Category: Uncategorized

Secondly, Justification is not only before faith, but it is from eternity, being an immanent act in the divine mind, and so an internal and eternal one; as may be concluded,

1. From eternal election: the objects of justification are God’s elect; “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? it is God that justifies”; that is, the elect. Now if God’s elect, as such, can have nothing laid to their charge; but are by God acquitted, discharged, and justified; and if they bore this character of elect from eternity, or were chosen in Christ before the world began; then they must be acquitted, discharged and justified so early, so as nothing could be laid to their charge: besides, by electing grace men were put into Christ, and were considered as in him before the foundation of the world; and if they were considered as in him, they must be considered as righteous or unrighteous; not surely as unrighteous, unjustified, and in a state of condemnation; for “there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ”, #Ro 8:1 and therefore must be considered as righteous, and so justified: “Justified then we were, says Dr. Thomas Goodwin {13 — Vol. 9 works} when first elected, though not in our own persons, yet in our Head, as he had our persons then given him, and we came to have a being and an interest in him.”

   Dr. John Gill
   18th Century Baptist Minister

    

   Continuing this line of reasoning and expanding upon it;^{Ephesians 1:3} Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, ⁴ just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, ⁵ having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, ⁶ to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

    

   Here St. Paul clearly writes that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. This is the same “before the foundation of the world” that St. John speaks of Christ wherein having been slain (Rev. 13:8). It was before the foundation of the world that the elect were chosen to be holy and without blame before in love. It is not possible to be holy and without blame before God apart from Justification. Therefore we can only conclude that Justification is from eternity. 

   1PE 1:2 Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied…. 19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 

   You see this eternal aspect here don’t you? St. Peter in vs. 2 is connecting the election of the saints to the blood/work of Jesus Christ. Then the elect are picked up in vs. 19 where Peter speaks of the blood/work of Christ as being foreordained before the foundation of the world, and then connects that foreordained work of Christ with its manifestation in these last times. These last times that Peter speaks of occurred in the 1st century with Christ’s crucifixion. There is a clear connection made by Peter between being elect according to the foreknowledge of God (from all eternity), the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus (which justifies), and the foreordination of all this before the foundation of the world.As the elect were in Christ from the foundation of the world they were in Christ as righteous in the mind of God. The elect were from the foundation of the world justified in the lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world. Further, were God in time to change His disposition upon the elect from wrath to love there would be mutability in God and the attribute of immutability would be lost. God would be seen to be as in process instead of being the eternal I am.

    

    

5.) “All the elect of God were justified in Christ, their Head and Representative, when he rose from the dead, and therefore they believe: Christ engaged as a Surety for all his people from eternity, had their sins imputed to him, and for which he made himself responsible; in the fulness of time he made satisfaction for them by his sufferings and death, and at his resurrection was acquitted and discharged: now as he suffered and died, not as a private, but as a public person, so he rose again, and was justified as such, even as the representative of his people; hence when he rose, they rose with him; and when he was justified, they were justified in him; for he was “delivered for their offences, and was raised again for their justification”,#Ro 4:25 1Ti 3:16 and this is the sense and judgment of many sound and learned divines; as, besides our Sandfords {8} and Dr. Goodwins {9}, the learned Amesius {10}, Hoornbeck {11}, Witsius {12}, and others.”

Dr. John Gill
18th century Baptist Theologian

That which was eternal and imminent to the mind of God found its full instantiation in time and space with the completed cross work of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ who was and is the surety of the elect from all eternity did in the fullness of time work out what was all decreed to happen in God’s eternal counsel. Note that Gill observes that the sins of the elect were imputed to Christ eternally and immanently in the mind of the Triune God. In the fullness of time the counsel and plan of God was incarnated so that what was set apart as accomplished in eternity was accomplished in time. The vindication of Jesus Christ as the righteous one as seen in the resurrection was the justification instantiation of God’s eternally justified people.

Note Gill’s appeal here to Romans 4:25 in this conversation about eternal Justification

Most bibles translate that passage

who (Christ) was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. (ESV)

But the NASB & the NKJV gives the literal translation and so offers

who (Christ) was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.

The debate is over the little Greek word dia which is a primary preposition denoting the channel of an act. Therefore it can be translated “for,” “by” “through,” “because of,” “on account of,” etc. Context will determine the meaning. Obviously there is debate in Romans 4:25 about how to exactly handle that preposition.

In what I am proposing, following Gill and others is that in Romans 4:25 “because of” is entirely accurate as a translation for the Greek “dia.” Christ was delivered up because of our offenses is clear enough. However, the idea that Christ was raised because of our Justification begins to point towards Justification from eternity. Christ was raised in the resurrection because the elect were justified from eternity in Christ. From eternity He was set apart to come accomplish the work for those justified from eternity. Jesus Christ was raised up because of their (already) Justification

So, reading the Peter (I Peter 1:18-19) and Paul as a whole we piece together the truth of Justification from eternity in the mind of God with the work of Jesus Christ where the truth of what the Father had determined for the elect from eternity was instantiatively  accomplished in the work of Jesus Christ.

Then we keep in mind that all reality as determined in the mind of God was as certainly true as when it was instantiated in time and space and we can begin to understand how it is that Scripture can speak of “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8).

Slain from the foundation of the world? How So? Because in the mind of God it was ordained and as ordained it can be spoken of as a past event that lies yet in the future. The same is true of Justification. In the mind of God, we were Justified and because we were justified from eternity Christ was raised because of our objective Justification, and in space and time the Spirit then applies that ordained and accomplished justification to the consciousness of the Believer.

Hebrews 2:14 when read in light of this understanding underscores all this;

Hebrews 2:14 Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

In Christ, God’s elect one, Christ’s elect brothers and sisters were saved from the foundations of the earth.

Note here that the elect were considered children BEFORE they partook of flesh and blood. Being the God of all grace to His pre-incarnate elect children the elect Christ is incarnated that His elect own might be released from the devil and that way by a ordained and objectively accomplished Justification being applied to their consciousness.

It really is as simple as saying that upon the eternal decree to Justify the people of God (I Peter 1:2) it was as good as if all the mechanisms to that end had already happened. We were justified from eternity. Yes, the majestic and benevolent Lord Christ had to come to be raised because of that Justification (Romans 4:25) and the blessed and thrice honored Holy Spirit had to take from the Father’s ordination and the son’s accomplishment of Justification with His Cross work and apply it to the consciousness of the believer in space and time but all of that was a certitude upon the triune God deigning it to be so from eternity past. We were justified from all eternity, though in life we had to wait until the Spirit applied subjectively all that had been forever true in the mind of God.

Because we are time bound creatures we speak of being justified at a certain point in time in our own lives and there is a place for speaking of what we are calling “subjective justification,” but we need to lift our vision up and see the grandiose and magnificent character of the triune God who provided so great a justification. There it is … all before Him. So true that the Spirit can speak of the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. So true that even before we shared in Flesh and blood the Lord Christ had determined to share in flesh and blood to justify his children. So true that while we were still enemies in our dispositions Christ died for us.

What? Certainly it could never be the case that we might actually think that justification only happens upon our decision as if by our decision we make it all come to pass?

Abraham Kuyper put it this way,

“The sinner’s justification need not wait until he is converted, nor until he has become conscious, nor even until he is born. This could not be so if justification depended upon something within him. Then he could not be justified before he existed and had done something. But if justification is not bound to anything in him, then this whole limitation must disappear, and the Lord our God be sovereignly free to render this justification at any moment that He pleases. Hence the Sacred Scripture reveals justification as an eternal act of God, i.e., an act which is not limited by any moment in the human existence. It is for this reason that the child of God, seeking to penetrate into that glorious and delightful reality of his justification, does not feel himself limited to the moment of his conversion but feels that this blessedness flows to him from the eternal depths of the hidden life of God.

It should therefore openly be confessed, and without any abbreviation, that justification does not occur when we become conscious of it, but that, on the contrary, our justification was decided from eternity in the holy judgment-seat of our God.”

Habbakuk 2:4 literally teaches eternal Justification when it says “the just (status/esse) shall live by his faith (knowledge of status/esse).”

 

 

I am starting another series with this post. Much of this series will be drawn from previous posts I’ve made on Radical Two Kingdom theology (R2Kt). However, some of the posts will be new. The goal here is to cobble together a book for the purpose of critiquing R2K theology and the R2K movement as drawn from my work on R2K over the years. This needs to be done because R2K is not going to go away. Because of the disintegration of the West and a muscular Christian World and Life view R2K will remain a competing theology as to what constitutes Christianity. As it is, I would say that if R2K or some derivative thereof if not already the majority report in most “Reformed” pulpits across the nation it is a close second.

In this entry we will begin with a definition of R2Kt.

R2Kt is that expression of Christianity that replaces the totalistic expression of Reformed Christianity as being God’s explicit Word for all of life with an expression of Reformed Christianity wherein God’s explicit Word governs only the Church realm (realm of grace). The common realm (or natural realm) is to be ruled derivatively by God’s “left hand.” What this means is that for the common realm (the realm wherein all of life is lived save for our Church lives and our personal and individual ethics) the Christian man as well as the non-Christian man is dependent upon Natural Law to answer the question, “How shall we then live.”

Jesuit trained David Van Drunen defines Natural Law as;

“The moral order inscribed in the world and especially in human nature, an order that is known to all people through their natural faculties (especially reason and/or conscience) even apart from supernatural divine revelation that binds morally the whole human race.”

This Natural law that all men are to be governed by in the common realm is thus accessible to all men and is necessary and sufficient unto ordering the common realm.

The problem here is several-fold and immediately obvious. First, R2K’s problem is that it does not take into account the noetic affects of the fall upon the children of Adam who have refused Christ. R2K treats fallen man as if he is not fallen in the common realm and so still retains the ability to interpret aright, as acting autonomously, with respect to living in God’s common realm. R2K does not take into account the Scripture’s teaching that fallen man is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18) of what he knows that he knows from Natural law. Man outside of Christ will never be able to live in harmony in any social order with Man in Christ as men outside of Christ become increasingly consistent with their God-hating presuppositions.

At the point of their reliance on fallen man reading natural law so as to govern the common realm R2K advocates actually act in contradiction to their own confession (Canon’s of Dort) when it teaches of ;

that he (fallen man) is incapable of using it (God’s natural light) aright even in things natural and civil. Nay, further, this light, such as it is, man in various ways renders wholly polluted and holds it in unrighteousness, by doing which he becomes inexcusable before God (Canon’s of Dort III & IV Head, Article 4).

At this point R2K becomes quite non-Reformed and even Arminian in its low estimation of the noetic effects of sin on man dead in his sin and trespasses. This observation alone goes a long way towards dismissing R2K as a serious project to be embraced by Reformed Christians.

Understand here the problem is not that natural law does not exist as God making Himself known in all creation. All Reformed admit the reality of natural law. The problem is that natural man is doing everything in his power to escape God’s testimony to and of Himself in natural law. The Belgic Confession of faith, Article 14 puts it this way;

(Fallen man has) “become wicked, perverse, and corrupt in all his ways, (and) he hath lost all his excellent gifts which he had received from God (Rom. 3:10) and only retained a few remains thereof, (Acts 14:16-17; 17:27) which, however, are sufficient to leave man without excuse; (Romans 1:20,21; Acts 17:27) for all the light which is in us is changed into darkness,12 as the Scriptures teach us, saying: The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth13 it not; where St. John calleth men darkness.”

Belgic Confession of Faith 
Article XIV

Ontologically fallen man created in the image of God remains the fingerprint of God but by usage of his epistemological apparatus fallen man does everything he can to escape what he can’t help knowing due to his ontological status as God’s image bearer. This explains why natural law can never be used to form a consensus between regenerated man and fallen man as a consensus builder for social order. This is especially the case as fallen man becomes increasingly consistent with his Christ hating presuppositions as combined with the diminishing of the effects of a Christian shaped and influenced culture pressed upon fallen man.

The second problem with leaning on Natural Law as the norm that norms all norms in the common realm for fallen and regenerated men alike in the “knowing” endeavor is that R2K does not take into account at this point that Natural Law is never read by fallen and autonomous man apart from his presuppositions. This is really an odd fault for the R2K boys since many of them claim to be presupposititionalists and the inheritors of all things Van Til. R2K insists that autonomous man, starting from himself, can, quite apart from any presuppositions read aright and implement aright God’s natural law. Again, we butt into the reality that fallen man has an axe to grind against knowing and admitting what he can’t help but knowing.

Unregenerate man is not reading natural law apart from a Christ-hating bias. As such unregenerate man, especially as he becomes increasingly consistent with his Christ-hating epistemological project, will never be able to form a successful social order with Christ-submitting men by virtue of them both sharing a rational epistemological basis for that shared social order. This is the death knell for the R2K project which believes that in the common realm the Hindu, the Jew, the Muslim, the Baptist, the Confucian, the Satanist can all come together and live in social order harmony because they all have access to natural law and will all use natural law to live in harmony and understanding. The absurdity of it makes one wonder how this project could ever get off the ground.

Just to be clear let us say this directly as possible. The unregenerate reads natural law presupposing his own centrality and own authority with himself as the center of all reality. The unregenerate man does so with ever increasing consistency over the course of time. The regenerate man, on the other hand, reads natural law presupposing the centrality of God and God’s authority as the center of all reality. When the unregenerate man reads natural law aright he is always inconsistent with his self-avowed beginning point. When the regenerate man reads natural law wrongly he is always inconsistent with his self-avowed beginning point. When fallen man reads natural law he reads it as creative. When regenerate man reads natural law he reads it as given.

At this point the R2K boys will protest that there have been many social orders that have appealed to natural law as their epistemic base. I do not deny this. However, what the R2K lads miss here is that the natural law that was being appealed to in Geneva, or in Wittenberg, or even in Rome in its better days was a natural law set in the context of cultures that were largely already Christian. That is to say that where natural law has succeeded apart from a tyrant’s force it has succeeded where the social order was suffused already with Biblical Christianity. Europeans through the centuries could appeal to natural law as social order glue precisely because they together believed in a natural law as read through the lenses of Christianity. As social orders become populated with fallen peoples with those who do not presuppose the God of the Bible there is no way that natural law can or will work.

The third problem of natural law is that there is no such thing as brute facts. All facts are interpreted facts. Natural law posits that all men receive the same brute facts and interprets those facts as they naturally are. However, there is no way that, for example, that a polygynist, a monogamist, and an advocate for sodomite marriage are going to agree on what natural law teaches on marriage. If natural law should find a consensus on anything one would think that the consensus that it could find would be on the alleged brute fact of marriage. However, we see that natural law can not even provide consensus here. All facts are interpreted facts. All facts come to us in terms of some macro philosophy of fact. R2K can write all the tomes they like but the current disintegration of the West along the lines of various interpretations of natural law on something as simple as marriage provides the proof that R2K can at best only provide a lowest common denominator  social order cohesion.

The fourth problem with R2K’s natural law insistence that it alone can provide a social order glue is the multitudinous readings of natural law. Which natural law gives the best explanation of natural law? This is just to observe that for every philosophical system extant there will be a corresponding competing natural law. Do the R2K boys really believe that the natural law of Deism, Pantheism, Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Darwinism, Marxism, Nihilism, Existentialism, Calvinism, are each and all going to coincide for each and all? Do the R2K boys really believe that a social order populated by the adherents of those competing worldviews are all going to read a shared natural law in the same manner?

So, we see with this entry that R2K has a serious epistemological problem. It has not taken seriously either the impact of the fall in its totality on unregenerate man  nor specifically has it taken seriously how the fall has twisted the epistemology of fallen man so badly that there is no way that fallen man, as he becomes increasingly consistent with his epistemological rebellion, will be able to sustain a shared social order regularity with the regenerate.