Updated December 13, 2019
This article has two parts. Here is Part
II.
The doctrine which Martin Luther declared to be the
article by which the church stands or falls, which John Calvin affirmed as the
principal ground on which religion must be supported, which forged the conflict
with Rome during the Protestant Reformation, resulting in the largest schism in
the history of the church—is the doctrine of justification. Justification by
faith alone, sola fide, is the answer
to life’s most profound questions: “How then can man be righteous before God?
Or how can he be pure who is born of a woman?” (Job 25:4).[1]
How does man get into heaven? “Then [the Philippian jailer] called for a light,
ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out
and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ So they said, ‘Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household’ ” (Acts 16:29-31). The Heidelberg
Catechism thus answers Question 60, “How art thou righteous before God?”
Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ; so that, though my
conscience accuse me, that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of
God, and kept none of them, and am still inclined to all evil; notwithstanding,
God, without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to
me, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ; even so, as
if I never had had, nor committed any sin: yea, as if I had fully accomplished
all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me; inasmuch as I embrace
such benefit with a believing heart.[2]
It is faith alone, to understand and assent to the Gospel,
“without any merit of mine,” that saves sinners. Despite their differences, the
Protestant reformers rightly understood and unanimously affirmed this vital
doctrine, “a truth which all the reforming leaders in Germany, Switzerland,
France, and Britain, and all the confessions which they sponsored, were at one
in highlighting, and which they all saw as articulus
stantis vel cadentis
ecclesiae—the point on which depends the standing or falling of the church.”[3] It is the heart
of the Gospel, as the apostle Paul explains:
But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the
truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, "If you, being a
Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel
Gentiles to live as Jews? We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the
Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by
faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be
justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works
of the law no flesh shall be justified.”
(Gal. 2:14-16)
If faith is something man must “do,” however, does that make
it a work? Does the act of faith contribute to his justification? The Bible and
historic Protestantism answer both in the negative. After Jesus fed the five
thousand by multiplying bread and fish, the people sought Him again, but Jesus
tells them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the
signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the
food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which
the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him” (John
6:26-27). They apparently misunderstand Him because they then ask, "What
shall we do, that we may work the works of God?" (v. 28) And Jesus
answers, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent” (v.
29). Christ gave an ad-hominem reply[4] to contrast faith and works, not to
conflate them. Later He also reveals “the will of Him who sent Me, that
everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I
will raise him up at the last day” (v. 40).
The Instrumental
Copula
But if it’s not a work, how then does faith justify a sinner
in the sight of God? Question 73 of the Westminster
Larger Catechism answers: “Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God,
not because of those other graces which do always accompany it, or of good
works that are the fruits of it, nor as if the grace of faith, or any act
thereof, were imputed to him for his justification; but only as it is an
instrument by which he receiveth and applieth Christ and his righteousness.” A logical proposition has a subject, predicate,
and copula. In the proposition, “God is holy,” for example, God is the subject, holy is the predicate, and is,
the verb to be, is the copula. The predicate is what describes the subject. The
copula adds nothing—no content, no meaning—to the subject; it merely connects the predicate to the subject.
Similarly, faith contributes nothing to salvation. It is not a work, but merely
the instrument, the bridge—the copula—that connects Christ’s redemptive work
and His benefits to the believer. Charles Spurgeon illustrates how faith is the
instrumental cause of justification:
Remember this; or you may fall into error by fixing your
minds so much upon the faith which is the channel of salvation as to forget the
grace which is the fountain and source even of faith itself. Faith is the work
of God's grace in us. No man can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy
Ghost. "No man cometh unto me," saith Jesus, "except the Father
which hath sent me draw him." So that faith, which is coming to Christ, is
the result of divine drawing. Grace is the first and last moving cause of
salvation; and faith, essential as it is, is only an important part of the
machinery which grace employs. We are saved "through faith," but
salvation is "by grace." Sound forth those words as with the
archangel's trumpet: "By grace are ye saved." What glad tidings for
the undeserving![5]
Neither faith nor works contribute to salvation, for faith
is the instrumental cause, “the channel of salvation,” and good works are the
fruits of it, “for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph.
2:8-9). What, however, does “that” and “it” refer to? Grace, saved, or faith? Discerning commentators recognize
that they refer to all three—salvation by grace through faith—because
to refer back to any one of these
words seems to be redundant. Rather than any particular word
it is best to conclude that τοῦτο [Gk.
‘that’] refers back to the preceding section. This is common and there are
numerous illustrations of such in Ephesians. For example, in 1:15 τοῦτο refers back to
the contents of 1:3-14, in 3:1 it refers back to 2:11-22, and in 3:14 it refers
back to 3:1-13. Therefore, in the present context, τοῦτο refers back to 2:4-8a and more specifically 2:8a, the
concept of salvation by grace through faith.[6]
Commenting on this passage, reformer John Calvin concurs:
Paul's doctrine is overthrown, unless the whole praise is
rendered to God alone and to his mercy. And here we must advert to a very
common error in the interpretation of this passage. Many persons restrict the
word gift to faith alone. But Paul is only repeating in other words the former
sentiment. His meaning is, not that faith is the gift of God, but that
salvation is given to us by God, or, that we obtain it by the gift of God.
Salvation, in other words, is entirely by God’s grace alone
(sola gratia), through faith alone (sola fide), in Christ alone (solus Christus), to the glory of God
alone (soli Deo gloria),
based on the ultimate authority of Scripture alone (sola Scriptura). These five solas of the Reformation encapsulate what Protestants
believed and taught concerning salvation—all of which is God’s gift to us. Good
works contribute nothing to salvation, but rather result from it in sanctification, which is why the Bible says to “work out
your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both
to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Php. 2:12-13). Christians are
primarily sanctified by God’s word, not by works, as Jesus said, “Sanctify them
by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have
sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also
may be sanctified by the truth” (John 7:17-19). Good works are the fruit, not
the cause, of sanctification, though God uses certain works, such as the
spiritual disciplines of prayer, Bible reading and study, and Biblical
preaching as secondary means of sanctification, hence the command to “exercise
yourself toward godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7).[7] Martin Luther
said it well:
Beware then of trusting in thine own contrition, or
attributing remission of sins to thy own sorrow. It is not because of these
that God looks on thee with favour, but because of the
faith with which thou hast believed His threatenings
and promises, and which has wrought that sorrow in thee. Therefore
whatever good there is in penitence is due, not to the diligence with which we
reckon up our sins, but to the truth of God and to our faith. All other
things are works and fruits which follow of their own accord, and which do not
make a man good, but are done by a man who has been made good by his faith in
the truth of God.[8]
The Last Days of
Evangelicalism
To be a true evangelical, then, is to be a true Protestant,
for it originally referred to one who affirms the material principle, sola fide, and the formal principle, sola Scriptura, of the Reformation. But
the term has been robbed of its meaning by ecumenical and liberal trends in the
church. It is nothing new for compromising evangelicals like Bill Bright, Pat
Robertson, Richard Mouw, J. I. Packer, and Chuck
Colson to sign (and in Colson’s case, co-author) “Evangelicals and Catholics
Together,” which affirms that “Evangelicals and Catholics are brothers and
sisters in Christ.”[9] Or that leading
evangelicals like Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary, Bryan Chapell, President of Covenant
Theological Seminary, Ligon Duncan, Presbyterian
minister and President of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and Chuck
Colson once again, signed (Colson also co-authored) the “Manhattan
Declaration,” which states in no uncertain ecumenical terms: “We, as Orthodox,
Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered…to make the following
declaration[:]…We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God
of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives and by that claim
calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good
of all who bear his image.”[10] It’s now
commonplace for influential Protestants such as Michael Horton to praise the
work of “important theologians” like Pope Benedict XVI and Scott Hahn, a former
Presbyterian who apostatized to Rome:
In this remarkable book [Covenant
and Communion: The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI], Scott Hahn
has drawn out the central themes of Benedict’s teaching in a highly readable
summary that includes not only the pope’s published works but also his
less-accessible homilies and addresses. This is an eminently useful guide for
introducing the thought of an important theologian of our time.[11]
Why would someone like Horton—a United Reformed
minister and J. G. Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at
Westminster Seminary California, the supposed bastion of Reformed orthodoxy,
who has a ministry called “The White Horse Inn: For a Modern Reformation,”
inspired by the historical inn where Protestants gathered for “frequent and
regular open discussions on the key issues of Protestant theology” and “became
the kindling fire for the larger English Reformation as a whole”[12]—laud the work
of a pope and Roman Catholic apologist? For academic respectability? Ecumenical
collegiality? Or just plain hypocrisy?[13]
This rampant ecumenical confusion subverts Biblical Christianity, “for if the
trumpet makes an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle?” (1 Cor. 14:8).
To be a true Protestant by conviction, one must
understand what he protests—Romanism—and why—Rome’s false gospel of justification
by faith and works amidst a quagmire of other false teachings.[14] Many professing
Protestants and evangelicals are ignorant, however, not only of the Reformation
but of Roman Catholicism as well, and sound more like the magisterium of Rome
than Jesus, Paul, and the reformers when expounding their views of
justification. Legalism or Nomism comes in various flavors, whether it’s Roman
Catholicism, Shepherdism, Federal Vision or Auburn Avenue Theology, the New
Perspective on Paul, or Neonomianism, all of which oppose Biblical
Christianity:
In the 1970s and 1980s the attack [against sola fide]
came from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and the teaching of
Norman Shepherd who taught justification by faithfulness. If you are not aware
of this you can read O. Palmer Robertson’s The Current Justification
Controversy, Mark Karlberg’s The Changing of the Guard, A
Companion to The Current Justification Controversy edited by John W.
Robbins, and Christianity and Neo-Liberalism: The Spiritual Crisis in the
Orthodox Presbyterian Church [OPC] and Beyond by Paul M. Elliott.
After Shepherd was dismissed from both the Seminary and the OPC without
discipline, Richard Gaffin, Jr. continued to teach a doctrine of justification similar to Shepherd’s for over thirty more years. Another
attack from the Reformed camp has been from the Federal Vision or Auburn Avenue
Theology of John Barach, Peter Leithart,
Rich Lusk, Steve Schlissel, Tom Trouwborst, Steve
Wilkins, and Douglas Wilson, among others, who teach…that baptism is what makes
a person a Christian, that justification is by faith and the obedience of
faith, and that the elect can become reprobate because they are not given the
gift of perseverance, among other false teachings. The New Perspective on Paul
of E. P. Sanders, James D. G. Dunn, and N. T. Wright also attack justification
by faith alone, teaching instead that Paul is more concerned with the “identity
or boundary markers” of who is in and who is not in the church, and not how a
sinner can be declared righteous before a holy God.[15]
These false teachings pervade Protestant churches today,
even though they have been marked and rejected by discerning voices and church
councils.[16] In addition to
an initial and final justification or salvation—a common thread among these
views—they promote other dangerous, subtle falsehoods. They redefine and betray
sound Biblical teaching and their Protestant heritage. They affirm
justification by faith alone on one hand, thereby confusing many by appearing
orthodox, but undermine it on the other by introducing Romanist concepts of
justification. They give a markedly different answer to the question of how we
get to heaven, irreparably damaging vital Christian doctrines in the process.
One prominent example is John Piper’s doctrine of “final salvation.” In his
attempt to reconcile passages like James 2:14ff. and Hebrews 12:14—“Pursue
peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the
Lord”—Piper offsets the doctrine of justification by faith alone with a
lopsided emphasis on evangelical obedience, claiming that believers are
required to have good works at the last judgment for God to allow them into heaven. Piper’s false
teaching of “final salvation” is the product of both bad hermeneutics and a
failure to harmonize Scripture consistently. It suffers from not one but at
least six flaws, all of them fatal, for the doctrine of justification is so fundamental
to Christianity that it affects all other doctrines. To get justification
wrong, to get salvation wrong, is to get Christianity wrong.
Fatal Flaw #1:
Justified by Faith at First, Saved by Works at Last
Piper’s errors are nothing new,[17]
though he has become more explicit in twisting Protestant doctrine to make it
fit his neolegalist mold. In 1993 he stated,
Our deeds will be the public evidence brought forth in
Christ’s courtroom to demonstrate that our faith is real. And our deeds will be
the public evidence brought forth to demonstrate the varying measures of our
obedience of faith (cf. Romans 12:3; 1 Thessalonians 1:3; 2 Thessalonians
1:11). In other words, salvation is by faith, and rewards are by faith, but the
evidence of invisible faith in the judgment hall of Christ will be a transformed
life. Our deeds are not the basis of our salvation, they are the evidence of
our salvation. They are not foundation, they are demonstration.[18]
Note the legal terms Piper uses to describe how works relate
to “final salvation.” He claims “our deeds are not the basis of our salvation, they are the evidence of our salvation. They are
not foundation, they are demonstration,” that is, forensic evidence that contributes to our justification in
“Christ’s courtroom,” which, as we will see, undermines the righteousness of
Christ imputed to believers and every legal status the believer has in relation
to God—especially justification. Recently he’s been stressing that believers
will have to present their works on the final judgment, not just for heavenly
rewards, but as “necessary confirmation” that they are worthy of entering
heaven, otherwise they won’t get in:
Paul calls this effect or fruit or evidence of faith
the “work of faith (1 Thessalonians 1:3; 2 Thessalonians 1:11) and the
“obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5; 16:26). These works of faith, and this
obedience of faith, these fruits of the Spirit that come by faith are necessary
for our final salvation. No holiness, no heaven (Hebrews 12:14).
So, we should not speak of getting to heaven by
faith alone in the same way we are justified by faith alone. Love, the fruit of
faith, is the necessary confirmation that we have faith and are alive. We won’t
enter heaven until we have it. There is a holiness without which we will not
see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14).
Essential to the Christian life and necessary for
final salvation is the killing of sin (Romans 8:13) and the pursuit of holiness
(Hebrews 12:14). Mortification of sin, sanctification in holiness. But what
makes that possible and pleasing to God? We put sin to death
and we pursue holiness from a justified position where God is one hundred
percent for us — already — by faith alone.[19]
Piper’s answer to the question of “getting to
heaven” is not faith alone; it is not the same answer to the question, How can a person be right with God? Faith, for Piper, is not
enough. Believers must also have good works, love, kill indwelling sin, and
pursue holiness for God to allow them into heaven on the final judgment,
because “we won’t enter heaven until we have it.” This is a Roman reversal of
the Protestant Reformation, because Protestants have only one answer to both
questions—faith alone. And though he
correctly explains that “we put sin to death and we pursue holiness from a
justified position where God is one hundred percent for us — already — by faith
alone,” Piper betrays sola fide by
conflating it with sanctification, for he plainly states that God requires good
works, the “sanctifying fruit” of faith, as “necessary confirmation” for
believers to enter heaven at the last judgment: “In final salvation at
the last judgment, faith is confirmed by the sanctifying fruit it has borne,
and we are saved through that fruit and that faith. As Paul says in 2
Thessalonians 2:13, ‘God chose you as the firstfruits
to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the
truth.’ ”[20]
Some excuse Piper because he nevertheless affirms
justification by faith alone. But those familiar with church history know that
heretics use Biblical and orthodox terms to affirm the Christian doctrines they
reject, all the while redefining them and twisting the Scriptures into
destructive heresies. John Robbins thus warns that “Piper denies justification
by faith alone while professing to accept Biblical soteriology—which makes his
work all the more dangerous. The most effective attack
on truth, the most subversive attack on the doctrine of the completeness and
efficacy of the work of Christ for the salvation of his people, is always
couched in pious language and Biblical phraseology.”[21]
Piper’s own words mark him guilty in a similar admonition he gives his readers:
Bible language can be used to affirm falsehood. Athanasius’s
experience has proved to be illuminating and helpful in dealing with this fact.
Over the years I have seen this misuse of the Bible especially in liberally
minded baptistic and pietistic traditions. They use the slogan, “the Bible is
our only creed.” But in refusing to let explanatory, confessional language
clarify what the Bible means, the slogan can be used as a cloak to conceal the
fact that Bible language is being used to affirm what is not biblical. This is
what Athanasius encountered so insidiously at the Council of Nicaea. The Arians
affirmed biblical sentences while denying biblical meaning…. The Arians railed
against the unbiblical language being forced on them. They tried to seize the
biblical high ground and claim to be the truly biblical people—the pietists,
the simple Bible-believers—because they wanted to stay with biblical language
only—and by it smuggle in their non-biblical meanings.[22]
This is what Piper does to Protestant doctrines when he
twists their meaning with heterodox interpretations of Biblical passages that
betray both the Reformation and Scripture: “You can see what extraordinary care
and precision is called for in order to be faithful to the Scripture when using
the five solas. And since ‘Scripture alone’ is
our final and decisive authority, being faithful to Scripture is the
goal. We aim to be biblical first — and Reformed only if it follows from
Scripture.”[23] Recently he
added, “My answer is — and it’s the answer of the entire mainstream of the
Reformed tradition, and really not just Calvinists would talk this way; many
others would as well — works play no role whatsoever in justification, but are
the necessary fruit of justifying faith, which confirm our faith and our union
with Christ at the last judgment.”[24]
Piper teaches contrary views: He cannot affirm the Protestant position that
believers are justified by faith alone, but at the last judgment good works
will be required to forensically demonstrate their worthiness to enter heaven
and thus contribute to, not merely confirm, their justification; for the
latter fatally undermines the former. Piper “embraces” Protestantism to
redefine it, ultimately to reject it:
The stunning Christian answer is: sola fide—faith
alone. But be sure you hear this carefully and precisely: He [Tom Schreiner]
says right with God by faith alone, not attain heaven by
faith alone. There are other conditions for attaining
heaven, but no others for entering a right relationship to God. In fact, one
must already be in a right relationship with God by faith alone in order to
meet the other conditions.
“We are justified by faith alone, but not by faith
that is alone.” Faith that is alone is not faith in union with Christ. Union
with Christ makes his perfection and power ours through faith. And in union
with Christ, faith is living and active with Christ’s power.
Such faith always “works by love” and produces the
“obedience of faith.” And that obedience— imperfect as it is till the day we
die—is not the “basis of justification, but . . . a necessary evidence and
fruit of justification.” In this sense, love and obedience—inherent
righteousness—is “required of believers, but not for justification”—that is,
required for heaven, not for entering a right-standing with God.[25]
This is Romanism at its core—a travesty of the Reformation.
According to Piper, “there are other conditions for attaining heaven” that
believers must meet based on his unbiblical and anti-Protestant distinction
between justification and “final salvation.” And to assert that “inherent
righteousness” is “required for heaven” is to side with Rome’s analytic
justification and to reject the true Gospel and the Protestant doctrine of
synthetic justification, as we will see below. Piper’s apple of “final
salvation” doesn’t fall far from the tree of Roman Catholic dogma, defined by
the Council of Trent:
CANON IX. If any one
saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean,
that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace
of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared
and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.
………….
CANON XI. If any one
saith, that men are justified, either by the sole imputation of the justice of
Christ, or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the
charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, and is
inherent in them; or even that the grace, whereby we are justified, is only the
favour of God; let him be anathema.
………….
CANON XXXII. If any one
saith, that the good works of one that is justified are in such manner the
gifts of God, as that they are not also the good merits of him that is
justified; or, that the said justified, by the good works which he performs
through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he
is, does not truly merit increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment of
that eternal life,--if so be, however, that he depart in grace,--and also
an increase of glory; let him be anathema.[26]
Recall Piper’s view of good works being required for heaven:
“These works of faith, and this obedience of faith, these fruits of the Spirit
that come by faith are necessary for our final salvation. No holiness, no
heaven,”[27] and “love and
obedience—inherent righteousness—is…required for heaven.”[28]
Now note how he echoes Rome, “that the said justified, by the good works which
he performs through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose
living member he is,… merit increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment
of that eternal life.” In the same way that Rome requires “the said justified”
to have good works for the “attainment of that eternal life,” Piper requires
good works from those who are in a “justified position where God is one hundred
percent for us—already”[29] as “necessary
for our final salvation.” Despite his attempt to separate justification from
“attaining heaven,” Piper errs on the side of Rome because they both conflate
sanctification with justification. “The fundamental error of the Church of Rome,”
writes Scottish Presbyterian James Buchanan in his stalwart defense of sola fide,
consisted in confounding [Justification] with
Sanctification.… Popish writers confounded, and virtually identified, them; and
thereby introduced confusion and obscurity into the whole scheme of divine
truth. For if Justification were either altogether the same with
Sanctification; or if,—not being entirely the same, but in some respects
distinguishable from it,—it was founded and dependent on Sanctification, so as
that a sinner is only justified, when, and because, and in so far as, he is
sanctified; then it would follow,—that Justification, considered as an act of
God, is the mere infusion, in the first instance, and the mere recognition,
in the second, of a righteousness inherent in the sinner himself; and not an
act of God's grace, acquitting him of guilt, delivering him from condemnation,
and receiving him into His favour and friendship. It
would not be a forensic or judicial proceeding terminating on man as its object,
and rectifying his relation to God; but the exertion of a spiritual energy,
of which man is the subject, and by which he is renewed in the spirit of his
mind. Considered, again, as the privilege of believers, it would not consist in
the free forgiveness of sins, and a sure title to eternal life; but in the
possession of an inward personal righteousness, which is always imperfect, and
often stained with sin,—which can never, therefore, amount to a full
justification in the present life, as the actual privilege of any believer.[30]
It is, as Presbyterian philosopher and theologian John
Robbins explains,
fatal to Christianity, for it makes the conclusion
inescapable that we are justified by faith and works. Augustine defined faith
as knowledge with assent. So should you. Practice is
the result of faith, not part of faith. Faith is the cause; practice is the
result. Bonhoeffer’s statement is precise and true: Only he who believes is
obedient; only he who is obedient believes. If a person does not believe, he cannot
be obedient, no matter how “good” his behavior is; and if a person believes, he
will be obedient, as James says. To put it in more technical language,
sanctification is a necessary consequence of justification; and justification
is a necessary precedent for sanctification. But justification and
sanctification are not the same. To confuse them is to be ignorant of the
Gospel.[31]
Piper has more in common with Rome than with the Reformation
on these foundational issues, but his error is subtler, more dangerous, because
he’s a professing Protestant who’s aware of Rome’s denial of justification by
faith alone, and thus attempts to distance himself by creating a false
dichotomy of a justification that is by faith alone, but a “final salvation”
that requires “love and obedience—inherent righteousness—”and good works as
public, legal evidences in “Christ’s courtroom” for believers to be judged
worthy of heaven. Make no mistake—despite his futile clarifications, Piper’s
view means that the good works of believers will not ground but necessarily
contribute to their justification as forensic, “public evidence brought forth
in Christ’s courtroom” at final judgment. This makes him at odds with Christ’s
own word: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in
Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and
shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life” (John
5:24). Piper affirms Protestant doctrine but nuances the terms in a way that
opposes historic Protestantism, resulting in a neolegalist retreat to Rome.
Fatal Flaw #2: To
Be, Or Not To Be Saved
Timothy Kauffman exposed another fatal flaw in Piper’s
teaching that begs the question: “Is there such a case as a person receiving
present justification and not maintaining right standing with God through good
works?”[32] Piper claims
the answer is no, but his own words betray him:
Jesus says that doing the will of God really is
necessary for our final entrance into the kingdom of heaven. “Not everyone who
says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who
does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21). He says that on
the day of judgment he really will reject people because they are “workers
of lawlessness.” “Then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from
me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matt. 7:23). He says people will “go away
into eternal punishment” because they really failed to love their fellow
believers: “As you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not
do it to me” (Matt. 25:45-46).
There is no doubt that Jesus saw some measure of
real, lived-out obedience to the will of God as necessary for final
salvation. “Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother”
(Mark 3:35). So the second historic answer to the
question, how is Jesus the path to perfection? has been that he enables us to
change. He transforms us so that we really begin to love like he does and thus
move toward perfection that we finally obtain in heaven.[33]
Writes Kauffman:
Piper’s 2006 work was written to instruct Christians
on the need to obey Jesus’ commands (What Jesus Demands from the World
(Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2006, 17). We agree that Christians are to obey
Jesus. One rather disconcerting observation, however, is found in Demand #21,
in which Piper explains that Jesus will send some believers to hell “because
they really failed to love their fellow believers.” We cited this same example
above to show that Piper means “final justification” when he speaks of “final
salvation.” We return to it now to demonstrate that Piper’s wavering on
justification is due partly to [Daniel] Fuller’s tutelage, and partly to his
own confusion.
To arrive at his conclusion that Jesus will send
some believers to hell, Piper combines Matthew 7:23 “depart from me, ye that
work iniquity” and Matthew 25:41-46, “Depart from me, ye cursed … Inasmuch as
ye did it not…”. Piper thus shows that Jesus will send some people “‘away into
eternal punishment’ because they really failed to love
their fellow believers” (Piper, Demands, 160). The two
passages say nothing of the sort.
……………………………………..
Piper assures us that that could never happen: “None
who is located by faith in God’s invincible favor will fail to have all that is
necessary to demonstrate this in life” (Piper, Demands, 210). If so,
then in what way does Jesus “really” send some of our “fellow believers” to
hell on the Last Day?[34]
We will see later how Piper undermines the glorification of
believers with his claim that Jesus “transforms us so that we really begin to
love like he does and thus move toward perfection that we finally obtain in
heaven.” He also twists Matthew 7:21-23 into requiring good works from
believers for them to attain heaven: “Jesus says that doing the will of God
really is necessary for our final entrance into the kingdom of heaven…. There
is no doubt that Jesus saw some measure of real, lived-out obedience to the will of God as necessary for final salvation.”
Ironically, Christ condemns precisely what Piper advocates in this passage.
Christ condemns these professing believers because
they present their works as their hope of “attaining heaven” at the last
judgment: “Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your
name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you
who practice lawlessness!” (vv. 22-23). Piper’s miserable attempt to harmonize his
view of “final salvation” with Scripture leads him to misinterpret “doing the
will of the Father” as the evangelical obedience that believers will have to
demonstrate at final judgment. But Christ reveals what the will of the Father
is in John 6:40, and it has nothing to do with presenting good works at final
judgment: “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the
Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at
the last day.” What’s “required for heaven,” in other words, is faith alone in Christ’s righteousness alone.
Fatal Flaw #3: The
Analytic Justification of the Believer
Piper’s view of final salvation contradicts the heart of the
Protestant doctrine of justification, the latter of which is not only forensic
but synthetic. It is not the
believer’s own righteousness—he has none (Luke 17:10, Rom. 3:10-20)—but rather
Christ’s righteousness, which is extra nos (foreign, or outside of us), that is imputed to
him; as opposed to Rome’s analytic or
subjective justification, in which, according to the Council of Trent, “we are
not only reputed, but are truly called, and are, just, receiving justice within
us, each one according to his own measure,”[35]
and requires inherent righteousness
and good works at the last judgment, which is what Piper affirms, that “love
and obedience—inherent righteousness—is…required for heaven.”[36] As Reformed
theologian R. C. Sproul explains the differences, note how indistinguishable
Piper’s view of final salvation is from Rome’s view of justification:
The Roman Catholic view of justification is known as
analytic justification because in order for God to
justify a person in the Roman system, that person must be righteous by
definition. Righteousness must inhere within the individual. This righteousness
may be rooted in the grace of God, but it must become a personal, inherent, and
experiential righteousness through the cooperation of good works….
In the biblical view, we cannot be justified unless
the alien righteousness of Christ is added to us in imputation. Unlike the
analytic view of justification, our works do not combine with this
righteousness in order to make us intrinsically righteous. Our right standing
with God is never based on our own holiness. Because the perfect righteousness
of Christ is added to us, or more precisely, declared to be ours, the
Protestant view is called “synthetic” justification.[37]
James Buchanan defines justification as “a legal, or
forensic, term, and is used in Scripture to denote the acceptance of any one as
righteous in the sight of God.”[38] When God
justifies a sinner, He legally pardons
him and reckons him righteous, so “there is therefore now no condemnation to
those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but
according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1). Synthetic justification is final,
irreversible, and definitive even at the last judgment, for the believer has
already been legally and eternally pardoned on the Cross of Christ, “who
Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24). Why else did
Christ proclaim, “It is finished!” (John 19:30)? Because “he who hears My word
and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into
judgment, but has passed from death into life” (John 5:24). Although he affirms
forensic justification,[39] Piper errs with
Rome once again because, in his view, believers cannot be forensically justified now; instead, they must wait until the final judgment for God to
evaluate their personal works of holiness and be publicly, legally declared
worthy of entering heaven. Piper uses legal language to describe the believer’s
admittance to heaven after they first “demonstrate” their analytic
righteousness publicly in the “judgment hall of Christ”:
Our deeds will reveal who enters the age to come,
and our deeds will reveal the measure of our reward in the age to come…. It
sounds to many like a contradiction of salvation by grace through faith. Ephesians
2:8–9 says, “By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God — not of works lest anyone should boast.” Salvation is
not “of works.” That is, works do not earn salvation. Works do not put God in
our debt so that he must pay wages. That would contradict grace. “The wages of
sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal
life, through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 6:23). Grace gives salvation as a free gift to be received by faith, not earned by works.
How then can I say that the judgment of believers
will not only be the public declaration of the measure of our reward in the
kingdom of God according to our deeds, but will also be the public declaration
of our salvation — our entering the kingdom — according to our deeds?
The answer in a couple sentences is that our deeds
will be the public evidence brought forth in Christ’s courtroom to demonstrate
that our faith is real. And our deeds will be the public evidence brought forth
to demonstrate the varying measures of our obedience of faith (cf. Romans 12:3;
1 Thessalonians 1:3; 2 Thessalonians 1:11). In other words, salvation is by
faith, and rewards are by faith, but the evidence of invisible faith in the
judgment hall of Christ will be a transformed life. Our deeds are not the basis
of our salvation, they are the evidence of our salvation. They are not
foundation, they are demonstration.[40]
Piper favors Rome’s analytic justification because he claims
that the deeds of believers “will be the public evidence brought forth in
Christ’s courtroom to demonstrate that our faith is real…. The evidence of
invisible faith in the judgment hall of Christ will be a transformed life.”
These deeds are legally demonstrated
in “Christ’s courtroom” as “public evidence” and are rendered a final legal judgment of the believer’s
worthiness to enter heaven. Piper has abandoned synthetic justification, for believers
are already fully justified before God solely
on account of Christ’s active and passive obedience. They are thus no longer
subject to another judgment or evaluation of their worthiness to enter heaven.
Piper contradicts himself by claiming that “God is already one hundred percent
for us,” yet still subjects believers to a final judgment where they could be
denied entrance to heaven due to a lack of personal holiness, or “because they
really failed to love their fellow believers.”[41]
Even when he further contradicts himself by claiming that the latter will never
happen, Piper impugns the justice of God by advocating a form of double
jeopardy, in which he adds a second judgment of believers on top of the
judgment that Christ already satisfied on their behalf on the cross, as do all
legalistic systems that advocate an initial and final justification or
salvation. Piper cannot legally eat his justified cake now and still have it at
the last judgment. By contrast, Jonathan Linebaugh rightly explains that
justification is God's final judgment. As Wilfried Joest writes, "there is no second decision after
justification." In the language of the Reformation, the "sole and
sufficient basis" for our justification before God's eschatological tribunal
is Jesus Christ (solus Christus), freely given (sola gratia) to sinners in the
word (solo verbo) that creates the faith (sola fide)
to which Christ is present. In Jesus, God's future word has invaded the present
in such a way that, by faith, we know the future: "Who shall bring any
charge against God's elect? It is God who justified. Who is to condemn? It is
Christ who died" (Rom 8:33-34).[42]
It’s therefore impossible for believers to be fully
justified by faith alone in Christ’s righteousness alone, only to be placed on
a lifelong probationary period requiring evangelical obedience until the final
judgment when they are put on trial to be legally pronounced worthy of heaven
by a public demonstration of their works. The latter destroys the former.
Linebaugh further expounds the Biblical link between justification and
judgment:
Here's an important rule of theology: Talk about
justification is talk about final judgment. As Peter Stuhlmacher,
on the basis of numerous published investigations of
the Old Testament and early Jewish literature, writes, "The place of
justification is (final) judgment." (For those interested in such things,
scholars like Simon Gathercole and the late Friedrich Avemarie
have shown that inattention to eschatological judgment as the context of
justification in early Jewish literature is a major deficiency in the
interpretation of the soteriology of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism in the
tradition of E.P. Sanders' 1977 Paul and Palestinian Judaism.) When Paul
introduces justification in Romans it is within a discussion of the day when
"God's righteous judgment will be revealed" (2:5). This day is the
day of judgment, the time when "[God] will repay each one according to
their works" (2:6). Hence the first "doctrine of justification"
in Romans: "the doers of the law will be justified" (2:13). The
future tense of the verb and the contextualization of this justification as
taking place on the day of judgment (2:5-10, 16) suggests that for Paul, as for
his Jewish forbearers and contemporaries, justification occurs at the final
judgment.[43]
This is the clear teaching of the Bible and
historic Protestantism. Piper’s errors on the other hand fall under the apostle
Paul’s rebuke to the bewitched Galatians: “Did you receive the Spirit by the
works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now
being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in
vain—if indeed it was in vain?” (3:2-4).[44]
To be continued . . . in Part
II.
