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Finney notes that those who teach this theory:
"hold to the legal maxim, that what one does by another he does
by himself, and therefore the law regards Christ's obedience as ours,
on the ground that he obeyed for us. To this I reply:
1. The legal maxim just repeated does not apply, except in cases where
one acts in behalf of another by his own appointment,
which was not the case with the obedience of Christ . . . " (320
)
 There is such a thing
as acting on another's behalf, such as in the case of an assassin. The
instigator is still guilty even though he never pulled the trigger. Or
if I send my wife a present via courier, though the courier hands her
the present, I would still receive the credit. The act would be done by
me through the courier. In this case, the courier gave the present in
my place. In both cases, the one who initiated the action and the one
who carried out the action receive appropriate blame or credit for the
resultant effect.
In the case of our
salvation, one of the ways God's love is shown to us is that he sent (appointed)
his son, and accepted the sacrifice for us. In this way the whole God
head deserves credit, in Calvary. While the Father can receive credit
for Christ's obedience, we cannot, for the following reasons:
1. We were not the initiator in the normal legal sense, as in the examples
above.
2 The Bible does not represent this as the grounds or means of our justification.
It is unfortunate
that some would hold Calvin's tradition over the biblical definition of
crediting righteousness. There are, of course, many angles that could
be discussed further, (See
also righteousness) but I have tried to keep within the bounds of
what is plain. Even so, I know some of what I have written will be labeled
as splitting hairs.
I realize that the
CRI article in question was primarily addressing Catholicism. They seem
to imply that their position is the Protestant position. It should be
noted that disagreeing with Calvin or CRI does not imply that I am Catholic,
because CRI does not represent all of Protestantism. I encourage others
to research this issue further because advances in NT scholarship have
introduced great clarity into this issue.
It is no accident, then, that in New Testament
theologians' recent and current treatments of justification, you would be
hard-pressed to find any discussion of an imputation of Christ's
righteousness. (I have in mind treatments by Mark Seifrid, Tom Wright,
James Dunn, Chris Beker, and John Reumann, among others.) The notion is
passé, neither because of Roman Catholic influence nor because of
theological liberalism, but because of fidelity to the relevant biblical
texts. Thus New Testament theologians are now disposed to talk about the
righteousness of God in terms of his salvific activity in a covenantal
framework, not in terms of an imputation of Christ's righteousness in a
bookkeeping framework. (1)
Conclusion
Now, with the cobwebs
brushed out of the way and the light of Gods word shining in our hearts,
we can understand the basis for our justification. Legally it was we who
deserved the punishment, not Christ. The law can point out sin and condemn,
but that is all. It is certain that we have no legal right to forgiveness,
righteousness or justification; yet God gives it to us freely. It is grace.
This is what Paul
means by crediting righteousness: not a legal imputation, but a forgiveness
based in the mercy and grace of God. We cannot say, "Here is the
price, I have a right to the commodity." Justification is a gift.
According to Romans 5:9, we are justified by his grace, which was revealed
in his death on the cross. It seems that all of Church history
is littered with fallacious ideas; the sooner this one is laid to rest,
the better. You can be assured that I will not be wearing black at the
funeral.
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"Now a righteousness from God apart from the law has been made known"
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Jesus told the religious leaders
of his day:
"What do you think? there was a man who had two sons. He went
to the first and said, 'son go and work today in the vineyard.' 'I will
not' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father
went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will,
sir,' but he did not go. Which of the two did what his father wanted?
'The first," they answered. Jesus said to them,
"I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and prostitutes are
entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to show you
the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors
and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent
and believe him."
Matthew 21:28-32
1. Robert H. Gundry,
Why I Didn't Endorse "The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical
Celebration"
(Christianity Today International/Books &
Culture Magazine, 2001) <http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2001/001/1.6.html>.
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Published January 1999 Cory Schmidtz
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