Works receive Christ?

"And thus it is that a truly Christian walk, and the acts of an evangelical, child-like, believing obedience, are concerned in the affair of our justification, and seem to be sometimes so spoken of in Scripture, viz. as an expression of a persevering faith in the Son of God, the only Savior. Faith unites to Christ, and so gives a congruity to justification, not merely as remaining a dormant principle in the heart, but as being and appearing in its active expressions. The obedience of a Christian, so far as it is truly evangelical, and performed with the Spirit of the Son sent forth into the heart, has all relation to Christ the Mediator, and is but an expression of the soul’s believing unition to Christ. All evangelical works are works of that faith that worketh by love, and every such act of obedience, wherein it is inward, and the act of the soul, is only a new effective act of reception of Christ, and adherence to the glorious Savior. Hence that of the apostle, Gal. 2:20, “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life that I now live in the flesh, is by the faith of the Son of God.” And hence we are directed, in whatever we do, whether in word or deed, to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Col. 3:17.

And that God in justification has respect, not only to the first act of faith, but also to future persevering acts, as expressed in life, seems manifest by Rom. 1:17, “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” And Heb. 10:38, 39, “Now the just shall live by faith; but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe, to the saving of the soul.”

So that, as was before said of faith, so may it be said of a child-like believing obedience: it has no concern in justification by any virtue or excellency in it, but only as there is a reception of Christ in it. And this is no more contrary to the apostle’s frequent assertion of our being justified without the works of the law, than to say that we are justified by faith. For faith is as much a work, or act of Christian obedience, as the expressions of faith, in spiritual life and walk. And therefore, as we say that faith does not justify as a work, so we say of all these effective expressions of faith." Jonathan Edwards, Justification by Faith Alone, Nov., 1734

Posted by barb at 11:00 pm

- pduggie | 07.27.04 | 11:30 pm

Burn your Banner of Truth books now, while there is still hope

- pduggie | 07.27.04 | 11:35 pm

I think he's actually being fairly firm that the "evangelical obediences" are in no way to actually be construed as "works". They are the obediences motivated from faith, and are as "receptive towards Christ" as the act of saving faith.

- Tim | 07.28.04 | 1:20 pm

One of the big problems with the current controversy is to discuss justification in terms of faith vs. works, or faith with works, without making it clear whether it is what justification is, or what it is on account of or how it is received that is being discussed (i.e. whether it is the formal cause, the meritorious cause, or the instrumental cause). Disputants would do themselves and everyone else a favor if they first read this book: The Rise of Moralism: The Proclamation of the Gospel from Hooker to Baxter, by C. Fitzsimons Allison (Regent College Publishing) and got the categories and issues straight.

- Barb | 07.28.04 | 1:43 pm

Paul...I was being slightly facetous in my title. This section is the bottom of a lengthy treatise on JBFA. It just caught my eye because, before our day of the Lutheranization of Presbyterianism, it was not dangerous to speak of how obedience relates to justification. Of course, just recently, the long-esteemed Puritan has been labeled a quasi-Romanist.

The Edwards quote reminds me of the quote from Luther(!) that Tim put on his blog awhile back:
"Once a true idea and knowledge of God is held as right reason, then the work is incarnated and incorporated into it. In this way whatever is attributed to faith is later attributed also to works, but only on account of the faith."

- pduggie | 07.28.04 | 3:18 pm

Didn't you see the column im Modern Reformation where the Tragedy of Edwards departure from reformation principles was decried?

- Barb | 07.31.04 | 4:47 pm

Paul, no. I don't subscribe to MR. I wonder if anyone from my church does? I would love to read it first hand. (I do have a fax machine btw.... ;-)

At the Chicago conference, one of the lectures was about Edwards. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the content and so it would only follow that the Modern Defamation folks would reject him as not really Reformed afterall. He messes with their trajectory.