18

And again,

so also Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many; and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await Him. Hebrew 9:28

Here we are required to bring out the truth that Christ suffers as our representative. He suffers the suffering and death that we deserved. The wrath of God against the Messiah is not a wrath against His person. Scripture gives us the voice of the Father saying twice; “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”

So, the suffering of Christ explained as the wrath of God is not against The Lord Jesus Christ in and of Himself. The suffering of Christ is explained by the fact that Christ is in our place. He suffers the suffering that was ours to suffer. He suffers as our Federal Head. All the deserved suffering of the elect in His redeemed church Christ suffers in our stead. He suffers the wrath of God so that we have peace with God.

This explains why every Christian minister of every generation commands all men everywhere to repent. If they will not own this suffering of Christ in their place … if they will not see the love of the Father and Son in His suffering vicariously then the terrible eternal wrath of God remains upon them. Oh, why will you suffer God’s eternal judgment? Why will you continue stiff necked and unrepentant? Why will you curse humility and continue to walk in pride?

So vicarious is the idea of substitution … Christ vicariously suffered in our place, on our behalf, for us. This is the beating heart of our undoubted Christian faith and during a Biblical Lent it is the theme that we are drawn back to over and over again.

And it is this Reformed theme that makes Lent different from the Lent of Rome. By learning the Cross we understand that Christ’s suffering requires no improvement on our part. Our repenting during Lent, our clothing ourselves with humility during Lent, our suffering during Lent are done out of a pursuit for an unsure redemption … a wrestling with God to gain a still uncertain salvation. Our repenting, clothing ourselves with humility, our suffering during Lent is in gratitude for the certainty of the salvation that could not be improved upon because of Christ’s humility and suffering in our place.

Now, there is just one more loose strand to clarify before we close and that is the language used by the catechism can easily confuse some folks. It is this phrase I refer to;

“During all the time he lived on earth, but especially at the end, Christ bore in body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race.”

Now, we have learned this morning about the vicarious nature of all this. We have labored to demonstrate the suffering that was found both in Christ’s active and passive obedience. Now we want to clean up that little phrase “the whole human race.”

People will and do easily walk away from this thinking that Christ suffered and died for each and every person who has ever lived. We want to draw out that is not the intent of the Catechizers.

First of all, we note that the Catechism has taught us that we are redeemed by this vicarious suffering of Christ. Now, if we take that idea and marry it to the idea of Christ bearing the wrath of God against the whole human race we would have to conclude that the writers of the Catechism were Universalist. If Christ suffered for the whole human race in the sense of every man who has ever lived than every man who has ever lived would be redeemed. This is Universalism.

The catechism nowhere else teaches this idea.

Now, some will insist that Christ suffered for the sin of every single man but every single man, they will say, has to have faith in Christ and if they don’t have faith in Christ then they will die in their sins. The problem here is found in the fact that a lack of faith is sin and if Christ suffered for the sins of every single person who has ever lived then His suffering paid for the sin that is found in a lack of faith.

So, unless we believe that the Catechism is teaching Universalism we cannot believe that it is teaching that Christ died either literally for each and every person who has ever lived or even hypothetically for each and every person who has ever lived. Saying Christ bore the wrath of God for the whole human race proves too much.

The resolution to this is to understand that the death of Christ is sufficient for the whole human race … that is, that the death of Christ is not lacking in any degree

The Canons of Dordt teach this;

The death of the Son of God is the only and most perfect sacrifice and satisfaction for sin, and is of infinite worth and value, abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world.

The Canons of Dordt also teaches the particularity of Christ’s death;

For this was the sovereign counsel and most gracious will and purpose of God the Father that the quickening and saving efficacy of the most precious death of His Son should extend to all the elect, for bestowing upon them alone the gift of justifying faith, thereby to bring them infallibly to salvation; that is, it was the will of God that Christ by the blood of the cross, whereby He confirmed the new covenant, should effectually redeem out of every people, tribe, nation, and language, all those, and those only, who were from eternity chosen to salvation and given to Him by the Father; that He should confer upon them faith, which, together with all the other saving gifts of the Holy Spirit, He purchased for them by His death; should purge them from all sin, both original and actual, whether committed before or after believing; and having faithfully preserved them even to the end, should at last bring them, free from every spot and blemish, to the enjoyment of glory in His own presence forever.

I thought this section by Dr. O Palmer Robertson on the meaning of the death of our Lord Christ to be particularly edifying and enlightening. I hope you find it as comforting as I did.

“The second major moment in which Jesus personally explains the meaning of His death is at the Passover meal. Jesus takes the remnants of the Passover and institutes the ‘Lord’s Supper.’ The Passover lamb was given in substitution for the life of the firstborn male of every Israelite household. Jesus now connects the two rituals by saying, ‘This is my body given for you’ (Luke 22:19). He then took the remnants of the Passover wine and said, ‘This is my blood of the covenant poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’ (Matt. 26:28; cf. Mark 14:24).

What is Jesus doing? He is explaining by word and by the symbol the meaning of his death. He positions himself in the place of the covenantal sacrifice represented in the Passover celebration.  The entirety of redemptive history up to this point he interprets as fulfilled in His death. As Abraham ‘cut the covenant’ at God’s command witnessed the two theophanies ‘pass[ing] between the pieces’ (Gen. 15:17), so Jesus will allow His body to be torn apart as recipient of the curses of the covenant. As Moses ‘cut the covenant’ at Sinai and sprinkled the people all altar with the blood that opened the ‘new and living way’ into the Most Holy Place (Ex. 24:6-8; Heb. 10:19-20).  As Jesus had earlier presented himself as the ‘ransom for many’ (Mark 14:24; Matt. 26:28). The covenant sacrifice has moved from an animal, to a prophesied ‘servant of the Lord,’ to the Son of God in his sacrificial body. The words of Jesus at the supper reflect once more on the ‘many’ for whom he gave his life as a ransom, the ‘many’ for whom he poured out his life unto death (Isa. 53:12-13).

What more do we need, what more could we ask, to enable us to understand the meaning of the death of Jesus? In these two critical passages of the Gospels, Jesus himself explains the meaning of His death. He points directly to the focal elements of the redemptive processes of the old covenant Scriptures. In the ransom price for the redemption of ‘many’ as well as in the blood of the Passover lamb as the climatic covenant sacrifice for the ‘many’ — in these old covenant images along with his explanatory words, Jesus declares the intent of his death. In the context of the dynamic perspective of the progression of redemptive history, we are not talking in the lingo of a stagnant dead theological system. We are wondering and marveling at a divine plan for the redemption of many, many, sinners from every nation, tribe, and tongue. We are speaking of the crux, the cross, the crucifixion, the consummation of the ages at Calvary. That ‘place’ at Mt. Moriah, solemnly marked  even before Israel’s national arrival as ‘the place’  by Abraham’s offering of his ‘only beloved son’ (Gen. 22:1-2); that ‘place’ mentioned repeatedly in Deuteronomy as the ‘place’ where Israel would offer its sacrifices for decades, even centuries, to come (Deut. 12:5-7, 14, 18, 21, 26; 14:23, 25; 16:2, 7, 11, 15-16; 17:8, 10; 10; 26:2; 31:11); that identical ‘place’ of Mount Moriah where David offering his atoning sacrifice to stop the plague (2 Sam. 24:18-25; cf. 2 Chron. 3:1); that very same ‘place’ where Solomon built and Ezra rebuilt the temple for perpetual sacrifice (2 Chron. 3:1; Ezra 3:8-13); that hallowed ‘place’ ‘outside the city wall’ — it was the very ‘place’ where our Lord was crucified (Hebrews 3:12).

As the poet, though imperfectly, says it:

In the cross of Christ I glory,
Tow’ring o’er the wrecks of time.

And again;

God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Gal. 6:14 KJV)

And again;

I determined to know nothing about among you
except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. (I Cor. 2:2 NASB) …

Do you see the centrality of the cross of Christ? All history flows toward it, and all history flows from it. Give God the glory for the cross of Jesus Christ. From eternity past He planned it. In ancient days he moved all history toward it. From the moment of Jesus ransoming sacrifice for ‘many’ he has advanced history.”

O Palmer Robertson
A New Testament Biblical Theology; Christ of the Consummation – The Testimony of the Four Gospels Vol. 1  – pg. 137 – 139

Federal Vision teaching is an error that arose in conjunction with the New Perspective of Paul teaching. A good deal, but not all, of the errors of Federal Vision can be traced back to N. T. Wright and behind him to chaps like E. P. Sanders and James Dunn.

Rich Lusk is one such minister who pushes for the Federal Vision. He belongs to a denomination (CREC) that has been a nest of Federal Visionists.

The errors of the Federal Vision crowd are subtle and clever and it is because they are so subtle that they are difficult to catch for the average layman or clergy. The Federal Vision chaps can sound quite orthodox until one goes under the hood and begins to play with the engine.

One more thing about the FV blokes is the interesting observation that their movement arose (at least in popularity) just about the same time that the Radical Two Kingdom error arose in popularity. I have written elsewhere on Iron Ink that these two errors are mirror errors making opposite but corresponding mistakes. FV gives up Justification in light of their emphasis on Sanctification while R2K gives up Sanctification in light of their errant teaching on Justification.

Below, I interact somewhat with something that Lusk posted on X and then end with a quote from 18th Century Scottish Covenanter Ralph Erskine.

Rich Lusk (RL) writes,

“Many will argue that the gospel must sound antinomian if it to be kept pure of legalism. Indeed, sounding antinomian is a test of orthodoxy. For example, Robert Godfrey, following Martyn Lloyd-Jones, says “If no one ever comes to you after you preach the gospel and asks ‘So should we sin so that grace may abound?’ you have probably never preached the gospel.”

BLMc responds,

We know we are on FV ground here given the complaint above. FV constantly insists that “faith works” (with which I agree) and in that emphasis ends up denying that in Justification faith does its proper work when it rests in Christ for all.

Second, anyone who had read Lloyd-Jones knows that Lloyd-Jones repeatedly emphasized works but only in their proper place. Another thing is that like the Apostle Paul, all Christian ministers immediately reject, as the Apostle Paul did, the idea that “we should sin that grace may abound.” The problem between Lloyd-Jones and Lusk is not on the matter of works but on the matter of the role and place of works. (Godfrey being R2K is another story.)

RL writes,

But the Godfrey/Lloyd-Jones point is really an exercise in missing the point.
The objection of Romans 6:1 (“Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?”) is not raised after the gospel has been preached; it is raised in the middle of preaching the gospel. In other words, the antinomian objection is not a sign that you have preached the gospel; rather, it is a sign that you have not yet finished preaching the gospel. Paul’s presentation of the gospel does not end in Romans 5:21; Romans 6 is pure gospel as well. Thus, the gospel is not preached in full if union with Christ in his death to sin and rising to new life are ignored (Rom. 6:2ff). The gospel is not preached in full unless a call for obedience to all of Christ’s commands is issued (Matt. 28:20). The gospel is not preached unless the promised gift of the Spirit, given to enable us to put to death the misdeeds of the body (Rom. 8:13), is included in the offer. The gospel is not preached unless there has been a summons to repent (Acts 17:30).

BLMc responds,

1.) Let’s make some necessary distinctions here.

First, St. Paul often arrange his Epistles so that duty will follow doctrine. In Romans the first 11 chapters are heavy with Doctrine and in chapter 12 forward the Apostle segues to the Christian’s duty. As such, Romans 6 is indeed part of the preaching of the Gospel and in terms of Justification is pure Gospel.

Second, there is a narrow sense of the word “Gospel” and a broad sense of the word “Gospel.” When used in its narrow sense, Gospel is a good news proclamation/declaration of all that has been accomplished in Christ for sinners who close with Christ. The Gospel, in this narrow sense, is not dependent upon our behavior or our works. It is the proclamation/declaration that we have been released from being imprisoned because another has born our penalty for us as in our place.

2.) However, there is a broad sense of the word “Gospel” as well that stands in for the idea of the Christian faith as a whole. One thing FV does is it gloriously confuses these two usages. This is clearly seen when Lusk writes above;

The gospel is not preached in full unless a call for obedience to all of Christ’s commands is issued (Matt. 28:20).

Here Lusk has, in a startling fashion, clearly confused law and Gospel. The call for obedience to all of Christ’s commands is required indeed, but it is required as the demands of a law that no man can keep. It is these demands of the law that cause us, by God’s grace alone, to see our peril and desperation so that we, by the Spirit’s work, cry out, “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.” A Gospel message preached that includes a call for obedience to all of Christ’s commands as if those commands could be kept by the supplicant who realizes the demands of the law is no Gospel at all. Lusk as confused terribly Law and Gospel.

3.) Lusk cites Mt. 28:20 where Christ commissions His Apostles to teach the nations all that Christ has commanded them. But the kicker here is that “the nations” referenced at this point assumes that they are Christian nations because they have been Baptized. The making disciples of all nations can only occur once those nations are Christian and the nations can never be Christian until they are convicted that there is no command keeping on their part which can satisfy the demands of the law.

The order of Christian evangelism is not Glawospel as Lusk would have it. The order of Christian evangelism is Law (which convicts of sin) and Gospel which pronounces pardon. Then, as the Puritans noted, the Cross sends us back to the law to answer the question; “How Shall We Then Live.”

4.) The Christian does indeed need to be taught the law but only as a guide to life (so called third use of the law) once they’re in Christ. Before they are in Christ it is heretical error to tell the non-Christian that in order to be a Christian they have to keep Christ’s commands as if they could. Our pressing of the law upon those outside of Christ should be met not with “I will do that,” but with a “I can’t (not able) to do that.”

5.) Of course we agree that there is a summons to repent. However, surely Lusk does not think that the unbeliever, though responsible to repent is able to repent? Responsibility does not imply ability Rich.

RL writes,

The pure grace of the gospel is not threatened by a call to obedience. Indeed, the gospel, properly preached, understood, and embraced, demands and promises obedience. In the Scriptures, heralds of the gospel essentially interchange faith and repentance as appropriate responses to the message (cf. Acts 2:38 and 16:34). In other places, Scripture speaks of “the obedience of faith” and calls hearers to “obey the gospel” (Rom. 1:5; 2 Thess. 1:8). In still other texts, faith and obedience (cf. Rom. 10:16) as well unbelief and disobedience (Heb. 3:18-19) are interchangeable. The basic gospel confession is, “Jesus is Lord” (Rom. 9; 1 Cor. 12:3) – which is to say, “He has given himself for me, and I now owe him my allegiance.” In the gospel, we find that God’s righteous requirements are not legalistic impositions, but gracious gifts he promises to work in us (cf. Rom. 8:1-4).

BLMc replies,

1.) The pure grace of the gospel, in its narrow sense, is indeed threatened by a call of obedience if that call for obedience is understood as being contributory in any way to relief from the law’s demand. The pure grace of the gospel in its narrow sense does emphasize obedience but it emphasizes the obedience of Christ in our place. It emphasizes the obedience of Christ as our surety and declares that God accepts the incarnate Son’s obedience in our stead. The pure grace of the gospel in its narrow sense tells the deflated and hopeless sinner that though his obedience will always be as filthy rags there is hope for him because the obedience (an alien obedience) of another has been vouchsafed for him. Christ’s obedience is our obedience and the Father is pleased with the repentant sinner.

Now here we must interject something that is not in Lusk’s scribblings. That something is that many of the FV guys repudiate the idea of Christ’s righteousness being imputed to us (reckoned to our account). Given this denial of Christ’s righteousness to us, it stands to reason that at least some FV guys would place this kind of emphasis on our obedience as necessary to Justification because without Christ’s righteousness imputed to us there is a need to build up our righteousness before God with our own righteousness. I don’t know if Lusk falls in this camp of denying double imputation but it sure sounds like it given the way he reasons here.

2.) Of course faith and repentance are called for as the proper response to the Gospel message but all Reformed Christians insist that what God requires He must first give. It is not as if faith and repentance are being auto-generated in our fallen state and are being traded up for Justification. To think like that would turn faith and repentance into our good works offered up to earn Justification. This would then be a denial the Justification is a completely gracious act of God whereby He declares the sinner righteous in Christ because Christ has had imputed to Him the sinner’s sin and in turn has imputed to the sinner His law keeping obedience. In point of fact the sinner’s repentance and faith are only received because they are imputed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

3.) As we noted earlier, we agree that St. Paul can speak of “obedience to the Gospel,” but that is in the broader sense of being obedient to the Christian faith and demonstrates that there is a close relationship between Justification and Sanctification but not in the way that Lusk is suggesting. Lusk, by emphasizing obedience the way he does is, whether he intends it or not, is giving us a Justification that is dependent upon Sanctification. This is back asswards and works to make the gracious Gospel not gracious but legal.

4.) Note how Lusk brashly includes our obedience in the definition of the Gospel. He calls it “our allegiance.” Now, of course our allegiance/obedience is requisite to the Christian life but that is an allegiance born of gratitude and not as contributory to Justification or the Gospel in its narrow sense. Our owed allegiance is not unto the attaining of a yet unsure forgiveness but rather the consequence of a certain forgiveness. Our allegiance is the response to the Gospel and not a condition of the Gospel.

RL writes,

The only kind of faith that justifies is a faith that lives – that is to say, a faith that loves, obeys, repents, calls, and seeks. Thus, faith can be seen (cf. Mark 2:5) and demonstrated (Jas. 2:18); it is embodied and embedded in outward action. True, at the moment of initial justification, faith has not yet done good works. But the kind of faith that lays hold of Christ for justification is a faith that will issue forth in obedience, not because something will be added to that faith a nanosecond after its conception (as if faith had to be “formed” by additional virtues, ala Roman Catholic teaching), but because that faith already carries within itself the seeds of every virtue.

BLMc responds,

Or course faith must be living. Who could disagree? However this living faith does its proper work in Justification in resting in Christ for all. Then this living faith does its proper work in Sanctification in working out all that Christ works in me unto love and good works.

It is true that faith is demonstrated but what it demonstrates is that our justification is justified. James does not teach that works are part of our person’s being justified but rather James teaches that our good works justify our claim to being justified. When Paul speaks about Justification he is commonly speaking as to how our persons are justified. When James speaks about Justification he is commonly speaking as to how it is we justify our Justification (by good works). There is a profound difference here.

Note here Lusk mentions the phrase “initial justification.” I wonder if in Lusk’s “Gospel” if all those who are initially justified are also all those, man for man, who will be finally justified? I ask this because a number of FV types will talk about folks who are initially justified who fall away and will not be finally justified, thus denying God’s preserving power.

RL writes,

The faith God works in us, in order that we might be justified by faith, simultaneously begins the process of transformation by faith. Faith never exists on its own, even at its inception. The kind of faith God gives his elect is a living, working, penitent, persevering faith. It is a faith that is inseparable from repentance and obedience. When faith grasps Christ, it grasps the whole Christ, so that he simultaneously becomes Savior and Lord. Indeed, given that faith is a gift of God, its presence in us is proof that the Spirit has already begun his work of transforming us.

BLMc responds,

Here Lusk is pinning imputation (what God does outside of us) upon impartation (what God infuses into us by the pouring out of the Spirit). This is expressly what the Reformers fought against. Calvin wrote against it in his Institutes when he took on Osiander’s view of Justification. Nobody, among the Reformed who was orthodox has ever suggested that what God does outside of us is dependent upon what God does inside of us. Quite to the contrary of Lusk’s claim the Reformers talked about this thing called “Faith Alone.” The Reformers abominated the Roman Catholic idea that Justification was affected by “faith working through love.” This is what Lusk is trying to sell and it is a false Gospel that is no Gospel and it explains why I am so adamantly opposed to Federal Vision. It is Roman Catholicism brought into the Reformed Church. It is a lie from the belly of hell and it smells of sulfur.

And these guys get away with their subtle nonsense because so very few people can recognize what they are doing.

RL writes,

Works, then, are the public manifestation of faith. When Paul describes the life of faith, in union with Christ, he immediately turns to how we re-pattern the use of our bodies (Rom. 6:12-13). Faith redirects and reorients the way we use the body. We put to death the body’s misdeeds and begin to embody future resurrection life even in this present mortal existence (Rom. 8:1-17). While faith is certainly a matter of the heart, and renews the mind (Rom. 12:1-2), it has an inescapable communal, even political/cultural, dimension as well. The person acting in faith offers his body as an instrument of righteousness (Rom. 6:13); he becomes a holistic slave of God, even as he was previously a slave to sin (Rom. 6:19). Faith gives us a new posture, a new way of “leaning” into all of life.

BLMc responds,

Here though Lusk is talking about the Faith that Sanctifies. The faith that sanctifies does all this but it is all done not as contributory to Justification … not as required in order to be brought from death to life. Faith does all this as the glad response of one who was brought from death to life. It is done by one who has been made alive by grace alone … it is not all done by one who is seeking to become alive. Faith does all this as the consequence of being Justified and not as a working towards Justification.

RL writes,

The faith/obedience nexus is a critical aspect of biblical theology. The key thing to note here is that the gospel is bigger than merely the offer/promise of forgiveness; it is also the offer/promise of a changed life. God accepts us as we are, but he doesn’t let us stay that way. The necessity of obedience is not bad news tacked onto an otherwise antinomian gospel message. People need (and should want) transformation and freedom from sin’s enslavement, every bit as much as they want pardon and release from the burden of sin’s guilt. A gospel that did not ultimately aim at and guarantee the complete destruction of sin in our lives and the complete renovation of our humanity would actually be mediocre news at best, not the good news of Jesus Christ. Every demand God makes is also a promised gift in the economy of grace. It is good news to hear that God not only desires to clear us from sin’s penalty, but also re-humanize us so that we can begin to enjoy the kind of life we were designed to live.

Here I will let Ralph Erskine rebut Lusk;

Ralph Erskine