Is Justification Permanent? Part Four
I here continue my response to the objection about the permanence of justification:
I think I should let you in on a little secret... I can't see somebody's justification. I can't see your justification, or that of any of my roommates... I can't even see my own justification! But we do know that those who are justified are also sanctified, and sanctification is a lot more visible than justification. Therefore in the New Testament, good works are the fruit or evidence of salvation. For example, we can read in Matthew 7:15-20 how we are to recognize false teachers: by their fruit. A good tree bears good fruit, and a bad tree bears bad fruit. 1 John is almost entirely an extended lesson on how to recognize who is and who isn't born of God, both how to recognize the traits of a child of God in ourself and how to recognize the lack of those same traits in a false teacher.
As a corollary to that idea, it also needs to be pointed out that not all "faith" is saving faith. We're justified not by the profession of faith but by the posession of faith. And as the old saying goes, "not everybody who's talking about heaven is going there." It is possible for someone to just be a hypocrite in this matter, and claim to believe in Christ but all the time regard Christ and the gospel as a worthless myth. There's plenty of examples of hypocritical faith in the Scriptures. It's also possible to be self-deceived in this matter, to be sincere in one's faith and to honestly believe that one is a believer when one isn't. I would guess that many heretics throughout history would fall into this category, men like Arius and Pelagius and Cardinal Cajetan. For examples of this in Scripture, we can see how Paul describes false teachers in the pastoral epistles, when he says in 2 Timothy 3:13 that "evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived."
If we go back to the gospels, the parable of the soils in Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8 describes four different reactions to the word of God. One kind of soil (the path) has no reaction to the word. Two kinds of soil (the rocky ground and the thorns) receive it for a short time, but they do not continue. Their temporary faith was certainly not saving faith. But the fourth soil, the good soil, hears the word, understands it, and then bears fruit.
James also sets up a contrast between two kinds of faith in James 2. He there denies the validity of a faith that does not demonstrate itself in works. He even uses Abraham as his Old Testament example. In Genesis 15, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as
righteousness." But that justifying faith demonstrated itself in Genesis 22, where Abraham offered his son Isaac on the altar. This is why the Reformers said that we are justified through faith alone, but the faith that justifies is never alone. And there's another old saying, too, about time and trials testing or proving the genuineness of one's faith.
Charles Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher of London in the 19th century, brought out this same point in regards to the genuineness of repentance in one of his sermons:
"And lastly, upon this point, this repentance must be perpetual. It is not my turning to God during to-day that will be a proof that I am a true convert; it is forsaking of my sin throughout the entire of my life, until I sleep in the grave. You need not fancy that to be upright for a week will be a proof that you are saved; it is a perpetual abhorrence of evil. The change which God works is neither a transitory nor a superficial change; not a cutting off the top of the weed, but an away of that which is the cause of the defilement. In old times, when rich and generous monarchs came into their cities they made the fountains run milk and wine; but the fountain was not therefore a fountain of milk and wine always; one the morrow it ran with water as before. So you may to-day go home and pretend to pray; you may to-day be serious, to-morrow you may be honest, and the next day you may pretend to be devout, but yet if thou return, as Scripture has it, 'like the dog to its vomit, and like the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire,' your repentance shall but sink you deeper into hell, instead of being a proof of divine grace in your hearts."
One may, of course, object to all this by claiming that it's just a way of cleverly using words to get around the fact that temporary believers were, for a while anyways, just as attached to Christ as true believers are. This idea is contradicted by several verses demonstrating otherwise.
The New Testament states in several places that believers are known by God (1 Corinthians 8:3, 13:12; Galatians 4:9). In fact, the writers go so far as to say that believers are foreknown by God (Romans 8:29; 1 Peter 1:2). Yet in Matthew 7:23, Jesus says that he will say to false believers "I never knew you." Now, this "know" obviously includes something more than just "cognitive awareness of the existence of something," as God obviously is aware of the existence of the unrighteous. The Greek word "ginosko" often refers to some kind of more intimate relational knowledge. For example, it (and the corresponding Hebrew word in the OT, "yada") is often used as the term for sexual relations between a man and his wife (such as Adam and Eve in Genesis 4:1 and Joseph and Mary in Matthew 1:25). So even though it may appear to us now that false believers are known by God just as true believers are known by God, it will become evident on the last day that true believers were always known by God and false believers were in fact never known by God.
One also needs to take into account the description of false teachers and their relation to believers in 1 John 2:18-25 - "Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us - eternal life."
On one hand, John affirms the necessity of abiding in the truth of the gospel. Yet on the other hand, for those who didn't, he says that they were not of us, because if they were of us, they would have continued with us. Or, as I would draw the parallel with my key point, they were never justified, because if they had been justified, they would also have been sanctified.
There is one final passage that I want to address that deals with good works being the evidence of salvation. This is 2 Peter 1:5-11. Here believers are told to make every effort to add to their faith virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. Now, the reason for all of this, according to the apostle Peter, is so that one can make his calling and election sure. Romans 8:29-30 not only says that those who are justified are sanctified, it says that they are also called. So we find out whether or not we were called the same way we find out whether or not we were justified: by the presence or absence of sanctification - specifically, those seven attributes from 2 Peter 1.
I think I should let you in on a little secret... I can't see somebody's justification. I can't see your justification, or that of any of my roommates... I can't even see my own justification! But we do know that those who are justified are also sanctified, and sanctification is a lot more visible than justification. Therefore in the New Testament, good works are the fruit or evidence of salvation. For example, we can read in Matthew 7:15-20 how we are to recognize false teachers: by their fruit. A good tree bears good fruit, and a bad tree bears bad fruit. 1 John is almost entirely an extended lesson on how to recognize who is and who isn't born of God, both how to recognize the traits of a child of God in ourself and how to recognize the lack of those same traits in a false teacher.
As a corollary to that idea, it also needs to be pointed out that not all "faith" is saving faith. We're justified not by the profession of faith but by the posession of faith. And as the old saying goes, "not everybody who's talking about heaven is going there." It is possible for someone to just be a hypocrite in this matter, and claim to believe in Christ but all the time regard Christ and the gospel as a worthless myth. There's plenty of examples of hypocritical faith in the Scriptures. It's also possible to be self-deceived in this matter, to be sincere in one's faith and to honestly believe that one is a believer when one isn't. I would guess that many heretics throughout history would fall into this category, men like Arius and Pelagius and Cardinal Cajetan. For examples of this in Scripture, we can see how Paul describes false teachers in the pastoral epistles, when he says in 2 Timothy 3:13 that "evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived."
If we go back to the gospels, the parable of the soils in Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8 describes four different reactions to the word of God. One kind of soil (the path) has no reaction to the word. Two kinds of soil (the rocky ground and the thorns) receive it for a short time, but they do not continue. Their temporary faith was certainly not saving faith. But the fourth soil, the good soil, hears the word, understands it, and then bears fruit.
James also sets up a contrast between two kinds of faith in James 2. He there denies the validity of a faith that does not demonstrate itself in works. He even uses Abraham as his Old Testament example. In Genesis 15, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as
righteousness." But that justifying faith demonstrated itself in Genesis 22, where Abraham offered his son Isaac on the altar. This is why the Reformers said that we are justified through faith alone, but the faith that justifies is never alone. And there's another old saying, too, about time and trials testing or proving the genuineness of one's faith.
Charles Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher of London in the 19th century, brought out this same point in regards to the genuineness of repentance in one of his sermons:
"And lastly, upon this point, this repentance must be perpetual. It is not my turning to God during to-day that will be a proof that I am a true convert; it is forsaking of my sin throughout the entire of my life, until I sleep in the grave. You need not fancy that to be upright for a week will be a proof that you are saved; it is a perpetual abhorrence of evil. The change which God works is neither a transitory nor a superficial change; not a cutting off the top of the weed, but an away of that which is the cause of the defilement. In old times, when rich and generous monarchs came into their cities they made the fountains run milk and wine; but the fountain was not therefore a fountain of milk and wine always; one the morrow it ran with water as before. So you may to-day go home and pretend to pray; you may to-day be serious, to-morrow you may be honest, and the next day you may pretend to be devout, but yet if thou return, as Scripture has it, 'like the dog to its vomit, and like the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire,' your repentance shall but sink you deeper into hell, instead of being a proof of divine grace in your hearts."
One may, of course, object to all this by claiming that it's just a way of cleverly using words to get around the fact that temporary believers were, for a while anyways, just as attached to Christ as true believers are. This idea is contradicted by several verses demonstrating otherwise.
The New Testament states in several places that believers are known by God (1 Corinthians 8:3, 13:12; Galatians 4:9). In fact, the writers go so far as to say that believers are foreknown by God (Romans 8:29; 1 Peter 1:2). Yet in Matthew 7:23, Jesus says that he will say to false believers "I never knew you." Now, this "know" obviously includes something more than just "cognitive awareness of the existence of something," as God obviously is aware of the existence of the unrighteous. The Greek word "ginosko" often refers to some kind of more intimate relational knowledge. For example, it (and the corresponding Hebrew word in the OT, "yada") is often used as the term for sexual relations between a man and his wife (such as Adam and Eve in Genesis 4:1 and Joseph and Mary in Matthew 1:25). So even though it may appear to us now that false believers are known by God just as true believers are known by God, it will become evident on the last day that true believers were always known by God and false believers were in fact never known by God.
One also needs to take into account the description of false teachers and their relation to believers in 1 John 2:18-25 - "Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us - eternal life."
On one hand, John affirms the necessity of abiding in the truth of the gospel. Yet on the other hand, for those who didn't, he says that they were not of us, because if they were of us, they would have continued with us. Or, as I would draw the parallel with my key point, they were never justified, because if they had been justified, they would also have been sanctified.
There is one final passage that I want to address that deals with good works being the evidence of salvation. This is 2 Peter 1:5-11. Here believers are told to make every effort to add to their faith virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. Now, the reason for all of this, according to the apostle Peter, is so that one can make his calling and election sure. Romans 8:29-30 not only says that those who are justified are sanctified, it says that they are also called. So we find out whether or not we were called the same way we find out whether or not we were justified: by the presence or absence of sanctification - specifically, those seven attributes from 2 Peter 1.
posted by fargonate | 12:38 PM
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