Justification By Faith Alone (Part 9)

Jonathan Edwards

SECTION 4
Answering Objections (Cont’d)

THE FOUNDATION OF FIRST ACCEPTANCE

There is a vast difference between this doctrine of justification by faith alone, and what is supposed in the scheme of those who oppose it. The true doctrine lays the foundation of first acceptance with God and all actual salvation consequent upon it, wholly in Christ and His righteousness. On the contrary, in the opponents’ scheme, they lay the foundation of all discriminating salvation in man’s own virtue and moral excellence. This is the very bottom stone in this affair, for they suppose that it is from regard to our virtue that even a special interest in Christ is given. The one doctrine is an evangelical scheme, the other a legal one. The one is utterly inconsistent with our being justified by Christ’s righteousness; the other not at all.

THE FORGIVING SPIRIT

We now understand how the forgiveness of sin granted in justification is indissolubly connected with a forgiving spirit in us. We know that there may be many exercises of forgiving mercy granted in reward for our forgiving those who trespass against us. Undeniably, there are many acts of divine forgiveness of the saints that do not presuppose an unjustified state immediately preceding that forgiveness. Without doubt, saints who never fell from a justified state committed many sins that God forgave by laying aside His fatherly displeasure. The doctrine is not compromised or contradicted by thinking that His forgiveness (and other mercies and blessings consequent to justification) may be in reward for our forgiveness.

DEGRESS OF GLORY

Referring to the second part of the third objection that deals with the inconsistencies of different degrees of glory, it suggests that the degrees of glory in different saints should be greater or lesser according to their inherent holiness and good works. At the same time, everyone’s glory should be purchased with the price of the very same imputed righteousness.

I answer that by His righteousness, Christ purchased complete and perfect happiness for everyone according to his capacity. This does not contradict that the saints, being of various capacities, may have various degrees of happiness, and yet all their happiness is the fruit of Christ’s purchase. Indeed, it cannot be properly said that Christ purchased any particular degree of happiness, so that the value of Christ’s righteousness in the sight of God is sufficient to raise a believer to a limited extent of happiness, and no higher. It cannot be said that if the believer were made happier, it would exceed the value of Christ’s righteousness.

But in general, Christ purchased eternal life or perfect happiness for all according to their several capacities. The saints are as so many vessels of different sizes, cast into a sea of happiness where every vessel is full. This Christ purchased for all. It is left to God’s sovereign pleasure to determine the largeness of the vessel. Christ’s righteousness meddles not in this matter. Ephesians 4:4-7, “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism … But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.” God may dispense in this matter according to what rule He pleases. If Adam had persevered in perfect obedience, he and his posterity would have had perfect and full happiness. Everyone’s happiness would have answered his capacity, so that each would have been completely blessed. But even then, God would have been at liberty to make vessels of varying capacities, as He pleased.

The angels have obtained eternal life (a state of confirmed glory) by a covenant of works, the condition of which was perfect obedience. Yet some angels are higher in glory than others, according to the individual capacities that God has given them according to His sovereign pleasure. The perfect obedience of the second Adam notwithstanding, God continues to adjust the degree of each one’s capacity. By His pleasure, He has fixed the degree of capacity, and so glory, according to the proportions of the saints’ grace and fruitfulness. He gives higher degrees of glory in reward for higher degrees of holiness and good works, because it pleases Him. Yet all the happiness of each saint is indeed the fruit of the purchase of Christ’s obedience. If it had been but one man whom Christ had obeyed and died for, and it had pleased God to make that man a very large capacity, Christ’s perfect obedience would have purchased his capacity to be filled. Then all his happiness might properly be said to be the fruit of Christ’s perfect obedience. Although, if he had been of lesser capacity, that same obedience would not have yielded so much happiness. Yet that happiness would have had as much capacity as Christ merited for him. Christ’s righteousness meddles not with the degree of happiness, only that He merits that it should be full and perfect according to the capacity.

CHRIST AS THE HEAD

This matter might be even better understood if we consider that Christ and the whole Church of saints are one body of which He is the Head and they are the members in different places and with different capacities. The whole body, Head, and members have commuion in Christ’s righteousness; they are all partakers of the benefit of it. Christ is rewarded for it, and every member is partaker of the benefit and reward. But it does not follow that every part should equally partake of the benefit, but only in proportion to its place and capacity. The Head partakes of far more than other parts. The more noble members partake of more than the inferior. As it is in a healthy human body, the head, heart, and lungs have a greater share of his health. They have it more seated in them than the hands and feet, because they are parts of greater capacity, although the hands and feet are as much in perfect health as those nobler parts of the body.

So, it is in the mystical body of Christ: all the members are partakers of the benefit of the Head, but only according to the different capacities and places they have in the body. God determines that place and capacity as He pleases. He makes whom He pleases the foot, and whom He pleases the hand, and whom He pleases the lungs, etc. 1 Corinthians 12:18, “God hath set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. God determines the place and capacity of every member, by the different degrees of grace and assistance in the improvement of it in this world. Those whom He intends for the highest place in the body, He gives the most of his Spirit, the greatest share of the divine nature, the Spirit and nature of Christ Jesus the Head, and that assistance whereby they perform the most excellent works, and do most abound in them.”

THE FOURTH OBJECTION: Some object to the idea that rewards are given for our good works only in consequence of an interest in Christ, or in testament to God’s respect to the excellence or value of them in His sight after interest in Christ’s righteousness is already obtained. Scripture speaks of an interest in Christ as being given out of respect to our moral fitness. Matthew 10:37-39, “He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me: he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me: he that findeth his life, shall lose it …” Worthiness here at least significes moral fitness, or an excellence that recommends. This passage suggests that it is through moral fitness that men are admitted to a union with Christ and interest in Him Therefore this worthiness cannot be consequent to being in Christ and the imputation of His worthiness, or from any value that is in us or our actions in God’s sight as beheld in Christ.

TO THIS I ANSWER:

When people are accepted, they are not accepted as worthy, but when they are rejected, they are rejected as unworthy. He who does not love Christ above other things and treats Him with such indignity that he places Him below earthly things will be treated as unworthy of Christ. His unworthiness of Christ will be marked against him and imputed to him. And although he is a professing Christian, lives in the enjoyment of the gospel, and has been visibly engrafted into Christ and admitted as one of His disciples, as Judas was, he will be thrust out in wrath as a punishment of his vile treatment of Christ. The aforementioned words do not imply that a man who loves Christ above father and mother would be worthy. The most they imply is that such a visible Christian will be treated and thrust out as unworthy.

He who believes is not received for the worthiness or mutual fitness of faith. God cast out the visible Christian for the unworthiness and moral unfitness of unbelief. Being accepted as one of Christ’s disciples is not the reward for believing. But being thrust out from being one of Christ’s disciples, after a visible admission of being so, is properly a punishment for unbelief. John 3:18-19, “He that believeth on him, is not condemned; but he that believeth not, is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

Salvation is promised to the faithful as a free gift, but damnation is threatened to unbelievers as punishment. Those who believed while in the wilderness did not enter into Canaan because of the worthiness of their faith. God swore in His wrath, saying that those who believed not should not enter in because of the worthiness of their unbelief. Admitting a soul to a union with Christ is an act of free and sovereign grace. On the other hand, excluding those who profess Christianity, but reject offers of a Savior while they enjoy great privileges as God’s people from that union at death and on the Day of Judgment is a judicial proceeding. Exclusion is a just punishment for their unworthy treatment of Christ.

If a beggar is offered a precious gift, but tramples it under his feet, he might be judged to be unworthy of the gift. It might be taken away. Or if a condemned prisoner should be offered a royal pardon that would spare his execution, but he only scoffs at it, he might be judged to be unworthy of the pardon. It might be taken away. Even if he had accepted the pardon, it never would have been his because of his worthiness or virtue. That he is a condemned prisoner suggests that he is neither worthy nor virtuous. The king’s pardon that was the prisoner’s for the taking suggests that the king did not look for worthiness to reward. This may teach us how to understand Acts 13:46, “It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken unto you; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.”

THE FIFTH OBJECTION: Some object to the doctrine of justification by faith alone, claiming that repentance is evidently referenced in Scripture being a condition of remission of sins; but that remission of sins is by all allowed to be that wherein justification does (at least) in great part consist. But to suppose that faith and repentance are two distinct things, and yet both conditions of justification is certainly a misunderstanding of what the Scripture says about repentance. It is clear from the Scripture that the condition of justification is but one: faith. It is by faith alone that we are justified, or by which we come to have an interest in Christ. The opposing clergy know this. But they assume that this justifying faith on which the apostle Paul speaks includes repentance.

TO THIS I ANSWER:

When repentance is spoken of in Scripture as the condition of pardon, it is not intended to be any particular grace or act distinct from faith. It has no parallel influence with faith in the affair of our pardon or justification. Repentance is merely active conversion (or conversion actively considered). Active conversion respects sin and God. The word “repentance” means a change of the mind, or the conversion of the mind. Acts 26:19, “Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I showed unto them of Damascus and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, and turn to God.” Both these are the same turning, but with respect to opposite terms. The former is turning away from sin; the other is turning toward God.

If we review Scriptures that speak of evangelical repentance, we understand repentance in the sense that it is presented in Matthew 9:13, “I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Luke 13:3, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”

Luke 15:7,10, “There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth,” meaning “over one sinner who is converted.”

Acts 11:18, “Then hath Glod also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.” Christians said this of the circumcision at Jerusalem, when peter gave an account of the conversion of Cornelius and his family, and their embracing the gospel, but said nothing expressly about their sorrow for sin.

Acts 17:30, “But now commandeth all men every where to repent.”

Luke 16:30, “Nay, father Abraham, but if one went to them from the dead, they would repent.

2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” It is plain that in these and other places that “repentance” means “conversion.”

CONVERSION AND EVANGELICAL REPENTANCE

Because it is true that conversion is the condition of pardon and justification, how absurd is it to say that conversion is one condition of justification, and faith another, as though they were two distinct and parallel conditons? Conversion is the condition of justification, because it is that great change by which we are brought from sin to Christ, and by which we become believers in Him. Matthew 21:32, “And ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.”

When we are directed to repent, so that our sins may be forgotten, it is the same as being directed to let our hearts be changed, so that we may be justified, and believe that we may be justified, does it therefore follow that hearts being changed is one condition of justification, and believing another? Our minds must be changed, so that we may believe, and so may be justified.

And besides, evangelical repentance is active conversion. It is not to be treated as a particular grace, distinct from faith. What is conversion, if not the sinful, alienated soul’s closing with Christ, or the sinner being brought to believe in Christ? A soul in conversion respects sin, and cannot be excluded from the nature of faith in Christ. Here is something in faith, or closing with Christ that respects sin; that is evangelical repentance. In Scripture “repentance” means repentance for the remission of sins. “Faith,” in relationship to sin, is the very principle or operation of the mind. “Justifying faith” refers to evangelical repentance — rejecting sin and being delivered from it. It also refers to positive good accepted by Christ, the Mediator.

It is ignorant to think that repentance is all that is necessary for remission of sin without any respect to Christ, who alone has made atonement for sin. Salvation cannot be obtained without looking or coming to the great and only Savior. “Repentance” is merely sorrow for sin and forsaking it. It is a duty of natural religion. But “evangelical repentance” is repentance for remission of sins. It is not only sorrow for and forsaking sin. At its essence, it also means that the soul depends on Christ for deliverance from sin.

FAITH AND REPENTANCE

Evidence that justifying repentance has the nature of faith is seen in Acts 19:4, “Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.” The words, “saying unto the people, that they should believe on him,” explain how he preached repentance for the remission of sins. He said that they should repent for the remission of sin and believe on Christ. He did not say that they should believe on Christ to obtain the remission of sins. In 2 Timothy 2:25, “In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.” In this passage “acknowledging of the truth” is “believing” obtained in repentance.

Repentance included in the name of faith is evident as the apostle speaks in Galatians 2:18 of sin destroyed in faith. He first mentions an objection to the doctrine of justification by faith alone, saying that it tends to encorage men in sin, and so to make Christ the minister of sin. He rejects and refutes the objection with this, “If I build again the things that I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.” For sin to be destroyed by faith, there must be repentance.

Justifying faith requires a sense of our own sinfulness and the hatefulness of it, absolute acknowledgement of the threatened punishment, and reliance on the free mercy of God for deliverance from both sin and its punishment. There are three important points to these requirements:

1. They define the conditions of evangelical repentance that promises remission of sins in Scripture.
2. The essence of justifying faith is to be delivered from evil by the Mediator.
3. Justifying faith is indeed properly and specifically necessary for the remission of sins.

All of it is essential to evangelical repentance, through which the remission of sins is promised in the gospel. But there is more. It is the nature and essence of justifying faith that remission is promised by God when the sinner is reliant on His free mercy for deliverance. If repentance remains in sorrow for sin and does not reach to God for pardon, no pardon will be given. Evangelical repentance is humiliation for sin before God. Only then does the sinner come in worship and humble himself, asking for God’s divine mercy. Anything less sends the sinner away from God. Psalms 130:4, “There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.”

The promise of mercy to a true penitent is expressed in those terms in Proverbs 28:13, “Whoso confesseth and forsaketh his sins, shall have mercy.” There is faith in God’s mercy in that confessing. The psalmist in Psalms 32 speaks of the blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered, to whom the Lord imputes not sin. He says that while he kept silent, his bones waxed old. But when he acknowledged his sin unto God and did not hide his iniquity. He said he would confess his transgression to the Lord, and then God forgave the iniquity of his sin.

(To be continued…)