The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Eternal Justification

Jeff:

I knew you would disagree. But there is not much exegesis needed to support this view. According to you and most, this view teaches that although Christ bore the sin of His elect at the cross, He does not justify them, or impute Christ’s righteousness to them until they believe. Many interpret Romans 5:1 to mean that faith is the cause of God justifying the sinner, and thereby make justification simultaneous with faith. However, the context reveals that God conditioned the justification of the sinner entirely upon the work of Christ in His death and resurrection, NOT FAITH. “Therefore,” refers back to the preceding verse in Romans 4:25- “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” By putting the comma after justified rather than faith, which is how it should read, the meaning is “Therefore being, or having been declared just, (based on the redeeming work of Christ alone), by or, out of faith we have peace with God…” In other words, the peace with God, enjoyed in the sinner’s conscience, is the result of God-given faith, that sinner already having been justified by the death of Christ. The peace of God enjoyed by the justified sinner comes by God-given faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is not the reason that God justifies the sinner; it is the result of God having justified him through the blood and righteousness of Christ. Faith is the evidence of the justification that Christ has obtained by His righteous life and death. Those whom God justified by the blood (death) of His Son, He will most certainly in time cause to believe because their sins have already been put away, and He declared them righteous at the cross, Romans 5:9. Colossians 2:13 clearly shows that the reason God regenerates sinners is not in order to justify them, but because they have been justified in Christ through His redemptive work-“And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;”
Again, some might conclude then that faith is not necessary in the grand doctrine of justification, if Christ already accomplished it at the cross. The answer is that it has no part as our ground of justification before God; however, it is clearly the EVIDENCE that God has justified that sinner in Christ by His obedience unto death. In time, every justified sinner will by God’s grace and Spirit come to Christ in repentance, believing the record God has given of His Son and submitting to Christ as the end (fulfillment) of the law for righteousness.

We dare not make faith the cause of justification; any more than one would make the will of man the cause of saving grace. The meaning is that in His time, all whom God has justified in Christ, through the death of His Son, He will most certainly cause to believe on Christ. If you are a believer, it is the righteousness and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that already justifies you before God, not your faith. If my justification is in any way conditioned on or tied to my faith, what then when my faith is weak, or seems completely gone. To found justification upon even the grace of faith is to lay it on weak knees at best, and in that, there is no comfort. No! Faith is the result of the Sovereign Spirit’s work in your heart, causing you to enter into the peace, joy, and fellowship established already for you by Christ’s work at the cross. If you are His by grace, faith is the evidence of God having justified you already in Christ. When Christ cried, “It is finished,” it is!

The best definition of the justification is that found in Scripture itself,

Romans 3:24 “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”
Romans 5:9 “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.”


When the Scriptures speak of the blood of Christ, it is synonymous with His death. Note how the Scriptures tie our justification before God directly to the death of Christ and redemption in Him. Why would someone say that Christ redeemed sinners at the cross but God did not justify them there?

To say that Christ died, and yet the benefits of His death are not actually accounted until one believes is a conditional salvation message and foreign to Scripture.

There is only one justification of sinners before God, and that accomplished by Christ in His cross death. Like the orange cone, we must not confuse the different views of justification as different types of justification or times of justification. Ken Winmer There is but one, whether viewed from eternity, by faith, or through works. It was all accomplished at the cross

This is as exegetical is it will get from me Jeff. There is enough there to chew on.

Joe

I hope your continuous plagiarism of other people’s writing is covered in your unscriptural form of justification. We will get to the chewing of “your” positions shortly…. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/puke.gif" alt="" />

Sorry Joe,

But all that is hardly "exegesis". You surely can pontificate, but unfortunately you haven't been able to offer any meaningful defense of your spurious view(s) from the actual passages quoted. In all honesty, what you have displayed is a classic case of "eisogesis", i.e., you have added your preconceived ideas INTO the texts rather than wrestling with them historically and grammatically to derive of their actual meaning.

Yes, we are justfied "by grace", which includes the means of "through faith" (Eph 2:8, 9).

The scholarship of those in the past, e.g., Luther, Calvin, Goodwin, Owen, Edwards, Boston, Warfield, Hodge, Dabney, Gerstner, Sproul, Eveson, White and so many others, too many to mention, far exceeds anything you have offered and is most likely, what you are even capable of offering in this matter of justification. The "traditional" Protestant doctrine of Sola Fide was born out of great adversity which necessitated a depth of study I would confidently say is beyond you. And then, of course, there is my own personal study of this doctrine, which certainly pales in comparison to those mentioned, from which I have concluded that the Scriptures teach nothing other than the "traditional" and orthodox view. And so, I leave you to your musings and your departure from that "faith once delivered unto the saints" and pray that your eyes will be opened to that magnificent and pure truth which has sufficed in saving countless others who have put the destiny of the souls upon it.

This unique doctrine in a special way distinguishes the church from all other nations and religions....[Justification] is the pinnacle and chief bulwark of all teaching and of the Christian religion itself; if this is obscured, adulterated, or subverted, it is impossible to retain purity of doctrine in other loci. On the other hand, if this locus is securely retained, all idolatrous ravings, superstitions and other corruptions are thereby destroyed - MARTIN CHEMNITZ (1522-1586) Loci Theologici II, p. 443

In His Grace,

Joe k,

A simple question: Was Abraham justified before he trusted God or when he trusted God?

Joe: I still don't understand why it is so hard to add to your post....quoted entirely from "Justified by Faith",Ken Wimer Shreveport Grace Church

http://www.shrevegrace.org/

I just give up guys in attempting to create an attachment. THis is getting to be a bit of a pain for me. I did it once and I tried the same thing again, but nothing. My apologies. There was suppose to be a piece of paper in the end of the article, and it did not appear.

If you notice I attempted to edit the post, but to no avail.

So plagerism is not my intent Joe. So stop with the false witness please.

AS far as the belief. That is where I am now.

In fact if you look closely, Kens name is in there at the end.

Before. That is why he believed.

Jeff:

I see ample support for this. In fact, it is much better to believe that God in His grace justifies His elect completely at the cross. That is the point the righteousness of Christ is imputed to His elect. Exactly like it was imputed to those prior to the hiostorical event.

So far as I look at scripture I see Paul speaking of many distinct things.
1) Justified by faith
2) by the faith of Christ
3) His blood
4) His grace
5) His death

That is why I am led to believe both eternal justifiation is not very scriptural, and the trqditional understanding puts to much emphasis on faith. If Faith is a gift OF God, then He is the author of it anyway, so why would He wait to impute the righteousness of Christ to us until one believes? Doesnt this make God mutable? How can God hate His elect after electing them? I cannot grasp this at all. Therefore in order to maintain His love, He elects in eternity, justifies at the cross completely, regenerates in time, converts by the Gospel, Sanctified both immediate and continuous, then glorifies. I cannot see it any other way.

I now see the shortcomings of eternal justification after studying Ken and Steve Baloga. Scriptures allows for no other option than to believe we are justified, Christs righteousness is imputed at the cross when He said it is finished.

And Joe and Dave, these are my own words


Joe

And why are you so intent of adding an attachment? Why not simply post a LINK/URL to the site where you copied the material? Can it be THAT difficult to either type or copy/paste an Internet address?

Attachments are limited to a maximum size on this Board so as to preserve database server space. Of course, it may be that you aren't following the instructions for adding an attachment.

And as for the "piece of paper", might that have been an image? If so, you can't simply copy/paste those into any Board. You would need to use the UBBT Code or HTML image tags.

For if Abraham is justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness" (Rom. 4:2,3).

Abraham was justified WHEN he believed, not before.

Tom perhaps if you had read this by Spurgeon you could have save yourself some grief <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I was taught that Spurgeon considered John Gill a "hyper-Calvinist." Using my computer, I checked every reference that Spurgeon ever made in print about John Gill. There is not a single inference by Spurgeon that Gill was a hyper-Calvinist. One of the things that was always used to prove Gill's guilt was his view of "eternal justification." The following quote from Spurgeon is not meant to convince you of eternal justification. At this point I am not convinced that either Spurgeon or Gill was correct. I am concerned that some men who love their creeds more than Christ Himself are far too quick to stick an odious label on anyone who dares to challenge their understanding of truth. A man with an inflexible man-made creed cannot hear or honestly look at anyone that does not "fit into his mold." Spurgeon never quit learning even as he never moved an inch from the essentials of true sovereign grace. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bow.gif" alt="" />
JGR—Editor


But there are one or two acts of God which, while they certainly are decreed as much as other things, yet they bear such a special relation to God's predestination that it is rather difficult to say whether they were done in eternity or whether they were done in time. Election is one of those things which were done absolutely in eternity; all who were elect, were elect as much in eternity as they are in time. But you may say, "Does the like affirmation apply to adoption or justification?" My late eminent and now glorified predecessor, Dr. Gill, diligently studying these doctrines, said that adoption was the act of God in eternity, and that as all believers were elect in eternity, so beyond a doubt they were adopted in eternity. He went further than that to include the doctrine of justification and he said that inasmuch as Jesus Christ was before all worlds justified by his Father, and accepted by him as our representative, therefore all the elect must have been justified in Christ from before all worlds.
Now, I believe there is a great deal of truth in what he said, though there was a considerable outcry raised against him at the time he first uttered it. However, that being a high and mysterious point, we would have you accept the doctrine that all those who are saved at last were elect in eternity when the means as well the end were determined. With regard to adoption, I believe we were predestined hereunto in eternity, but I do think there are some points with regard to adoption which will not allow me to consider the act of adoption to have been completed in eternity. For instance, the positive translation of my soul from a state of nature into a state of grace is a part of adoption or at least it is an effect at it, and so close an effect that it really seems to be a part of adoption itself: I believe that this was designed, and in fact that it was virtually carried out in God's everlasting covenant; but I think that it was that actually then brought to pass in all its fullness.
So with regard to justification, I must hold, that in the moment when Jesus Christ paid my debts, my debts were cancelled—in the hour when he worked out for me a perfect righteousness it was imputed to me, and therefore I may as a believer say I was complete in Christ before I was born, accepted in Jesus, even as Levi was blessed in the loins of Abraham by Melchisedec; but I know likewise that justification is described in the Scriptures as passing upon me at the time I believe. "Being justified by faith," I am told "I have peace with God, through Jesus Christ." I think, therefore that adoption and justification, while they have a very great alliance with eternity, and were virtually done then, yet have both of them such a near relation to us in time, and such a bearing upon our own personal standing and character that they have also a part and parcel of themselves actually carried out and performed in time in the heart of every believer. I may be wrong in this exposition; it requires much more time to study this subject than I have been able yet to give to it, seeing that my years are not yet many; I shall no doubt by degrees come to the knowledge more fully of such high and mysterious points of gospel doctrine.
But nevertheless, while I find the majority of sound divines holding that the works of justification and adoption are due in our lives I see, on the other hand, in Scripture much to lead me to believe that both of them were done in eternity; and I think the fairest view of the case is, that while they were virtually done in eternity, yet both adoption and justification are actually passed upon us, in our proper persons, consciences, and experiences, in time,—so that both the Westminster confession and the idea of Dr. Gill can be proved to be Scriptural, and we may hold them both without any prejudice the one to the other.
From: C.H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 7, Page 180, 81 <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/scared.gif" alt="" />

"Gill is the Coryphaeus of hyper-Calvinism, but if his followers never went beyond their master, they would not go very far astray."

Charles H. Spurgeon, Commenting and Commentaries: Two Lectures Addressed to the students of The Pastors' College, Metropolitan Tabernacle, by C. H. Spurgeon, President. London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1890.

I hope that those that read your post can get past the inaccuracies of the author of that comment. I tried to find Spurgeons comment on Gill in it's entirety online but could not. The focus was to be on what Spurgeon wrote on eternal justification. Thanks for the correction. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Commenting and Commentaries

Enjoy

And a fine job you did too, although Spurgeon's comments in the book to which J_Edward's referenced which was voiced also by Spurgeon seems to indicate that there was some vacillation in his view of Gill. But be that as it may, your rather lengthy quote goes to show that Spurgeon did err on various matters of which this is one. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

As I have said elsewhere in this thread, although those who have held to eternal justification begin with a few texts of Scripture, they all invariably DEDUCE the doctrine from a form or reason rather than from exegetical declarations of Scripture. What more can I say? The old accepted biblical hermeneutical principle that says "the clear interpret the unclear" seems to have been ignored by these men. For when it says that we are "justified by faith", I take that as being quite clear. But can one submit a biblical text that says we are "justified in eternity"? or anything even remotely close to such a thing? I would venture to say, NO! It simply cannot be done. The same is true for adoption. There are clear and cogent statements in Scripture that speak of our being adopted after we are reconciled to God. For how else could God adopt one unless then were clean in Christ? And how can one be clean in Christ unless the believe upon Him and have His righteousness imputed to them?

So, once again, the decree of God is eternal and infallible. But its execution is done throughout time. He decreed that the elect would be glorified, but would you or anyone else (hmmm, there probably is at least one, eh?) who would say that we were glorified in eternity and thus even now, we are glorified? <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/rolleyes2.gif" alt="" /> Even more so, the Lord Christ's crucifixion was decreed in eternity. Yet, we see throughout nearly 3000 years of HISTORY (time) men prophesied of its future coming which actually took place in time. If that which the crucifixion accomplished, i.e., the redemption of the elect, was eternally accomplished, then of what purpose did it serve that God became man and suffered upon the cross? Was that too simply a form of "recognition" of what He had already done? I find that type of thinking quite foolish.

In His Grace,