Is the Imputed Righteousness of Christ the only hope for a person to become right with God?

[The following is a Guest Post I made at another blog but the blog was deleted a couple years ago]

How does a sinner become right with God? That’s a question Reformed Protestants love to ask, and for good reason, since it’s one of life’s most important questions. But the interesting thing is, the Reformed answer contains a serious flaw, and recognizing this can help explain where their understanding of Justification goes off course and get corrected. This blog post, which is somewhat a continuation of the last blog post, will address the problem and explain the solution.

The Reformed answer for how we can “stand before God and be right with him” is typically summarized as follows: Since we are sinners, we’re obviously not righteous, so we need Christ’s righteousness imputed to us. As the prior post explained, the Reformed understanding of righteousness is perfect obedience to all of God’s commandments. So Christ’s righteousness imputed to us means that we need Christ’s perfect obedience (also called “Christ’s Active Obedience”) transferred to our account, so that God can then “count us as righteous” (i.e. Justify us), just as if we had been perfectly obedient ourselves. Sounds simple enough, and it is simple, but there’s a problem that emerges and cannot be ignored.

Now everyone agrees that Adam was originally created in communion with God and was in a right relationship with Him. But how can this be if Adam had not yet perfectly kept all God’s commandments? In other words, Adam was not yet righteous (in the sense of perfect obedience) and yet he was in communion with God, with God being well pleased with him.

Do you see the dilemma the Reformed position falls into? The Reformed rightly recognize that Adam didn’t have to have perfect obedience to be in a right relationship with God, but the Reformed also say that us being in a right relationship with God requires perfect obedience. Something’s wrong here. Logically speaking, if Adam didn’t need perfect obedience to be in communion with God, then neither should we.

The difference between Adam and us is not which one of us had perfect obedience (since neither Adam nor us ever did), but rather a matter of Adam not having sin and us having sin. Thus, if justification is about putting us in a right relationship with God, then needing a perfect obedience isn’t the solution, but rather getting rid of the sin. This is precisely why the Catholic understanding of ‘getting saved’ (or ‘getting justified) is one of remission of sins and cleansing our hearts, which is basically the undoing of the damage Adam caused.

While it needs to be said that Reformed theology does teach that ‘half’ of Christ’s work on our behalf was to secure the forgiveness of sins (i.e. Christ suffering for us), they go off course by saying the other ‘half’ of Christ’s work was perfectly keeping all God’s commandments in our place. If they were to say that Justification was simply the forgiveness of sins, they’d be a lot closer to the Catholic and Biblical position. But by understanding justification as being declared before God to have perfectly kept God’s law, the Reformed have basically put themselves in a bind. They’ve incorrectly defined what it means to be “Justified,” and that’s not a trivial matter.

To state it another way, the Reformed have (unintentionally) collapsed two distinct Biblical events into one event: Conversion and Final Judgment. Conversion is about becoming right with God, restoring the broken relationship which Adam originally had and lost for us. The Final Judgment is about departing this life in friendship with God, with God declaring you a “faithful servant” from growing in that relationship. Using an analogy: Conversion is being adopted into God’s household, while Final Judgment is God declaring that you’ve been a faithful son in his household and ready to receive your inheritance. Just to clarify, Catholics are not saying you ‘buy’ your adoption or inheritance, these are gifts that God wants to give us at the proper time, should we accept them. (Note: You can also throw your gifts away by mortal sin, which then requires Confession to recover them.)

With all this in mind consider the Biblical witness on the matter.

When the Bible uses the term “justify,” it never (clearly) refers to declaring someone to be perfectly obedient before a judge, but rather is about declaring a person is vindicated (or not guilty), particularly when speaking of having sins forgiven. For example, Deuteronomy 25:1 speaks of the civil justice system, with the judge having to “justify the righteous” (NASB) man in a lawsuit. This certainly doesn’t mean the judge is declaring the defendant of having kept the law perfectly throughout his whole life, but rather simply that the man isn’t guilty of the charges against him. In other famous texts speaking of civil justice, God does not approve of human judges “condemning the righteous” (e.g. Ex 23:7; Prov 17:15; Is 5:23), which also wouldn’t make much practical sense if perfect obedience was in view, because nobody would be perfectly obedient in the first place. The point simply is this: There’s big difference between saying someone is ‘not guilty’ and saying someone has been perfectly obedient, and justification in the civil sense is only concerned with the former.

Turning to the New Testament, there is abundant testimony as to what Christ did for man, but never does the sacred text speak of Christ’s work for us in terms of perfectly keeping the commandments in our place. Rather, every major text speaks simply of Christ getting rid of our sins and restoring our communion with God. (To keep things brief, only the book of Acts will be examined in this post, with the Pauline Epistles being examined in the next blog post.)

After the Resurrection, Jesus tells the Apostles that the Prophets foretold “repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Lk 24:47). And this is precisely the message the Apostles carried into their Gospel preaching in Acts: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”; “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out”; “repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins”; “everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins”; “through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed”; “cleansed their hearts by faith”; “be baptized and wash away your sins”; “that they may receive forgiveness of sins” (Acts 2:38; 3:19; 5:31; 10:43; 13:38; 15:9; 22:16; 26:18). The message is consistent throughout, whether it’s Peter, Paul or another disciple doing the preaching.

So why do none of these Gospel proclamations in Acts speak of needing Christ’s perfect obedience to be able to stand before God and be right with Him? Did the Apostles forget a key piece of the Gospel Message? Catholics say No, the concept of Christ’s righteousness simply wasn’t part of what it takes to be right with God.

For those interested in commenting, please remain focused on this subject at hand. The subject is not about Mary, the Papacy, Indulgences, but simply the proper definition of Justification and whether it’s taught in Acts (with plenty of time for discussing Paul’s Epistles in the next blog post).