Justification – The Grounds

Posted on by
Reply

sproul-r-c-This excerpt is taken from Are We Together? by R.C. Sproul.

At the very heart of the controversy in the sixteenth century was the question of the ground by which God declares anyone righteous in His sight. The psalmist asked, “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” (Ps. 130:3). In other words, if we have to stand before God and face His perfect justice and perfect judgment of our performance, none of us would be able to pass review. We all would fall, because as Paul reiterates, all of us have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). So, the pressing question of justification is how can an unjust person ever be justified in the presence of a righteous and holy God?

The Roman Catholic view is known as analytical justification. This means that God will declare a person just only when, under His perfect analysis, He finds that he is just, that righteousness is inherent in him. The person cannot have that righteousness without faith, without grace, and without the assistance of Christ. Nevertheless, in the final analysis, true righteousness must be present in the soul of a person before God will ever declare him just.

Whereas the Roman view is analytical, the Reformation view is that justification is synthetic. A synthetic statement is one in which something new is added in the predicate that is not contained in the subject. If I said to you, “The bachelor was a poor man,” I have told you something new in the second part of the sentence that was not already contained in the word bachelor. All bachelors are men by definition, but not all bachelors are poor men. There are many wealthy bachelors. Poverty and wealth are concepts that are not inherent in the idea of bachelorhood. So, when we say, “The bachelor was a poor man,” there is a synthesis, as it were.

When we say that the Reformation view of justification is synthetic, we mean that when God declares a person to be just in His sight, it is not because of what He finds in that person under His analysis. Rather, it is on the basis of something that is added to the person. That something that is added, of course, is the righteousness of Christ. This is why Luther said that the righteousness by which we are justified is extra nos, meaning “apart from us” or “outside of us.” He also called it an “alien righteousness,” not a righteousness that properly belongs to us, but a righteousness that is foreign to us, alien to us. It comes from outside the sphere of our own behavior. With both of these terms, Luther was speaking about the righteousness of Christ.

About the Comma Johanneum

Posted on by
Reply

??? ????? ????? ?? ???????????? ?? ?? ??????, ? ?????, ? ?????, ??? ?? ?????, or, if you prefer, I have attached an image of Codex Montfortianus’ rendering, which seems to have been quite central in the insertion of this material into 1 John.
Those who promote the TR (NOT those who promote the Byzantine Text Platform—Dr. Maurice Robinson, for example does not believe the Comma original, and you will search in vain for it in his GNT—in fact, if the ET guys wish to defend the indefensible, they now get to contradict themselves: if they want to defend the Pericope Adulterae based upon Greek manuscripts “used by the church,” those exact Greek manuscripts do NOT contain the Comma) have come up with a whole group of arguments in its defense. All of them, of course, have been answered many times over the years, but I want to focus upon the most obvious issue here.

There simply is no textual critical methodology to TROism. Well, I guess there is: if it is in the TR, it is true, if it isn’t, it isn’t. But the why and the how—there’s nothing there. And the defense of the Comma proves that this is not a textual critical theory but a tradition, plain and simple.

And here’s how I prove it: name me a SINGLE other text where you use the SAME textual critical argumentation to defend its appearance in the biblical text. You see, if you go back to Erasmus and use his TC position, you won’t have the Comma, because he knew it was not original, included a lengthy note in the Annotations on the issue, etc. So, his own TC theory did not support the insertion (it was inserted under pressure, as everyone knows). If Erasmus had not caved to that pressure, or, if he had been just a little less acerbic as a scholar, no one might have bothered to write out an entire manuscript (such as Montfortianus) to confute him. And you wouldn’t have the Comma in your KJV or your TR, and we would have more time to lament the judgment plainly seen in having Clinton and Trump as the only two viable Presidential candidates in the US. But, Erasmus was that acerbic, and the codex was written, and so we get to discuss it. James-White23

But here’s the point: there are ALL SORTS of readings found in the Latin tradition that have patristic support, for example. So, IF the argumentation presented in the comments here in the Pub are to be taken seriously, then those making those arguments SHOULD be inserting THOSE texts into the TR as well, right? Well, no, of course not, because they are not even TRYING to be consistent and could totally and could not care LESS about readings in the Latin text that are unknown in the Greek text. They do not even THINK about the mess they are introducing to the field by alleging that entire, deeply theological texts, can disappear from the Greek manuscript tradition FOR A MILLENNIUM only to be found in other traditions (yeah, so much for the ET argument, huh?) So, how about unique readings in the Coptic, or Syriac translations? Shall we start inserting these as well? Oh, but, see, they do not even give a second thought to these issues because consistent textual critical practice is NOT their goal or even their interest. Their goal is to defend the TR, period, end of discussion. Who cares if all meaningfully consistent textual critical practice has to be thrown out the window? Our ultimate goal is to get folks to agree with our tradition (TROism) so it doesn’t matter, even if that involves our using fully contradictory methods (as has been seen here in the Pub just over the past few months—go back and look at what was posted in defense of the Pericope Adulterae). Someone has said inconsistency is the sign of a failed argument. And indeed, such is the truth. And when you find Reformed folks promoting such traditionalism, well—that’s an inconsistency of great weight and import.