The following was initially a blog post. I have refrained from editing out matters of informality etc.
Disclaimer: While I am a reasonable typist, I nonetheless cannot type at speech-speed at the best times, much less on a laptop keyboard. Consequently, these notes vary from word to word to close summary, and much of the ground in between. To be sure of precise wording, you will of course need to consult the tapes or CDs.
Dr Richard Gaffin
Dr Gaffin opened the third day of the conference with his final lecture, finishing up his thoughts on the now/not yet structure of Paul's view of the application of redemption. He started by providing some reflections in historical theology, noting that the Reformation tradition has well-captured the "not-yet" of Pauline eschatology.
The "now" of sanctification
"But," he asks: "has the Reformation as clearly grasped the resurrection 'already' of our sanctification/renewal?" How many Christians understand that the Spirit presently at work in them is nothing less than resurrection power? that He is nothing less than eschatological power, nothing less than a down payment on our eschatological inheritance?
It is right to say that we make a "small beginning in this obedience" (Heidelberg Catechism), but that beginning is nonetheless eschatological in nature.
There is a tendency to view the gospel almost exclusively with reference to justification. Sanctification is expressed as gratitude for justification, and the accent is placed upon the imperfection and inadequacy of these expressions of gratitude. Sanctification is often seen as not integral to our salvation, not necessary.
Justification is thus treated as what God does, while sanctification is treated as what we do. The result is a deadening moralism, a refined works-principle, divorced from the faith that justifies.
Surely our gratitude is important, and the theme is unmistakeable in Paul. And surely, too, all our efforts are imperfect. Yet Paul sounds a different note. Sanctification is not a matter of what we do, but of what God does. Sanctification is clearly for Paul a work of grace no less than justification. It is not only a process that engages us; there is also a once-for-all act of God underlying that (definitive sanctification). Sin is still a reality for the believer - but it is not his lord, it is not enslaving. Sanctification is a continual living to God as those who are alive from the dead. In the words of Berkouwer, the way of good works is not the way of man to God, but the way of God to man - in other words, our good works are not ultimately ours, but God at work in us. A faith that rests in God the Saviour is ever a faith that is restless to do His will. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4.7, "What do you have that you did not receive?" Just as justification is received, so is sanctification.
Eschatology and Justification
The most important thing about the Reformation soteriologically is its grasp of the already of justification. The Reformers came to understand that the verdict belonging to the end of history had been brought forward as the stable basis of the Christian life.
What about justification and the "not yet" of our salvation? May we think of justification as in some sense still future? Should we see it in terms of the already/not yet schema?
It may seem that our reaction should be an emphatic negative. For to speak of justification as in any sense future appears to take away from its settled certainty; it seems to undermine its definitive finality for the Christian. And nothing should call into question that certainty.
But Paul's teaching on justification should not be excluded from his present/future outlook.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism (38) asks, "What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection?" The answer includes: believers "shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the Day of Judgment." To be acquitted and justified are largely interchangeable. The Catechisms are saying in effect that the final judgment will have in some some a justifying significance.
From Westminster, Gaffin moves on to focus upon the adoption theme of Romans 8. Adoption in Paul is a forensic reality. Sinners are not naturally God's sons, but children of wrath; adoption involves a legal/declarative aspect.
Believers are the sons of God - yet we eagerly wait for adoption (Rom 8.23): the redemption of our bodies. Thus the future resurrection is invested with forensic/adoptive significance; adoption is both present and future.
But if I am adopted, how can I still be awaiting adoption? This is not double-talk. But the distinction is clear enough. The entire creation longs for the revelation of the sons of God - it longs, with believers, for the realization of the freedom of the children of God.
Second Corinthians 5.7 again controls our thinking: we are God's children in the mode of believing, not yet in the mode of seeing. (Gaffin provides a side reference to 1 John: now we are children of God; what we will be has not yet been revealed.)
The outer man is destined for death. And death is always judicial, not simply the natural outworking of sin. It is God's judicial response to sin. Death for Paul is inalienably penal. The movement is from sin to condemnation to death, not simply from sin to death.
Paul thus says, "If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness" (Rom 8.10). The Spirit is therefore resurrection life in the inner man in consequence of the righteousness revealed in Christ.
Gaffin reverts to 1 Corinthians 15: Death being swallowed up in victory is not yet a reality; it is still future. And Christ must reign until all enemies are under His feet, and the last enemy is death. In this situation - where destruction of death is still future for believers as far as the body is concerned - the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.
Gaffin thus infers: For the outer man, although I am united to Christ and for me to die is gain, and nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ - yet, as far as I am outer man, I am not yet justified, just as I am not yet resurrected. I am justified by faith, not yet by sight (2 Cor 5.7).
For sinners united to Christ by faith, there is a judicial reversal, and it is irrevocable. This is true for the believer as a person (i.e. not simply a part). For Christians, God is heavenly Father, not an angry and unreconciled Judge.
Regarding the judgment texts, Gaffin notes a presumptive consideration: there is no place in Paul for a justification that would fall outside of union with the exalted Christ, or outside the already/not yet pattern. Excluding justification from the already/not yet structure would break the Pauline pattern regarding union with Christ.
Paul thus speaks clearly of a final judgment for the Christian, and this is a judgment according to works. This is clearest in 2 Corinthians 5.10; Gaffin also cites Romans 2.6ff. If we were tempted to argue that this is a hypothetical situation for believers in the Pauline texts, we must also understand the statements of Jesus lying back of these (John 5.28-29; Matthew 25; cf Rev 20.13; 22.12 etc). Christ comes to give recompense to everyone for what he has done.
In this judgment, what is at stake positively is not some penultimate outcome, such as levels of reward. Rather, what is in view is their eternal destiny. Paul speaks of those who persist in doing good, and thus seek immortality (Rom 2.7).
How are we to relate this future judgment according to works to Paul's clear and emphatic teaching elsewhere, that justification is by faith alone?
The solution does not lie in distinguishing two different justifications, one present by faith, one future by works. Nor: faith alone now, and faith plus works later. Rather, the answer lies in the already/not yet structure of union with Christ. Galatians 5 says that justifying faith is faith working through love. The point is that the justification according to works does not operate on a different principle. Works come into consideration, not as ground, or basis, or even as co-instrumental with faith, but are the manifest criterion of that faith. They are the fruit and evidence of a true and lively faith. Not for nothing does Paul write kata ("according to"), not dia ("through") or ek ("by" or "from").
Faith and the obedience of faith
A law-gospel antithesis is certainly present in Paul, but it ought not be so construed as polarization, or as an uneasy tension between believing and doing. Rather there is a positive, synthetic relationship between faith and what faith does.
Ephesians 2.8-10 is very instructive in this regard. "Works" terminology is used in two clearly opposed senses in this passage: both as inimical to grace, as well as the fruit of grace. All attempts to base salvation on human accomplishment are cut off, yet saving grace functions as the power of the new creation to produce good works.
The "obedience of faith" provides the bookends of Romans: this is the response to the gospel that Paul is seeking. I take it the "of faith" is multivalent - both appositional genitive, and genitive of source. [Meaning the obedience of faith can refer both to faith as itself being obedience to the gospel, or to the obedience which comes from faith - TG.] What is excluded would be an apposition which equates faith with faithfulness or obedience; in Galatians 5.6, faith is clearly distinguished from its fruit.
Faith and works are not confused, but always exist inseparably.
The law-gospel antithesis is not in itself a theological ultimate. Here the Reformed and Lutheran do part company; the latter absolutize the antithesis in a way that must be called into question. The gospel is to the end of removing an absolute law-gospel antithesis for the believer. Outside of Christ, the law is my enemy and condemns me, because God is my enemy and condemns me; not so in Christ, because God is no longer my enemy and thus no longer condemns me. The law is not independent but personal - it is God's law. Thus this issue is governed by my relationship to God.
Regarding the relationship between Paul and James 2, Gaffin appeals to Machen: As the faith which James condemns is different from the faith Paul commends, so the works which James commends are different from the works which Paul condemns. And again in Machen's words: Justifying faith is a faith that works.
Disaster will surely result by denying faith alone as the sole instrument of justification. But this is no dead faith, but a faith that works by love. The Church does justice to justification by faith only when it maintains that balance. Paul maintains not "faith alone" but "by faith alone." That faith perseveres to the end, and in persevering is never alone. "Faith is a busy little thing." [I failed to record the source, but I think that is a quotation from Luther.]
Brief Thoughts
This was Gaffin's climactic lecture and. . . wow! A great deal of helpful things were said here. I cannot comment on them all. But here are a few thoughts.
1. The handling of justification as "now/not yet" was fascinating. I think Gaffin certainly has a prima facie case for his reading of the situation, although without doubt any hint of a "not yet" for justification will make some people nervous. Yet I think Gaffin adequately guarded against the danger areas, not least by pointing out two things: (1) the "inner man" really does refer to us as persons, and not "parts;" and (2) the "not yet" in justification is not based in anything other than what present justification is based in. There is but one justification with two moments.
2. The treatment of the future judgment was clear, faithful to Scripture, and wholly orthodox. Works are taken into consideration at the final judgment as the criteria (evidence) of faith; the judgment is according to works, not on the basis of them.
3. I appreciated Gaffin's thoughts on the obedience of faith. He rightly notes that Paul clearly distinguishes faith from its fruit. Still, I am not entirely satisfied with the "faith versus faithfulness" antithesis. The problem here is not that faith is distinguished from works of obedience - that distinction is proper and necessary. Yet pistis (the Greek word which can be translated either way) cannot be so easily broken down between faith and faithfulness. It seems to me that the better route would be to suggest that faithfulness itself should not be equated with obedience, but rather, it should be generally understood to refer to faith in its persevering capacity. Surely this is how Paul is employing pistis with reference to Abraham's faith in Romans 4: Abraham, in the face of the impossible, year after year hangs onto the impossible promise. This, surely, is faithfulness.
Consequently, I would prefer to see the line of distinction moved. Rather than pitting faith against faithfulness, we need to recognize that good works are the fruit of both, and that in fact faithfulness is pretty much impossible to distinguish from faith, whether in Paul or in the Old Testament which so heavily informs so much of his terminology.
4. Gaffin's thoughts on the difference between a Reformed and Lutheran approach to the law were also in some ways profound. Particularly, the notion that there is a law that remains an enemy to the believer and condemns him is false. Gaffin attacks such a reification of the law over against God. Of course, I prefer to use different language to refer to the divine requirements, rather than "law," but I know what Gaffin was getting at.
By far, this was my favourite Gaffin lecture of the conference. It was stimulating, and I have to say that I learned from the teacher.