In my first blog on this topic I suggested the claim that IAO is integral to evangelical orthodoxy is historically weak. At the moment I am on the second of three blogs making a case for this claim. My case is necessarily heavily dependent on secondary sources. I am, however, endeavouring to use sources recognised for their objectivity. Not a few are actually pro-IAO.
We saw in the previous blog on this topic that it is hard to argue, as is argued today, that IAO was a necessary part of the orthodoxy of the initial Magisterial Reformers. Instead we are obliged to regard it as late-Reformational. Mark Seifrid writes,
‘To insist that one define justification in terms of ‘the imputation of Christ’s righteousness’ is to adopt a late-Reformational Protestant understanding…it is impossible to force Luther into this paradigm… Shall we then declare Luther outside the Reformation? (Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates Pg 149)
Bruce McCormack in his essay in ‘Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates on Justification‘ in the book of a similar title writes,
In its fully developed form the [Protestant] alternative [to Roman Catholic infused righteousness] was to understand justification in terms of a twofold imputation… Now I have deliberately styled this form of the Protestant doctrine of Justification as the ‘fully developed form’. I do so in order to indicate it is the product of a development in thought. It did not suddenly appear, as if overnight, in the early years of the Reformation but was the result of a good bit of refinement. In this development, the decisive role was played – for both Reformed and Lutherans – by Calvin’s response to the challenge of a one-time lutheran by the name of Andreas Osiander. ((Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates Pg 91,92)
Osiander, ‘the heterodox father of Protestant orthodoxy’, subsequent to Luther’s death, claimed that only the indwelling divine presence of Christ justifies. Ironically too, according to Seifrid, it was ‘apparently Osiander who first assigned the active and passive obedience different roles in Justification’. Osiander’s mystical views that by faith we share in the essential righteousness of Christ, according to McCormack, led to Calvin’s mature doctrine of Justification which he presented in his 1559 edition of his Institutes (material not found in previous editions).
Thus it is late in the Reformation before IAO became accepted. Even then, it was not accepted uniformly. Many doubted and rejected it. The evidence lies in persons and confessions. For example there seems to be some doubt that it was fully accepted by Ursinus, one of the two architects of the Heidelberg Confession (http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2007/03/28/) and certainly it was criticised by a student of Ursinus, David Paraeus who says the whole debate called forth
“more of dangerous speculation, than of solid truth, and more of learning, than of faith.” (R W Landis What Were the Views Entertained by the Early Reformers, on the Doctrine of Justification, Faith, and the Active Obedience of Christ?” Pg 422)
Dr Wes White, another advocate of IAO acknowledges,
To begin with, even though this denial was condemned by the French Reformed Churches (though this view was later tolerated even there), a great part of the Reformed Churches did not reject as ministers those who denied active obedience, let alone count them as heretics. For example, clearly Gataker, Twisse, and Vines denied the imputation of the active obedience of Christ, but they and their views were tolerated by the Westminster Assembly. Second, there were various ministers throughout the Reformed Churches who held this viewpoint, such as John Jacob Alting who taught at Groningen in the Netherlands. Third, the theologians of Saumur also denied the imputation of the active obedience of Christ. Of course, the Swiss Reformed Churches condemned this viewpoint and other Salmurian views in the Formula Consensus Helvetica, but other Churches did not. Fourth, this denial was extremely common amongst the German Reformed Churches including theologians such as Piscator, Ursinus, Pareus, Crocius, Marinius, Wendelin, and Scultetus (among others!). Consequently, we can see that a significant minority did deny the imputation of the active obedience of Christ often with toleration. (http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2007/03/28/)
Let me cite a Scottish Reformer of the period Robert Rollock (d. 1588), the first Principal of the University of Edinburgh:
“It may be demanded, Had it not been sufficient for our good, and to the end he might redeem us, if he had only lived well and holily, and not also so to have suffered death for us? I answer, it had not sufficed. For all his most holy and righteous works had not satisfied the justice and wrath of God for our sins, nor merited the mercy of God, reconciliation, righteousness, and life eternal for us. The reason is, for that the justice of God did require for our breach of God’s covenant, that we should be punished with death eternal, according to the condition denounced and annexed to the promise of that covenant. Therefore, no good works of our own, or of any mediator for us, after the breach of that covenant of works, could have satisfied the justice of God, which of necessity after a sort required the punishment and death of the offender, or certainly of some mediator in his stead. If, then, all the good and holy works of the Mediator could not satisfy that wrath and justice of God for sin, it is clear they could not merit any new grace or mercy of God for us.
But you will say, that the good and holy works of Christ our Mediator have wrought some part at least of that satisfaction, whereby God’s justice was appeased for us, and some part of that merit whereby God’s favour was purchased for us? I answer, these works did serve properly for no part of satisfaction or merit for us: for that, to speak properly, the death of Christ and his passion only did satisfy God’s justice, and merited his mercy for us.
If any will yet farther demand, May we not divide the satisfaction and merit of Christ into his doings and sufferings, that we may speak on this manner, Christ by his death and passion hath satisfied God’s justice, and by his good and holy works he hath merited God’s mercy for us, that so satisfaction may be ascribed to his death, and merit to his works; that the righteousness wherewith we are justified before God may be partly the satisfaction which Christ performed by his death for us, partly the merits which he obtained by his works for us? I answer; to speak properly, the satisfaction and merit which is by the passion of Christ only, both was and is our righteousness, or the satisfactory and meritorious death of Christ, or the satisfaction which was by Christ’s death, or the merit of his death, or the obedience of Christ, as being obedient to his Father unto the death, the death also of the cross, to be short, that justice of Christ which he obtained when in his passion he satisfied his Father’s wrath- this is our righteousness. For we may say, that either the death of Christ, or his satisfaction, or his merit, or his obedience, or his righteousness, is imputed unto us for righteousness. For all these are taken for one and the same thing.
But here it may be replied, If the works of Christ cannot properly procure for us any satisfaction nor merit, nor any part of satisfaction or merit, then it may be demanded, What hath been, and what is the use of Christ’s works, or of his active obedience, or of
the obedience of his life? I answer, that the holiness of the person of Christ, and of his natures, divine and human, and of his works, is the very ground or foundation of the satisfaction and merit which we have in the passion of Christ. That is, the excellency and worthiness of that person and of his works did cause that his passion was both satisfactory and meritorious: for if this person which suffered had not been so holy and excellent, as also his life so pure and godly, it is most certain that his passion could neither have satisfied God’s wrath nor merited mercy for us. For which cause the Apostle, (Heb. vii. 26,) speaking of this ground of his meritorious passion of Christ, saith that such an high priest it became us to have, which is holy, blameless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.”From A Treatise of God’s Effectual Calling, pp. 53-55 in The Select Works
of Robert Rollock, Vol. 1 (Woodrow Society 1849)
Evidently, Rollock was a Reformed dissenter from IAO of the period. That there were dissenters to IAO is clear and this is reflected in the various Reformed confessions. From some, such as the Augsburg Confession (1530) it is clearly absent locating justification solely in the satisfaction of the cross.
Also they [the Scriptures] teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight. Rom. 3 and 4. ( Article IV of Justification)
In others such as the Second London Baptist Confession (1689) it is clearly present.
Those whom God effectually calls He also freely justifies, not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting them as righteous, not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone. They are not justified because God reckons as their righteousness either their faith, their believing, or any other act of evangelical obedience. They are justified wholly and solely because God imputes to them Christ’s righteousness. He imputes to them Christ’s active obedience to the whole law and His passive obedience in death. They receive Christ’s righteousness by faith, and rest on Him. They do not possess or produce this faith themselves, it is the gift of God. (Article XI)
Though it is entirely absent from the previous LBC of 1644
That those which have union with Christ, are justified from all their sins, past, present, and to come, by the blood of Christ; which justification we conceive to be a gracious and free acquittance of a guilty, sinful creature, from all sin by God, through the satisfaction that Christ hath made by his death; and this applied in the manifestation of it through faith. (Article XXVIII)
In other confessions the obedience of Christ is mentioned but the active and passive distinction is missing and the wording makes it difficult to assess whether IAO is intended or simply Christ’s obedience in death. The Belgic Confession of 1561 reads rather like the latter.
We believe that our salvation consists in the remission of our sins for Jesus Christ’s sake, sad that therein our righteousness before God is implied: as David and Paul teach us, declaring this to be the happiness of man, that God imputes righteousness to him without works. And the same apostle says, that we are justified freely by his grace, through the redemption which is in Jesus Christ. And therefore we always hold fast this foundation, ascribing all the glory to God, humbling ourselves before him, and acknowledging ourselves to be such as we really are, without presuming to trust in any thing in ourselves, or in any merit of ours, relying and resting upon the obedience of Christ crucified alone, which becomes ours, when we believe in him. (Article XXII bold mine)
Later revisions of this confession align themselves more firmly with IAO. Others, like the Westminster Confession of Faith may be interpreted either way.
The Lord Jesus, by His perfect obedience, and sacrifice of Himself, which He, through the eternal Spirit, once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of His Father; and purchased, not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for all those whom the Father hath given unto Him. (Section VII article V)
Apparently the Westminster divines had intended to write ‘whole obedience‘ but under pressure from those who dissented from IAO declined. G A Van Court, himself an advocate of IAO, writes,
It is a little known fact that “the imputation of Christ’s active obedience was a matter of
prolonged debate at the [Westminster] Assembly.”A minority, most notably Thomas
Gataker (1574–1654), William Twisse (1578–1646) and Richard Vines (1600–1656),
believed that “Christ’s sufferings and death, or passive obedience, alone are imputed to
the believer.”
Thus the WCF chose language that accommodated their consciences. Dr. J.V. Fesko, a Presbyterian andstrong advocate of IAO who considers the omission (of ‘whole’) as “a deficiency in the Confession,” regretfully comments,
“This clearly allows for the position of Gataker, Twisse, and Vines on this subject.’ (Quoted with reference in The Obedience of Christ: A Response to Steve Lehrer and Geoff Volker by Gregory A. Van Court)
The same absence of IAO is found in the Thirty-nine Articles and Homilies of the Church of England (1563 and 1547 respectively). In all probability such accommodation explains the cautious wording of other confessions too. Remember that most confessions are consensus documents and are worded in such ways as to maintain this consensus.
The truth seems to be that while many Reformed folks in the C16/17 (to say nothing of Evangelicals outside the confessionally Reformed side of Protestantism) affirmed IAO, a significant number did not and the early divines were not inclined to make the differences of the substance of the faith IAO was not considered a matter of orthodoxy thus confessions allowed for differing views on the subject.
Scottish theologian, Free Church founder, and historian William Cunningham summed up the wisdom of the debate like this:
It [the distinction between active and passive obedience] is to be traced rather to the more minute and subtle speculations, to which the doctrine of justification was afterwards subjected; and though the distinction is quite in accordance with the analogy of faith, and may be of use in aiding the formation of distinct and definitive conceptions, it is not of any great practical importance and need not be much pressed or insisted on, if men heartily and intelligently ascribe their forgiveness and acceptance wholly to what Christ has done and suffered in their room and stead. There is no ground in anything Calvin has written for asserting, that he would have denied or rejected this distinction, if it had been presented to him. But it was perhaps more in accordance with the cautious and reverential spirit in which he usually conducted his investigations into divine things, to abstain from any minute and definite statements (The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1967], 404).
For the Reformers and their immediate followers, ‘of the substance of the faith’ was justification by faith alone. Also ‘of the substance’ was imputed righteousness. The precise detail of how this righteousness was achieved was in the final analysis a matter of conscience. Nowhere was this latter point more evidently so than in the debate over IAO.
Again the case for insisting on IAO as a matter of historical evangelical orthodoxy is seen to be weak, indeed found to be wanting.
(to be continued)
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