SOME THOUGHTS ON
"OBJECTIVE
JUSTIFICATION"
By
Gary Ray Branscome
Since the so-called doctrine of “Objective
Justification” has been
a source of confusion, error, and controversy in the past I would like
to share some of my thoughts on the subject. Because this topic deals
with an obscure facet of Lutheran theological thought, this essay
assumes that the reader has some knowledge of the subject.
First of all, the doctrine that God has given
us to teach is
nothing other than what the Bible says. Or, as Luther put it, “Neither
ought any doctrine be taught or heard in the church but the pure Word
of God, that is to say, the Holy Scriptures; otherwise accursed be both
the teachers and hearers together with their doctrine.” (Christian
Dogmatics, Vol. 1, pg 52)
Secondly, because the Bible is a clear book
that doctrine is
nothing other than “than what ye read” (2Corinthians 1:13). Or, as
Walther put it, “The pure doctrine is simply nothing else, absolutely
nothing else, than the pure Word of God. It is not, as some think, the
doctrine adapted to the systems of dogmaticians. (“Law and Gospel”,
page 349)
Therefore, when it comes to our justification
we are told that the
Gospel is the good news “that Christ died for our sins” (1Corinthians
15:3). And, when we believe that good news, our faith is “imputed to”
us for righteousness (Galatians 3:6, Romans 4:22-23).
Now, if you examine the preceding paragraph you
will notice that
it speaks of two steps. First, Christ died for our sins; second,
believing that He died for our sins, we are justified by faith. The
doctrine of “Objective Justification” adds to these two steps a third
step. This is done in order to emphasize the fact that we are justified
by what Christ did (not by some virtue inherent in the act of
believing). This third step consists of God’s acceptance of Christ’s
sacrifice on our behalf (at the time of Christ’s death), and is called
the “objective justification”. This is done in order to make it clear
that our faith simply receives the grace that is already there because
of Christ’s sacrifice.
All of the misunderstanding and controversy
over “Objective
Justification” has arisen from the confusing and seemingly
contradictory way in which some theologians present “Objective
Justification”. And, I want to emphasize the fact that they do not all
present it in the same way. For example:
[Justification] is the object of
faith in that it is offered by
God in the Gospel; it is the effect [of faith], to put it thus, in so
far as grace having been apprehended by faith, the forgiveness of sins
happens to us by that very act. [Calov’s commentary on the Augsburg
Confession (1665)]
Throughout the four Gospels our
Lord Jesus Christ presents Himself
as the object of faith and promises forgiveness, life, and salvation to
everyone who believes in Him. … Scripture speaks of believing in “the
promises” (Galatians 3:16), the “Word” (Matthew 8:8; Titus 1:9), the
“report” (Isaiah 53:1; Romans 10:16), the “Gospel” (Philippians 1:17),
the “record” (1 John 5:10), etc. In every case, however, the object of
saving faith is the content of the Word and promise and Gospel, namely,
Christ the Mediator. …The upshot of the Lutheran doctrine, drawn from
Scriptures, is that saving faith in God is faith in His Son who lived
and died to save sinners. And this is the same as believing in the
Gospel which tells you what God has done for Christ’s sake; it is the
same as believing in the forgiveness of sins, life in Christ, and
salvation. [Justification and Rome, by Robert Preus, pages 85 & 86]
As soon as a contrite sinner
believes the divine promises of grace
which for Christ’s sake is offered to him in the Gospel, or as soon as
he puts his trust in the vicarious satisfaction which Christ has made
for the sins of the world by His perfect obedience, he is justified, or
declared righteous before God, Rom. 3,23. 24, This is the so-called
subjective justification, Rom. 4, 6, or the personal application,
through faith, of the merits which Christ has secured for the whole
world by His substitutionary atonement (objective justification), 2
Cor. 5, 19ff. [CHRISTIAN DOGMATICS, by John Theodore Mueller, page 367]
While I feel that the word “merits” (used by
Mueller) is ambiguous, I have no problem with any of those statements,
and doubt that any of the Lutherans who reject the doctrine of
“Objective Justification” would have a serious problem with them.
However, the following statement by Francis Pieper is a different story:
All soteriological teaching must
be based upon the historical,
accomplished fact of the objective reconciliation, or justification, of
all sinful mankind, namely, that through Christ’s vicarious
satisfaction God has reconciled mankind unto Himself. This
reconciliation, as Scripture plainly tells us, does not consist in a
change of heart in man, but in a change of heart in God. God no longer
looks upon sinful man with wrath, but “before His divine tribunal”
forgives the sins of mankind, does not impute their trespasses unto
them (2 Cor. 5:19). “By the righteousness of one the free gift came
upon all men unto justification of life” (Rom. 5:18). And this
reconciliation is, as has been shown, complete and perfect, extensively
and intensively, for we certainly have no right to restrict the meaning
of of either the terms “world” (2 Cor. 5:19) and “all men” (Rom. 5:18)
or the terms “not imputing their trespasses” (2 Cor. 5:19) and
“justification (Rom. 5:18). Nor do these passages speak merely of a new
relation between God and man, but they state definitely that God’s
action produced the new relation, God’s action in not imputing their
sins unto men, in forgiving them their sins, in justifying men in His
heart, this is the meaning of objective reconciliation, as taught in 2
Cor. 5:19, Rom. 5:18; 5:10; 4:25. [CHRISTIAN DOGMATICS, by Francis
Pieper, Volume 2, pages 398 & 399]
You will notice that this statement goes beyond
what the Bible explicitly says, in claiming that the sins of all
mankind have been forgiven and that God no longer imputes sin to anyone
(believer or unbeliever). Later in this essay I will deal with the
passages that he cites in support of that view, however, right now I
want to call your attention to the fact that even though it looks like
he is claiming that unbelievers have been forgiven, justified, and
reconciled to God, on the very next page he says the opposite.
But a gift needs to be accepted. …
The way of salvation set up by
God therefore requires that the gift be appropriated by faith. Ancient
and modern errorists have thought that by virtue of the universal
reconciliation men can have the forgiveness of sins and obtain
salvation without faith in the Gospel. Scripture repudiates this idea.
It at once adds to the command “Preach the Gospel to every creature”
(Mark 16:15) the words “He that believeth and ia baptized shall be
saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (v, 16). [CHRISTIAN
DOGMATICS, by Francis Pieper, Volume 2, page 400]
From now on in this essay I will refer to Dr.
Pieper’s unique way of describing objective justification as, “abstract
justification”. I have chosen that term because Dr. Pieper claims that
God has declared all of mankind just (in the abstract), without
justifying a single individual until they come to faith in Christ. To
rephrase one of his statements, only a heretic would claim “that by
virtue of the universal reconciliation men can have the forgiveness of
sins and obtain salvation without faith in the Gospel.”
Where then is he coming from, and why does he
make the claim that all mankind has been justified, if no one is
actually justified until they come to faith in Christ? Well, in order
to emphasize the fact that faith simply receives what is already there,
he reasons that if we are justified by faith, and faith is simply
receiving what is already there, there must already be an “abstract
justification” for faith to receive. Likewise, if we are reconciled to
God through faith in Christ, there must be an “abstract reconciliation”
for faith to receive, etc.
However, even though I understand where Dr.
Pieper is coming from, because his peculiar views on abstract
justification are not explicitly stated in the words of Scripture, no
man, or organization of men, has the authority to command believers to
accept those views, or to discipline those who do not. This is true
because the only authority in the congregation is the Word of God, and
any church that requires its members to accept anything other than what
the Bible clearly and objectively says, ceases to be a true church and
becomes a sect. Or, as Dr. Pieper put it:
“All error in doctrine can be
traced to the refusal of the teacher
to continue in the wholesome words of Christ. This refusal prompted
Luther’s constant warning against substituting an interpretation
(gloss) for the Scripture words themselves.” [“Christian Dogmatics”, by
Francis Pieper, Vol. 1, pg 323] “The whole Christian doctrine is
revealed in Scripture passages that need no exegesis, but are an open
book alike to the learned and the unlearned and can be so readily
translated that the translator cannot go wrong unless he has made up
his mind to depart from the original.” [ibid, pg 347]
At this point, I must say that even though I
love Dr. Pieper’s
“Christian Dogmatics” and have read and reread it many times, when it
comes to his views on “abstract justification”, he departs from the
definition of doctrine set forth in the paragraph above. In order to
illustrate that fact, let us look at the passages he cited in support
of his doctrine.
Begining with 2Corinthians 5:19. He interprets
the words “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not
imputing their trespasses unto them,” to mean that “God no longer looks
upon sinful man with wrath, but ‘before His divine tribunal’ forgives
the sins of mankind, does not impute their trespasses unto them”.
However, how can we interpret that passage to teach that God has
forgiven all mankind, when, as Dr. Pieper pointed out, only a heretic
would claim “that by virtue of the universal reconciliation men can
have the forgiveness of sins… without faith in the Gospel.”
As long as there are no passages that clearly
and explicitly tell us that God has justified man in the abstract, we
have no business reading that doctrine into the words of Scripture.
Because, “the whole Christian doctrine is revealed in Scripture
passages that need no exegesis, but are an open book alike to the
learned and the unlearned,” the doctrine that God wants us to teach is
so plainly stated that no one can deny that the Bible says it.
[“Christian Dogmatics” Vol. 1, pg 347] That is clearly not the case
with Pieper’s interpretation of 2Corinthians 5:19, for Dr. Richard
Lenski, whose commentary on the New Testament is considered the best,
for its insight into the original Greek, says:
We do not find the idea that Paul
here says that when Christ died,
when in and by His death God reconciled the world objectively, He then
and there (or at the time of Christ’s resurrection) forgave all sins to
the whole world. Autois [to them] = individuals and refers to their
subjective reconciliation. [Page 1048]
Concerning the idea that “God no
longer looks upon sinful man with
wrath”, Lenski says, “God always loved the world (John 3:16). He was in
Christ when Christ died for all (v. 14, 15). He gave His Son to die for
the world. He needed no reconciling, nothing to change Him, for He is
love — why should He change? [Page 1047]
Moving to Romans 5:18, the words, “By the
righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification
of life,” are interpreted to mean that all of mankind has been
justified (declared righteous) in the abstract, even though only a
heretic would claim “that by virtue of the universal reconciliation men
can” be justified without faith in the Gospel. Concerning that
interpretation, Lenski has this to say:
Dikaiosis has
the same sense which it had in [Romans] 4:25, the
action of God when He declares righteous in personal justification,
even as the whole of 3:21 to 4:25 deals with this action alone. If a
world justification were intended, the word employed would have to be
dikaioma. Paul even adds zoes, for this justifying action admits “to
life” everlasting which only those receive who “receive the gift of
righteousness” by faith although Christ won it for all men. [Page 379]
Dr. Pieper also cites Romans 4:25, “Who was
delivered for our
offences, and was raised again for our justification”. While that
passage has already been dealt with in the preceding paragraph, I might
point out that the word “our” makes it clear that it is talking about
the justification of believers, not abstract justification. In fact,
since the entire focus of Romans 3:21 through 4:25 is justification by
faith, the passage is clearly telling us that Christ was raised again
so that we might believe, and believing be justified by faith. “The
fact that personal justification is referred to and not justification
of the world is seen also from 5:1: “Having been declared righteous out
of faith, “ etc. [Lenski, page 329]
Although what I have said should make it clear
that Dr. Pieper’s peculiar views on “abstract justification” are not
the doctrine “revealed in Scripture passages that need no exegesis, but
are an open book alike to the learned and the unlearned”. [“Christian
Dogmatics”, Vol. 1, pg 347] I would like to point out what “abstract
justification” led to in Kokomo Indiana.
In 1979 a the pastor of a Wisconsin Synod
congregation in Kokomo forced members of his congregation to accept the
following four thesis on pain of excommunication:
1. Objectively speaking, without
any reference to an individual
sinner’s attitude toward Christ’s sacrifice, purely on the basis of
God’s verdict, every sinner, whether he knows it or not, whether he
believes it or not, has received the status of a saint.
2. After Christ’s intervention and through Christ’s intervention,
God regards all sinners as guilt-free saints.
3. When God reconciled the world to Himself through Christ, He
individually pronounced forgiveness on each individual sinner whether
that sinner ever comes to faith or not.
4. At the time of the resurrection of Christ, God looked down in
hell and declared Judas, the people destroyed in the flood, and all the
ungodly, innocent, not guilty, and forgiven of all sin and gave unto
them the status of saints.
At one time I loved the Wisconsin Synod,
but the Kokomo
controversy convinced me that certain errors were not only being
tolerated, but were being defended. Although the pastor who drafted
those theses thought he was teaching the same doctrine as Dr. Pieper,
he had clearly missed the fact that only a heretic would claim “that by
virtue of the universal reconciliation men can have the forgiveness of
sins and obtain salvation without faith in the Gospel. Scripture
repudiates this idea. It at once adds to the command “Preach the Gospel
to every creature” (Mark 16:15) the words “He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (v,
16). [“Christian Dogmatics”, Vol. 2, page 400]
CONCLUSION
Rather than cause unnecessary confusion and
controversy, as I
believe the doctrine of abstract justification does, why don’t we
simply look for a better way to convey the idea that we are justified
by what Christ did and not by some virtue inherent in the act of
believing. Wouldn’t is be a lot clearer to simply stress the fact that
we are justified by the blood of Christ (Romans 5:9), and that our
faith simply receives the grace that He won for us by His death?
[Ephesians 1:7 and 2:8-9]