The Jack Miller Archive

CJ Miller Archive, St. Louis, MO.

Reflections on the Faculty Discussion of Justification

The comments which follow are intended to be a summary of my own view of the faculty discussion of Norman Shepherd’s teaching on justification and related matters.

First, it seems to me that part of the problem has been a matter of language being used in a different way by Norman.

Second, I am persuaded that there is a basic issue which cannot be reduced to semantics though it has a great deal to do with one’s use of language. It concerns the very nature of what it is to be theologically sound.

I suspect all of us would agree that such soundness includes much more than formal adherence to a right system of doctrine. It also must include wholeness, clear focus, and balance.

It means that major doctrines are to be given their due as major doctrines, with secondary issues related to them in a way that shows the derivative character of these secondary matters.
You might even say that balance means having the whole sweep of major doctrine in the foreground of one’s thinking.

Seen in this light, then, theological error is in part at least is permitting major Biblical truths to slip into the background of one’s thinking and practice.

Now it is my opinion that Norman seeks to proceed along these lines. In effect, I hear him saying that some crucial features in Biblical teaching have slipped out of our focus and that we need to correct ourselves by giving due weight to James’ emphasis on living faith for the disciple and at the same time not to let this degenerate into an unhealthy subjectivism by neglecting the broad teaching of Scripture on the covenant and its ordinances against the background of our union with Christ.

If this wholeness is our goal, each of us obviously must continuously correct himself because of the blindness which still afflicts us as redeemed sinners and submit himself to the correction of others.

Otherwise we shall fall into the heresy of omission — that is, great truths will fall away from us by being minimized or even forgotten.
So I am of the opinion that Norman deserves our thanks for insisting on this principle and for his vigorous insistence that nothing less will do for all of us.

But it is right here that I have my greatest problem with his theological thinking. I believe
that it is precisely that he has failed to realize his own stated goals and he has fallen into error.

I also believe that Norman’s use of “justification terminology” points up the nature of this error.

Dick Gaffin says that Shepherd is “almost always speaking of justification either in the sense of a present, on-going reality in the life of the already justified believer or in the sense of the future justification of the believer at the final judgment.

By contrast, Dick adds that others in the faculty use “justification” to refer to “an unrepeatable declarative act of God that takes place at the moment of the individual sinner’s transition from wrath to grace.”

I question whether Norman’s use of the language is the best, but apart from that I would maintain that this shift in the use of terms reflects also a major shift in focus on his part.

As a major emphasis, he has concerned himself so much with “justification either in the sense of a present, on-going reality in the life of the already justified believer or in the sense of future justification” that he has allowed the teaching on justification as a once-and-for-all declaration of God virtually to be swallowed up.

The discussions themselves seems to me to abundantly support this observation.

This is not to say that in the process of discussion with Norman did not set forth some fine statements about justification as a declarative act of God, but it seemed to me to come as a result of vigorous questioning—not as the disclosure of the foreground of his theological consciousness.

Therefore what I am saying is that my brother gives the appearance to me of having a theology which instinctively pushes Romans 3-4 and Galatians 2-3 into the background—and pushes them so far into the background that in his theological thought processes “justification” seems to be something other than what is set forth in these classical passages treating justification without works of the law. (3)

To sum up, I believe that his preoccupation with an “ongoing justification” or “final justification” has led him to blur the specific character of the teaching in Romans 3-4 as it relates to the act of God in crediting righteousness to the ungodly through the means of faith. (4)

Furthermore, it is my conviction the there is the greatest danger that, perhaps unconsciously, the concept of an “ongoing justification” or a “final justification” which is in some way related to a believer’s works will actually be substituted for the characterization of justification set forth in the Westminster Standards.

In particular, I do not see how you can escape this movement of thought if you conclude
that James in chapter 2 is talking about the same thing as Paul in Romans 3-4.

So my problem with this approach is not first of all whether there is such a thing as on-going justification or whether there is a final justification. It is with what I believe is a marked tendency to blunt the force and distinctiveness of Romans 3-4 and Galatians 2-3, and even perhaps to substitute these other concepts for the teaching in Romans 3-4.

Third, it is my view that Norman has erred in his failure to understand the priority of faith to justification. Temporarily faith and justification may occur at the same time. But Paul in Romans 3-4 is arguing that faith is the one and only way to enter the state of justification. Without the act of faith there is no justification, and I would challenge anyone to show me a single passage of Scripture teaching otherwise.
In this sense, faith must be before justification.

The same point can be made with respect to the mode of our entering into our union with Christ and the justification included in that union.

Like Dick, I am hearing Norman say that justification is not by works and not really by faith either, but that justification and faith are a result of union with Christ. Exactly how he would spell this out, I am not sure, but to me it is abstract and ambiguous. What Scriptural support this concept of union.

Furthermore, I cannot see how this squares with the teaching of Galatians 2 and Colossians 2 that faith is the way we enter into the applied union with Christ.

In all humility therefore I plead with my brothers to straighten me out if I am wrong. In the meantime I remain of the firm conviction that the one thing needful for a sinner before he can be united with Christ or justified is a believing surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

Moreover, I have not been able to find a shred of evidence in Scripture for the related distinction between active and passive justification mentioned by Dick in the discussion.

Rather, so far as I have light, I see the issue as centering on faith as the absolutely essential prerequisite for justification.

Thus for the purposes of our discussion I believe that the conflict between “empty faith” and “active faith” or “working faith” is beside the point (I would not deny for a moment, however, that Norman’s concern with easy believism is not justified in the light of popular evangelical construction of faith as mere mental assent). (5)

Instead a man has justification only when he first has saving faith, and he has saving faith when his believing is empty of all claim to human righteousness and when he
embraces Christ and His righteousness as his only hope for justification before a holy God.

Before this movement of trust, the sinner does not have justification.

When a man exercises this faith, the same faith works powerfully by love not because it is powerful by itself but because it has brought the sinner into union with the all-powerful Lord of glory.

(Struck through) I am also saying that union with Christ does not exist apart from faith.

Regeneration has the controlling part in bringing man into this applied union with Christ, but faith as the conscious expression of regeneration is the way that union is effected.

As a consequence of regeneration, believing is the bond of the Spirit joining us to Christ.

Now I miss that emphasis in Norman’s teaching, and I believe that the reason is that his thought reflects a wariness of anything that might be construed as “subjective,” including the personal commitment involved in saving faith.

Likewise, his startling emphasis on baptism as the transition point from death to life reflects the same wariness. For me it is altogether impossible to harmonize such teaching with the confessional and biblical position that regeneration and conversion are the transition point from death to life for the lost, with baptism functioning as the visible sign and seal of the invisible work of the Spirit. (6)

It appears to me that the desire to avoid anything that sounds experiential has led him into the direct conflict with Reformed doctrine. I have in view the lecture which was given two years ago at the pre-assembly conference at the RPNA and subsequently published in The Church and Her Ministry.

Fourth, it is my view that Norman has erred in the way he has related good works and obedience to our justification. To be sure, there seems to be a good deal of ambiguity in the way he expresses himself, and he has made it abundantly clear that he is in no way suggesting that good works or even faith constitute the ground of justification.

But he also recognizes that faith has a crucial office to perform in the appropriation of Christ and His merits and when he comes to discuss this resting on Christ as the exclusive ground of our salvation, he begins to blur some profoundly important distinctions.

Hence in the study paper you find statements like this: “In the courses of ministry pastors almost never speak of the need to be justified, they speak usually of the need to be saved. If then good works are necessary for salvation according to standard Reformed teaching, they are also necessary for justification.”

Finally, I believe that this development in my brother’s thought is foundationally directed by a misguided hermeneutic. Personally, I have long admired Norman’s gifts as a scholar and exegete. His sincerity and depth of conviction are not in doubt in my mind. His love for the Reformed faith is well-known. All of this has led me to be slow indeed to come to the conclusion found in this paper even though all along I have believed that the evidence available clearly pointed in this direction.

But finally I have concluded without any tentativeness that he is substantially out of conformity with Scripture and that the major cause of it all is his approach to Romans and James.

Traditionally, we have held that the clearer and more directly didactic passages in Scripture must illuminate the more rhetorical or obscure passages and that Romans 3-4 supplied an example of the former and James 2 an instance of the latter.

But Norman out of a genuine desire to keep James 2 from being smothered by a misconstruction of Romans 3-4 has substantially altered this traditional approach.

Unquestionably, he has put his finger on a massive problem in American Protestantism: the use of justification to cancel out the meaning and nature of discipleship. This is why so much of what Norman said in his presentations met with a hearty amen from me.
Where he wants to go, I want to go.

However, I believe that in his desire to let James 2 speak its own message, he has moved in the opposite direction: letting discipleship cancel out the distinctiveness of free justification or the ungodly through faith.

In practice he has done this by construing James 2 as though it were to be read the same ways as Romans 3-4, overlooking the fact that Paul is treating forensic justification in a systematic way, whereas James is giving a vigorous rebuke to those who misconstrued “mental assent” as a faith acceptable to the God of the poor and the weak.

It is not that James 2 cannot be related to Romans. G. C. Berkouwer has done an excellent job in his “Faith and Justification.” So have John Calvin and John Owen. But none of them follows Norman’s methodology. They all move from the clearer teaching of Romans and Galatians in respect to forensic justification to James, without, so far as I can see, wiping out James’ wonderful emphasis on the life and standing of the disciple.

Personally I have apologized to Norman for my sinful part in allowing such a serious difference in thinking to arise without its being discussed at a very early stage.

At times I have said to myself the problem must lie with myself and not with Norman. This sensitivity has led me again and again to do study in the Scriptures and secondary works in the area of justification by faith alone.

Painfully, however, I concluded that though I have so much to learn from the whole faculty, including Norman, he is in error on major issues.

Therefore, in the light of Scripture and the Westminster standards, my conscience will not permit me to do other than to come to the conclusion that he has adopted formulations which are out of harmony with the word of God written and the creeds of the Reformed tradition. (8)