REFORMATION THEOLOGY & RIGHTEOUSNESS BY FAITH

[restoretruth]

REFORMATION THEOLOGY & RIGHTEOUSNESS BY FAITH

This topic was started under Bible Versions, Pillars of Our Faith... Stan has suggested that this topic was getting away from the original subject (which it was) & perhaps we should start a new thread on Reformation Theology which I am happy to do so. I will start this thread with the last post on the previous topic. I will respond to it shortly, but you all feel free to jump in anytime!

[restoretruth]

Quote from: restoretruth on June 09, 2011, 11:09:43 AM

The following quotations are selected from sources used by Christensen in

[newbie]

if it were by justification alone, the foolish virgins would make it too and the man without the wedding garment would too

[Soli Deo Gloria]

THE DISTINCTIVE TEACHING OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

Here is an excellent review article on what the prime issue of the Reformation was, and why the Roman Catholic Church pronounced their anathemas against Luther. On e should take note at what upset the Roman church so much:


http://www.the-highway.com/articleJan98.html

Here is an excerpt:

 How does the biblical, historic Protestant presentation of justification by faith alone contradict Roman Catholic teaching?

When the leaders of the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation convened the Council of Trent (1545-1563), one of their major purposes was to deal with the doctrine of justification by faith. Their goal was to establish a Roman Catholic consensus and to condemn the new Protestantism by pronouncing anathemas upon the distinctive teachings of Luther and the early Lutheran confessions of faith.Protestant teachings are so severely caricatured in these Canons that most of them are unrecognizable as Protestant doctrines, or else they are mingled with real heresies, which Protestants themselves would condemn as severely as Rome. Trent did make clear, however, that Romanists and Protestants differ substantially on the doctrine of justification in the following points.

First, traditional Roman Catholic teaching regards justification as a process in which a sinner is made righteous. Rome claims that the verb "to justify" means to make righteous. Justification follows sanctification; it is dependent upon an inner change in a sinner's nature (rather than his state or status), making him into a righteous person. Theologically, this results in the commingling of justification and sanctification. Justification results from being made righteous; justification is righteousness infused (iustitia infusa, Chapter 7)

[Soli Deo Gloria]

So it comes down to the root meaning of one Greek word dikaioo the greek word for justification

The Roman Catholic church for centuries has taught that the word justification means "to make righteous". It was during the Reformation that a Roman Catholic scholar by the name of Erasmus (the same man who was behind the KJV Textus Receptus) admitted to Luther that the Roman church had been wrong all these years about the root meaning of justification. It had wrongly been translated from the Latin by Jerome as to mean "to make righteous", but that the true meaning of the word was "to declare righteous".  Well, this changes everything with regard to doctrine, and that is where the difference remains between Romanism and Protestantism.

Are we justified before God by our degree of sanctification (RCC says yes), or are we justified before God by imputed righteousness--the declaring that we are righteous by faith alone?

Stan

[Alpendave]

God's declaration that we are just, is the grounds whereby we can receive that which was lost at the fall -- the sanctifying power and presence of the Holy Spirit. This declaration is made possible by virtue of the fact that we, by faith, have accepted the penalty for our sin and therefore yield up our lives to the cross that we may receive new life from above (Galatians 2:20 says it about as well as it can be said).

We tend to think of this declaration as being strictly verbal thing literally coming from God's mouth. Things are more forcibly proclaimed by way of action. Could it be that the greatest utterance of imputed righteousness is when God imparts righteousness to us through the gift of the Holy Spirit? In other words, is righteousness (imputed or imparted) something that God grants as something distinct from Himself, or is it the gift of Himself?

Genesis 15:1
"After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision saying, 'Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.'"

Also consider the robe of righteousness in light of these texts:

Romans 13:14
"But put on the Lord Jesus Christ..."

and

Galatians 3:27
"For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ."

Our possession of forensic righteousness is by virtue of the fact that, upon coming to the cross and there surrendering our sin in its entirety to death, we take up a life which is one with the Just One. We must then be declared righteous because He must be declared righteous. It is 100% vicariously through our oneness with Him at the moment we die and are born again. Sanctification is then the practical living out of the virtue that is the basis of our justification -- Christ's righteousness.

[Soli Deo Gloria]

God's declaration that we are just, is the grounds whereby we can receive that which was lost at the fall -- the sanctifying power and presence of the Holy Spirit. This declaration is made possible by virtue of the fact that we, by faith, have accepted the penalty for our sin and therefore yield up our lives to the cross that we may receive new life from above (Galatians 2:20 says it about as well as it can be said).

We tend to think of this declaration as being strictly verbal thing literally coming from God's mouth. Things are more forcibly proclaimed by way of action. Could it be that the greatest utterance of imputed righteousness is when God imparts righteousness to us through the gift of the Holy Spirit? In other words, is righteousness (imputed or imparted) something that God grants as something distinct from Himself, or is it the gift of Himself?

Genesis 15:1
"After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision saying, 'Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.'"

Also consider the robe of righteousness in light of these texts:

Romans 13:14
"But put on the Lord Jesus Christ..."

and

Galatians 3:27
"For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ."

Our possession of forensic righteousness is by virtue of the fact that, upon coming to the cross and there surrendering our sin in its entirety to death, we take up a life which is one with the Just One. We must then be declared righteous because He must be declared righteous. It is 100% vicariously through our oneness with Him at the moment we die and are born again. Sanctification is then the practical living out of the virtue that is the basis of our justification -- Christ's righteousness.

Good points Dave.

The Roman Church confused and mixed the two concepts of justification and sanctification. Martin Luther stood firm for keeping the two concepts separate. However, Luther also maintained that the faith that justifies also sanctifies.

Charles Spurgeon said it a different way. "grace that doesn't change our lives won't save our souls."

But these men also recognized the terrible results and guilt produced if these two concepts were not kept separated. If our justification in any way depends on our degree of sanctification, then we can never have peace of conscience. Of course, that is what the Roman Church did not want people to have.

We can always sleep well at night knowing that we are declared righteous in Him by our simple faith and trust. We can know today that we have eternal life.

1 John 5:

12 He that hath the Son hath life;  and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

 13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

Romans 5:1

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

We can have this wonderful peace with God in the present tense as the verse above is written in the present tense.

JS Bach, the great organ composer was also a great fan of the reformation, and he signed all of his musical pieces with:

Soli Deo Gloria (To God alone be the glory)

[Alpendave]

Just taking it all into my limited perspective, I'd have to say that our being declared righteous is by virtue of the fact that we are in Christ Who Himself must be declared righteous. Justification and Sanctification are both distinct aspects of our salvation, but in the way that heads and tails are two aspects of a quarter. Like a quarter with only heads, the currency of our salvation is worthless without both.

Without sanctification, our justification is a farce. Wihtout justification, our sanctification disintegrates. As long as we are in Christ, our justification -- which is His righteousness proclaimed -- is constant and forms the basis for our sanctification -- His righteousness lived out in us. We must always bear in mind that when we say "His righteousness", it is not something in any way detatched from Himself. He never just gives us His righteousness, but rather takes us into Himself, hence the descriptive definition of sin as "separation from God."

One object lesson that, I believe, creates confusion on the matter is to think of our life as a bank account that is in the red and that the plan of salvation involves God dumping money into it to put it in the black. I think a better way of describing it is to say that in justification, God pays the debt and then closes the account. We then get a debit card that allows us to make transactions directly from God's infinite account. I know the latter idea needs more indept development. The main idea I wish to stress is that of closing our old, in the red, account. We never have our own funds to deal with, but must make withdrawls from God's resources. We never build credit, but He does with every transaction we make.