Justification By Faith Alone (Part 8)

Jonathan Edwards

PERSEVERANCE AFTER JUSTIFICATION (Cont’d)

SECTION 4
Answering Objections

THE FIRST OBJECTION: We frequently find promises of eternal life and salvation (and sometimes of justification itself) suggested as a reward for virtue and obedience. Eternal life is promised to obedience. Romans 2:7, “To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory, honor, and immortality, eternal life.” This is only one passage that makes reference to it. It is one of many. Justification itself is promised to that virtue of a forgiving spirit or temper in us. Matthew 6:14, “For, if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” All the Scripture suggests that justification in great part consists of the forgiveness of sins.

TO THIS I ANSWER:

1. To argue that eternal life, salvation and justification are rewards for virtue and obedience argues merely that there is a connection between them and evangelical obedience. I have already observed that this is not in dispute. All that can be proved by obedience and salvation being connected in the promise is that they are connected in fact. No one denies this. True or untrue, it serves no purpose, as I have shown. There is no need that salvation should be given on the account of our obedience, in order to prove that the promise is true. If we find such a promise — that he who obeys will be saved, or that he who is holy will be justified — all we need to prove that the promise is true for it to be really so.
   
   He who obeys will be saved; and holiness and justification will indeed go together. That proposition may be true that he who obeys will be saved, because obedience and salvation are, in fact, connected. Yet an acceptance to a title to salvation is not granted because of our own virtue or obedience. What is a promise, but merely a declaration of future truth for the comfort and encouragement of the person to whom it is declared? Promises are conditional propositions. Besides, as has already been established, things other than faith may not influence such promises wherein pardon and salvation are the consequences.
2. Promises may be made on the basis of signs and evidences of faith, but the promise is not based on the sign, but on the thing the sign represents. For example, human government may rationally make promises of privilege to those who can show evidence of being descended from a certain family. They are not granted privilege based on what they have proved. And though God does not need signs and evidence to know whether we have true faith or not, our own consciences do. Promises made to signs of faith are made for our comfort. Possessing a forgiving nature and disposition may be evidence to our consciences that our unworthy hearts are truly closed and have fallen from the way of free and infinitely gracious forgiveness of our sins by Jesus Christ. Only then are we able to apply to ourselves with greater comfort the promises of forgiveness by Christ.
3. Acts of evangelical obedience are indeed concerned in justification. Sometimes in Scripture we are given promises of pardon and acceptance made in response to such acts of obedience.
4. With regard to justification and salvation, promises of particular benefits might be made to expressions of evidences of faith to which they bear a natural likeness and suitability. For example, forgiveness is promised to a forgiving spirit in us. Obtaining mercy is promised to mercifulness in us. These promises are the most natural evidence of our heart’s coming close to those benefits by faith. They show the sweet accord and consent that there is between the heart and these benefits. Because there is similarity between the virtue and the benefit, the one brings the other to mind. The practice of the virtue renews the sense of duty, and refreshes the hope of the blessing promised. It convinces the conscience that denying the duty will result in justice — being denied the benefit. Indeed, the proper reward for a forgiving spirit, granted after justification and throughout a Christian’s life, might be the sense and manifestation of divine forgiveness in our own consciences. Yet, this is not at all contrary to the doctrine we have maintained, as we will now discuss.

THE SECOND OBJECTION: Our own obedience and inherent holiness are necessary to prepare us for heaven, and therefore are doubtlessly the virtues that recommend us to God’s acceptance as the heirs of heaven.

TO THIS I ANSWER:

1. Although our own obedience is necessary in preparation for an actual bestowment of glory, it does not guarantee it. God does many things to prepare the saints for glory after He has accepted them as the heirs of glory, just the same as a parent does much to prepare a child for an inheritance to his education, even though he is already an heir. There are many things necessary to ready that child for the actual possession of the inheritance, but these things were not necessary in order give him a right to the inheritance. So it is between God and us.
2. If everything necessary to prepare men for glory is the proper condition of justification, then perfect holiness is the condition. Men must be made perfectly holy before they are admitted to the blessedness of heaven. And therefore, when a saint dies, he leaves all his sin and corruption when he leaves his body.

THE THIRD OBJECTION: Our obedience is connected with salvation and preparatory to it. The Scripture expressly speaks of bestowing eternal blessings as a reward for the good deeds of the saints. Matthew 10:42, “Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, he shall in no wise lose his reward.” 1 Corinthians 3:8, “Every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labor.” Reference is made in many other places in Scripture. This seems to contradict the doctrine that has been maintained in two ways.

TO THIS I ANSWER:

First, bestowing a reward assumes a direct correlation between the moral fitness of the virtue or the person’s work and the reward. The Scripture seems to explain itself in this matter in Revelation 3:4, “Thou hast a few names, even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white; for they are worthy.” This verse is clear that people are given such a reward “because they were worthy.” Although we suppose this reference to obedience implies no proper merit, it does imply moral fitness or excellence of their virtue in God’s sight that recommends them to such a reward. This seems contrary to our supposition that God approves and accepts us as the heirs of salvation, not out of regard to the excellence of our own virtue or goodness, but only an account of the dignity and moral fitness of Christ’s righteousness.

Second, eternal reward for our own holiness and good works means that our future happiness will be greater or smaller in some proportion to our own holiness and obedience, and that there are different degrees of glory according to different degrees of virtue and good works. This is a doctrine frequently expressed in Scripture. But this seems inconsistent with the saints being blessed as a reward for Christ’s righteousness. If Christ’s righteousness is imputed to all of us and entitles us to glory, then it is the same righteousness for all. But if all have glory as the reward of the same righteousness, why do we not all have the same glory? Does not this same righteousness merit as much glory when imputed to one as when imputed to another?

To answer the first part of this objection, I point out that it does not argue that we are justified by our good deeds and that we will have eternal blessings in reward for them. Indeed, it is because we are justified that our good deeds become worhty of spiritual and eternal reward. Our virtue and good deeds are acceptable and worthy of reward not before justification, but after it. People who oppose this doctrine suppose that a saving interest in Christ is given as a reward of our virtue or as testament to God’s acceptance of excellence of our virtue. But the contrary is true. God’s respect to our virtue and His acceptance of it as worthy of reward are entirely built on our already established interest in Christ. In the language of the Scripture, believers are said to be in Christ. “In Christ” is the very foundation of our virtues and good deeds being acceptable to God.

Reward is a testament to that acceptance. For we, and all that we do, are accepted only in the Beloved. Ephesians 1:6, “Our sacrifices are acceptable, only through our interest in him, and through his worthiness and preciousness being, as it were, made ours.”

1 Peter 2:4-5, “To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious. Ye also as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”

Hebrews 13:21, “Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ.” In this passage, we are directed to offer everything we do in Christ’s name, as though we know it will be accepted only from teh value that Christ’s name has for God.

Colossians 3:17, “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.{” To act in Christ’s name is to act under Him as our Head, to have Him to stand for us, and represent us to God.

EXCELLENCE IN CHRIST AFTER JUSTIFICATION

As has already been said, God accepts nothing in us as excellent until we are actually in Christ and justified through Him. The loveliness of the virtue of fallen creatures is nothing in the sight of God until He beholds them in Christ and clothed with His righteousness. Until then, we stand condemned, utterly rejected and abhorrent before God by His own holy law. We pass for nothing before our strict Judge. We are infinitely guilty before Him.

The loveliness of our virtue does not lessen our guilt. If we, or our good deeds and acts of virtue, are beheld as being our own and separate from Christ, then we and our deeds and acts are hateful and corrupted. Any goodness or virtue is outweighed. Not only are our best duties defiled by sin and corruption which precede, follow, and are intermingled with them, but even the holy acts and gracious exercises for the godly are defective. Even though the act is good, it is defective and therefore corrupted. That defect is sin. God’s just anger is provoked because of that inherent sin, not because the exercises of love and other grace are unequal to God’s loveliness. Indeed, it is impossible for the love of men or angels to ever be equal to God’s.

THE NATURE OF CORRUPTION

The absence of corruption (an act of omission) may be as sinful and cause as much provocation as the presence of corruption (an act of commission). To understand this, consider an example. A worthy and excellent person, from mere generosity and goodness, and with great expense and suffering, saves another’s life. If that other person never thanks him for it, or expresses only minimal gratitude, this would be an act of omission. To do nothing is an expression of his ingratitude and baseness, and is equivalent to an act of ingratitude (an act commission of corruption). It brings as much blame as if he had injured the man who saved him.

But what if he expresses only a little gratitude? What if his expression of gratitude is no more than he would express if the man had given him directions on a journey? To do little in terms of gratitude is equally corrupt, unworthy, and odious. To be grateful “only a little” is to be grateful not at all. But gratitude, even too little, is good.

And so it is with respect to our exercises of love and gratitude and other graces towards God. They are defectively corrupt and sinful. In their manner and measure, if beheld out of Christ, they are justly odious and provoking to God. Because their defect is sin, they are infinitely hateful. Therefore, the hatefulness of the very act infinitely outweighs the loveliness of it, because all sin has infinite hatefulness and heinousness. Our holiness has little value and loveliness, as has been elsewhere demonstrated.

THE NATURE OF GOD’S REWARD

Although it is true that the saints are rewarded for their good works, it is for Christ’s sake only. Reward has nothing to do with excellence of works beheld separately from Christ. In some respects, God, in rewarding believers’ holiness and good works, gives them happiness as a testament to His respect. That is the nature of the reward. But it is very different from what it would have been if man had not fallen. If he had not fallen, reward would have been to bestow eternal life on man as a testament to God’s respect to the loveliness of what he had done. Man and his deeds would be considered directly, without regard for him as a member of Christ. In this sense, the scheme of justification we are oppossing necessarily supposes the excellence of our virtue to be respected and rewarded. For it supposes a saving interest in Christ itself to be given as a reward for it.

Two things come to pass, relating to the saints’ reward for their inherent righteousness and by virtue of their relation to Christ. First, their guilt is eliminated, and the pollution and hatefulness in their good works is hidden. Second, their relationship to Christ adds postive value and dignity to their good works in God’s sight. This little holiness, and these faint, feeble acts of love and other grace are valuable in the sight of God. Because God beholds them as in Christ and as members of One so infinitely worthy in His eyes, He looks upon them as having greater dignity. Isaiah 43:4, “Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable.”

It follows then that He also sets a great value upon their good acts and offerings. The love and obedience in a person of greater dignity and value in God’s sight is more valuable in His eyes than in one of less dignity. Love is valuable in proportion to the dignity of the person whose love it is. So far as anyone gives his love to another, he gives his heart and so, himself. This is a more excellent offering from teh person whose self is more worthy.

Believers are immensely more honorable in God’s esteem by virtue of their relationship to Christ than a man by himself, even though he had been free from sin. It is just as a poor woman becomes more honorable when married to a king. God will probably reward the little, weak love, and poor, exceedingly imperfect obedience of believers in Christ with more glorious reward than He would have rewarded Adam’s perfect obedience.

According to the first covenant, the person was to be accepted and rewarded only for the work’s sake. But by the covenant of grace, the work is accepted and rewarded only for the person’s sake, provided the person is already a member of Christ and clothed with His righteousness. So although the saints’ inherent holiness is rewarded, this very reward is indeed based as much on the worthiness and righteousness of Christ. God’s worthiness as Mediator is the prime and only foundation on which all is built, and the universal source from which all arise. God indeed does great things out of regard to the saints’ loveliness, but only as a secondary and derivative loveliness. The qualifications themselves — all their value and connection with the reward — are derived from Christ’s righteousenss and worthiness.

It is entirely consistent with the doctrine we have maintained to suppose that in some respects, God gives not only higher degress of glory in heaven, but heaven itself in reward for the holiness and good works of the saints. It is not impossible for God to bestow heaven’s glory wholly out of respect to Christ’s righteousness, and at the same time, in reward for man’s inherent holiness. He would do so in different respects and ways. It may be onlly Christ’s righteousness that God has respect to. The acceptability and dignity of it are sufficient to recommend all who believe in Christ to a title to this glory. So it may be only by this that people are entitled to enter heaven.

Yet God may testify in bestowing heaven on the saints with respect to their own holiness for Christ’s sake and as deriving a value from Christ’s merit. Because the saints are members of Christ, their obedience is looked upon by God as Christ’s. The sufferings of the members of Christ are looked upon, in some respect, as the sufferings of Christ.

The apostle, speaking of His sufferings, says in Colossians 1:24, “Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh.” To the same purpose of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh.” To the same purpose is Matthew 25:35-40, “For I was an hungered, and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: Naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me … Verily I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it to me.” Revelation 11:8, “And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.”

Believers obtain the favor of God through the merit and righteousness of Christ. Through Christ, God may already be disposed to make the perfectly and eternally happy. God, in His wisdom, may choose to bestow this perfect and eternal happiness as a reward for their holiness and obedience. God’s blessing may be bestowed as a reward after an interest is already obtained in that favor. This interest (to speak of God as we speak of men) disposes God to bestow the blessedness. Our heavenly Father may already have favor for a child, and be thoroughly ready to give the child an inheritance, because he is His child. He is God’s by the purchase of Christ’s righteousness. The Father may choose to bestow the inheritance on the child in a way of reward for his dutifulness and behaving in a manner becoming a child of God.

The reward is great, not because God considered His obedience excellent, but from His standing in so near and honorable a relationship to God. It is a relationship like that of a child. To understand this, consider a human father. He values and rewards his child’s obedience over that of a servant. The favor the heavenly Father bestows on a believer — His title to the eternal inheritance — is based on the relationship of Father to child.

God may promise the title to heaven by faith for a believer’s act of obedience, but bestow blessing afterward as a testament to His regard for that obedience. Consider Abraham, the father and pattern of all believers. In reward for offering up his son Isaac, God blessed his obedience by multiplying his seed as the stars of heaven and causing that in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed. Genesis 22:16-18, “And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son; that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is uon teh sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.” And yet before it was bestowed, the very same blessing had been promised to Abraham from time to time and in the most positive terms. The promise had been confirmed and sealed to him with great solemnity. (See Genesis 12:2-3; chapter 13:6; chapter 15:1,4-7, etc.; Genesis 17 throughout, and chapter 18:10,18.)

BEING WORTHY

As we have established, we may easily solve the difficulty arising from that text in Revelation 3:4, “They shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy;” which is parallel with that text in Luke 20:35, “But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead.” I allow (as in the objection) that this worthiness doubtlessly refers to a moral fitness to the reward, or that God looks on these glorious benefits as a fitting testimony to His regard to the value of people and their performances.

1. God looks on these glorious benefits as a fitting testament to His regard for the value of people in His sight. But He sets this value upon them purely for Christ’s sake. They are such jesels and have such preciousness in His eyes only because they are beheld in Christ. The saints, because of their relationship with Christ, are such precious jewels in God’s sight that they are thought worthy of a place in His own crown (Malachi 3:17; Zechariah 9:16). To understand this more clearly, consider an example: a wife of a prince is worthy to be treated with great honor. Therefore, if an ordinary woman married a prince, she would be worthy of honor and respect, even though her worthiness is only because of her marriage to the prince.
2. Because of Christ’s worthiness, God sets a high value on people’s virtues and performances. Their meek and quiet spirits are of great value in His sight. Their fruits are peasant fruits; their offerings are fragrant to Him. The preciousness and value of believers is moral fitness to a reward. Yet this value is all in the righteousness of Christ, not in any excellence in people’s virtues and performances. Luke 20:35, “They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world,” etc. and Luke 21:36, “That ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” 2 Thessalonians 1:5, “That ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer.”
   
   (To be continued …)