There is no other way to put this. One cannot soft-pedal it. Norman Shepherd tells an outright lie on page 57 about Godfrey’s position. Shepherd says this: “Godfrey preaches justification by faith alone, and he really means a faith that is alone. It is not a living and active faith that justifies as Shepherd says, but a faith that is all alone.” Then he quotes Godfrey on pg. 282 of CJPM, but fails to notice the most important element in the quotation, that all-important qualifier. Godfrey says this (emphasis added): “Paul really could not be clearer. Paul indeed taught that faith stands alone in receiving justification from the work of Christ.” Godfrey never said that faith stands alone in receiving sanctification. Nor did Godfrey ever say that one can be justified without also being sanctified. It is clear what Shepherd’s agenda is. If anyone does not say that someone is justified by a living and active faith in the exact terms that Shepherd uses, then that person is advocating a justification by dead faith.
The question comes down to this: what constitutes justifying faith? Shepherd says that it is a penitent, obedient faith that justifies (pg. 57). We need to be extra careful here. All sides (Godfrey included!) say that repentance is necessary to salvation. All sides (Godfrey included!) also agree that obedience is necessary. The question is this: what is the relationship of repentance and obedience to faith when it comes to justification? Another way to put it: how does faith justify? To put the question a little sharper, is it not necessary that faith be obedient, joyful, peaceful, loving, patient, etc.? Of course it is necessary. But are these things active in justification? Faith in justification receives and rests upon Christ’s righteousness. Swivel faith around to look at other things, and all of these fruits of the Spirit are present. It could definitely be argued that repentance is necessary before justification, since one could say that a person turns from sin (metanoia) by the power of God’s regenerating the heart and renewing the will. Distinct, yet inseparable. That is the relationship of repentance to faith. We would not say that one is justified by repentance. We would certainly not say that one is justified by obedience. And yet Shepherd wants to say that we are justified by a repentant and obedient faith. How does using the adjective “obedient” exclude works from being a part of justification? Just saying that “We are justified by faith- not by anything we can do to save ourselves” (Backbone of the Bible, pg. 103) does not alleviate the problem, since it is how we define justifying faith that is the issue. Shepherd can say all he wants to that we are justified by faith. But it is in his definition of faith that we see the problems.
David Gadbois
greenbaggins
paigebritton
Reed Here
reformedmusings
rfwhite
Ron Henzel
Green Baggins 
GLW Johnson said,
March 17, 2008 at 10:56 am
Samuel Miller, who I have referenced a couple times on Lane’s blog, wisely observed, ” When heresy rises in an evangelical body,it is never frank and open. It always begins by skulking, and assuming a disguise. Its advocates, when together, boast of great improvements, and congratulate one another on having gone greatly beyond the ‘dead orthodoxy’, and on having left behind many of its antiquated erros: but when taxed with deviations from the received faith, they complain of the unreasonablenss of their accusers, as they ‘differ from it only in the words’. This has been the standing course of errorists ever since the apostolic age.” Introductory Essay to The 1841 edition of The Articles of the Synod of Dort.
If you didn’t know better, one would think Miller was commenting on very recent developments.
greenbaggins said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:02 am
Yes, I love that quote.
markhorne said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:07 am
You change the subject completely from the nature of justifying faith to faith that is somehow exclusively involved in sanctification, and thus vindicate Shepherd.
Justifying faith is a faith that is “ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love.” There is no other faith that justifies.
greenbaggins said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:15 am
This comment is completely irrelevant, Mark. Not on topic. Address what I actually said.
GLW Johnson said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:17 am
Mark
You have publically defended Shepherd for some time. He is on record saying the Westminster Standards are inadequate and prefers the Three Forms Of Unity. You , on the other hand , are in a denomination-the PCA- that not only holds to the WS, but has issued a report condemning the errors associated with Shepherd and the FV. Don’t you find this a little discomforting?
David Gadbois said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:24 am
Mark has become Baghdad Bob for Norman Shepherd. A very difficult job, indeed.
markhorne said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:26 am
Doesn’t one have to consider where I have defended Shepherd and where I have differed from him?
GLW Johnson said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:32 am
Piper was correct.
GLW Johnson said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:45 am
…. and so was Samuel Miller.
Jordan said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:50 am
Mark,
Stating that justifying faith is a faith that is “ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love,” is entirely different from blatantly equivocating justifying faith and its obedient fruit. This seems to be the problem. Norman Shepherd’s mutated covenant theology fails to distinguish between law and gospel, and thus doesn’t make any kind of necessary distinction between justification and sanctification. Like it or not, this kind of monocovenantalism is foreign to historic Protestantism and the Westminster Standards.
anneivy said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:58 am
One thing I’m thinking is causing confusion is whether or not saving faith is regarded as different in kind from all other forms of faith.
ISTM saving faith, a gift from the Holy Spirit, is wholly and completely different from any other attribute we dub “faith.”
How to put this….
Granted that James wrote “faith without works is dead”, but I’m not thinking he intended to convey that this “dead faith” is similar in any way to saving faith, but that’s how it seems to be taken these days. After all, in our temporal experience before something can be decreed “dead” it must first have been alive. Same thing, only its state has changed.
But this isn’t the nature of saving faith. That’s a totally unique spiritual attribute, and one of the features of it is that someone who has been gifted with it will – sooner or later, and to a greater or lesser extent – exhibit obedience, etc.
To shift the illustration a bit – because it’s going to involve items that actually are of the same kind – think of various apple varieties. A Red Delicious apple is not a Red Delicious because it exhibits the color red; it exhibits the color red because it’s a Red Delicious. Saving faith isn’t saving faith because of the traits it exhibits; those traits are exhibited because it’s saving faith.
It bothers me to have faith talked about as if there are many types and varieties of faith, of which “saving faith” is simply one.
Saving faith is so utterly different from any other faith that it’s folly to evaluate it as if it’s merely one type of faith, or – even worse, to my mind – is actually the same as all other forms of faith, only the object of saving faith is correct, and that’s what sets it apart.
No. It’s set apart because it’s a work of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit only gives one type of faith, which is saving faith.
Shepherd seems to hold to the “a Red Delicious apple is a Red Delicious apple because it’s red” view of faith, wherein the attributes exhibited determine what type of faith it is.
Lara Butler said,
March 17, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Piper was correct about his theology of justification, his critique of Wright, or some other interesting thing?
Or Piper was correct that Doug Wilson is surrounded by stupid people?
David Gadbois said,
March 17, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Yes, Lane. I recall Turretin likewise rejecting the idea that even repentance is co-instrumental in justification along with faith.
GLW Johnson said,
March 17, 2008 at 12:10 pm
#11
The word Piper used was ‘dumb’ not ‘stupid’-I don’t think Mark Horne is ‘stupid’.
Lara Butler said,
March 17, 2008 at 12:18 pm
heh heh. Sorry, we Anglicans are, as you well know and have probably scornfully stated many a time, smushy, imprecise, equivocaters with nary a systematic theology to our names – and a shame about that prayer book too. In fact, at an evening feast with the PCA bunch whose church I had just left, I was asked what I thought the main difference was between the two traditions. I said the emphasis on peace, love and unity was much stronger in the Anglican church. Much rolling of eyes followed.
So you think he’s dumb?
So. Dumb in what sense? In the sense that Piper obviously means the word, as the opposite of (oh no, I forgot, but I think it’s…) brilliant?
HaigLaw said,
March 17, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Re: #10 – “the attributes exhibited determine what type of faith it is.”
That was helpful. Thanks, Anne.
anneivy said,
March 17, 2008 at 12:56 pm
You’re welcome. ;-)
It’s such a bogus argument, that of “one is saved by a living and obedient faith”, for it presupposes there is some other valid, viable “faith” that isn’t living or obedient.
But “faith” by its nature is living and obedient. ISTM the term “dead faith” is actually quite oxymoronic. How on earth does one have a “dead faith” in anything – or anyone – at all?
Faith is a beautiful, God-given spiritual jewel that shines brighter in some folk than in others. A diamond can be dull, and flawed, but it’s still a diamond, and the way it’s tested is usually (if memory serves) by trying to scratch it…or using it to scratch something else, I forget which way it goes.
However, there are beautiful, sparkly stones that shine magnificently but if hit with a hammer will shatter.
Hmmm. If that happens, your “diamond” was actually a cubic zirconium.
IOW, just as a “faith” without works is dead, a “diamond” without a specific degree of hardness is probably a cubic zirconium. You can’t punch up a CZ to turn it into a diamond, and a diamond will never, ever turn into a CZ; in the same way, a “dead” faith was never “faith” at all, and a true faith will never die.
One is saved by faith, period. One is not saved by this type of faith as opposed to that type of faith; if it saves, it’s faith; if it doesn’t, it’s not.
Tom Wenger said,
March 17, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Rey,
What you and Mark need to understand is that in the moment of justification faith has not had the opportunity to demonstrate a life of love and obedience. The INSTANT a person is given the ability to trust in Christ, they are justified. And at that very moment their justification is a permanent declaration that cannot be undone.
No one is saying that bare faith is dead; the Reformed tradition has instead alays been clear that justification precedes sanctification temporally, because the person believing has not had a chance yet to put such faith into practice.
Those who have always commingled faith and works are also those who favor justification as a process, or in the case of Rome and the FV, as a two-stage event. This then allows them to have the time to insert the works they believe are necessary for justification, because for them it is not complete in one instant.
So anyone who is brought to faith by the Spirit will absolutely demonstrate the vitality of that work with love and obedience AFTER they have been justified. But at that initial moment, they have not had the chance.
reformedmusings said,
March 17, 2008 at 2:31 pm
rey,
I know that we continue to have difficulty communicating, but it seems to me that you continue to cojoin in some sense justification and sanctification.
ISTM that the issue comes down to God’s role and our role. Justification is monergistic–a work of God alone. Sanctification is synergistic–a cooperative work between the Holy Spirit and the believer, powered and enabled by the Spirit. We dare not infringe on God’s monergistic declaration in justification. In “worketh by love”, that love is a consequence of our regeneration and justification, not a part, flavor, or instrument of it. As Shaw says in his commentary on this passage in the Confession:
This seems to be a very precise point where Federal Visionists depart from the classic Reformed sola fide formula.
markhorne said,
March 17, 2008 at 2:32 pm
“The INSTANT a person is given the ability to trust in Christ, they are justified. ” Yes.
But 1. unsanctified people are not capable of justifying faith; they are spiritually dead until God makes them alive and thus willing and able to believe.
2. Faith is thus the first step of sanctification by which we are justified.
3. Even though this fact is not the ground for our justification, the fact remains that faith is an act of evangelical obedience, just like the WCF states.
4. Thus, trusting God as he is offered in the Gospel is a practice required by God for salvation. It is an obedience they have done in the initial moment–though again, it is not the ground of justification, which is solely the person and work of Christ.
5. A final justification at the Last Day is simply a Biblical and Reformed teaching which does not require making justification a process or commingling faith and works.
Ron Henzel said,
March 17, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Mark,
You wrote:
Is it safe to assume that your adjectival phrase, “by which we are justified,” modifies “faith” rather than “sanctification?”
So then you repudiate the view which claims that this “final justification” takes works into account?
Tom Wenger said,
March 17, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Mark,
If you are going to twist the ordo salutis in this fashion, then you cannot claim, as the WCF does, that God counts us as righteous “not for anything wrought in them, or done by them.” Nor can you claim that in justification, the one justified is merely, “receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness, by faith: which faith they have not of themselves; it is the gift of God.”
Your caveat that Christ is the ground does not get you off the hook for synergism here either. For you, a person will not qualify for the justifying work of Christ unless they FIRST OBEY; in other words, unless they first offer works.
Tom Wenger said,
March 17, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Rey,
I have to questions for you:
What church are you a part of?
When is a person justified?
David Gadbois said,
March 17, 2008 at 3:42 pm
If memory serves right, I had to erase some of Rey’s comments a while back because I wanted to limit the discussion thread to Reformed commenters. Rey does not pretend to be Reformed or even Protestant. Indeed, the things he has said before indicate that he is a full Pelagian.
reformedmusings said,
March 17, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Mark,
From a Reformed viewpoint, that’s a tautological statement. No one is sanctified until after their regenerated and justified. The statement isn’t relevant to this issue.
I’m not sure that you worded this well. I’ll pass until you can clarify this statement. Well, I’ll offer this quote from Shaw on the Confession which seems to touch on what I believe your point might be:
I think that says it well.
Setting aside for a moment what faith is or isn’t, we aren’t justified by faith itself. We are declared just by God because of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to us by grace through faith. Faith is only the instrument, not the source or ground of justification. Though you say in 4. that faith isn’t the ground, you seem to contradict that several times. I’m becoming less clear about what you really believe.
This seems to make it a work that I do, thereby undermining the monergistic nature of justification. Is that what you really meant to say? It seems to contradict the very next phrase in your response.
Then can I assume that you now repudiate Dr. Leithart’s teaching that Federal Vision’s “final justification” is not based on the righteousness of Christ?
Merely quoting the Confession isn’t an argument if you read the meaning of the words in the Confession differently than the orthodox Reformed definitions. This has been an issue with the Federal Vision and continues to be an issue.
reformedmusings said,
March 17, 2008 at 4:07 pm
David G., RE # 26,
I have him pegged as Roman Catholic. Close enough, I guess.
reformedmusings said,
March 17, 2008 at 5:01 pm
rey,
Hey, I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday. Take pity on an old man’s failing memory. :-)
markhorne said,
March 17, 2008 at 5:26 pm
OK, I now have several interlocutors and am wondering where to beging.
A few thoughts I hope you’ll find relevant
1. justification is a legal declaration and sanctification is a character/behavioral transformation. They are totally different things. For that reason, separations of time are simply unnecessary. You have already become confused about justification and sanctification if you think they need to be protected from one another in this fashion. The Westminster Standards never invite or imply such separations because the real one is sufficient for the task.
2. The WCF acknowledges that faith is obedient and denies that such obedience is the ground of our justification. So do I. Pointing out that faith is obedience and an part of sanctification does not jeopardize the doctrine of sola fide at all.
3. Regeneration is the beginning of sanctification and sanctification is the continuance of regeneration. Look up what is said under the chapter headings of “Effectual calling,” and “sanctification” respectively.
4. While faith is a gift of regeneration/sanctification which stands among others, it is the only one by which we are justified.
5. I totally agree that we need to regularly remind ourselves that God is the one who justififes, not faith. That helps. It should be remembered more often.
6. Pointing out that faith is obedience to the command to believe the Gospel in no way denies monergism. Claiming that obedience is from ourselves and not from God’s monergistic work would be a denial of monergism.
7. Another error would be to teach that one’s obedience in faith makes one worthy of acceptance by God. But pointing out that faith is an evangelical obedience in no way demands such an error, nor implies it. No one in FV land is in danger of reproducing Augustine’s belief that justification means being made righteous.
greenbaggins said,
March 17, 2008 at 5:32 pm
I’m assuming the last word of point 6 should be synergism.
markhorne said,
March 17, 2008 at 5:44 pm
*sigh*
Yes.
Or, actually, “Claiming that obedience is from ourselves and not from God’s monergistic work would be a denial of monergism.”
Sorry.
greenbaggins said,
March 17, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Fixed it.
CH (CPT) Samuel Rico said,
March 17, 2008 at 8:15 pm
To Lane my fellow Presbyter and to all those who frequent his blog (of which it no doubt appears has no little amount of blog clogging traffic),
Federal vision, pedo-communion, baptismal justification, reformandum ad reforme, etc., all these topics are well worth intrigue and investigation. But, let us also remember the action and praxis of our beloved Reformed theology, i.e., Luther’s “oratio, mediatio, tentatio”—theology prayed over, meditated over, and appropriated through the matrix of suffering.
Where is a theology of suffering and persecution (only a few statements exist in the WCF). The Bible, however, presents Christian suffering as the crucible of existence. “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will persecuted (2 Tim 3:12–Did Paul say “all”?). “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake” (Matt 24:9–there is that “all” language again). “Pick up your cross and follow me (valgur trans, “pick up that torture device and let yourself be killed”).
Oh, how our theology cross-talk becomes in grown. Indeed, we must teach the sound doctrine, study ourselves workman approved…but let us remember to take our theology and ourselves, outside the camp and suffer unto death as he did (Hebrews 13:13). Writing theology is easy, wearing it is painful.
GLW Johnson said,
March 18, 2008 at 6:52 am
Lara #15
Actually you Anglicans have, at least from the Evangelical wing of your Church, given us a number of worthy contributions to the field of systematic theology. Two in particular have been very useful to me personally. First off there is W.H. Griffith Thomas’ work, ‘The Principles of Theology’ .The 1977 edition carried a Preface by J.I. Packer ( rumor has it that Packer is still working on his own systematic theology). Then there is the Anglican equivalent to Berkhof-E.A.Litton’s ‘Introduction To Dogmatic Theology’ the new edition was edited with an Introduction and notes by the late Philip E. Hughes, who was one of my professors at WTS. As for the meaning of ‘dumb’ , you would have to ask Piper what he means by it- I would suggest that a definition like-‘ incoherent, lacking comprehension or deficient in grasping the obvious: exiguous in perception.’
Tom Wenger said,
March 18, 2008 at 11:02 am
Samuel,
I guess I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Is this a rebuke? A challenge? A “keep up the good work”?
greenbaggins said,
March 18, 2008 at 11:21 am
I know Sam (he’s in the same Presbytery, and is a son of a very good friend of mine). I will venture to speak for him. He means, “keep this admittedly necessary theological discussion in perspective.”
Tom Wenger said,
March 18, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Lane, thanks for giving that clarification.
Samuel,
I guess I have another clarification question for you. Are you saying that these topics are merely “well worth intrigue and investigation” and thus, that we have gone beyond what these topics are worth, or is it that you think that the discussions here only qualify as “intrigue and investigation” and not as something more substantive?
I guess my concern is that I think that the Gospel itself is on the line here and that is certainly worth more than “intrigue and investigation”. And I’d also say that for the most part what is going on in threads like this one, is not an intellectual sparring match done merely for the challenge, but rather pastors and elders who are doing what they can to guard against the detractions of the Gospel proposed by the FV and others like them.
I know I, myself, see this as part of my ordained requirements to watch over not only my flock, but also God’s Church at large.
I hope you see my comments here not as an attack, but as honest questions and concern for the truth.
Mike said,
March 18, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Tom
I don’t know you but I’ve appreciated your comments on this blog and I appreciate you doing the work of a Shepherd. Christ’s church needs more men like you!
SDG
Tom Wenger said,
March 18, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Thanks so much, Mike.
Encouragement like this means more than you probably think, and I sure don’t feel worthy of it.
Wes White said,
March 20, 2008 at 2:52 pm
As I read the chapter you are quoting from, it seems to me that nearly everything Shepherd says (taken in isolation from the polemic) can be interpreted in an orthodox way.
We must and do affirm that faith is never alone, that it is an act of obedience, that it is lively and active, that it is always accompanied by salvation, that it cannot exist apart from repentance, and so on.
However, what I did not see from Shepherd in this article is the simple point that when it comes to faith’s function in justification, then it is utterly and completely alone. No good work or any repentance whatsoever contributes to faith’s reception of the righteousness of Christ, which is the sole ground of our acquittal and justification before God.
If Shepherd agrees with this (though, I don’t believe that he does), then it would be helpful for him to say this in a very strong way. Otherwise, he’s simply being divisive. If he believed this, he could easily have said, “Now I agree wholeheartedly with Godfrey that in the matter of our justification before God, faith is completely alone.” Shepherd could have said virtually everything he says in this article while at the same time clearly stating his hearty agreement with faith’s solitary function in our justification before God.
P. Andrew Sandlin said,
March 26, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Dear Wes,
Shepherd, following Calvin and Turretin, does say this on p. 62 of A Faith That Is Never Alone.
There can be no disputing that he states that works can never be the ground or means of justification.