Justification

[Lamb]

I want to add a more positive note to my previous post's comments about community-salvation and individual-salvation. I am inclined to think that within the Catholic Church more emphasis is placed upon the community aspect of Christian life than may be the case in some Protestant denominations and it is also true that Catholic practices are community oriented more than they are individual oriented (with the exception of the rite of reconciliation).

I agree with this. Thinking of baptism (not trying to change the course of this thread but using example), the Church is more about the family than about the individual and that's just like the Hebrews and the Jews who were concerned with their family and not just self. If something happened that was from God, they wanted it to be applied to their entire family...not just to self.

 

[MennoSota]

I agree with this. Thinking of baptism (not trying to change the course of this thread but using example), the Church is more about the family than about the individual and that's just like the Hebrews and the Jews who were concerned with their family and not just self. If something happened that was from God, they wanted it to be applied to their entire family...not just to self.

What people want and how God works are not always the same. When it comes to justification, God chooses whom he wills. What human families or people groups want is irrelevant.
God did not justify all of Israel just because they traced their lineage to Jacob. Many, perhaps even most, died in their trespasses and sins apart from redemption and justification. God never knew them as his child.
Sadly, this can be said for a number of denominations in Christianity who preach a corporate justification even though individual faith is non-existent. Many, perhaps most, die in their trespasses and sins apart from redemption and justification. God never knew them as his child.

 

[Josiah]

What people want and how God works are not always the same. When it comes to justification, God chooses whom he wills. What human families or people groups want is irrelevant.

Your RADICAL individualism is quite irreconcilable with biblical thought.... I point you ONCE AGAIN to just one (just one) example: The last of the 10 Plagues of Egypt. Boys were LITERALLY SAVED. Not because of ANYTHING they thought or did or earned, but because their PARENTS (and/or the community) obeyed God and believed - THEY (not the first born) killed a lamb and put some of the blood on the doorpost of their homes, and when the Angel of Death came, he passed over the home SAVING THE LIFE OF THE SON. How was the child saved? Not because of anything in or about that child but because of the faith and actions of the parents/community. I find this a lot with Baptists and Evangelicals - this uber individualism from the Enlightenment infecting Christianity entirely eliminating another feature that they must evade and deny: community. This too is where I find it IMPOSSIBLE for one to be both Reformed and a Baptist (although I know such exists) - Reformed accepts (even stresses) community, Anabaptist theology is the opposite, with a bold rejection of it.






Thank you.


- Josiah

 

[hedrick]

Anabaptist theology is the opposite, with a bold rejection of it.

There is certainly an individualist strain in Baptist thought. But not so much the groups currently identified as Anabaptist -- Mennonites, Amish, etc.

I do agree with Josiah on the basic point. Jesus specifically, and the NT in general, does emphasize the community. Jesus said he came to establish the Kingdom of God. In the Last Supper he said he was dying to establish the new covenant of Jer 31:31. The whole concept of covenant is that there is a people of God, not just individuals. That doesn't remove the need for personal faith, but the exposition of justification in Romans is part of what is largely a discussion of the identity of God's people. I don't go quite as far as Wright in deemphasizing the individual implications, but still, it is clear that God is renewing the world. God so loved the *world*, not just isolated individuals.

 

[MoreCoffee]

There is certainly an individualist strain in Baptist thought. But not so much the groups currently identified as Anabaptist -- Mennonites, Amish, etc.

I do agree with Josiah on the basic point. Jesus specifically, and the NT in general, does emphasize the community. Jesus said he came to establish the Kingdom of God. In the Last Supper he said he was dying to establish the new covenant of Jer 31:31. The whole concept of covenant is that there is a people of God, not just individuals. That doesn't remove the need for personal faith, but the exposition of justification in Romans is part of what is largely a discussion of the identity of God's people. I don't go quite as far as Wright in deemphasizing the individual implications, but still, it is clear that God is renewing the world. God so loved the *world*, not just isolated individuals.

English nowadays uses "you" for both individuals (singular) or groups (plural) but in the past English had Thee and Thou for individuals and Ye and You for groups. Greek also has the equivalent of Thee/Thou for individuals and Ye/You for groups. Reading the scriptures of the new testament with Thee/Thou and Ye/You is helpful when knowing what is meant - an individual or a group - matters.

 

[Arsenios]

Albion!

You are here too!
I just arrived...
Nice to see you here!

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

And Hedrik here too?

Too good!

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

"Justify" is a verb in Greek, of which all the other translations are versions... dikaiw... It is the action of the dik- root, which means "right-" or "rect-", and it means to make right, to "rectify"... We find it, for instance, here:
Rom 3:30
Seeing it is one God,
Who shall justify the circumcision by faith,
and uncircumcision through faith.
The word here is the simple 3rd person singular future indicative verb - δικαιωσει - meaning "He shall make right..."

The legal features of this term are derived from the primary one, so that in law, one is said to be right based upon the judgement that one is right... One is justified in court in a dispute - eg one is made right verbally, in the opinion of someone judging the merits of the controversy... Yet it is the actual making right that is the primary meaning of the term... The Psalmist writes: "Create in me a new heart O Lord, and renew a right Spirit within me..." This indicates that God can and does make right the person repenting from his evil in that Psalm [50 (51 in the LXX)]... So it is fairly obvious that it is God Who actually makes us right, and this being made right by God is God's Righteousness, and not our own, that we attain... Yet we do attain it, IF God gives it to us and makes us Right by the "right Spirit within us."

It is an error to affirm that God merely declares the unrighteous to be righteous... For one thing, He is not that weak...

Enough for now... δικαιωμα, δικαιωματος, δικαιωσιν, and δικαιοσυνης, all found in Rom 5:16-18, refer to different features of the δικ- root... Finding one English root to translate all three is no small matter...

Arsenios

 

[MoreCoffee]

"Justify" is a verb in Greek, of which all the other translations are versions... dikaiw... It is the action of the dik- root, which means "right-" or "rect-", and it means to make right, to "rectify"... We find it, for instance, here:
Rom 3:30
Seeing it is one God,
Who shall justify the circumcision by faith,
and uncircumcision through faith.
The word here is the simple 3rd person singular future indicative verb - δικαιωσει - meaning "He shall make right..."

The legal features of this term are derived from the primary one, so that in law, one is said to be right based upon the judgement that one is right... One is justified in court in a dispute - eg one is made right verbally, in the opinion of someone judging the merits of the controversy... Yet it is the actual making right that is the primary meaning of the term... The Psalmist writes: "Create in me a new heart O Lord, and renew a right Spirit within me..." This indicates that God can and does make right the person repenting from his evil in that Psalm [50 (51 in the LXX)]... So it is fairly obvious that it is God Who actually makes us right, and this being made right by God is God's Righteousness, and not our own, that we attain... Yet we do attain it, IF God gives it to us and makes us Right by the "right Spirit within us."

It is an error to affirm that God merely declares the unrighteous to be righteous... For one thing, He is not that weak...

Enough for now... δικαιωμα, δικαιωματος, δικαιωσιν, and δικαιοσυνης, all found in Rom 5:16-18, refer to different features of the δικ- root... Finding one English root to translate all three is no small matter...

Arsenios

You're right. The idea is to "make right" or in a passive voice it can be to "be made right". Many Catholic bibles use the phrases "made right: and "make right".

 

[Arsenios]

You're right. The idea is to "make right" or in a passive voice it can be to "be made right".
Many Catholic bibles use the phrases "made right: and "make right".

Well, justification by God is not a mere legal fiction declared by God - That is a silly notion...
The race is ongoing to the end, living a repentant life and conducting one's self as a member of the Body of Christ - Which means participating insofar as one can in the daily Services of the Church, and especially the Mysteries of Confession, Repentance, Communion, and daily prayers and the giving of Alms, forgiving all and loving even one's enemies...

Scripture tells us to be asking that we should be receiving, and I have personally come to the opinion, my own, that asking in words is not what is effective, but asking in deeds - For the merciful receive mercy, the forgiving receive forgiveness, and those who receive healing of infirmities live lives that scorn the infirmities that they have, that God should heal them, because they have asked by not yielding to their own infirmities... I remember my first Kneeling Service with its long prayers as my knees were killing me on the hard marble floor, and in that agony, most everyone was collapsed in full prostration... So I made a decision to utterly disregard the agony and let my dumb knees hurt all they wanted to hurt, but I was not going to get off of them - A dangerous thing to do, because of the temptation of pride... But I did it, and was crippled for a month and a half, but God seems to have heard my request, and I have not had any knee pain during those prayers ever since that day - The weakness was removed...

No, I did not remove the infirmity, as an athlete might boast in his self-imposed conditioning - But God did, and I am persuaded that had I not willingly endured the pain and damage the first time, He would have granted THAT request as well...

Now the point of the story is that I can now say that I have "righteous knees", but they came through the suffering of that first service, yet the righteousness of my knees was not my own doing, but God's making them firm in response to my letting them hurt... A trivial example, no question, but illustrative of the interactive nature of repentance and God's Grace of healing in response to it... I did not force the Grace in any way, but I did ask in the Faith to be able to DO the kneeling that those long prayers entailed, by doing them through pain... Ballerinas and MMA fighters and other athletes all do somewhat the same - with varying results... Weak hand structure in a fighter can sideline his carreer... There is a reason the Apostle compares the praxis of this Faith of Christ to someone engaged in an athletic contest!

But the Scripture is clear: Man repents, and God heals...

Arsenios

ps - You DO know, I am sure, that More Coffee is the 8th Sacrament, do you not??

 

[MoreCoffee]

Well, justification by God is not a mere legal fiction declared by God - That is a silly notion...

Calling God's saving actions a fiction is always a dangerous move and in the case of Justification it is especially dangerous to both one's soul and one's theology.

 

[Josiah]

IMO, the view that Jesus is the Savior - and thus Jesus does that saving (not self) is not a dangerous or silly view. It is the the whole basis of Christianity, the point on which Christianity stands or falls.

 

[Arsenios]

IMO, the view that Jesus is the Savior - and thus Jesus does that saving (not self) is not a dangerous or silly view. It is the the whole basis of Christianity, the point on which Christianity stands or falls.

I am still trying to find someone who will answer this question:
If Christ gives Salvation to man, what is it that He gives?
I agree that only God CAN give Salvation...
But what is the Salvation that only He CAN give?
Then what does man have to do in order that God give him Salvation?

Arsenios

 

[MoreCoffee]

Saint Paul said

Acts 17:22 ... “Athenian citizens, I note that, in every way, you are very religious. 23 As I walked around, looking at your shrines, I even discovered an altar with this inscription: To an unknown God. Now, what you worship as unknown, I intend to make known to you. 24 God, who made the world and all that is in it, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands, being as he is Lord of heaven and earth. 25 Nor does his worship depend on anything made by human hands, as if he were in need. Rather, it is he who gives life and breath and everything else, to everyone. 26 From one stock he created the whole human race, to live throughout all the earth, and he fixed the time and the boundaries of each nation. 27 He wanted them to seek him by themselves, even if it was only by groping for him, that they succeed in finding him. Yet, he is not far from any one of us. 28 For, in him, we live and move, and have our being; as some of your poets have said: for we, too, are his offspring. 29 If we are indeed God’s offspring, we ought not to think of divinity as something like a statue of gold or silver or stone, a product of human art and imagination. 30 But now, God prefers to overlook this time of ignorance; and he calls on all people to change their ways. 31 He has already set a day, on which he will judge the world with justice through a man he has appointed. And, so that all may believe it, he has just given a sign, by raising this man from the dead.”​

If everything we have, our life, our abilities, everything is from God then nothing that any one does is independent of God. No Catholic worth his/her salt, no matter what you may think of their theology, believes that they save themselves.

 

[MennoSota]

"Justify" is a verb in Greek, of which all the other translations are versions... dikaiw... It is the action of the dik- root, which means "right-" or "rect-", and it means to make right, to "rectify"... We find it, for instance, here:
Rom 3:30
Seeing it is one God,
Who shall justify the circumcision by faith,
and uncircumcision through faith.
The word here is the simple 3rd person singular future indicative verb - δικαιωσει - meaning "He shall make right..."

The legal features of this term are derived from the primary one, so that in law, one is said to be right based upon the judgement that one is right... One is justified in court in a dispute - eg one is made right verbally, in the opinion of someone judging the merits of the controversy... Yet it is the actual making right that is the primary meaning of the term... The Psalmist writes: "Create in me a new heart O Lord, and renew a right Spirit within me..." This indicates that God can and does make right the person repenting from his evil in that Psalm [50 (51 in the LXX)]... So it is fairly obvious that it is God Who actually makes us right, and this being made right by God is God's Righteousness, and not our own, that we attain... Yet we do attain it, IF God gives it to us and makes us Right by the "right Spirit within us."

It is an error to affirm that God merely declares the unrighteous to be righteous... For one thing, He is not that weak...

Enough for now... δικαιωμα, δικαιωματος, δικαιωσιν, and δικαιοσυνης, all found in Rom 5:16-18, refer to different features of the δικ- root... Finding one English root to translate all three is no small matter...

Arsenios

...you spelled judgment wrong. Can you justify this?

 

[MennoSota]

Well, justification by God is not a mere legal fiction declared by God - That is a silly notion...
The race is ongoing to the end, living a repentant life and conducting one's self as a member of the Body of Christ - Which means participating insofar as one can in the daily Services of the Church, and especially the Mysteries of Confession, Repentance, Communion, and daily prayers and the giving of Alms, forgiving all and loving even one's enemies...

Scripture tells us to be asking that we should be receiving, and I have personally come to the opinion, my own, that asking in words is not what is effective, but asking in deeds - For the merciful receive mercy, the forgiving receive forgiveness, and those who receive healing of infirmities live lives that scorn the infirmities that they have, that God should heal them, because they have asked by not yielding to their own infirmities... I remember my first Kneeling Service with its long prayers as my knees were killing me on the hard marble floor, and in that agony, most everyone was collapsed in full prostration... So I made a decision to utterly disregard the agony and let my dumb knees hurt all they wanted to hurt, but I was not going to get off of them - A dangerous thing to do, because of the temptation of pride... But I did it, and was crippled for a month and a half, but God seems to have heard my request, and I have not had any knee pain during those prayers ever since that day - The weakness was removed...

No, I did not remove the infirmity, as an athlete might boast in his self-imposed conditioning - But God did, and I am persuaded that had I not willingly endured the pain and damage the first time, He would have granted THAT request as well...

Now the point of the story is that I can now say that I have "righteous knees", but they came through the suffering of that first service, yet the righteousness of my knees was not my own doing, but God's making them firm in response to my letting them hurt... A trivial example, no question, but illustrative of the interactive nature of repentance and God's Grace of healing in response to it... I did not force the Grace in any way, but I did ask in the Faith to be able to DO the kneeling that those long prayers entailed, by doing them through pain... Ballerinas and MMA fighters and other athletes all do somewhat the same - with varying results... Weak hand structure in a fighter can sideline his carreer... There is a reason the Apostle compares the praxis of this Faith of Christ to someone engaged in an athletic contest!

But the Scripture is clear: Man repents, and God heals...

Arsenios

ps - You DO know, I am sure, that More Coffee is the 8th Sacrament, do you not??

You remind me of Luther before he understood justification. I believe he climbed stone stairs on his knees in an attempt to suffer for God. If you think God finds your willingness to damage your body to show your dedication pleasing to Him, then bust your knees up to your hearts content. Paul wrote to the Galatians as a counter to those who wanted to abuse themselves in an attempt to be self-righteous.
Are we justified by our works or by God's grace?

 

[MennoSota]

I am still trying to find someone who will answer this question:
If Christ gives Salvation to man, what is it that He gives?
I agree that only God CAN give Salvation...
But what is the Salvation that only He CAN give?
Then what does man have to do in order that God give him Salvation?

Arsenios

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Ephesians 1:3-14
[3]All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.
[4]Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.
[5]God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
[6]So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.
[7]He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.
[8]He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.
[9]God has now revealed to us his mysterious plan regarding Christ, a plan to fulfill his own good pleasure.
[10]And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth.
[11]Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan.
[12]God’s purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God.
[13]And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago.
[14]The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.

 

[Josiah]

I am still trying to find someone who will answer this question:
If Christ gives Salvation to man, what is it that He gives?

Heaven rather than Hell..... justification rather than damnation..... life rather than death..... forgiveness rather than punishment.

Then what does man have to do in order that God give him Salvation?

Nothing. You answered your own question in the question since "give" indicates a gift rather than a payment or reward. Protestants believe that Jesus is the Savior and therefore Jesus does the saving. If one holds that FIRST people must earn salvation, then Jesus is irrelevant (as Paul stated in Scripture). At a jail, some asked the Apostles that question and the reply was "believe in Jesus and you will be saved." Of course, Scripture notes that such faith is "the gift of God." Protestants believe justification (narrow) is Sola Gratia - Solus Christus - Sola Fide (as ONE inseparable doctrine), you know, John 3:16. And that it's all God's doing, God's free gift "lest anyone should boast" (as Scripture states). Jesus is the Savior, thus self is not (job's taken); if we are justified it's all because of Jesus since He is the Savior. It is the perspective of Protestants that if one insists that SELF is the actual cause of self being justified, then Jesus by definition is not the Savior (He may be a Helper or Possibility-Maker or Example but He cannot be the Savior if self is).


See post #2, 3 and 8




- Josiah




.

 

[hedrick]

Rectify is a fine translation, but there’s some ambiguity about it. It makes make right. But what do you mean by right?

The Protestant tradition says declare righteous, with a forensic tilt, meaning declare not guilty before God. In Protestant theology this is something that happens once (arguably, at Jesus’ death) and is permanent. Rectify is fine for this, as it means make right with God.

The Catholic tradition says make righteous, with a focus on the Christian life. So it’s a continuing process, which can be interrupted. This can still be called rectification, with the understanding that rectification is an ongoing process.

This is in some sense a false dichotomy. At least in the Protestant understanding there are both permanent and developing aspects of the process of salvation. Hence the use of the term “sanctification” to represent the ongoing process. (I note this this isn’t Biblical language. Sanctification is used differently in the NT. I generally speak simply of the Christian life.)

There’s a third perspective which to my knowledge is fairly recent (though perhaps this isn’t true in the East). That’s the covenantal context. Paul was using that perspective, because he was looking at how God worked with Jews and Gentiles over history, at the grafting of Gentiles into the covenant. From this perspective, rectification means making someone a member in good standing of the covenant people. (However I would agree with Wright that in Romans it’s often recognition that someone is a member of the covenant.) But this shares a lot with the classical Protestant concept, because it’s still about our status before God, and it’s permanent (except in unusual situations that I’d categorize as apostasy).

Our theology tends to come out of our experience. Luther found that he was unable to have any confidence that he was actually accepted by God. If your whole idea about salvation is an ongoing process that can have setbacks, and requires you to deal properly with every sin, and if you’re sensitive to the severity of sin, it’s easy to be afraid that you haven't fully dealt with your sin, you aren't saved, and eventually, that God doesn’t care about you. This isn’t just a late medieval problem, nor is it only a result of Catholic theology. We see the same thing every day in CF’s Christian Advice and other places, and in CF it’s largely people from a Protestant background.

So historically, for Protestants, justification represents our status as people of God, based on God’s commitment to save his people, not our own moral success. Of course the other side is still there: we’ll be judged for how we respond to Christ’s call. But when we fail, we fail as disobedient children, not as people that God has abandoned.

In the West, both during Luther’s tine and today, Christianity has tended to focus on avoiding hell. For many Christians today, that’s all Jesus is good for. They reinterpret all of his statements about the Kingdom as just about avoiding hell. That’s a terrible distortion of his message. For me, justification is a way of dealing with this. It says that our status as being acceptable to him is something we can trust. It’s based on Christ’s death for us. Our whole Christian lives can’t be devoted just to doing what we need to do to stay out of hell.

 

[hedrick]

As to what "saved" means, Jesus seems to use it primarily for a permanent change in direction, from moving someone from being a "sinner" to being a follower of Jesus. (I quote "sinner" because it seems clear from context that Jesus understands that even his followers sin. When he uses the term "sinner" I think he's echoing standard Jewish terminology where it refers to someone who ignores the Law, and sins unrepentantly.) He also sometimes refers to eschatological salvation.

I would normally say that it's actually broader than that, and includes the whole process of making us into Christ's image. But it's not so clear that Jesus actually uses it this way.