I have studied this for awhile and only when understanding Salvation for all, did Paul’s and James definitions of faith actually unite in agreement. You see, James and Paul did not disagree. An inability to understand that true faith is accompanied good works, is what prevents people from understanding that James was tired of people claiming to believe but by their actions demonstrate they did not.
It is like when someone says, “I am your friend, I will always be there for you.” but when push comes to shove they disappear at your greatest need for them. Believing you are a friend, and actually being a friend (even if you don’t believe it) are two different things. A tree is known by it’s fruit it bears and it’s leaves.
It seems plain that the terms “justification” and “sanctification” are not used in scripture in the same way as they are used in the doctrine that teaches that we are “justified” at the point when we first accept Christ and “sanctified” in an ongoing lifelong process.
What I’m wondering is whether the concept of the doctrine is valid, even if the words used don’t match the words in the bible?
But then one gets into atonement theory–or at least I do–because the first step of “Justification” says that we are “declared righteous” by God, because we are credited with Christ’s sinless perfection (imputed righteousness). I do have a problem with that because it is stated so often (and emphatically) in the OT that God will not justify the wicked. This, to me, makes it very clear that God will not credit one person with another’s righteousness.
That’s where I’m at right now, in working on this concept–it’s getting more complex as I go, since everything ties in with everything else, and I have to fit it all together–so I don’t have much to contribute.
I still do think I would say that we are ‘saved’ when we genuinely come to Christ, and that we continue in the process of “being saved” as we continue in Him. But I don’t think I mean it the same way I used to.
If God did not justify the wicked the world would still be lost. Christ came to pay, as man’s substitute, the penalty of Adam’s high treason. The object of his death and resurrection was to free man from Satan’s dominion (Hebrews 2:14) and make it possible for him to receive the life of God (John 1:12). The Holy Spirit comes to impart the nature of God to the spirit of man in the New Birth( John 3:3-8) to make him a New Creature in Christ when we believe and receive salvation.
Think of it like this Sonia… when a person believes what Jesus did for them… the Holy Spirit comes to take out the spirit of sin and death( spiritual death) and replaces it with the spirit of life in Christ ( spiritual life) this is the New Birth or regeneration of your spirit. You go from spiritual death to spiritual life by faith. It happens soon as you believe. This is how you are imputed with Christ’s righteousness. You are perfect in your spirit. The real you. Think of it as an exchange…You give Jesus your sin, and he gives you his right standing with God( righteousness) when you take action and believe what Jesus did for you to make him your personal Sin-Substitute. Your declared Not Guilty. Hope this helps.
We make it more complex than it needs to be, that’s for sure. ‘Justification’ is just another word for salvation. “He loves you. He redeemed you. A big change in what you call ‘life’ is coming.” It’s really all pretty straightforward. But we like to divvy things up, probably to find some way to pay for the Gift. People!
The same things goes for the ‘Imputed or Infused Righteousness’ debate. The Lutheran/Catholic conundrum. If it’s imputed - then why ain’t I perfect, really perfect NOW? If it’s infused - why is He holding back in making that infusion complete NOW?
But as I said earlier, justification (salvation) is bragging on His Justice and Just Gift (the legal) and the ontological change of mankind from Adam to Christ and making true, perfect righteousness possible in us at the resurrection. (the overarching meaning of the term).
‘Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.’
I want to add that God could not impute righteousness to anyone in the Old Testament because Jesus had not gone to the Cross. They could not be born again. What God could do was when they believed it was “credited” or “reckon” unto them righteousness like charging it to a credit card until Jesus went to the cross and paid for it. Hope this helps.
You are perfect in your spirit. The real you. What do you think Born Again means? You go from spiritual death to spiritual life in your spirit. Your a New creation in Christ… a new species. Your no longer in Adam…your in the last Adam… a new species…of course all done by taking action and putting your faith in what Jesus did for you and making him your personal Sin-Substitute.
Btw, did you even read my post in response to Sonia above your post? If not, please read.
I was reading around looking for other material when I noticed I had never answered a couple of questions addressed to me in this thread; so… (hopefully this helps answer Sonia’s question, too.)
Well, among other things, what I said you missed: namely, the rest of the paragraph from which you snipped that comment. It wasn’t even a long paragraph!
The rest of that paragraph was: “but this [declaration of God] belongs to the category of judgmental reckoning: God vouches that we are doing what is just: the Righteous One declares we are indeed doing righteousness. Our own righteousness? No–there is no righteousness than God’s righteousness.”
Immediately after which I went on to say (in a paragraph almost as brief) that the righteousness of God is the only true righteousness, and that the alien righteousness is rather “any attempts of ours to be the standard of righteousness or to find righteousness anywhere other than from God. Thus we alienate ourselves from Him.”
Somehow you took my affirmation, that any attempts of ours to be the standard of righteousness or to find righteousness anywhere other than from God alienates us from God, and that we have no righteousness of our own but the only righteousness is God’s righteousness, and threw that around into being an idea that I (or anyone else) control God; that I think God is impressed with my faith and so therefore in response to that decides to save me; that justification (being made just, not only being declared just which is after the fact) hinges on my own righteousness; and that my essential message here is ‘have faith in your faith’, so that our faith is what justifies us and so saves us.
But you could only do that by treating everything else I wrote, including in immediate context of that one clause you quoted, as if I hadn’t written them at all. And that doesn’t count places you could have more excusably skimmed over, such as where I affirmed the action of God as Christ on the cross as both justification and sanctification, or where I insisted that we can do any faith or cooperation with God, in the righteousness of God, only if the Spirit empowers and leads us to do so. There aren’t many (if any?!) times I talk about us doing righteousness when I don’t immediately qualify it by insisting that we can do no such thing without the empowerment and guidance of the Holy Spirit–Who is thus already acting to save us, of course, without waiting until we do some kind of righteousness first.
Again, I can understand you missing that by skimming over it; but to miss the qualifying statements just next to the place you quoted, where I am clearly not teaching what you’re mocking and flaming me for supposedly teaching, looks awfully like you decided to conveniently ‘skim’ over those parts because otherwise your critique of me would be blown.
(Or–more charitably perhaps?–like you simply latched onto one clause of a few words without bothering to spend the least effort reading even a little more than that, when you could have very easily done so. Even when I specifically invited you to read it afterward and make adjustments thereby.)
