THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION An Outline of its History in the Church and of its Exposition from Scripture JAMES BUCHANAN, D.D., LL.D. Evangelium Eternum—Medium Gratiæ The Everlasting Gospel—A Channel of Grace CONTENTS. THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. SHORT ACCOUNT OF AUTHOR. INTRODUCTION. PART I. HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION. LECT. I. History of the Doctrine in the Old Testament. II. History of the Doctrine in the Apostolic Age. III. History of the Doctrine in the Times of the Fathers and Scholastic Divines. 1V. History of the Doctrine at the Era of the Reformation. V. History of the Doctrine in the Romish Church after the Reformation. VI. History of the Doctrine as a subject of Controversy among Protestants. VII. History of the Doctrine in the Church of England. PART II. EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION. INTRODUCTION. LECT. VIII. Justification; The Scriptural Meaning of the Term. IX. Justification; The Proper Nature of the Blessing. X. Justification; Its Relation to the Law and Justice of God. XI. Justification; Its Relation to the Mediatorial Work of Christ. XII. Justification; Its Immediate and only Ground the Imputed Righteousness of Christ. XIII. Justification; Its Relation to Grace and Works. XIV. Justification; The Nature and Reason of its Connection with Faith. XV. Justification; Its Relation to the Work of the Holy Spirit. CONCLUSION. APPENDIX OF NOTES TO EACH LECTURE. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY Martin Luther described the doctrine of justification by faith as articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiæ—the article of faith that decides whether the church is standing or falling. By this he meant that when this doctrine is understood, believed, and preached, as it was in New Testament times, the church stands in the grace of God and is alive; but where it is neglected, overlaid, or denied, as it was in mediaeval Catholicism, the church falls from grace and its life drains away, leaving it in a state of darkness and death. The reason why the Reformation happened, and Protestant churches came into being, was that Luther and his fellow Reformers believed that Papal Rome had apostatised from the gospel so completely in this respect that no faithful Christian could with a good conscience continue within her ranks. Justification by faith has traditionally, and rightly, been regarded as one of the two basic and controlling principles of Reformation theology. The authority of Scripture was the formal principle of that theology, determining its method and providing its touchstone of truth; justification by faith was its material principle, determining its substance. In fact, these two principles belong inseparably together, for no theology that seeks simply to follow the Bible can help concerning itself with what is demonstrably the essence of the biblical message. The fullest statement of the gospel that the Bible contains is found in the epistle to the Romans, and Romans minus justification by faith would be like Hamlet without the Prince. A further fact to weigh is that justification by faith has been the central theme of the preaching in every movement of revival and religious awakening within Protestantism from the Reformation to the present day. The essential thing that happens in every true revival is that the Holy Spirit teaches the church afresh the reality of justification by faith, both as a truth and as a living experience. This could be demonstrated historically from the records of revivals that we have; and it would be theologically correct to define revival simply as God the Spirit doing this work in a situation where previously the church had lapsed, if not from the formal profession of justification by faith, at least from any living apprehension of it. This being so, it is a fact of ominous significance that Buchanan's classic volume, now a century old, is the most recent full-scale study of justification by faith that English speaking Protestantism (to look no further) has produced. If we may judge by the size of its literary output, there has never been an age of such feverish theological activity as the past hundred years; yet amid all its multifarious theological concerns it did not produce a single book of any size on the doctrine of justification. If all we knew of the church during the past century was that it had neglected the subject of justification in this way, we should already be in a position to conclude that this has been a century of religious apostasy and decline. It is worth our while to try and see what has caused this neglect, and what are the effects of it within Protestant communities today; and then we may discern what has to be done for our situation to be remedied. But first we ought to observe how far-reaching such neglect is, and how much we stand to lose by it. For the doctrine of justification by faith is like Atlas: it bears a world on its shoulders, the entire evangelical knowledge of saving grace. The doctrines of election, of effectual calling, regeneration, and repentance, of adoption, of prayer, of the church, the ministry, and the sacraments, have all to be interpreted and understood in the light of justification by faith. Thus, the Bible teaches that God elected men in eternity in order that in due time they might be justified through faith in Christ. He renews their hearts under the Word, and draws them to Christ by effectual calling, in order that he might justify them upon their believing. Their adoption as God's sons is consequent on their justification; indeed, it is no more than the positive aspect of God's justifying sentence. Their practice of prayer, of daily repentance, and of good works—their whole life of faith—springs from the knowledge of God's justifying grace. The church is to be thought of as the congregation of the faithful, the fellowship of justified sinners, and the preaching of the Word and ministry of the sacraments are to be understood as means of grace only in the sense that they are means through which God works the birth and growth of justifying faith. A right view of these things is not possible without a right understanding of justification; so that, when justification falls, all true knowledge of the grace of God in human life falls with it, and then, as Luther said, the church itself falls. A society like the Church of Rome, which is committed by its official creed to pervert the doctrine of justification, has sentenced itself to a, distorted understanding of salvation at every point. Nor can these distortions ever be corrected till the Roman doctrine of justification is put right. And something similar happens when Protestants let the thought of justification drop out of their minds: the true knowledge of salvation drops out with it, and cannot be restored till the truth of justification is back in its proper place. When Atlas falls, everything that rested on his shoulders comes crashing down too. How has it happened, then, we ask, that so vital a doctrine has come to be neglected in the way that it is today? The answer is not far to seek. Just as Atlas, with his mighty load to carry, . could not hover in mid-air, but needed firm ground to stand on, so does the doctrine of justification by faith. It rests on certain basic presuppositions, and cannot continue without them. Just as the church cannot stand without the gospel of justification, so that gospel cannot stand where its presuppositions are not granted. They are three: 1. The divine authority of Holy Scripture, 2. The divine wrath against human sin, and 3. The substitutionary satisfaction of Christ. The church loses its grip on these truths, loses its grip on the doctrine of justification, and to that extent on the gospel itself. And this is what has largely happened in Protestantism today. Let us look at this in detail. Take the three doctrines in order. 1. The divine authority of the Bible. To Reformation theologians—among whom we count the Puritans, the early Evangelicals, and theologians like Buchanan—what Scripture said, God said. To them, all Scripture had the character claimed for itself by biblical prophecy—the character, that is, of being the utterance of God spoken through human lips. The voice that spoke was human, but the words spoken were divine. So with the Bible: the pen and style were man's, but the words written were God's. The Scriptures were both man's word and God's word; not just man bearing witness to God, but God bearing witness to Himself. Accordingly, theologians of the Reformation type took the biblical doctrine of sin and salvation exactly as it stood. They traced out the thoughts of Paul, and John, and Peter, and the rest of those who expounded it, with loving care, knowing that hereby they were thinking God's thoughts after Him. So that, when they found the Bible teaching that God's relationship with man is regulated by His law, and only those whom His law does not condemn can enjoy fellowship with Him, they believed it. And when they found that the heart of the New Testament gospel is the doctrine of justification and forgiveness of sins, which shows sinners the way to get right with God's law, they made this gospel the heart of their own message. But modern Protestants have ceased to do this, because they have jettisoned the historic understanding of the inspiration and authority of Holy Scripture. It has become usual to analyse inspiration naturalistically, reducing it to mere religious insight.