Bradley Green on Justification by Faith and Judgment according to Works

Bradley Green on Justification by Faith and Judgment according to Works July 31, 2015

I’ve been browsing through Bradley G. Green’s book Covenant and Commandment: Works, Obedience and Faithfulness in the Christian Life. I really liked his fair and sympathetic yet not uncritical reading of N.T. Wright on justification and his interaction with Andrew McGowan on federal headship in a messianic administration.

A highlight was chapter six on justification, judgment, and the future, where his conclusions begins with this apt description:

There is no reason for evangelicals to gloss over passages that speak of a judgment according to works and a future aspect or component of justification. It is clear in Scripture that God will render to all according to their works – only the doers of the law will be justified (Rom. 2:6, 13). Since Jesus came to fulfil and not abolish the law (Matt. 5.17-20), and since in Jeremiah 31:31-34 the law will be put within God’s people, we should – again – be attuned to thinking through how the law might function in the new covenant era. If Christ is the goal/end (telos) of the law (Rom 10.4), we should be open to thinking through how the law might function in the new covenant, even if there is a significant transposition of the law followign the shift in redemptive history from teh Old Testament to the New Testament era. There is no difficulty at all in wholeheartedly (and without wincing) affirming with Paul that God renders to all according to their works (Rom. 2:6), and that only those who do the law will be justified (Rom. 2:13). If what God is doing in history in forming and redeeming a people who will glorify and praise him for all eternity, and who will be more and more conformed to the image of the Son, then of course this group of people will be marked by Spirit-induced obedience. And if one does not play divine and human agency against each other in some sort of theological zero-sum game, then one is able to affirm (1) a traditional evangelical understanding of justification by faith alone, as well as (2) the necessity of works, obedience and faithfulness, and likewise to affirm (3) that there is a future aspect of justification, in which works play a role, and (4) that our works will matter at the judgment (p. 142).

A good summary, of course it means that certain Presbyterians will probably try to lynch him, but a good summary of a complex issue all the same!


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