imputed active obedience (IAO), a must or a misdirection? (8)

We saw in the previous blog that both Methodists (C18) and Plymouth Brethren (C19) raised dissenting voices at IAO.  The initial teaching of J N Darby and W Kelly (that justification is located in the death and resurrection of Christ, not IAO) prevailed in Brethren theology well into the C20.  W E Vine (1873-1949), a Brethren Bible Scholar whose influence spread far beyond the boundaries of Brethren chiefly through his celebrated dictionary ‘Vine’s Expository Dictionary of NT Words‘ published 1940, along with C F Hogg another Brethren commentator, writes,

Neither the incarnation of the Son of God, nor His keeping of the law in the days of His flesh availed, in whole or in part, for the redemption of men…. His redemptive work proper began and ended on the cross; …Hence it is nowhere said in the New Testament that Christ kept the law for us. Only His death is vicarious, or substitutionary. He is not said to have borne sin during any part of His life; it was at the cross that He became the sin-bearer  [C. F. Hogg , W. E. Vine , The Epistle of the Galatians, (London; GB: Pickering and Inglis, LTD.), 1959, p.186].

A contemporary of Hogg and Vine, Open Brethren writer John Ritchie (1853-1930) commenting on Romans writes,

The theological phrase, “The righteousness of Christ,” so much used, is not a scriptural term. The meaning usually read into it is, that the sinner having failed to keep the law, Christ has kept it for him, that His obedience is counted mans’ righteousness, and put on all that believe as a “robe.” But this would not be “righteousness apart from law” (Rom. 3:21). If God reckons the sinner to have kept the law because Christ kept the law for him, then righteousness surely comes by law, and the death of Christ was “in vain” (Gal. 2:21). In all this, justification by grace through redemption, has no place. The gospel is not that a sinner is made righteous by the imputation of Christ’s legal obedience on earth, and saved by His death, but rather that “being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him” [John Ritchie, Romans, (Charlotte, NC : The Serious Christian, 1987), p. 161].

More recently, William McDonald (1917-2007), former President of Emmaus Bible College, and Brethren writer, commenting on Romans 5:18 writes,

The righteousness of Christ mentioned in Romans 5: 18 does not mean His righteousness as a Man on earth or His perfect keeping of the law. These are never said to be imputed to us. If they were, then it would not have been necessary for Christ to die. The New American Standard Bible is on target when it translates: “So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.” The “one act of righteousness” was not the Savior’s life or His keeping of the law, but rather His substitutionary death on Calvary’s cross  [William MacDonald, Justification by Faith (Romans), (Kansas City, KS: Walterick Publishers, 1981), p. 62].

Clearly IAO has been resisted by mainstream representatives of Plymouth Brethren theology in the C20.

In the early C20 Brethren influence was quite wide in evangelicalism.  Many reformed churches (in the UK and USA and further afield) had collapsed under the weight of German theology with its Biblical criticism and liberalism.  Evangelical life was nourished in the (now considered) more fundamentalist enclaves influenced by Darby’s dispensationalism.  I am not for a moment saying there was no evangelical life outside of dispensational circles, clearly there was, however, these ‘fundamentalist’ strongholds of the gospel were a significant force in the evangelicalism of the first 50 years of C20. And they were, as I say, influenced by Brethren theology.

For example, in the States, William Newell, Congregational Church pastor, famed preacher, and Assistant Superintendent of the Moody Bible Institute (under R A Torrey) writes in his commentary on Romans,

Jesus’ “was always obedient to His Father, but it cannot be too strongly emphasized that His life before the cross – His ‘active obedience’ … is not in any sense counted to us for righteousness.” (W. Newell Romans, Kregel (2004) Romans 5:19)

Arno C Gaebelein (1861-1945) a prominent and influential Methodist dispensationalist upon whom Wheaton College conferred an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree in 1922 writes,

“The term “Righteousness of God” is much misunderstood. Not a few think it is the righteousness of Christ (a term nowhere used in Scripture) which is attributed to the believing sinner. They teach that Christ fulfilled the law, lived a perfect life on earth and that this righteousness is given to the sinner. All this is unscriptural. Righteousness cannot be bestowed by the law in any sense of the word. If the holy life of the Son of God, lived on earth in perfect righteousness could have saved man and given him righteousness, there was no need for Him to die. “If righteousness came by the law then Christ is dead in vain” (Galatians 2:21). It is God’s righteousness which is now on the side of the believing sinner; the same righteousness which condemns the sinner, covers all who believe. And this righteousness is revealed in the Gospel. God’s righteousness has been fully met and maintained in the atoning work of Christ on the Cross. By that wonderful work God is now enabled to save sinners and to save them righteously. The righteousness of God is therefore first of all revealed in the Gospel of Christ. Apart then from the law, righteousness of God is manifested, the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ. And this righteousness now revealed was also witnessed to by the law and the prophets. The law of the different sacrifices, insufficient in themselves to take away sins, pointed to the great sacrifice, in which God would be fully glorified as well as His righteousness satisfied. There were many types and shadows. Now since the righteousness of God is fully made known in the Gospel we can trace God’s wonderful thoughts and purposes in the types and histories of the Old Testament.  (Isaiah 41:10; 46:13; 51:5, 6, 8; 56:8).” http://biblecentre.org/commentaries/acg_49_romans.htm

The highly influential Scofield Reference Bible, to which Gaebelein had input, avers substantially the same. In Romans 3 Scofield comments,

21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

[1] righteousness of God

The righteousness of God is neither an attribute of God, not the changed character of the believer, but Christ Himself, who fully met in our stead and behalf every demand of the law, and who is, but the act of God called imputation Lev 25:50 Jas 2:23, “made unto us . . righteousness” 1Cor 1:30.

…

23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

…

Sin originated with Satan Isa 14:12-14, entered the world through Adam Rom 5:12, was, and is, universal, Christ alone excepted Rom 3:23 1Pet 2:22, incurs the penalties of spiritual and physical death Gen 2:17 3:19 Ezek 18:4,20 Rom 6:23 and has no remedy but in the sacrificial death of Christ Heb 9:26 Acts 4:12 availed of by faith Acts 13:38,39.

24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

[1] Redemption

…

(1) agorazo, “to purchase in the market.” The underlying thought is of a slave-market. The subjects of redemption are “sold under sin” Rom 7:14 but are, moreover, under sentence of death Ezek 18:4, Jn 3:18,19 Rom 3:19 Gal 3:10, and the purchase price is the blood of the Redeemer who dies in their stead Gal 3:13 2Cor 5:21 Mt 20:28, Mk 10:45 1Tim 2:6 1Pet 1:18…

(3) lutroo, “to loose,” “to set free by paying a price” Jn 8:32 Gal 4:4,5,31 5:13 Rom 8:21. Redemption is by sacrifice and by power See Scofield Note: “Ex 14:30″ Christ paid the price, the Holy Spirit makes deliverance actual in experience Rom 8:2…

25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

[2] propitiation

Lit. a propitiatory [sacrifice], through faith by his blood; Gr. hilasterion, “place of propitiation.” The word occurs, 1Jn 2:2 4:10 as the trans. of hilasmos, “that which propitiates,” “a propitiatory sacrifice.” Hilasterion is used by the Septuagint, and Heb 9:5 for “mercy-seat.” The mercy-seat was sprinkled with atoning blood in the day of atonement Lev 16:14 in token that the righteous sentence of the law had been (typically) carried out, So that what must else have been a judgment-seat could righteously be a mercy-seat Heb 9:11-15 4:14-16, a place of communion Ex 25:21,22.

In fulfilment of the type, Christ is Himself the hilasmos, “that which propitiates,” and the hilasterion, “the place of propitiation” –the mercy-seat sprinkled with His own blood–the token that in our stead He So honoured the law by enduring its righteous sentence that God, who ever foresaw the cross, is vindicated in having “passed over” sins from Adam to Moses Rom 5:13 and the sins of believers under the old covenant See Scofield Note: “Ex 29:33″ and just in justifying sinners under the covenant. There is no thought in propitiation of placating a vengeful God, but of doing right by His holy law and so making it possible for Him righteously to show mercy.

26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

[3] righteousness

“His righteousness” here is God’s consistency with His own law and holiness in freely justifying a sinner who believes in Christ; that is, one in whose behalf Christ has met every demand of the law Rom 10:4.

28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

[4] Justification

Justification, Summary: Justification and righteousness are inseparably united in Scripture by the fact that the same word (dikaios, “righteous”; dikaioo, “to justify”) is used for both. The believing sinner is justified because Christ, having borne his sins on the cross, has been “made unto him righteousness” 1Cor 1:30. Justification originates in grace Rom 3:24 Ti 3:4,5 is through the redemptive and propitiatory work of Christ, who has vindicated the law Rom 3:24,25 5:9 is by faith, not works Rom 3:28-30 4:5 5:1 Gal 2:16 3:8,24 and may be defined as the judicial act of God whereby He justly declares righteous one who believes on Jesus Christ. It is the Judge Himself Rom 8:31-34 who thus declares. The justified believer has been in court, only to learn that nothing is laid to his charge. Rom 8:1,33,34...

31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

[5] Do we then

The sinner establishes the law in its right use and honour by confessing his guilt, and acknowledging that by it he is justly condemned. Christ, on the sinner’s behalf, establishes the law by enduring its penalty, death. Cf. Mt 5:17,18.

“Imputation is the act of God whereby He accounts righteousness to the believer in Christ, who has borne the believer’s sins in vindication of the law” (C. I. Scofield, Scofield Study Bible, p. 1308).

It should be obvious from the above that for Scofield (both a Congregationalist and Presbyterian in his career) the demand of the law for a sinner (death) was met in Christ’s death.  In his death the law is vindicated and upheld.  There is no mention here of IAO. Again, it is worth underlining that the Scofield Bible notes were the source of much popular evangelical theology throughout the greater part of the C20.

Robert P. Lightner, Amyraldian Baptist and previous Professor of Systematic theology at Dallas Seminary  In 1970, commenting on IAO and the supposed vicariously atoning life sufferings of Christ, he wrote:

First, the view fails to take into account that before the fall, Adam did not have a sin nature. Instead, it assumes that to be rightly related to God, Adam and his posterity were required to render perfect obedience to the commands of God. . . .It is not too much to say that the whole concept of the vicarious nature of Christ’s active obedience rests primarily upon the idea of the covenant of works. Since the supposed covenant promised eternal life for obedience and since Adam disobeyed and all his posterity in him, Christ, the Last Adam, came to accomplish what the first Adam failed to do. The fact that Adam came from the hands of the Creator, sinlessly perfect must not be overlooked. Thus the command of God to obey Him was not designed to produce eternal life in him or to relate him rightly to God. He already enjoyed a state of sinlessness and a proper relation to and right standing before his Creator. Contrary to the contention of covenant theologians, Scripture does not say that Adam would have inherited eternal life had he obeyed God. Human effort is never presented as a condition of salvation in Scripture for any dispensation; rather, the command of God to Adam was designed to demonstrate his submission to the authority of God.Second, the view amounts to a minimizing of the cross work of Christ. . . . Thus, according to this view, the death of Christ on the cross was not the sole basis upon which God provided redemption and everlasting life for man. If the life sufferings be viewed as substitutionary and vicarious, then the Savior’s passive obedience in the shedding of His blood on the cross must be viewed as less than the total or complete means by which God through His Son atoned for sin. The blood shed at Calvary would then constitute only part of the payment for sin.

Third, the most serious weakness of all is the stark fact that no Scripture assigns substitution to the life sufferings of Christ. On the contrary, Scripture abounds with evidence that through His substitutionary death on the cross, and through that alone, He took the sinner’s place and died in the sinner’s stead (Isa 53:6–7; Rom 3:18, 3:24–25 , 5:7–9 ; 2 Cor 5:14–21; 1 Peter 2:24). The defense of the vicarious nature of Christ’s active obedience for His suffering in life is voluminous, but scriptural proof is conspicuous by its absence.8 Lightner, Robert P., “The Savior’s Suffering in Life,” Bibliotheca Sacra 127:505 (1970) 33-34

In 1986, he made a similar argument specifically against the imputation of Christ’s active obedience to the believer while critiquing Theonomy:

A basic premise in the theological structure of theonomy, along with covenant Reformed theology, is the belief that Christ’s active obedience to the Law during His life was as substitutionary as His passive obedience in death. . . . That Christ obeyed perfectly the Law and suffered greatly during His life is not denied or even disputed by dispensationalists. The crucial question, however, is, Why did He suffer in life? What was accomplished by His obedience to the Law? Scripture simply does not teach that the life sufferings of Christ were vicarious. Rather it stresses His death alone as a substitution for sin and sinners. To be sure, the Savior’s sinless life demonstrated that He was qualified to be the sinner’s Substitute, but He atoned for sin only on the cross, where He became a curse (Gal 3:13). Viewing Christ’s active obedience in His life as substitutionary is the natural result of believing that God promised Adam and his posterity eternal life if he would obey God’s command not to eat of the forbidden fruit. Since Adam did not obey God’s command or law, Christ, the last Adam came and did in His life what the first Adam failed to do—to earn righteousness for His own. In this view the death of Christ was not the only basis on which God made substitution for man’s sin. Theonomy and Reformed theology in general believe that through His active obedience the Savior carried His people beyond the point where Adam was before he fell to give them a claim to eternal life. Dispensationalists do not view the theological covenant of works as promising Adam and his posterity eternal life for obedience. God promised Adam death for disobedience, not eternal life for obedience. Furthermore did not Adam possess creaturely perfection as he came from the creative hand of God? Was not all that God made “very good” (Gen 1:31), including man? Theonomy teaches that the way of salvation before the Fall differed from the way of salvation after the Fall. That is a strange doctrine coming from those who falsely accuse dispensationalists of believing in more than one way of salvation. 9 Lightner, Robert P., “A Dispensational Response to Theonomy,” Bibliotheca Sacra 143:571 (1986) 233-

Although a good number of dispensationalists did teach IAO, many were reluctant to do so and tended to emphasize simply the death of Christ.

Alva McClain, founder and first President of Grace Theological Seminary (Brethren by background) typically writes

Justification: “… deals with the guilt of sin. When a man sins, he is guilty and therefore deserves to be punished. In justification, God declares a man righteous, by virtue of the death of Christ on his behalf. … Thus justification is a declarative act of God. Justification does not make a man righteous. …. It means that God declares him to be righteous” (Alva McClain, Romans p. 140)

Thomas Constable, currently DTS Senior Professor of Bible Exposition observes,

“The obedience of Christ is a reference to His death as the ultimate act of obedience rather than to His life of obedience since it is His death that saves us.” (Notes on Romans 5:19 Pg 60)

Even George Eldon Ladd, who accepts IAO concedes in his NT Theology,

“Paul never states explicitly that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to believers.” (George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament p.491)

Actually, I think it is fair to say that in the popular American fundamentalist/evangelicalism of the main part of C20, IAO, for most, was something unknown.  It was not part of the gospel as commonly preached.  The following  sermon, attributed online to Billy Graham but more probably that of Wil Pounds (since his name is injected), himself a Southerner,  a graduate of William Carey College and  New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, prolific writer, preacher and missionary, seems fairly typical of American fundamentalist/evangelical  preaching even yet,

We have been saved by grace through faith. The apostle Paul emphatically states, “a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.” (Galatians 2:16).

Justification is a legal standing with God based upon Christ’s death and resurrection and our faith in Him. The word Paul uses (dikaioo), comes from Roman legal courts meaning to declare to be righteous, or to pronounce righteous. Therefore, justification is the legal and formal acquittal from guilt by God who is Judge. It is the pronouncement of the sinner as righteous, who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s suppose for a moment that I died tonight and stood before the Lord God who is the Supreme Judge of the Universe. No doubt He would ask me, “Wil Pounds, why should I let you into my heaven? You are a guilty sinner. How do you plead?”

My response would be, “I plead guilty, Your Honor.”

My advocate, Jesus Christ, who is standing there beside me speaks up for me. He says, “Your Honor. It is true that Wil Pounds is a grievous sinner. He is guilty. However, Father, I died for him on the cross and rose from the dead. Wil Pounds has put his faith and trust in Me and all that I have done for Him on the Cross. He is a believer. I died for him, and he has accepted Me as his substitute.”

The Lord God turns to me and says, “Is that true?”

I will respond to Him, “Yes sir! That is the truth. I am claiming the shed blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse me of all my sins. I have put my faith in Jesus to save me for all eternity. This is what You have promised in Your Word. Jesus said, ‘For God so loved the world (and this includes Wil Pounds), that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’”

The Lord God responds: “Acquitted! By order of this court I demand that you be set free. The price has been paid by My Son.”

Furthermore, I get to go home and live with the Judge!

Justification means that at the moment of salvation God sovereignly declares the believing sinner righteous in His sight. The believing sinner is declared to be righteous in His standing before God. From that moment on throughout life, through death, that sinner who has believed is now and forever right before God. God accepts him, and he stands acquitted of his sins.

A man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified (Galatians 2:16). (Find here.)

I submit that in the States it is only the ascendency in recent years of a more confessionally reformed evangelicalism that has once again raised the profile of IAO.

The UK story of C20 evangelicalism is somewhat different to the States.  Dispensationalism never gained the hold in the UK to the extent it did in the States.  However, like the States, in the first half of the C20 mainline reformed churches were deeply compromised by liberalism.  I am unsure just how widespread Brethren theological influence was, some say significantly so.  What is clear is that there were attempts by various writers to tone down the rhetoric of IAO.

H C G Moule, Anglican Bishop of Durham from 1901, convinced and influential evangelical, in his ‘Outlines of Christian Doctrines’ he writes,

A few words may come in here on the Imputed Righteousness of Christ. This phrase, once widely accepted, and not least by such Anglicans as Andrewes and Beveridge (cent. xvii.), is now much disputed, and even repudiated. But it rests securely upon Rom iv. 6, with its context. There has been a tendency to over-refinement upon it; a too elaborate distinction between our Lord’s active keeping of the moral law and His awful suffering beneath the penalty of our sins; the one considered as supplying our defects, the other as meeting our violations. But this is not the essential view of the phrase; and we see this all the more as we remember (above, p. 83) the profound connexion between the obedience of our Lord’s life and the merit of His Passion. The essential of the phrase is just this, that the Son of God, as the supremely meritorious One, as infinitely satisfactory to law, is, before the law, and for the purposes of law, accepted, reckoned as the believing sinner’s substitute. The man, incorporated in Him, is counted, reputed, as involved in His whole merit, as the Lord was counted, reputed, as involved in the man’s sin. His merit is thus imputed, that is to say, set down, to the man.  H C G Moule  Outlines of Christian doctrine 1889  Pg 188

Moule seems anxious to step back apace from a bald IAO.  James Denney, Free Church minister and Professor of Systematics at the Free Church College from 1897  until his death in 1917 seems to feel the same.  He writes in his book ‘The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation’,

But in proportion as men rose above the conception of sin and satisfaction, as mere things or abstract ideas, and had their faith and attention concentrated on the personal Saviour by whom they were reconciled to God, this position became intolerable. It left no significance for salvation to anything in Jesus except His death. It almost prompts us to ask again, as Athanasius did, why He did not die whenever He was born, and make the satisfaction in the most direct way.

The Christian soul felt instinctively that the life of Jesus must come into His work somehow as well as His death; wherever we see Jesus, in whatever attitude, however engaged, reconciling virtue goes out of Him. This was recognised when the life of Christ was dragged in, so to speak, side by side with His death, and, though it had not the significance of satisfaction for sin assigned to it, was nevertheless invested with another significance equally necessary to salvation. The life was the active obedience and the death the passive obedience, and though they were alike in respect that both were obedience, each fulfilled its separate and independent function.

Thus the Westminster Confession, in c. Xi. , repeatedly distinguishes in this way the “obedience and satisfaction” of Christ, or His ”obedience and death, ” the satisfaction or death being the ground on which we are cleared from sin, while the obedience constitutes a righteousness of Christ which is imputed to believers.

The utmost refinements or discriminations in this mode of thought were probably to be found in the Puritan theologians of America.

• “Though the Redeemer obeyed in suffering and suffered in obeying, and His highest and most meritorious obedience was acted out in His voluntary suffering unto death, and in this greatest instance of His suffering the atonement which He made chiefly consisted; yet His obedience and suffering are two perfectly distinct things, and answered different ends, and must be considered so, and the distinction and difference carefully and with clearness kept up in the mind, in order to have a proper understanding of this very important subject. The sufferings of Christ, as such, made atonement for sin, as He suffered the penalty of the law or the curse of it, the evil threatened to transgression, and which is the desert of it, in the sinner’s stead, by which He opened the way for sinners being delivered from the curse, and laid the foundation for reconciliation between God and the transgressors, by His not imputing but pardoning their sins who believe in the Redeemer and approve of His character and conduct.  By the obedience of Christ, all the positive good, all those favours and blessings are united and obtained, which sinners need in order to enjoy complete and eternal redemption or everlasting life in the kingdom of God. ” *

More important, however, than any such refinements was the persistence of the idea that the whole work of Christ, His active and passive obedience, constituted in some sense a merit or merits, in virtue of which men could be reconciled to God. It is to God, in the first instance, that the life and death of Christ have value; and it is out of regard to  their value, jointly or separately in other words, it is propter Christum that God admits men to His peace, or that men are justified or reconciled to God. Theologians, from the greatest to the least, are at one here. (James Denney: The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation   Hodder and Stoughton : Cunningham Lectures 1917: Pg 94-96)

Denney holds to the importance of active and passive obedience (as do all believers) but refuses to insist on the refinements that advocates of IAO say is vital to evangelical orthodoxy.

A more recent British theologian like I Howard Marshall (an evangelical Methodist) seeks to put the dogma of Christ’s imputed righteousness in perspective when he says, the imputed

‘righteousness of Christ may be a fair inference . . . but it goes beyond what Paul actually says” (p. 312 n. 10).

Given this diversity within evangelical orthodoxy over many centuries it is hardly surprising that the same differences regarding what is meant by imputation exist today.  The views expressed on imputation by Federal Visionists, N T Wright, Robert Gundry and Mark Seifrid are hardly novel, they simply are in line with evangelicals throughout the centuries who have baulked at the classical expression of imputation in covenant theology.  They baulked because they doubted its biblical validity. It is the same today.  Michael Bird observes,

‘It is no accident, then, that in New Testament theologians’ recent and current treatments of justification, you would be hard-pressed to find any discussion of an imputation of Christ’s righteousness . . . The notion is passe, neither because of Roman Catholic influence nor because of theological liberalism, but because of fidelity to the relevant biblical texts. (M Bird, Incorporated Righteousness).

Whatever may be said of how Federal Vision, Mark Seifrid, Robert Gundry or N T Wright understand other aspects of justification, on this aspect it seems crystal clear they are well within any reasonable definition of evangelical orthodoxy.  More importantly, they stand comfortably within biblical orthodoxy, that is, their view on imputed righteousness is not simply consonant with historical evangelical belief but with biblical teaching.

The litmus test for any belief must be Scripture.  It is Scripture that must test the veracity of IAO and any other theological construct.  In my view, the biblical case for IAO is less than compelling.

In summary, the case for IAO being integral to evangelical orthodoxy is found wanting.  I hope to demonstrate in future blogs that  the case for it being biblically cogent is weak.

imputed active obedience (IAO), a must or a misdirection? (7)

This is the third blog examining whether, historically considered, IAO is a necessary part of evangelical orthodoxy.  Two previous blogs argued that IAO although present (even dominant) in the evangelicalism of  C16 and early 17, it was by no means unanimously so.  The same can be said of the evangelicalism of the late C17 – C19.

C17

Although, through the Confessions, Covenant theology was becoming standard, in the late C17 a number of Puritans questioned the view that justification involved the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.  Richard Baxter, Christopher Cartwright, John Goodwin, and Benjamin Woodbridge held that imputation of faith was the formal cause of justification.  John Owen and Richard Baxter in particular apparently differed vehemently over this doctrine.

C18

Regarding IAO, John Wesley seemed to oscillate a little.  Early in his career Wesley wrote, “Do not dispute for that particular phrase ‘the imputed righteousness of Christ.’ It is not scriptural.”.

Michael Bird asserts,

‘Interpreters of Wesley have long noted that such remarks arise from a suspicion that imputed righteousness could potentially foster antinomianism and stifle the pursuit of righteousness.  However, under a barrage of criticism Wesley attempted to assuage his reformed critics in his sermon “The Lord our Righteousness” where he asserts, “To all believers the righteousness of Christ is imputed; to unbelievers it is not.’ (M. Bird Incorporated Righteousness: This is an excellent article that all studying this theme should read.  Find here.)

It would appear that while Wesley adhered to imputation he always had his reservations.  According to Jeff Paton, later in life, while in a debate with Rowland Hill, Wesley seemed to reject the notion of the imputed righteousness of Christ.   Paton writes,

In a debate with Mr. Rowland Hill, Wesley quotes his remarks and responds to them. (Hill) “Mr. Wesley “winds up this point of imputed righteousness with a resolution which astonishes me, that “he will never use the phrase, the imputed righteousness of Christ, unless it occur to him in a hymn, or steal upon him unawares.” Wesley responded to this complaint, “This is my resolution. I repeat once more what I said in the “Remarks:” “The thing, that we are justified merely for the sake of what Christ has done and suffered, I have constantly and earnestly maintained above four-and-thirty years. And I have frequently used the phrase, hoping thereby to please others “for their good to edification.” But it has had a contrary effect, since so many improve it into an objection. Therefore I will use it no more .” ( I mean, the phrase imputed righteousness; that phrase, the imputed righteousness of Christ, I never did use.)…And I will advise all my brethren, all who are in connection with me throughout the three kingdoms, to lay aside that ambiguous, unscriptural phrase, (the imputed righteousness of Christ,) which is so liable to be misinterpreted.”(Works 10:429, 430.)

It appears that a significant element within subsequent Methodism and Wesleyan thinking was hostile to IAO.  Adam Clarke, a follower of Wesley remembered mainly for his Commentary on the whole Bible which took him 40 years to complete and which was a primary Methodist theological resource for two centuries, wrote in a letter in the early C19,

“My DEAR BROTHER Dunn, Jan. 21st, 1823.

I am quite of Mr. Wesley’s mind, that once “we leaned too much toward Calvinism,” and especially in admitting in any sense, the unscriptural doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ. I never use the distinction of righteousness imputed, righteousness imparted, righteousness practiced. In no part of the book of God is Christ’s righteousness ever said to be imputed to us for our justification; .and I greatly doubt whether the doctrine of Christ’s active obedience in our justification does not take away from the infinite merit of his sacrificial death….I have long thought that the doctrine of imputed righteousness, as held by certain people, is equally compounded of Pharisaism and Antinomianism. (Christian Theology, Adam Clarke, Pages 140-142).

Paton cites too, ‘The Student’s Handbook of Christian Theology‘, by Benjamin Field, published 1870,

This doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ is capable of great abuse. To say that Christ’s personal righteousness is imputed to every true believer, is not Scriptural: to say that he has fulfilled all righteousness for us, in our stead, if by this is meant his fulfillment of all moral duties, is neither Scriptural nor true; that~ he has died in our stead, is a great, glorious, and Scriptural truth; that there is no redemption but through his blood is asserted beyond all contradiction in the oracles of God. (The Student’s Handbook of Christian Theology‘ by , Benjamin Field, Pages 199, 201.)

Another citation of Paton’s is from  the C20 Arminian work ‘ELEMENTS OF DIVINITY’  THOMAS N. RALSTON,

‘The Calvinistic theory of the basis for justification represents an opposite error from those already described. It affirms that the active obedience of Christ is so imputed to believers that they are as legally righteous as if they had been perfectly obedient to the law of God. In its extreme form it is antinomian. It rests on and is a part of the Calvinistic doctrine of imputation. It admits of no real forgiveness of the individual. When Christ’s obedience has been counted or imputed to the sinner as if he had done that obedience, then he is properly regarded as just because he is just. This is the theory in its advanced form. Those whom God declares to be righteous must first be made righteous in fact. In this theory justification is forensic in the strictest sense.

Imputation of righteousness to us in the sense that Christ obeyed the law of God in our stead and we therefore merit the reward of that obedience is not supported by the Scriptures, but is only an assumption of a certain class of theologians. Let us examine some of the texts chiefly relied upon for substantiation of this theory. “He shall be called, the Lord our righteousness” (Jer. 23: 6). It is said he shall be called our righteousness because he is our righteousness. Doubtless this is true. But in what sense is he our righteousness? He can be such only in the sense that he is the procurer of our righteousness or justification. “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (Roms. 5:19) Here again the words of the text furnish no conclusive proof of Calvinistic imputation. The question is, how does the obedience of Christ make many righteous? In our consideration of modal theories of native depravity, it has already been shown that the first part of this text can not mean many were made sinners by the imputation to them of the guilt of Adam’s sin. Through the passive obedience of Christ in suffering the death of the cross we are made righteous. This is taught in many other texts (John 10:17, 18; Phil. 2:8; Heb. 10: 10). Our justification is through the blood of Christ. No reason exists for supposing the text under consideration teaches anything more than that we are justified as a result of Christ’s obedience in dying to atone for our sins. Other texts assumed to support the theory under review are equally void of support of it as are those here cited.’ (ELEMENTS OF DIVINITY, THOMAS N. RALSTON, D.D., 1942 PAGES 377, 382; Find here)

Whether one agrees with Wesleyan theology or otherwise, it seems clear that IAO was viewed with some equivocation by John Wesley and denied by a good number of his heirs.  Thus a large section of C18-20 evangelicalism (Methodism) had doubts about IAO.

C19

If Wesleyan Methodism mounted an evangelical challenge to IAO in the C18 then Plymouth Brethren did so in the C19.  John Nelson Darby and William Kelly, fathers of both Christian Brethren and of dispensationalism, opposed IAO.

J N Darby, in one of a number of articles written in response to accusations regarding his view on justification writes,

What I deny is the doctrine that, while the death of Christ cleanses us from sin, His keeping the law is our positive righteousness; and that His keeping the law is imputed to us as ourselves under it, and that law-keeping is positive righteousness. I believe that Christ perfectly glorified God by obedience even unto death, and that it is to our profit, in that, while His death has canceled all our sins, we are accepted according to His present acceptance in God’s sight,…being held to be risen with Him, our position before God is not legal righteousness, or measured by Christ’s keeping the law, but His present acceptance, as risen…, and we accounted righteous according to the value of His resurrection  [J. N. Darby, Collected Writings, vol.14, (Kingston-on-Thames, GB: Stow Hill Bible and Tract Depot, ND), p. 250].

William Kelly held the same view.  While commenting on Roms 3:21-25 in ‘The righteousness of God: what is it?‘ he observes,

Here, then, we have the righteousness of God developed in the simplest and clearest way. It means that God is just, and justifies in virtue of Christ. He is just, because sin has been met in the cross: sin has been judged of God; it has been suffered and atoned for by Christ. More than that: the Lord Jesus has so magnified God, and so glorified His character, that there is a positive debt now on the other side. Instead of the obligation being, as it was, altogether on man’s side, who was accumulating that which never could be paid for by him, God now has interposed, and, having been so magnified in the man Christ Jesus in His death, He is now positively just when He justifies the soul that believes in Jesus. It is consequently the righteousness of God. For God is now approving Himself righteous to the claims of Christ. It is God now that owns and discharges His debt to Christ. Christ has undertaken the cause for God, and also for man. Very God, still He was a man; and it was in human nature, not before its assumption, that the wonderful work of atonement was done. The consequence is, although it was the witness of God’s love that He gave His own Son, and gave His Son to become a man and die for men, that now the scale is turned. The debt of man to destroy him is not so great as that which Christ has paid to deliver him. Scripture makes it a matter of God righteously justifying him that believes, in virtue of what Christ has suffered for sins. Thus nothing can be clearer or fuller, nothing more blessed and precious, than the meaning of this remarkable expression. It is, indeed, a priceless treasure. What Christ did, as living here, is not the point; or surely, where we have the great unfolding of divine righteousness was just the place to bring in what occupied Christ in His life, if it were the ground of this truth.

But I go further. Show me anywhere an unambiguous portion of the word of God, where His fulfilling of the law is treated as a part of the righteousness of God. You can produce none. I can tell you some of those Scriptures which, perhaps, you think about; but I affirm that there is no proof whatever. It is better to be plain about that which is certain. Let others venture to say, if they will, what can be contradicted; it were well, in such a case, not to speak at all. But really there is no Scripture which makes what Christ was doing as under law, — I will not say the exclusive ground, but — any ground at all, of God’s righteousness. Why not produce one?

… In Scripture, then, nothing can be more certain than that God’s righteousness means His justice in justifying by virtue of Christ. We have seen in Christ, as the ground of justification, first, blood to put away the guilt of the old man before God; and next, resurrection, the spring of a new, more abundant, and holy life, where no condemnation can be. “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” And what do men substitute for this? A mere patching up of the old man as living under the law! Are you prepared to follow them? Can you accept this traditional earthly scheme as Christianity? It is really no better than lowering Christ, and His work for our justification, to a making up of the flesh’s deficiencies as responsible under the law.* Is this YOUR Christianity?’ (Find here.)

Neither Darby nor Kelly tended to mince their words, but then, neither did their antagonists. Subsequently, Darby’s views, on dispensationalism and other matters, played an important role in the development of C19/20 evangelicalism.  While many mainline confessional Calvinistic churches in Europe and the States were leavened by liberalism it was those more fundamentalist churches influenced by dispensationalism that withstood this pressure.

Plymouth Brethren churches proliferated, particularly those of an ‘Open’ persuasion.  They became, especially in the first half of the C20, a significant force and voice in evangelicalism as it then was. Most Brethren churches (assemblies) resisted IAO.  Moreover, as Darby’s dispensationalism (itself an assault on the Covenant Theology on which IAO became predicated) spread in the evangelical world beyond, Brethren, not only in the UK, States and Australia but in Europe too (Darby translated Scripture into English, French and German) so too did questioning of IAO.

In the next blog on this topic, we will consider this influence on C20 evangelical theology.  However, once again we see that significant dissident voices in the Protestant Evangelicalism of the C17-19 (people who founded whole evangelical denominations) either were uncomfortable with, or opposed IAO.  Once again, the case for IAO being integral to evangelical orthodoxy is found wanting.

more cool communion comments

I must draw your attention to further blogs by Nicky Mackison on a Brethren Communion Service.  They are to my mind first class.

the lord’s supper brethren style

Brethren churches get a lot of flack, not least from those who are members.  Some of this is deserved and self-criticism is healthy.  However, by no means all is deserved and some is destructive.   I thoroughly recommend this blog by Nicky Mackison on the Lord’s Supper within an Open Brethren tradition.   Like Nicky, I think this service is central to biblical faith and to much that is wholesome about Brethren piety.

I hope his comments are widely read and look forward to further blogs he may make on this topic.