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| The inevitable wreckage is the result of the massive theological blunder! |
5. A Common Confusion with a Classic Case
Pastor Peter Kek (pastors a RB church) wrote:
“To make sure that the point is not missed, Paul used Abraham’s case to illustrate. The question is: How & when was Abraham justified? In other words, when was righteousness of Christ imputed to Abraham? When did this imputation take place? What do you say? “For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness”!!! (Romans 4:3). Now you tell me, when was righteousness imputed to Abraham?” [All emphasis original]
At first sight, these are powerful rhetorical questions, which seem to settle the dispute conclusively except that they are misguided rhetorical questions for three simple reasons.
Firstly, the rhetorical questions wrongly assumed that Abram was an UN-justified man prior to this incident (Gen 15:1-6). This is a fundamental blunder. To realize that Abraham was already a justified man in this passage is an absolute necessity and prerequisite to a consistent and adequate interpretation. The passage is NO LONGER about Abraham’s justification before God, i.e., how Abraham secured his right standing with God through the imputed righteousness of Christ. The passage is about the just who shall live by faith – the major thesis laid down in Romans 1:17. Abraham’s faith is proof that he WAS already a justified man. Abraham is a classic illustration of this grand doctrine – ‘the just shall live by faith.’ Abraham was an already justified man in Gen 12-14. When God’s word concerning the promised seed was announced to him, he did believe.
Believing in the promised seed he was blessed to consciously experience that wonderful personal assurance and confidence of the righteousness and reconciliation before God. Yes, his faith was accounted to him for righteousness. As a result he experienced the blessedness of having been declared righteous and forgiven (objectively had taken place in Ur). This is the experimental aspect of justification. His faith in the promised seed is accounted to him for righteousness – as a result, he personally and consciously experienced the blessedness of being justified and righteous in God’s sight. His faith in Christ did not secure His righteous standing with God. That righteous standing was bestowed upon him while he was still ungodly way back in Ur, when he was dead in sin and in enmity against God. God justifies the UNGODLY! That justified state enabled him to believe – demonstrating the truthfulness of the grand biblical truth, “THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”
Secondly, the rhetorical questions wrongly assumed that there is imputation of Christ’s righteousness spoken of in the passage. There is no imputation of Christ’s righteousness here. Look carefully. It does say that ‘it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ What was accounted to him for righteousness? Abraham’s faith was accounted to him for righteousness’ is hardly the same as ‘Christ’s righteousness was accounted to him for justification.’ It is an idea imagined and read into the passage, after a wrong assumption, and a colossally wrong assumption. The Confession was very careful to warn us of that common mistake of thinking that the accounting of faith for righteousness has anything to do with justification – ‘justification is not by imputing faith itself’ (1689.11.1). One may be easily misled by the similar sound of the words when the sense of the words is different!
Finally, the rhetorical questions miss the whole point and purpose of this classic illustration. The purpose of the whole illustration IS NOT that Abram secured his justification, secured his right standing by means of his faith. The purpose IS that Abraham’s justified state is evidenced, demonstrated and declared to be so, vindicated i.e. justified by his faith in the promised seed. Abraham was the proof par-excellence of the truth that “the just shall live by faith.” Apostle Paul used Abraham not to show the unbelieving Jews or any Gentile how one may secure his justification or right standing before God. He used Abraham to show how a person may know and be known that he is among God’s justified, regenerated and adopted people. He used Abraham to illustrate the grand principle, the just [i.e. the justified ones] shall live by faith, in dealing with the Jews who had insisted that they were spiritual children of Abraham but is unbelieving in Christ. Justification is purely an act of God’s free grace when God effectually calls an elect dead in sin to eternal life. An elect effectually called to eternal life has the graces of repentance and faith worked in them by the indwelling Spirit. This enables him to believe in the blessed Saviour at the gospel call. When he believes, God is pleased to account his faith to him for righteousness. This results in the experience of blessedness spoken in Roman 4:6-8. This is NOT justification secured or applied, but justification evidenced and experienced.
Your thesis “Justification by faith alone – that faith is the sole ‘instrument’ by which we receive the righteousness of Christ” sounds good, but its sense is inconsistent and inadequate, especially in light of your further statements to define its exact meaning. Justification is not by faith. Justification is by grace, i.e., secured and imputed to all the elect at the cross, and applied to each elect personally at God’s appointed and approved time, and evidenced and experienced by faith alone. There is absolutely nothing we can do to secure our justification before God. It is by free grace alone, and ‘free’ means ‘free,’ and not ‘free’ based on some conditions.
The righteousness of Christ was applied to us when we were not able to exercise any faith whatsoever because we were spiritually dead in our sin, when NO instrument was available to receive Christ’s righteousness.
God did not wait till we have faith for Him to impute, and to apply Christ’s righteousness to us! He applied it at effectual call when we were ungodly and in enmity against Him. However, when an effectually called, justified and regenerated elect believes in the promised Saviour, like Abraham did, it pleases God to account his believing to him for righteousness, i.e., to bless him to personally know and experience the blessedness of having been justified and forgiven, to consciously experience the blessedness of what God has already done. Good news is what God has already done, not what God will do if we do something. A man already justified by God’s free grace is called to evidence that justification by believing in the blessed Saviour, in order that he may consciously experience the blessedness of having been justified and forgiven. It is the blessed experience and enjoyment of peace with God, Romans 5:1.
Abraham is a classic illustration of this grand doctrine – ‘the just shall live by faith.’ Abraham was already a justified man in Gen 12-14. His life of walking with God is irrefutable proof of his justified state. When God’s word concerning the promised seed was announced to him in Gen 15:1-6, he did believe. Believing he consciously experienced that wonderful personal assurance and confidence of righteousness and reconciliation before God. Yes, his faith was accounted to him for righteousness. As a result, he experienced the blessedness of being righteous and forgiven. This is the experiential aspect of justification. His faith in the promised seed is accounted to him for righteousness – as a result, he personally and consciously experienced the blessedness of being righteous and forgiven. His faith in Christ did not secure His righteous standing with God. That righteous standing was bestowed upon him while he was still ungodly, dead in sin and in enmity against God. That justified state enabled him to believe – demonstrating the truthfulness of the grand biblical truth, “the just shall live by faith.” Your thesis, it seems to me, is, “BY FAITH ONE IS JUSTIFIED AND LIVE.”
Justification is neither secured by works nor by faith. Justification is by the free grace of God while we were in ungodliness, a state in which believing is an utter impossibility. But justification by the free grace of God is evidenced both by works and faith. Abraham had works of righteousness in Gen 12-14. Cornelius had works of righteousness before meeting Apostle Peter. But justification by the free grace of God is uniquely evidenced by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, we have the grand and repeated declaration of ‘the just shall live by faith.’ The gospel was preached to Abram, Gal 3:8. Abraham did believe on the promised seed. Cornelius believed on the Lord Jesus. But their works preceded their faith in the Saviour because they were already justified before their faith was evidenced by the gospel. The simple reason is that justification by grace is based solely upon the finished work of Christ. Therefore, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is the sole and unique instrument to evidence, to demonstrate, to prove the prior justification based solely upon the finished work of Christ. But faith is never alone in the person justified. It is accompanied by other saving graces even before faith is brought to light by the gospel.
I conclude that those who teach justification before God is conditioned upon man’s act of faith fail to do justice to the Biblical evidence of Romans 4:1-8 where we are told that God justifies the ungodly and that faith evidences a justified state.
They are preaching ANOTHER gospel...
a gospel of lies!
