Thirty-four Theses on
Justification in Relation to Faith, Repentance, and Good Works
By Rev. Norman
Shepherd
Presented to the Presbytery of Philadelphia of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church
November 18, 1978.
- By nature all men
are sinners and are under the wrath and condemnation of God.
- There is nothing
that any man can do to save himself from condemnation or to contribute to his
salvation in any sense or at any point, so that any attempt on the part of man
to save himself not only fails but even serves to compound his guilt.
- Justification is an
act of God, by which He forgives sinners acquitting them of their guilt,
accounts and accepts them as righteous, and bestows upon them the title of
eternal life.
- The term
"justification" may be used with reference to the acquittal and acceptance of
a believer at his effectual calling into union with Christ, or with reference
to the state of forgiveness and acceptance with God into which the believer is
ushered by his effectual calling, or with reference to God's open acquittal
and acceptance of the believer at the final judgment (Matt. 12:36, 37; Rom.
3:22,24; 5:1; 8:1; Gal. 5:5).
- The ground of
justification or the reason or cause why sinners are justified is in no sense
to be found in themselves or in what they do, but is to be found wholly and
exclusively in Jesus Christ and in his mediatorial accomplishment on their
behalf.
- By faith the sinner
receives and rests upon Christ and his righteousness as held forth in the
gospel, and in this way is justified.
- In the application
of redemption in the case of adults, justification is by faith and the sinner
must believe in order to be justified; however, the justifying verdict and the
gift of faith are received together at the moment the sinner is
united to Christ by the Holy Spirit.
- Elect infants who
are saved in infancy and other elect persons, incapable of, or prevented from
exercising faith or repentance or yielding obedience to Christ, are justified
when they are united to Christ by the Holy Spirit.
- In the case of
redeemed infants, justification precedes faith in time, but regeneration given
together with justification in union with Christ inevitably manifests itself
in the exercises of faith, repentance, and obedience to Christ as the child
matures.
- Although believers
are justified by faith alone, they are never justified by a faith that is
alone, because faith as a gift of the Holy Spirit is given together with all
the other gifts and graces flowing from the cross and resurrection of Christ,
and the exercise of faith is coterminous with the exercise of the other gifts
and graces so that when a man begins to believe he also begins to love God and
bring that love to expression through obedience to God (West. Conf. of Faith
XI, 2).
- Justifying faith is
obedient faith, that is, "faith working through love" (Gal. 5:6), and
therefore faith that yields obedience to the commands of Scripture.
- Faith which is not
obedient faith is dead faith and neither saves nor justifies; living and
active faith justifies (James 2:14-26).
- Faith and
repentance are so inextricably intertwined with each other that there cannot
exist a true and saving apprehension of the mercy of Christ without a grief
for and hatred of sin, a turning unto God, and a purposing and endeavoring to
walk with God in all the ways of his commandments (West. Conf. of Faith,
XV,2).
- Repentance,
inclusive not only of grief for and hatred of sin but also of turning from sin
and endeavoring to walk with God in all the ways of his commandments, although
not the ground of forgiveness, is nevertheless so necessary for all sinners,
that there is no pardon without it (West. Conf. of Faith XV, 3).
- The forgiveness of
sin for which repentance is an indispensable necessity is the forgiveness of
sin included in justification, and therefore there is no justification without
repentance.
- Prior to
regeneration in union with Christ, sinners can neither believe, nor repent,
nor perform deeds appropriate to repentance because they are dead in their
trespasses and sins.
- Regeneration is
such a radical, pervasive, and efficacious transformation that it immediately
registers itself in the conscious activity of the person concerned in the
exercise of faith and repentance and new obedience.
- Faith, repentance,
and new obedience are not the cause or ground of salvation or justification,
bur are as covenantal response to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, the
way (Acts 24:14; II Peter 2:2, 21) in which the Lord of the Covenant brings
his people into the full possession of eternal life.
- Those who believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ and are his disciples, who walk in the Spirit and
keep covenant with God, are in a state of justification and will be justified
on the day of judgment; whereas unbelieving, ungodly, unrighteous, and
impenitent sinners who are covenant breakers or strangers to the covenant of
grace, are under the wrath and curse of God, and on the day of judgment will
be condemned to hell forever, unless they flee from the wrath to come by
turning to the Lord in faith and repentance (Psalm 1; John 5:28,29).
- The Pauline
affirmation in Romans 2:13, "the doers of the Law will be justified," is not
to be understood hypothetically in the sense that there are no persons who
fall into that class, but in the sense that faithful disciples of the Lord
Jesus Christ will be justified (Compare Luke 8:21; James 1:22-25).
- The exclusive
ground of the justification of the believer in the state of justification is
the righteousness of Jesus Christ, but his obedience, which is simply the
perseverance of the saints in the way of truth and righteousness, is necessary
to his continuing in a state of justification (Heb. 3:6, 14).
- The righteousness
of Jesus Christ ever remains the exclusive ground of the believer's
justification, but the personal godliness of the believer is also necessary
for his justification in the judgment of the last day (Matt. 7:21-23;
25:31-46; Heb. 12:14).
- Because faith which
is not obedient faith is dead faith, and because repentance is necessary for
the pardon of sin included in justification, and because abiding in Christ by
keeping his commandments (John 15:5; 10; 1John 3:13; 24) are all necessary for
continuing in the state of justification, good works, works done from true
faith, according to the law of God, and for his glory, being the new obedience
wrought by the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer united to Christ,
though not the ground of his justification, are nevertheless necessary for
salvation from eternal condemnation and therefore for justification (Rom.
6:16, 22; Gal. 6:7-9).
- The "works" (Eph.
2:9), or "works of the law" (Rom. 3:28; Gal. 2:16), or "righteousness of my
own derived from the law" (Phil. 3:9), or "deeds which we have done in
righteousness" (Titus 3:5) which are excluded from justification and
salvation, are not "good works" in the Biblical sense of works for which the
believer is created in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:10), or works wrought by the
indwelling Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:9; Gal. 5:22-26), or works done from true faith
(I Thes. 1:3), according to the law of God, and for his glory, but are works
of the flesh (Gal. 3:3) done in unbelief (Gal. 3:12) for the purpose of
meriting God's justifying verdict.
- The Reformed
doctrine of justification by faith alone does not mean that faith in isolation
or abstraction from good works justifies, but that the way of faith (faith
working by love), as opposed to the "works of the law" or any other
conceivable method or justification, is the only way of justification. (John
Calvin, Institutes, III, 11, 20. "Indeed, we confess with Paul that no other
faith justifies 'but faith working through love' [Gal. 5:6]. But it does not
take its power to justify from that working of love. Indeed, it justifies in
no other way but in that it leads us into fellowship with the righteousness of
Christ.").
- The Roman Catholic
doctrine that justification is a process in which the unjust man is
transformed into a just man by the infusion of sacramental grace confuses
justification with sanctification, and contradicts the teaching of Scripture
that justification is a forensic verdict of God by which the ungodly are
received and accepted as righteous on the ground of the imputed righteousness
of Jesus Christ.
- The Roman Catholic
doctrine that faith merits (congruent merit) the infusion of justifying grace,
and that faith formed by love performing good works merits (condign merit)
eternal life contradicts the teaching of Scripture that justification is by
grace through faith apart from the works of the law.
- In the right use of
the law, the people of God neither merit nor seek to merit anything by their
obedience to God, but out of love and gratitude serve the Lord of the Covenant
as sons in the household of the Father and in this way are the beneficiaries
of his fatherly goodness (Mal. 3:16-18).
- The proclamation of
the gospel of sovereign grace must include not only a setting forth of the
sufficiency and perfection of the Redeemer Jesus Christ as the only name under
heaven given among men whereby they must be saved, but must also include an
earnest appeal to sinners to come to Christ in faith, to forsake sin and
unrighteousness, and to perform deeds appropriate to repentance (Acts 26:19,
20).
- Jesus Christ cannot
be received as Savior without submission to him as Lord in one and the same
act of faith, and he cannot be received as Savior and Lord unless he is
presented as Savior and Lord in the proclamation of the gospel.
- Because faith is
called for in all gospel proclamation, exhortations to obedience do not cast
men upon their own resources to save themselves, but are grounded in the
promise of the Spirit to accompany the proclamation of the whole counsel of
God with power so that the response of the whole man called for in the gospel
is wrought in the sinner.
- The election of God
stands firm so that sinners who are united to Christ, justified, and saved,
can never come into condemnation; but within the sphere of covenant life,
election does not cancel out the responsibility of the believer to persevere
in penitent and obedient faith since only they who endure to the end will be
saved (Matt. 24:13; Mark 13:13).
- Though believers
are never without sin in this life, they have no excuse for sinning inasmuch
as they have died and are risen with Christ; nevertheless, their sin does not
bring them into condemnation only because it is covered by the blood of Jesus
to which the believer has continual recourse in prayer.
- The justification,
sanctification, and life of the believer reside wholly and exclusively in
Christ Jesus, and therefore the proclamation of the sole-sufficiency and
all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ is a source of perpetual assurance,
encouragement, and comfort to believers in their warfare against Satan in
obedience to the Lordship of Jesus