Dr. J. I. Packer (Ph.D., University of Oxford), On faith, on repentance.

Contents

I. “Justification: salvation is by grace through faith.” by Dr. J.I. Packer (PhD, University of Oxford)

61. JUSTIFICATION
SALVATION IS BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH

Clearly no-one is justified before God by the law, because, ‘The righteous will live by faith.’ Galatians 3:11

The doctrine of justification, the storm-centre of the Reformation, was a major concern of the apostle Paul. For him it was the heart of the gospel (Rom. 1:17; 3:21 – 5:21; Gal. 2:15 – 5:1) shaping both his message (Acts 13:38–39) and his devotion and spiritual life (2 Cor. 5:13–21; Phil. 3:4–14). Though other New Testament writers affirm the same doctrine in substance, the terms in which Protestants have affirmed and defended it for almost five centuries are drawn primarily from Paul.

Justification is a judicial act of God pardoning sinners (wicked and ungodly persons, Rom. 4:5; 3:9–24), accepting them as just, and so putting permanently right their previously estranged relationship with himself. This justifying sentence is God’s gift of righteousness (Rom. 5:15–17), his bestowal of a status of acceptance for Jesus’ sake (2 Cor. 5:21).

God’s justifying judgment seems strange, for pronouncing sinners righteous may appear to be precisely the unjust action on the judge’s part that God’s own law forbade (Deut. 25:1; Prov. 17:15). Yet it is in fact a just judgment, for its basis is the righteousness of Jesus Christ who as ‘the last Adam’ (1 Cor. 15:45), our representative head acting on our behalf, obeyed the law that bound us and endured the retribution for lawlessness that was our due and so (to use a medieval technical term) ‘merited’ our justification. So we are justified justly, on the basis of justice done (Rom. 3:25–26) and Christ’s righteousness reckoned to our account (Rom. 5:18–19).

God’s justifying decision is the judgment of the Last Day, declaring where we shall spend eternity, brought forward into the present and pronounced here and now. It is the last judgment that will ever be passed on our destiny; God will never go back on it, however much Satan may appeal against God’s verdict (Zech. 3:1; Rev. 12:10; Rom. 8:33–34). To be justified is to be eternally secure (Rom. 5:1–5; 8:30).

The necessary means, or instrumental cause, of justification is personal faith in Jesus Christ as crucified Saviour and risen Lord (Rom. 4:23–25; 10:8–13). This is because the meritorious ground of our justification is entirely in Christ. As we give ourselves in faith to Jesus, Jesus gives us his gift of righteousness, so that in the very act of ‘closing with Christ’, as older Reformed teachers put it, we receive divine pardon and acceptance which we could not otherwise have (Gal. 2:15–16; 3:24).

Official Roman Catholic theology includes sanctification in the definition of justification, which it sees as a process rather than a single decisive event, and affirms that while faith contributes to our acceptance with God, our works of satisfaction and merit contribute too. Rome sees baptism, viewed as a channel of sanctifying grace, as the primary instrumental cause of justification, and the sacrament of penance, whereby congruous merit is achieved through works of satisfaction, as the supplementary restorative cause whenever the grace of God’s initial acceptance is lost through mortal sin. Congruous, as distinct from condign, merit means merit that it is fitting, though not absolutely necessary, for God to reward by a fresh flow of sanctifying grace. On the Roman Catholic view, therefore, believers save themselves with the help of the grace that flows from Christ through the church’s sacramental system, and in this life no sense of confidence in God’s grace can ordinarily be had. Such teaching is a far cry from that of Paul.

— Dr. J. I. Packer (PhD, University of Oxford), Concise Theology. 61. Justification: Salvation Is By Grace Through Faith. On faith, on repentance. Verses (cf. Eph 2:8-10; Gal 2:16,21; 3:10-12; 5:4; Ro 3:20,28). Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology, Regent College. He was a prolific writer, and he also served on the translation board of the English Standard Version of the Bible. The 2005 Time listed him as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals. During his time at Oxford, Packer attended lectures by C. S. Lewis, and hearing Lewis greatly affected his spiritual thinking.

II. “Legalism: working for God’s favour forfeits it” by Dr. J.I. Packer (PhD, University of Oxford)

65. LEGALISM
WORKING FOR GOD’S FAVOUR FORFEITS IT

. . . do not do what they do, for they do not practise what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is done for men to see . . . Matthew 23:3–5

The New Testament views Christian obedience as the practice of ‘good deeds’ (works). Christians are to be ‘rich in good deeds’ (1 Tim. 6:18; cf. Matt. 5:16; Eph. 2:10; 2 Tim. 3:17; Titus 2:7, 14; 3:8, 14). A good deed is one done (a) according to the right standard (God’s revealed will, i.e. his moral law); (b) from a right motive (the love to God and others that marks the regenerate heart); (c) with a right purpose (pleasing and glorifying God, honouring Christ, advancing his kingdom, and benefiting one’s neighbour).

Legalism is a distortion of obedience that can never produce truly good works. Its first fault is that it skews motive and purpose, seeing good deeds as essentially ways to earn more of God’s favour than one has at the moment. Its second fault is arrogance. Belief that one’s labour earns God’s favour begets contempt for those who do not labour in the same way. Its third fault is love-lessness in that its self-advancing purpose squeezes humble kindness and creative compassion out of the heart.

In the New Testament we meet both Pharisaic and Judaizing legalism. The Pharisees thought that their status as children of Abraham made God’s pleasure in them possible, and that their formalized daily law-keeping, down to minutest details, would make it actual. The Judaizers viewed Gentile evangelism as a form of proselytizing for Judaism; they believed that the Gentile believer in Christ must go on to become a Jew by circumcision and observance of the festal calendar and ritual law, and that thus he would gain increased favour with God. Jesus attacked the Pharisees; Paul, the Judaizers.

The Pharisees were formalists, focusing entirely on the externals of action, disregarding motives and purposes, and reducing life to mechanical rule-keeping. They thought themselves faithful law-keepers although (a) they majored in minors, neglecting what matters most (Matt. 23:23–24); (b) their casuistry negated the law’s spirit and aim (Matt. 15:3–9; 23:16–24); (c) they treated traditions of practice as part of God’s authoritative law, thus binding consciences where God had left them free (Mark 2:16 – 3:6; 7:1– 8); (d) they were hypocrites at heart, angling for man’s approval all the time (Luke 20:45–47; Matt. 6:1–8; 23:2–7). Jesus was very sharp with them on these points.

In Galatians, Paul condemns the Judaizers’ ‘Christ-plus’ message as obscuring and indeed denying the all-sufficiency of the grace revealed in Jesus (Gal. 3:1–3; 4:21; 5:2–6). In Colossians, he conducts a similar polemic against a similar ‘Christ-plus’ formula for ‘fullness’ (i.e. spiritual completion: Col. 2:8–23). Any ‘plus’ that requires us to take action in order to add to what Christ has given us is a reversion to legalism and, in truth, an insult to Christ.

So far, then, from enriching our relationship with God, as it seeks to do, legalism in all its forms does the opposite. It puts that relationship in jeopardy and, by stopping us focusing on Christ, it starves our souls while feeding our pride. Legalistic religion in all its forms should be avoided like the plague.

— Dr. J. I. Packer (PhD, University of Oxford), Concise Theology. 65. Legalism: Working for God’s favour forfeits it. On faith, on repentance. Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology, Regent College. He was a prolific writer, and he also served on the translation board of the English Standard Version of the Bible. The 2005 Time listed him as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals. During his time at Oxford, Packer attended lectures by C. S. Lewis, and hearing Lewis greatly affected his spiritual thinking.

III. “Liberty: salvation rings freedom” by Dr. J.I. Packer (PhD, University of Oxford)

64. LIBERTY
SALVATION BRINGS FREEDOM

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1

The New Testament sees salvation in Christ as liberation and the Christian life as one of liberty – Christ has freed us for freedom (Gal. 5:1; John 8:32, 36). Christ’s liberating action is not a matter of socio-politico-economic improvement, as is sometimes suggested today, but relates to the following three points:

1. Christians have been set free from the law as a system of salvation. Being justified by faith in Christ, they are no longer under God’s law, but under his grace (Rom. 3:19; 6:14–15; Gal. 3:23–25). This means that their standing with God (the ‘peace’ and ‘access’ of Rom. 5:1–2) rests wholly on the fact that they have been accepted and adopted in Christ. It does not, nor ever will it, depend on what they do; it will never be imperilled by what they fail to do. They live, and as long as they are in this world will live, not by being perfect, but by being forgiven.

All natural religion, then, is negated, for the natural instinct of fallen man, as expressed in every form of religion that the world has ever devised, is to suppose that one gains and keeps a right relationship with ultimate reality (whether conceived as a personal God or in other terms) by disciplines of law observance, right ritual, and asceticism. This is how the world’s faiths prescribe the establishing of one’s own righteousness – the very thing Paul saw unbelieving Jews trying to do (Rom. 10:3). Paul’s experience had taught him that this is a hopeless enterprise. No human performance is ever good enough, for there are always wrong desires in the heart, along with a lack of right ones, regardless of how correct one’s outward motions are (Rom. 7:7–11; cf. Phil. 3:6), and it is at the heart that God looks first.

All the law can do is arouse, expose, and condemn the sin that permeates our moral make-up, and so make us aware of its reality, depth, and guilt (Rom. 3:19; 1 Cor. 15:56; Gal. 3:10). So the futility of treating the law as a covenant of works, and seeking righteousness by it, becomes plain (Gal. 3:10–12; 4:21–31), as does the misery of not knowing what else to do. This is the bondage to the law from which Christ sets us free.

2. Christians have been set free from sin’s domination (John 8:34–36; Rom. 6:14–23). They have been supernaturally regenerated and made alive to God through union with Christ in his death and risen life (Rom. 6:3–11), and this means that the deepest desire of their heart now is to serve God by practising righteousness (Rom. 6:18, 22). Sin’s domination involved not only constant acts of disobedience, but also a constant lack of zeal for lawkeeping, rising sometimes to positive resentment and hatred towards the law. Now, however, being changed in heart, motivated by gratitude for acceptance through free grace, and energized by the Holy Spirit, they ‘serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code’ (Rom. 7:6). This means that their attempts at obedience are now joyful and integrated in a way that was never true before. Sin rules them no longer. In this respect, too, they have been liberated from bondage.

3. Christians have been set free from the superstition that treats matter and physical pleasure as intrinsically evil. Against this idea, Paul insists that Christians are free to enjoy as God’s good gifts all created things and the pleasures that they yield (1 Tim. 4:1–5), provided only that we do not transgress the moral law in our enjoyments or hinder our own spiritual wellbeing or that of others (1 Cor. 6:12–13; 8:7–13). The Reformers renewed this emphasis against various forms of medieval legalism.

— Dr. J. I. Packer (PhD, University of Oxford), Concise Theology. 64. Liberty: Salvation brings freedom. On faith, on repentance. Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology, Regent College. He was a prolific writer, and he also served on the translation board of the English Standard Version of the Bible. The 2005 Time listed him as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals. During his time at Oxford, Packer attended lectures by C. S. Lewis, and hearing Lewis greatly affected his spiritual thinking.

IV. “Antinomianism: we are not set free to sin” by Dr. J.I. Packer (PhD, University of Oxford)

66. ANTINOMIANISM
WE ARE NOT SET FREE TO SIN

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he [Christ] is righteous. 1 John 3:7

Antinomianism, which means being ‘anti-law’, is a name for several views that have denied that God’s law in Scripture should directly control the Christian’s life.

Dualistic antinomianism appears in the Gnostic heretics against whom Jude and Peter wrote (Jude 4–19; 2 Pet. 2). This view sees salvation as for the soul only, and bodily behaviour as irrelevant both to God’s interest and to the soul’s health, so one may behave riotously and it will not matter.

Spirit-centred antinomianism puts such trust in the Holy Spirit’s inward prompting as to deny any need to be taught by the law how to live. Freedom from the law as a way of salvation is assumed to bring with it freedom from the law as a guide to conduct. In the first hundred and fifty years of the Reformation era this kind of antinomianism often threatened, and Paul’s insistence that a truly spiritual person acknowledges the authority of God’s Word through Christ’s apostles (1 Cor. 14:37; cf. 7:40) suggests that the Spirit-obsessed Corinthian church was in the grip of the same mindset.

Christ-centred antinomianism argues that God sees no sin in believers, because they are in Christ, who kept the law for them, and therefore what they actually do makes no difference, provided that they keep believing. But 1 John 1:8 – 2:1 (expounding 1:7) and 3:4–10 point in a different direction, showing that it is not possible to be in Christ and at the same time to embrace sin as a way of life.

Dispensational antinomianism holds that keeping the moral law is at no stage necessary for Christians, since we live under a dispensation of grace, not of law. Romans 3:31 and 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 clearly show, however, that law-keeping is a continuing obligation for Christians. ‘I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law,’ says Paul (1 Cor. 9:21).

Dialectical antinomianism, as in Barth and Brunner, denies that biblical law is God’s direct command and affirms that the Bible’s imperative statements trigger the Word of the Spirit, which when it comes may or may not correspond exactly to what is written. The inadequacy of the neoorthodox view of biblical authority, which explains the inspiration of Scripture in terms of the Bible’s instrumentality as a channel for God’s present-day utterances to his people, is evident here.

Situationist antinomianism says that a motive and intention of love is all that God now requires of Christians, and the commands of the Decalogue and other ethical parts of Scripture, for all that they are ascribed to God directly, are mere rules of thumb for loving, rules that love may at any time disregard. But Romans 13:8–10, to which this view appeals, teaches that without love as a motive these specific commands cannot be fulfilled. Once more an unacceptably weak view of Scripture surfaces.

It must be stressed that the moral law, as crystallized in the Decalogue and opened up in the ethical teaching of both Testaments, is one coherent law, given to be a code of practice for God’s people in every age. In addition, repentance means resolving henceforth to seek God’s help in keeping that law. The Spirit is given to empower law-keeping and make us more and more like Christ, the archetypal law-keeper (Matt. 5:17). This law-keeping is in fact the fulfilling of our human nature, and Scripture holds out no hope of salvation for any who, whatever their profession of faith, do not seek to turn from sin to righteousness (1 Cor. 6:9–11; Rev. 21:8).

— Dr. J. I. Packer (PhD, University of Oxford), Concise Theology. 66. Antinomianism: We are not set free to sin. On faith, on repentance. Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology, Regent College. He was a prolific writer, and he also served on the translation board of the English Standard Version of the Bible. The 2005 Time listed him as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals. During his time at Oxford, Packer attended lectures by C. S. Lewis, and hearing Lewis greatly affected his spiritual thinking.