Where did the Resurrection go?
“The sole ground of justification is the fulfillment of the condition of the covenant of works by Christ in his active and passive obedience.”
Dr. R. Scott Clark ~ THESES ON COVENANT THEOLOGY
Just a few questions. Does the Resurrection fit into either the category of Jesus’ active or passive obedience? Does the resurrection have anything to do with our justification? If not, then what did Paul mean here?
Romans 4:25
He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
And can anyone tell me where the idea comes from that Jesus fulfilled the Covenant of Works? When I read the Reformed confessions, I see Jesus fulfilling His obligations under the Covenant of Grace, but I see nothing referencing His undertaking in the Covenant of Works.
March 30, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Read Clark, ed. Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry. There’s an entire chapter devoted. Indeed there’s an entire volume on this. See also the Johnson/Waters eds vol on justification from Crossway.
March 31, 2008 at 3:58 am
Thanks! I will.
March 31, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Christ didn’t EARN our justification by rising from the dead. He earned it by obeying the covenant of works on our behalf. He earned it by taking our curse for us, see Gal 3. He became a curse for us. But what curse? The curse of the covenant of works. He took on those curses for us (passive obedience). And he also fulfilled the terms of that covenant for us as well, obeying the law on our behalf (active obedience).
It is Christ’s actions in the covenant of works on our behalf that serves as the ground of the covenant of grace. This transaction takes place according to the covenant of redemption, the pactum salutis, if you will.
Jesus is not under the covenant of grace. He submits to the covenant of works acting in our stead. He does this according to the terms of the covenant of redemption, which is just how we explain Christ talking about doing what the Father gave him to do, etc. So he was born under the law, under the covenant of works, to act on our behalf as our representative. That’s how he can take on our curse and obey/fulfill the law for us.
Then when he was raised, he reaped the promised eschatological blessings of the covenant of works, which blessings would have been earned by Adam had he obeyed. God had made an oath to Adam, binding himself to this covenant of works. Once God had bound himself to man in a covenant, in this context, Adam could have and should have earned the glorification that Christ was granted at his resurrection.
But since Christ is our representative in the covenant of works (if we are united to him by faith in the covenant of grace), then it is therefore true that since he was raised - which vindicates his completed covenant-of-works work - then we too will be raised, as if we had accomplished what Christ accomplished.
According to the covenant of grace, Christ becomes our representative in the covenant of works by faith alone. By faith alone, we are united to his merits which he performed in the context of the covenant of works on our behalf. This is the covenant of grace.
It was the covenant of redemption - pactum salutis, council of peace - that ordained all of this from all eternity. If Jesus, the Son, would come to earth and accomplish the fulfillment of the covenant of works, then the Father would give him a people for his bride, and the Spirit would ensure that Christ was effectually applied to them.
It is in the eternal councils of the Godhead, the Trinity, where our election takes place, where Christ is promised a people, a kingdom, etc. Then Christ comes to earth and actually acts in the context of the covenant of works, which allows us to enter into the covenant of grace.
That was probably too abbreviated a statement to be very helpful, but this is in condensed form what you’ll encounter in CJPM, the recent faculty volume of WSCAL that Dr. Clark recommended.
E
March 31, 2008 at 5:15 pm
E, I love how you just make a bunch a assertions and expect people to just go, “Thanks!
”
But your assertions, as clear as they seemingly are to you, are fraught with problems. I don’t have all day, so I’ll just hit one big one for now.
So obligation to the Law is not a term of the Covenant of Grace? Chapters 7 and 19 of the Westminster Confession would differ with you on that point.
Also, please note that the *active/passive distinction* with regard to the imputation of Christ’s righteousness does not find its way into *any* of the Presbyterian or Continental Reformed confessions. Not Westminster, nor the Three Forms. You don’t see the distinction being officially confessed until the Congregational (Savoy) and Baptist (London) Confessions. So *PLEASE* stop pretending the concept is crucial to historic Reformed orthodoxy. It isn’t.
Please try supporting your assertions about Christ and the Covenant of Works with some historical data.
Thanks!
March 31, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Ron,
The language of active and passive obedience is not present, but the concept is even present in Luther in talking about Rom 1:16-17.
Don’t demand modern parlance from people who were writing 350 years ago.
In the shorter catechism on justification, for example, it talks about the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us by faith alone being the ground of our justification. The righteousness that is here imputed is both his active and passive obedience. What they mean by righteousness is what is now distinguished into these two categories of obedience, which just stems from the terms of the covenant on the one hand (active), and the curses for disobedience on the other (passive). John Murray writes of this very clearly in Redemption Accomplished and Applied, for example. Even though I think his covenant theology is a bit off, he still managed to get that straight. And I’ve already proved to you in another thread that the notion of Christ’s merit is in the confession. By that very word in the one place, and conceptually in others.
Now where on earth do you get the idea that the law constitutes the terms of the covenant of grace from chapters 7 & 19?
As to the assertive nature of my post, well, yeah, that’s what I was trying to do. I wasn’t making an argument, just stating what we believe. Dr. Clark pointed you to CJPM, where extensive arguments are made, which arguments are better than I could reproduce here. I merely summarized the substance of what is argued for there. You asked a question, and I told you how I would answer it, as exemplary of those of us who think along the same lines as the book that was recommended to you.
The only question now is, will you actually read those arguments and give them careful consideration? Clearly you’ve read plenty of FV writers, and others I’m sure as well. Now will you give the other side a fair hearing or not?
YOU are the one with questions. If you want to be very confident in your FV way of thinking, then raise devastating objections to what is in CJPM. But I think you’ll find that if you read through that book carefully, that what you have come to believe will be challenged to a great extent at just about every point. And that’s always a good thing.
I bet that your FV theology won’t stand up to a careful read of that book. I bet it convinces you. I bet it answers every objection you can think of, and you’ll be left feeling very convinced that the FV guys are wrong.
Prove me wrong.
April 1, 2008 at 8:53 am
Ron,
Paul tells the Galatians that, if they want to be circumcised, then they are obligated to keep the whole Law. Yes indeed, there are two ways to be saved: either by keeping the whole Law perfectly (which no one can do), or by trusting in the only One Who ever kept the whole Law perfectly. This is why the imputation of the active obedience is vital, even part of the gospel. Indeed, John Owen believed clearly and rightly that to deny the *imputation* of the active obedience was to deny the gospel itself.
So why did God see *perfect* obedience to the Law as a means of salvation? Because indeed, it could be merited only if kept perfectly. Why else would Galatians say what it says?
But only One has ever merited justification for us. His Name is the Lord Our Righteousness.
April 1, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Ron,
I think Echo’s post was to just summarize the book for you, not so much as make assertions (this time).
Regarding CoW and meriting righteousness, I came across these verses in a sermon on the iPod recently. It made me wonder. I don’t have a point, but just that I thought it interesting:
kazoo
April 1, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Jeff,
You make a great point (even though you thought you didn’t have one!). How much of the Law being obeyed would merit eternal life according to Dt 6? “ALL these statutes,” “ALL these commandments.” Our Lord summarizes the Law for us nicely: Love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Anyone who says they have done this must now say that they have kept and obeyed ALL the Law, so then, they must have merited righteousness.
But of course, there is only One Who merited righteousness: Christ Jesus, the Lord Our Righteousness.
April 1, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Just why is his name, “The Lord is our righteousness” according to Jeremiah?
April 2, 2008 at 6:44 am
I’ll take that action…
April 2, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Echo asserts nakedly and wrongly,
This is false. This may be how they taught you to understand it at WSC, but it is historically untenable. Not all the Westminster Assemblymen affirmed the imputation of Christ’s active obedience, so how could that be what they meant when they approved the documents?
Echo asks,
You are misquoting me (no surprise). This may be how they teach you at WSC to address the views of people with whom you disagree, but the best way is to accurately represent their actual view and then address their actual view.
What I said was that obligation to God’s Law is A term of the Covenant of Grace. Chapter 7 in the confession states that the Mosaic Covenant was an administration of the Covenant of Grace. They also refer to this time as “under the law”. Was obligation to God’s Law not a term of the covenant when God’s covenant people were “under the law”?
Chapter 19.5 states, “The moral law does forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that, not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator, who gave it. Neither does Christ, in the Gospel, any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation.” So the obligation of the Law continues as a term under the New Covenant Administration of the Covenant of Grace.
Somehow, I doubt this. I’ll read it and take away from it what I can, but there are two very distinct camps in reformedom right now and they think on radically different terms. Also, I have read a number of reviews (not only by FV guys) and many have proven that the book misrepresents FV views over and over. For instance, ”… when one writer asks—on the basis of the chapter titles (!) of Shepherd’s Call of Grace—if Shepherd is ‘implying that given the reality of the covenant there is no need for the message of justification by faith’ (Jones, 319, n. 13), we have cause for concern about our standards for scholarship.” Mark Garcia, Review Article: No Reformed Theology of Justification?
April 2, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Josh states,
First, that is a non sequitur. I trust “the only One Who ever kept the whole Law perfectly”, but I am not sure about His Law keeping being imputed to me.
And if it is so vital to the gospel, why is it so absent from Paul’s letters? The Cross and the Resurrection are all he ever talks about. Where does he ever mention Jesus’ Law keeping being imputed to us?
Finally, I don’t see how moral obligation can be a term of the Covenant if Jesus did that in our stead. We are not cursed because Jesus was cursed in our stead. I believe the same would be true of moral obligation if Jesus obeyed the Law of God in our stead.
Where did he say this? I know he included it in the Savoy Declaration, but in his 1677 “The Doctrine of Justification”, he said there were different views among “learned divines of the Reformed churches” but that they all held to the essential doctrine. Check it out: http://motherkirk.blogspot.com/2007/02/imputation-of-christs-active-obedience.html