Category: Soteriology

Vanilla Reformed vs. Federal Vision On The Role of Good Works In Justification — Pt. 1

Ian wrote,

But I have to tell you Bret, that when I read your words, “The phrase ‘non necessary condition,’ strikes me as oxymoronic since if you don’t have the condition you don’t have justification,” I almost fell off my chair. Really! I thought to myself, McAtee can’t really believe what he’s suggesting. Not the Bret McAtee I know.

Bret responds,

I prefer to think Sanctification as a necessary consequence to being regenerated, not a “non-necessary condition” for Justification.” Really, the whole idea of a “non-necessary condition” is a contradiction. (Go ahead and get up off the floor Ian.) If it is a condition for Justification it is, by definition, necessary. If it is non necessary, by definition, it is not a condition.

Ian wrote,

In your article and some of the attending comments, my real offense was apparently using the words “non-meritorious works” and applying the concept in the manner that I did. However, Bret, I think I have good biblical grounds for using that phrase. I further believe that your ordination vows and your own confessional standards require you to believe and accept the idea of “non-meritorious works.” Here’s why, and it’s something you and I discussed on more than one occasion. The Heidelberg Catechism:

Question 91. But what are good works?

Answer: Only those which proceed from a true faith, are performed according to the law of God, and to his glory; and not such as are founded on our imaginations, or the institutions of men.

Here is that most excellent summary by our 16th century forebears about the Christian life. And what a declaration. Good works, but not according to any old standard we might want to make up. No, only good works “performed according to the law of God.” But even that is not enough. They have to “proceed from a true faith.” So we see here two things linked together, faith and law. Good works are thus those, and only those, that combine a true faith with the law of God.

Bret responds,

Ian, I never said that good works were unnecessary for salvation. I said they were unnecessary for Justification. This is in keeping with Luther’s common refrain from the Reformation. “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.” Further, I’ve also consistently said that good works are the necessary consequence to Regeneration, and being filled with the Spirit. Ephesians 2:10 teaches,

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

This move of yours to insinuate that I’m somehow an antinomian will never do. I believe that the Christian life is attendant and ornamented with good works. I just don’t believe that good works are a non necessary condition for justification. In Justification it is Christ’s good works alone that are the necessary condition. When we imply that Justification is not Justification unless we add (in your words) our non necessary something we have stripped Justification of its purely gracious character.

You will notice that the question you cite from the Heidelberg Catechism falls in the third section of the Catechism which is devoted to man’s response to God’s Free Grace (Gratitude). This section of the Catechism is not dealing with how we are made right with God, but rather how we respond to God’s solo act in graciously acquitting us because of the finished work of the Lord Christ.

Notice how the Belgic Confession of Faith (Article 22) speaks on this matter of Justification,

… for any (Ian) to assert, that Christ is not sufficient, but that something more is required besides him, would be too gross a blasphemy: for hence it would follow, that Christ was but half a Saviour. Therefore we justly say with Paul, that we are justified by faith alone, or by faith without works. However, to speak more clearly, we do not mean, that faith itself justifies us, for it is only an instrument with which we embrace Christ our Righteousness. But Jesus Christ, imputing to us all his merits, and so many holy works which he has done for us, and in our stead, is our Righteousness. And faith is an instrument that keeps us in communion with him in all his benefits, which, when become ours, are more than sufficient to acquit us of our sins.

Clearly, Ian, on the question of Justification I agree with the Three Forms of Unity.

Ian continues

Before that question, however, the Catechism asks:

Question 86: Since then we are delivered from our misery, merely of grace, through Christ, without any merit of ours, why must we still do good works?

Here quite plainly two ideas are welded together. The first of these is “without any merit of ours.” That makes it very clear that the framers of the Catechism had no intention of allowing meritorious works into the plan of salvation. But they don’t stop there, they tag on the end of this the question they are posing: “why must we still do good works?” And there you have the “oxymoronic condition” that you reject.

Ian, Q. 86 is not teaching that our good works are a non-necessary condition for Justification. Did you read the answer to Q. 86?

Because Christ, having redeemed us by his blood, is also restoring us by his Spirit into his image, so that with our whole lives we may show that we are thankful to God for his benefits, so that he may be praised through us, so that we may be assured of our faith by its fruits, and so that by our godly living our neighbors may be won over to Christ.

Note carefully Ian that the answer to HC 86 speaks of God’s people of having already been redeemed antecedent to our doing good works. Our redemption is accomplished before our response of gratitude engages. We obey and do good works from the position of one being granted life, and not from the position of one who is trying to keep what has already been freely given via filling the condition of non meritorious good works.

Ian writes,

So “good works” are necessary? Well, necessary for what? How about we try sanctification, which is the part in our theology about godly living. Another question follows, then: is sanctification an addition to the whole concept of salvation, or an integral part of it? I think I know what your answer will be. I’m glad you mentioned the terms “justification,” “sanctification,” and “salvation”. Salvation is the broader term for what God does for us, while justification and sanctification are components of it, the ordo salutis I believe you described these activities.

Bret responds,

If you know what my answer will be why are we having this conversation?

Ian writes,

So I ask, is there any point in our salvation in which the door is opened for meritorious works? I do believe I heard a resounding “no” from you. Even this far away, half way around the world, I heard that “no” as crystal clear as if we were in the same room. I know you hold this view because you made reference to Dabney’s view that even our good works require the imputed righteousness of Christ. So good works are indeed “works” but they are not meritorious. I guess you could use the phrase you called “oxymoronic” and say they are “non-meritorious works.”

And at that point, my friend, you have ascribed to “non-meritorious good works” accepting it as a teaching in the Scriptures.

Do you see how I arrived at this conclusion? I don’t think I made it up. But I conclude there are such events, events that are properly classified “good works according to the law of God” but they are not, nor can they ever be, meritorious.

Bret responds,

But in the original conversation Ian (I went back and looked) you weren’t talking about the broad category of “Salvation” but the narrow category of “Justification.” And therein lies all the difference in the world.

Still, I wouldn’t, even in terms of Salvation as a whole, speak of good works as a “non-meritorious” Condition for Salvation. I think it is far wiser to speak of good works as a necessary consequence to all that God has done for us and in us.

Ian presses on,

Now allow me to take that phrase of yours and make just one change to it: “The phrase ‘non necessary condition,’ strikes me as oxymoronic since if you don’t have the condition you don’t have sanctification.” I’m sure you’ll notice I substituted the word sanctification for the original justification. I made the change only to indicate that I think both Scripture and the confession teach “non-meritorious works”. They certainly teach there are no meritorious acts to be added by the believer in justification; but they are equally adamant that there are no meritorious acts in sanctification either. So I’ll turn your comment back to you and ask, if sanctification is essential and good works are somehow involved in sanctification, in what way does the “condition” of good works apply to sanctification? And the answer has to be such that it excludes any kind of meritorious cooperation of the sinner with God in his salvation, no matter whether we are talking about justification or sanctification.

Bret responds,

Remember … I’ve never used “non-meritorious condition” in any of my language. I’ve consistently said that good works are the necessary consequence. It is precisely because “non-meritorious condition” is so confusing that I stay away from it.

Doing The Hard Work Of Nothing

In “Jesus + Nothing = Everything” Tchividjian writes, “Jesus won for me, I was free to lose” and “Jesus succeeded for me, I was free to fail” (p.24). Throughout the book Tchividjian encourages us to remove our attention from what we do in sanctification. He writes, “I think too much about how I’m doing, if I’m growing, whether I’m doing it right or not” (p.174). He tells us such thinking is wrong and will only make us “neurotic and self-absorbed” (p.174). After all, in Christ, he tells us, “it’s all said and done” (p.174).

____________

Contradiction alert

Here Tchividijan is writing a book telling people the right way to do it (growing in Christ) is by not worrying about whether one is doing it right. How is the prescription to do it right by not worrying about whether one is doing it right any different of a prescription then the one that teaches that doing it right is by worrying about doing it right? Tullian’s advice requires just as much work and is potentially just as promissory of failure. How does one know if one’s lack of worry is not enough lack of worry? Could we not begin to worry that we are not “not worrying” enough? Does Jesus’ not worrying about how His performance did or did not please the Father satisfy when we fail to preform well enough our not worrying work?

I know I regularly worry that I don’t not worry enough.

I fear Tchividijian is teaching me to be neurotic and self absorbed in all of his writing about the importance of my work of not worrying in sanctification.

The point is that Tullian is requiring me to do nothing and I am exhausting myself making sure that I do the good work of nothing in my sanctification.

If it really is all said and done then Tullian shouldn’t be writing books saying that we must not concentrate on the God pleasing work of “not doing.”

Further, if I’m free to fail and free to lose does that mean that if I win and succeed that somehow I have failed and lost because I didn’t fail and lose but if I was free to fail and lose and winning and succeeding is failing and losing then that means winning and succeeding is really something that I am free do to…. right? Or does this mean that God is only pleased with me when I fail and lose? And if God is only pleased with me when I fail and lose shouldn’t I try to please God by failing and losing all the time? But then I might worry that I am not losing and failing enough and God might be displeased with me… right?

The Extent Of The Atonement & The Ongoing Prayer Life Of Our Lord Christ

If one believes that the Lord Christ only intercedes for His people per Romans 8:34 and Hebrews 7:25 then they must, if they desire to be consistent, believe that Christ only died for those same people for whom He intercedes. Both the death of Christ and the Intercession of Christ are subsets of His great work as our Great High Priest. To suggest that Christ died for everybody as the Great High Priest but only intercedes for the elect is to introduce contradiction into the very being of Christ as Mediator.

If Christ only prays for His people then He, by necessity, only died for His people.

Not to worry though … if you don’t agree you can always invent a Mystery Box in which to throw your contradiction.

Egalitarianism & The Atonement

Evangelicals, Lutherans, and Roman Catholics alike all hold to a universal atonement wherein God does not discriminate in His intent concerning the Atonement. The thinking of such denominations is that the death of Christ is the same, potentially, for everybody. We might call this doctrine soteriological egalitarianism.

Of course, in our own culture egalitarianism is the idea both that there should be equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. As such, our cultural egalitarianism is really not about equality but about sameness. In the end everyone must be the same. Discrimination is seen as inherently evil and everybody must be treated the same.

In Evangelical, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic doctrines of hypothetical universalism we find a similar type of egalitarianism. We are told by these folks that Christ died for everybody and therefore everybody has the same equality of opportunity. For these folks it is sin to say that God discriminates in terms of opportunity though it is perfectly acceptable to say that it is man who discriminates in terms of God’s offer. Some men discriminate to accept the equal opportunity and some men don’t. Man can discriminate against God but God is not allowed to discriminate in terms of man. God must provide an atonement that is egalitarian in opportunity or He is not fair.

One wonders if the egalitarianism we see in our culture didn’t first begin with this kind of nonsensical egalitarianism in the Church as the Church turned away from the doctrine of Limited Damnation. If Theology remains the queen of the Sciences one must wonder if soteriological egalitarianism became the gateway through which egalitarianism in economics, politics, gender relations, and sociology came to the fore.

Obviously, in the Atonement God does discriminate. For reasons, known only to Him, God discriminated between the elect and the reprobate. Jacob God loved, but Esau God hated. God did not and does not treat all people the same.

And neither should we. Not all people are equally qualified for different tasks and there is nothing evil in discriminating against people who do not have giftedness or talents in certain areas.

There is nothing unbiblical in insisting that egalitarianism is wrong while discrimination for biblical reasons is right. God discriminated in the intent of the atonement and that discrimination was righteous. When we discriminate based on righteous reasons we are being God like in our actions.

So, insisting that Christ’s death applies equally to everyone may very well be the root of all other egalitarianisms that we are now plagued with. The atonement of Christ is not egalitarian. Everyone is not equal in Christ death. God discriminated for reasons known only to Himself, to have Christ die only for the Elect.

Can it be that Hypothetical Universalism is the mother load from where all other egalitarianism stems? Can it be that it is not a form of theological Marxism to make everyone equal and the same in the intent of the Atonement?

Ideas have consequences and I’m wondering if the teaching of evangelicals in terms of their soteriological egalitarianism wherein God is not allowed to discriminate is the mother spring from which our current egalitarianism water flows. Theology gets into everything. If we are going to be egalitarian in our doctrine of the atonement you can look for that egalitarianism to show in our social order.

Ideas have consequences.

Curious Words From The New Pope

The blurb opens up with,

In comments likely to enhance his progressive reputation, Pope Francis has written a long, open letter to the founder of La Repubblica newspaper, Eugenio Scalfari, stating that non-believers would be forgiven by God if they followed their consciences.

Bret responds,

I’m sure the atheist Richard Dawkins is glad to hear this latest statement by Pope Francis, because now he can be forgiven as he follows his conscience in supporting pedophilia. Dawkins recently said,

Referring to his early days at a boarding school in Salisbury, the renown atheist recalled how one of the (unnamed) masters

    “pulled me on his knee and put his hand inside my shorts.”

Dawkins said other children in his school peer group had been molested by the same teacher but concluded:

    “I don’t think he did any of us lasting harm.”

    “I am very conscious that you can’t condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we don’t look back at the 18th and 19th centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can’t find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today,”

Dawkins said.

Dawkins went on to say the most notorious cases of pedophilia involve rape and even murder and should not be bracketed with what he called

    “just mild touching up.”

So now, given Pope Francis’ insight, Richard Dawkins can be forgiven when he, and other unbeliever’s like him follow their conscience in “just mildly touching up” little children. Pedophilia never held so much promise.

Pope Francis weighs in

Responding to a list of questions published in the paper by Mr Scalfari, who is not a Roman Catholic, Francis wrote: “You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don’t believe and who don’t seek the faith. I start by saying – and this is the fundamental thing – that God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience.”

“Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience.”

Bret responds while scratching his head,

Why would the one who does not believe in God go to a God they don’t believe in, with a sincere and contrite heart? The one we are talking about DOESN’T BELIEVE IN GOD.

The article continues,

Robert Mickens, the Vatican correspondent for the Catholic journal The Tablet, said the pontiff’s comments were further evidence of his attempts to shake off the Catholic Church’s fusty image, reinforced by his extremely conservative predecessor Benedict XVI. “Francis is a still a conservative,” said Mr Mickens. “But what this is all about is him seeking to have a more meaningful dialogue with the world.”

Bret responds,

Translated — “In an attempt to convert the world, the world has converted the Papacy and the ‘Church’.”

The article finishes,

In a welcoming response to the letter, Mr Scalfari said the Pope’s comments were “further evidence of his ability and desire to overcome barriers in dialogue with all”.

In July, Francis signaled a more progressive attitude on sexuality, asking: “If someone is gay and is looking for the Lord, who am I to judge him?”

In fairness to Francis, it was said that when Francis said this he was referring to celibate sodomites. Though, after this piece, I’m having my doubts about that Vatican post comment spin.