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Benjamin Keach's Doctrine of Justification TMSJ 32/1 (Spring 2021) 93–113 BENJAMIN KEACH’S DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION Tom Hicks Ph.D., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Pastor of First Baptist Church Clinton, Louisiana * * * * * Many Christians would recognize the name of the pastor and author Richard Baxter. Likely fewer would recognize the name of the seventeenth-century Baptist pastor Benjamin Keach. This article follows the thinking and articulation of Keach as he defends the orthodox, Reformed position of the doctrine of justification and imputed righteousness against the errant views of Richard Baxter. This article is a window into the necessity to defend this doctrine that rests at the center of the Christian faith. * * * * * Introduction Benjamin Keach (1640–1704), an early Particular Baptist pastor, set out to disprove Richard Baxter’s Neonomian doctrine of justification and to affirm the biblical and orthodox doctrine of justification. Keach never wrote merely to contribute to academic discourse in a way detached from the local church and the advancement of Christ’s kingdom. Instead, he always wrote and preached with a pastor’s heart, aiming to protect God’s people from error and to train them in practical holiness for the glory of God. Keach aimed to refute not only Baxter’s false doctrine of justification, but also all aberrant theologies of justification by works. He believed the Protestant doctrine of justification on the ground of Christ’s righteousness alone, received by faith alone, is the very heart and marrow of the gospel. He was convinced that this doctrine is the teaching of Scripture, and that it has far-reaching implications for the believer’s personal progress in godliness. Keach’s doctrine of justification was a central component of his theological matrix. The covenant of grace, justification, conversion, baptism, and church membership were all interconnected in Keach’s theology. Keach never isolated the doctrine of justification from other doctrines of Scripture, but always discussed it within the broader framework of soteriology, ecclesiology, covenant theology, anthropology, Christology, eschatology, and theology proper. The thesis of this 93 94 | Keach’s Doctrine of Justification article is that Benjamin Keach affirmed the orthodox Reformed doctrine of justification on the ground of Christ’s imputed righteousness received by faith alone, over and against Richard Baxter’s doctrine of justification. To demonstrate this thesis, four of Keach’s works will be examined, including The Marrow of True Justification, The Everlasting Covenant, A Golden Mine Opened, and The Display of Glorious Grace. The Marrow of True Justification (1692) Keach’s initial response to the Neonomian controversy came in the form of two sermons on Romans 4:5 which he first preached to his congregation at Horsely- down1 because some “Christian Friends” had asked him to.2 Later, he enlarged and published these sermons in the form of a forty-page booklet, which he entitled The Marrow of True Justification. In the Epistle Dedicatory of the booklet, Keach provided his two main reasons for publishing these sermons. First, he aimed to assert and expound the biblical doctrine of justification for the edification of the saints in light of recent errors. This was the most significant objective from Keach’s perspective. Second, he intended to demonstrate to Christians in various denominations that Baptists were thoroughly orthodox in their theology. In a reference to the writings of Tobias Crisp, Keach wrote, “As for my part, if Dr. Crisp be not mis-represented by his Opposers, I am not of his Opinion in several respects; but I had rather err on their side, who strive to exalt wholly the Free Grace of God, than on theirs, who seek to darken it and magnify the Power of the Creature.”3 Tobias Crisp was reputed to be an Antinomian because he taught that sinners in Christ are truly righteous in their own persons before God. The notion that believers are personally and perfectly righteous before God based on Christ’s imputed righteousness led to the belief that God sees no sin in believers at all.4 This teaching produced licentious living among some of Crisp’s followers, especially in Cromwell’s army.5 Keach consistently and self-consciously rejected Antinomianism, and he denied that justification by grace alone through faith alone promotes Antinomianism. 1 The Horsely-down congregation was later pastored by noteworthy figures such as John Gill, John Rippon, and Charles Spurgeon. See Robert W. Oliver, History of the English Calvinistic Baptists (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2006), 337. 2 Benjamin Keach, The Marrow of True Justification or, Justification without Works. Containing the Substance of Two Sermons lately preached on Rom. 4:5. And by the Importunity of some gracious Christians, now published with some additions (London: n.p., 1692), 1. Some spelling changes have been made in the quotations from Keach’s writings in order to conform to modern English. However, throughout this paper, I have not changed any of the grammar, punctuation, or capitalization conventions of the time. 3 Ibid., A2–A3. Keach wrote, “if Dr. Crisp be not mis-represented.” That statement shows that in 1692, Keach probably had not yet read Tobias Crisp’s work, though he had read the Neonomian critiques of it. Thus, The Marrow of True Justification was a response to Baxterianism, not a defense of Tobias Crisp. 4 J. I. Packer, The Redemption and Restoration of Man in the Thought of Richard Baxter (Vancouver: Regent College, 2003), 248–49; Peter Golding, Covenant Theology: The Key of Theology in Reformed Thought and Tradition (Fearn: Mentor, 2004), 134–35. 5 Michael Watts, The Dissenters: From the Reformation to the French Revolution (New York: Oxford, 1978; repr., 2002), 293–94 (page citations are to the reprint edition). The Master’s Seminary Journal | 95 Both of Keach’s sermons on Romans 4:5 were grounded in the Word of God. At the outset of the sermon, Keach cited his text and exegeted it. Romans 4:5 says, “And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” Keach derived two doctrinal statements from the passage. The first is “that all Works done by the Creature, are quite excluded in the point of Justification of a Sinner in the sight of God.”6 The second is “that Justification is wholly of the free Grace of God, through the Imputation of the perfect Righteousness of Jesus Christ by Faith.”7 After dealing with the text itself, Keach summarized and refuted a number of erroneous interpretations. The Roman Catholic theologian, Robert Bellarmine (1542–1641), argued that men are justified by perfectly keeping the law to merit eternal life, and that men may commit venial sins and yet still perfectly keep the law.8 The Socinians denied the divinity of Christ, rejecting both His penal satisfaction and the legal justification of sinners. On the Socinian scheme, God simply forgives sinners according to His mere mercy. But if that is the case, Keach argued, then God is cruel to have sent His beloved Son to suffer and die unnecessarily.9 Some Arminians, such as William Allen, taught that justification excludes legal works, but that it includes gospel works—such as faith, love, mercy, and obedience to Christ. Keach insisted that while love and good works are inseparable from faith, only faith justifies.10 Some of Keach’s contemporaries held to the possibility of sinless perfection, claiming that God only justifies those who are truly and in themselves perfectly holy, but Keach argued that perfect holiness is impossible prior to glorification.11 Keach dealt with all of these errors in a short space, and then he turned to address his primary concern, which was Neonomianism and the particular errors of Richard Baxter and Daniel Williams at greater length. Keach considered Baxter’s Neonomianism to be a most insidious perversion of the doctrine of justification. He understood the Neonomians to teach: That Faith and Obedience are Conditions of the Gospel, or of the Covenant of Grace, as perfect obedience was of the Covenant of Works; and that Christ has purchased by his death, that this new Covenant should be made with us, viz. That if we would believe and obey the Gospel, we should be pardoned and saved &c. Therefore that for which we are Justified and saved, is our Faith and Obedience; and so far as I can gather, the Faith they speak of does not respect the taking hold of Christ’s Righteousness, &c. but the Belief of the acceptance of our Person’s Holiness, and sincere Obedience to the Gospel, through Christ, to our Justification; Christ having taken away, by His Death, the rigor of the law of the First Covenant, which required perfect Righteousness in point of Justification, and has made the terms of our Justification easier, viz. instead of perfect 6 Keach, Marrow of True Justification, 8. 7 Ibid., 8. 8 Ibid., 9. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid., 9–10. 11 Ibid., 10. 96 | Keach’s Doctrine of Justification Obedience, God will now accept of imperfect Obedience, if sincere, and acquit us from Condemnation, and receive us to Eternal Life.12 Keach believed that Neonomianism was a direct contradiction to the very heart of the gospel because it taught that men are justified and receive eternal life as a result of their obedience to the easy terms of the gospel: faith and evangelical obedience. While Keach and other orthodox theologians taught that obedience issues from justification, the Neonomians claimed that justification issues from personal obedience. They taught that men were only justified to the degree that they were sanctified and that justification is only complete on judgment day. From Keach’s perspective, the Neonomians turned God’s method of redemption upside down because they made men’s righteousness depend on themselves, rather than upon the perfect righteousness of Christ.
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