Romans 6:7
October 1, 2007 at 10:32 am (Federal Vision, Heresy, NT-Romans)
Leithart has completely misappropriated Murray, in addition to having misunderstood Romans 6:7, which says this:
ὁ γὰρ ἀποθανὼν δεδικαίωται ἀπὸ τῆς ἁμαρτίας.
He says that Murray’s take on Romans 6:7 is that the verdict of righteous takes the form of liberation from the power of sin (emphasis mine). Murray says no such thing. This is what he actually said:
The decisive breach with the reigning power of sin is viewed after the analogy of the kind of dismissal which a judge gives when an arraigned person is justified (LK, plainly viewing justification after the normal definition of judicial verdict). Sin has no further claim upon the person who is thus vindicated. This judicial aspect from which deliverance from the power of sin is to be viewed needs to be appreciated. It shows that the forensic is present not only in justification but also in that which lies at the basis of sanctification. (commentary on Romans 6:7, p. 222).
Leithart argues that the verdict takes the form of liberation from the power of sin. Murray takes it in the opposite direction: the forensic declaration of being not guilty has the added effect of being the basis of sanctification. Murray is echoing Hodge here, I believe, who has the very best explanation of this verse:
To be justified from sin (emphasis original) means to be delivered from sin by justification. And that deliverance is twofold; judicial deliverance from its penalty, and subjective deliverance from its power. Both are secured by justification; the former directly, the other consequentially, as a necessary sequence (pg. 199 of his commentary on Romans).
Look, all agree that justification and sanctification have a very close relationship one to the other. But both Murray and Hodge (as well as the WS, the 3FU, etc.) carefully distinguish between the two. Leithart is confusing the categories of justification and sanctification. There is no need whatsoever to do so.
greenbaggins
glwjohnson
jeffhutchinson
davejes1979
reformedmusings
its.reed
Andrew Webb
Grover Gunn said,
October 1, 2007 at 10:54 am
I agree. Romans 6:7 can be understood in terms of our confessional teaching that justification and sanctification are distinct but inseparable. There is no need to merge the two theological concepts in order to deal with this and similar verses.
Grover Gunn
pduggie said,
October 1, 2007 at 11:48 am
So, at the end of the act of justification, when justification is complete, are we delivered from sin?
Reading the Hodge text, he sounds more like Leithart than (admittedly) Murray does. Justification secures deliverance from the penalty and power of sin. Its a consequence. Its a result. But its a result of the act of justification. Its something god accomplishes by justifying.
greenbaggins said,
October 1, 2007 at 12:05 pm
But Hodge mentions clearly that the deliverance from guilt is a direct result of justification, whereas the deliverance from the power of sin is an indirect result (surely Hodge would say that the indirectness has to do with justification’s relationship to sanctification).
pduggie said,
October 1, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Doesn’t Romans 1 teach, though, that the penalty for sin is to be put under the power of sin?
greenbaggins said,
October 1, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Romans 1 does not teach that the entirety of the penalty of sin is to be put under the power of sin. The rest of Romans clearly teaches that *in addition to* being being put under the power of sin, we are *also* put under the condemnation of the law. Justification answers to the latter, while sanctification answers to the former. This is clear and simple. Why mess with this?
pduggie said,
October 1, 2007 at 12:42 pm
So *some* of the penalty of sin is to be put under power of sin.
Justification completely releases us from the penalty of sin, no?
pduggie said,
October 1, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Christ was crucified.
We were crucified with Christ. The penalty he paid of death is accounted as ours. So we are accounted as having died/been crucified. Right?
Are you saying we need to divide the results of being accounted as crucified into justification results (we’re acquitted) and sanctification results (we’re no longer under sin’s power).
If so, is that because we have one legal accounting (of death) with two results (accounting us as having paid the penalty for sin and releasing us from sin’s bondage) or do we have two legal accountings, or something else?
greenbaggins said,
October 1, 2007 at 1:13 pm
I would say that our faith union with Christ (includes the language of being crucified and resurrected with Christ) has two results: justification, which does away with the legal debt to the law which we owed, and sanctification, which frees us from the power of sin. Of course, sanctification can be further distinguished into definitive sanctification (not included in justification as Leithart argues), which Murray well describes, and progressive sanctification, which is gradual. Neither aspect of sanctification is included in the definition of justification, however closely they are tied together in our union with Christ.
reformedmusings said,
October 1, 2007 at 1:36 pm
I like the way Augustine and later Thomas Boston described the states of man’s existence. Before we are regenerated, we can only sin (posse peccare) since that’s our nature at that time. Regeneration is a one-time, monergistic work of God wherein we are also justified because of the righteousness of Christ graciously imputed to us. In Augustine’s words, it restores to us the possibility not to sin but still retains the possibility to sin (posse non peccare + posse peccare), as Adam was before the Fall. Progressive sanctification follows justification and is a cooperative effort between us and the Holy Spirit, wherein the Spirit empowers and works in us, enabling us more and more not to sin as we grow in grace. Thus the ratio of sin to not-sin decreases throughout the believer’s life, though not necessarily linearly or steadily. This process doesn’t finish until our death and glorification, where in our ability to sin is removed and only our ability not to sin (non posse peccare) remains wherein we glorify our Lord and Savior for eternity.
tim prussic said,
October 1, 2007 at 4:20 pm
I think I see what Pastor Leithart’s after. I think he wants to preserve the organic unity of the salvation purchased by Christ. I don’t think he’s on the right track with his deliverdict, however. It’s not that the notion of deliverdict is altogether wrong. God DOES deliver those he pronounces just. That is, he does sanctify and glorify those he justifies. The DOCTRINE of justification is distinguished from the rest of the full package of salvation, but that doesn’t mean it’s divisible in time, history, or the experience of the sinner saved by the grace of Christ. The Reformed faith has always maintained some notion of deliverdict (that is, justification and sanctification have ALWAYS been linked closely together), but it has always distinguished forensic justification with great care. It seems that this is where Pastor Leithart is at fault. At very least, he’s not distinguished carefully. Or, he’s actually interjecting other aspects of Christ’s gift of salvation into the doctrine of justification. In either case, it’s not good.
greenbaggins said,
October 1, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Tim, I agree completely. I understand from his new book on baptism that he is writing an entire book entitled ‘Deliverdict.’ I hope that it is more careful than his previous judgments have been.
Nicholas T. Batzig said,
October 1, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Lane,
Thank you for pointing this out. I knew that Leithart was either misreading or miscommunicating what Murray had said about definitive sanctification but I have not had time to read Murray on it. Thanks for your help on this one. I know that it can be said that definitive sanctification and regeneration are one and the same, but to say that justification and definitive sanctification are one and the same means that the Reformation never should have happened. If justification involves renewal, which Leithart and other FV men say, then all the Reformers and Puritans were wrong. When the FV men say they are simply going further they are either not recognizing that they are completely redefining or they realize it and will not admit it.
Thanks again!
Nick Batzig
Nicholas T. Batzig said,
October 1, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Lane,
As to point #5: That’s absolutely right. Justification is the opposite of condemnation. At least in Paul’s writings it is.
pduggie said,
October 1, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Other than the objection that leithart is “messing” with things, what practical import is there if you see deliverance from the power of sin as a forensic declaration that is based on the SAME actions of Christ on your behalf?
And what about #6?
greenbaggins said,
October 1, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Paul, he is messing with justification! If he was messing with the mode of baptism, I probably wouldn’t give it a second thought. But fudge the carefully hammered out distinctions that the Reformers won in the Reformation, and you might as well throw out the Reformation.
The practical difference is that if one declares someone free from the power of sin by justification, and yet a person is still a sinner, what have you said? You have said that justification is incomplete and imperfect. Those adjectives belong to sanctification, never to justification. By stating that justification is incomplete and inperfect, you are undermining the basis for assurance of which justification plays the largest part.
Number 6 depends on the definition of “penalty of sin.” If you are defining penalty of sin as including the power of sin, then justification does not free us from all of the penalty. If you define “penalty of sin” as having to do with our debt to the law (and that only), then justification takes care of it all. The problem here is that penalty can be used in the sense of “consequence,” or it can be defined as “legal liability.” The former sense would preclude justification taking care of all of it, whereas the latter sense would include everything of which justification treats. What about number 5’s question? Why mess with this stuff? What was wrong with the old formulation?
Tony S said,
October 1, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Lane, if Leithart is correct then the old formulation can be improved upon. Which doesn’t at all imply that it’s wrong. An analogy would be between Newtonian physics and relativity, where relativity provids a more accurate model at high speeds. The classical model is still correct within its bounds. Leithart’s analysis of justification shouldn’t be a priori discredited because he wants to mess with the old formulation, but should taken on its own merits.
greenbaggins said,
October 1, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Tony, I have been arguing at rather great length in my series of posts on Leithart’s article in _The Federal Vision_, that Leithart is wrong. Nowhere in those posts have I based my objection on the historical revision Leithart is attempting. That being said, Leithart is not merely doing what Einstein did to Newton. If Leithart is right, then the WS are wrong, not merely limited.
tim prussic said,
October 1, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Tony, I was trying to point out in post 10 that he hasn’t so much improved the classic model (that is, as far as I understand him), but he’s confused what was already quite clear. His analysis of the functions of deliverance and verdict is just fine, but packing them both into the doctrine of justification is blurring the lines between justification and sanctification, which lines need to be kept quite clear. I gladly affirm that justification does not come without sanctification and without glorification - they all come together. They are all, however, distinct parts of the whole salvation purchased by Christ. Thus, I don’t think there’s an improvement in Leithart’s work (as I understand it), but a confusion of what historically has been quite clear.
On the other hand, I think you’re correct in saying that adding 1 to 99 doesn’t negate 99. I think people foolishly argue that way. However, adding deliverance to forensic justification does change the nature of forensic justification, does it not? Thus, they are two different cases.
greenbaggins said,
October 1, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Again, very clear, Tim.
reformedmusings said,
October 1, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Tony,
RE: #16
This is nothing like Newton vs. Einstein. In the physics case, Newtonian physics fell short as speeds approached the speed of light and also close to very massive objects. In other words, Einstein’s work was necessary because Newton’s formulations DIDN’T WORK in those cases. I hope that you are not saying that the orthodox Reformed doctrines of salvation don’t work. If so, under what conditions do you think that orthodox Reformed doctrine of salvation fail?
pduggie said,
October 1, 2007 at 7:55 pm
“The practical difference is that if one declares someone free from the power of sin by justification, and yet a person is still a sinner, what have you said? You have said that justification is incomplete and imperfect.”
Isn’t Murray’s point though that sanctification IS defintiive and complete. We ARE dead to the reigning power of sin, in the Spirit. We’re not partially dead to sin. We’re dead to sin judicially and forensically. Why are we justified? We’re totally dead and alive in Christ, forensically. Why are we freed from the power of sin? We’re totally dead and alive, forensically. Once Murray (and Hodge) show that the basis for definitive sanctification has the same forensic and declarative structure as justification, the distance between them seems impossible to delineate.
“In accord with this analogy the person who lives in sin or to sin lives and acts in the realm of sin — it is the sphere of his life and activity. And the person who died to sin no longer lives in that sphere. His tie with it has been broken, and he has been translated into another realm. In the most significant sense those who still live in the realm of sin can say: “I sought him, but he could not be found.” This is the decisive cleavage that the apostle has in view; it is the foundation upon which rests his whole conception of a believer’s life, and it is a cleavage, a breach, a translation as really and decisively true in the sphere of moral and religious relationship as in the ordinary experience of death. There is a once-for-all definitive and irreversible breach with the realm in which sin reigns in and unto death.”
I should be ASSURED by such words, not worry about sliding back into the realm of death. That’s Paul’s point. How can we who have died live in sin any longer? Don’t take that away.
pduggie said,
October 1, 2007 at 7:56 pm
God will never ever give the justified person over to Romans 1 delusion.
pduggie said,
October 1, 2007 at 9:15 pm
When Calvin says “Take justified for freed or reclaimed from bondage; for as he is freed from the bond of a charge, who is absolved by the sentence of a judge; so death, by freeing us from this life, sets us free from all its functions.”
isn’t he drawing an analogy between the effect of a declaration of a judge and the judicial effect of death?
Calvin then goes on to say, hey, this is never complete in the sinful believer. But Murray says, no, this is talking about the decisiveness of the breach and the translation to a new legal realm. So questions of incompleteness are moot.
Nicholas T. Batzig said,
October 2, 2007 at 7:51 am
Paul,
Liethart has said that according to Murray justification and definitive sanctification are one and the same. Can you explain to me how being counted righteous in Christ (which is what Murray believes justification to be, see his commentary on Romans) and being freed from the power of sin are the same thing. If you say they are then you have not improved on the historic Reformed understanding of justification, you have made it something very different. In fact you have done precisely what the Roman Catholic theologians have done and made sanctification a part of justification (see Pope John Paul II’s catechism on justification). Once you do this there is no more soteriological difference between you and Rome. You can say there is plenty of soteriological differences but the reality is that this was the MAJOR difference at the time of the Reformation. Is there a relation between justification and sanctification? Absolutely, our justification is the necessary foundation of our sanctification. Are they the same thing? Not in Paul’s mind. If they were why would he distinguish them everywhere. They are not in Murray’s mind either. Let me demonstrate. In volume 2 of his collected writings Murray has a short article on justification. How does he define this saving benefit? He writes:
“Justification is that aspect of the application of redemption whereby God delivers us from condemnation, and accepting us as righteous in his sight receives us into His favor and fellowship. It is a blessing of which Isaiah speaks ‘And in that day shalt thou say, O LORD I will praise Thee; for though Thou wast angry with me thine anger is turned away and Thou comfortedst me. Behold God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation.’
Justification IS NOT the eternal decree of God with respect to us, nor is it the finished work of Christ for us, when once-for-all He reconciled us to God by His death; NOR is it the regenerative work of God in us, NOR is it any activity on our part in response to and embrace of the Gospel, but IT IS an act of God, accomplished in time wherein God passes judgment with respect to us as individuals.
It may be safe to say that the greatest event for Christendom in the last 1500 years was the Protestant Reformation. What was the spark that lit the flame of evangelical passion? It was, by the grace of God, the discovery on the part of Luther, stricken with a sense of his estrangement from God and feeling in his inmost soul the sting of His wrath and the remorse of a terrified conscience, of the true and only way whereby a man can be just with God. To him, the truth of justification by free grace through faith lifted him from the depths of the forebodings of hell to the ecstasy of peace with God and the hope of glory.” (Collected Writings of John Murray, vol. 2, pp. 202-203)
In the context of Romans 6:3-5, with regard to definitive sanctification’s relation to justification, Murray writes:
“No fact is of more basic importance in connection with the death to sin and commitment to holiness than that of identification with Christ in His death and resurrection. And this relation of Jesus’ death and resurrection to the believer is introduced at this point in the development of Paul’s Gospel, be it noted, NOT WITH REFERENCE TO JUSTIFICATION, but in connection with deliverance from the power and defilement of sin. So IT IS THE RELATION TO SANCTIFICATION that is in the focus of thought.” (Collected Writings of John Murray, vol. 2, p. 286)
This seems so abundantly clear that it amazes me that Peter Leithart could claim that Murray saw justification and definitive sanctification as one and the same. How much clearer does Murray need to be on this point. Perhaps Leithart has not taken the time to read Murray’s shorter writings. I hope he has since he is trying to use him as a standard of Reformed orthodoxy on this most important matter. What other Reformed theologians would agree with the FV men on this point. NONE, that’s why they have to misunderstand or twist what men like Murray have written so that they will appear to be, in the words of one defendant, “within the bounds of orthodoxy.” Look, I know that they couls probably find lots of Roman Catholic theologians who agree with them. Why don’t they just appeal to them for a change?
pduggie said,
October 2, 2007 at 8:35 am
I’m certainly willing to admit that Leithart seems to be dragging Murray into his own camp. But he may be claiming that its an unstated entailment of Murray’s.
Note your quote: “Justification is that aspect of the application of redemption whereby God *delivers us* from condemnation”
Romans 1 says the condemnation of sin is being given over to sin. If God has made it so that we are no longer under condemnation, then we are no longer condemned. If God’s anger and wrath towards sin was revealed by putting us under sins power, if he has NO WRATH towards us, we are no longer under sins power as a judicial realm.
Murray DOES say that when Paul says “no condemnation” in Romans 8, he has in mind the definitive deliverance from the power of sin.
and he says “when the action of God is contemplated because his pronouncement of judgment is efficient to the end of putting into execution the judgment pronounced”
I really don’t see how this reprisitinates Romanism. Romanism makes justification into a process of the soul’s movement towards God via cooperation with grace. Definitive sanctification and the deliverance from the power of sin via judicial decree is 1) an act. 2) forensic 3) not a process 4) complete, definitive and entire as a judicial act. 5) a status 6) monergistic
Do you question any of the claims I’m making about definitive sanctification/judicial deliverance from the condemnation that results from sin (the power of sin: Romans 1)?
The thing that keeps getting ignored is of course that Paul is perfectly happy to use the term justification to describe this act of God. If everyone is terrified of admitting Paul uses justify in this way because they think that that gives the store away to Rome, I think that says more about their psychology than the text of the bible.
pduggie said,
October 2, 2007 at 8:51 am
#15. I’m rereading Calvin on Romans 1. Its all about how God has inflicted a *just penalty* on man for his ingratitude. Sin’s dominion is the judicial condemnation. Satan is armed against us by the command of the judge. Satan better be completely disarmed against us when God finishes his act of justification or we’re still condemned.
pduggie said,
October 2, 2007 at 9:07 am
If justification takes care of “only” our debt to the law, then the power of sin is the law. So justification takes care of it.
pduggie said,
October 2, 2007 at 7:44 pm
I think there is a clarification about Leithart and Murray in the thread on DRC which I missed.
Leithart first says “God delivers a verdict of righteous that takes the form of liberation from sin’s power. (This is how John Murray understands Romans 6:7 as well.)”
Then later says “To put it in Murray’s terms, justification and definitive sanctification are not only simultaneous (which Murray said) but the same act.”
Which would mean that L knows Murray doesn’t claim they are the same, but are different acts.
It may be that L’s first claim was that Murray understands Romans 6 as liberation from sins power, and that isn’t held by everyone.
Also note Chellis’ citation of Turretin and the “right to life” that we have as a reult of an indistinguishable justification/adoption. “The other part of justification ”
“a spiritual and mystical manumission obtained for us by the blood of Christ, by which from the spiritual bondage of the law, of sin, of the world, and Satan we are brought into the liberty of the sons of God”
Nicholas T. Batzig said,
October 2, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Paul,
It cannot be said to be an “unstated entailment of Murray’s” position when Murray himself says the contrary.
I will agree with you that Romans 1 says that the deliverance to the power of sin is a “judgment” of God. This, however, is not what I understand Paul to be speaking about in Romans 8. If all Paul is saying in Romans 8:1 is that God is not going to turn me over to homosexuality then I’ve completely misunderstood Romans 8 (as has every other Reformed commentator in the history of the Protestant churches). I would direct you to Calvin on this point. He sets Romans 8 in context and shows that the comfort a justified believer has in Christ is that he will not be condemned on the day of judgment even though he still battles presently with the sin that wars within him. This makes perfect sense.
I’ll make a deal with you. I will read Murray on Romans 7 and 8 and you read Calvin on Romans 7 and 8. Then we can come back to this discussion and see if we have accurately interpreted them. But lets be fair with the use of their wording. No fancy rhetorical slight of hand. No reading them through the colored lenses of our theological persuasions. Lets try to read them as to their authorial intent–not to our theological intent for them. What do you say?
Nicholas T. Batzig said,
October 2, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Paul,
I appreciate your going back and looking over the discussion carefully. You might be right about Leithart personally saying that justification and definitive sanctification are the same thing, rather than appealing to Murray for that point. I still think that you and he have misread Murray on Romans 6:7 (something Lane and I have tried to show with large sections of Murray’s writings on the subject.) Could you supply some quotes from his work to support your defense?
pduggie said,
October 2, 2007 at 8:25 pm
I suppose what I mean is an unconscious entailment. Murray denies the contrary, but hey, maybe he set up a trajectory that leads there (tongue in cheek)
I’m having trouble how God’s wrath condemns the world for sin in Romans 1 and we have *no* condemnation any more in Romans 8, but you seem to want to allow for God’s wrath against you leading to Romans 1-style wrath and judgment.
Jeff Cagle said,
October 6, 2007 at 10:34 pm
It may be that there’s equivocation here on the meaning of “power of sin.”
Pduggie, or Paul if you prefer :), you appear to argue that the “power of sin” is a unified whole — the penalty of judgment and enslavement to the sin nature (indeed, that enslavement is part of the penalty, on the basis of Rom 1).
In one sense, this is true. Paul (the apostle!) uses the concept of “power of sin” in both senses. (Oddly, the phrase “power of sin” shows up only in 1 Cor 15.56, in which it appears to mean something closer to judicial penalty…
But in another sense, we can distinguish the eschatological penalty of sin (eternal judgement), from the temporal penalty of enslavement. One is now, the other not yet.
If we distinguish these two in this way, then it’s clear that justification addresses the former and sanctification the latter, at least as those terms are used in the Confession.
“Definitive sanctification” is then a promise (I relate it to Eph. 1.14 and 2.10) that the deliverance from the enslavement to sin will come to fruition.
This is different from justification. It addresses a different question, even though it, like justification, is “not yet”-ish.
That’s the classic systematic view. But now, Leithart wants to ask whether our systematic terms are sufficiently Biblical. Fair question — but if he wishes to fix our usage, he needs to make sure that his fixes are genuinely “tweaks” rather than “operating system panics.”
Over in the post on Romans 4, I gave my concern with Leithart’s formulation. It glosses over the fact that his language sounds uncomfortably like the declarations of Trent on justification. *That* would qualify as an OS panic.
I don’t think Leithart agrees with Trent. I just want to hear in what ways he *doesn’t*.
Jeff Cagle
Jeff Cagle said,
October 7, 2007 at 7:02 am
Just to forstall a possible misunderstanding: both justification and definitive sanctification happen at the moment of faith, not in the future. Their eschatological character consists of being complete, and thus forward-looking to the new heavens and earth.
Jeff