I read the volume, well not each and every page, edited by Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier, both at Wheaton, called Justification: What\u2019s at Stake in the Debates?<\/em> \u2014 don\u2019t you just love artistic titles? Well, scholarly books rarely get cool titles. This is mostly a robust, scholarly defense of the Reformation\u2019s understanding of justification. And that means imputation \u2014 what do you think of double imputation? Necessary or is this a mystery too? I read the volume, well not each and every page, edited by Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier, both at Wheaton, called Justification: What\u2019s at Stake in the Debates? \u2014 don\u2019t you just love artistic titles? Well, scholarly books rarely get cool titles. This is mostly a robust, scholarly defense of the Reformation\u2019s understanding of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1744],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atonement"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nIt begins in a most un-Reformed way with Robert Gundry going all the way with the view that imputation of Christ\u2019s righteousness to believers is not taught in the NT. And then DA Carson comes back in his piece on the vindication of imputation by arguing just the opposite. The issue here is that the way we conceptualize imputation is just not in the NT, but I basically side with Carson on this one \u2014 it is hard to see 1 Cor 1:30 (Christ is our righteousness) as not involving some kind of imputation (though I\u2019m quite happy to say it is as at least recapitulation) and 1 Cor 5:21 looks like some kind of imputation to me, too. But some disagree, and that is the point Carson is actually making: there is exegesis and there is theology, and the theology fills in gaps and incompletenesses.
\nThe stakes are high in this issue of imputation, and Bruce McCormack\u2019s piece on Luther and Calvin shows why: he contends that, apart from a fully consistent theory of double imputation, the Reformation\u2019s case is simply not made. Both he and Carson got into \u201cunion with Christ\u201d but they differed wildly: Carson thinks union is the ground of justification and McCormack thinks justification is the ground of union with Christ and regeneration. Both of them make comments about Eastern Orthodoxy\u2019s emphasis on union, though I don\u2019t think either of them takes Orthodoxy seriously enough in these matters. 2 Pet 1 comes to mind. But that\u2019s another post.
\nThe rest of the pieces weren\u2019t as interesting to me, but I fingered my way through them, and I liked the piece on Luther by Mark Seifrid, and the pieces on Paul Lehman, Wesley, and the ecclesial dimension in the ecumenical discussions, which had a nice section on Lesslie Newbigin.
\nHere\u2019s the big issue as I see it: a consistent doctrine of justification in the Reformation requires a double imputation \u2014 of our sins to Christ and Christ\u2019s righteousness to us. This works out a radical contrast between God\u2019s glorious grace, holiness and love and our radical sinfulness. McCormack shows, though, that Luther did not have all this worked out nor was he entirely set free from some of the Roman Catholic theology he was opposing, and Calvin has an internal inconsistency on the place of regeneration in the ordo salutis. The problem for a \u201cconsistent\u201d Reformation view is that the NT doesn\u2019t talk quite like this. Carson knows this, and that is why he argues that theology works to be both consistent with the Bible but extensive of it.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"