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).

Reformed Professor Matthew Barrett and the shallowness of the Protestant grasp of Scripture

I'm not writing this brief article to make fun of anyone, but simply as an example of the sad situation Protestantism finds itself in when it comes to interpreting Scripture. I really want to emphasize this because for a long time and even still to this day Protestants are under a serious delusion that Catholics are too dumb to really know the plain teaching of Scripture. In this post I want to give a brief look at what a Reformed Seminary Professor posted on his blog.

Matthew Barrett has a PhD in systematic theology, is editor of a major Reformed magazine (Credo), and is a professor at a Reformed college. Just yesterday he posted on the Credo Magazine blog a post titled "It is finished: A reflection on John 19:30." Just by the title, you'd think that Dr Barrett is going to exegete this verse, and in fact I was drawn to read this post precisely because I know this verse is important for the Calvinist view of the Atonement. But when you read the brief "reflection," there's no actual exegesis of the text at all. He merely quotes the text in passing a few times, which is simply how most Protestants approach this verse. 

These two concluding paragraphs form the heart of his post, so that's all I'll quote and comment upon:

When we come to the cross and we see the enormous amount of suffering Jesus underwent, we tend to focus solely on his physical suffering: the crown of thorns, the nails, and the crucifix. But as important as all of this is, we cannot miss the main thing: the most excruciating thing about the suffering servant’s cross is that he bore the very wrath of God that was ours. The Lord laid upon Christ our iniquities and Christ took the due penalty for those iniquities. We see this and we hear it when Christ cries out, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Mark 15:34). And then come three beautiful words, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

What is finished? Christ, as he says in the garden of Gethsamani, has drunk the cup of God’s wrath in full (Matt. 26:39), and by doing so, as Hebrews 1:3 reminds us, Christ “made purification for sins.” As our high priest Christ “entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:11-12; cf. 9:13, 25-26). Indeed, this is good news.

Again, this man has a PhD in systematic theology, so he should know how to exegete Scripture and know how things fit together. And yet these handful of sentences show the most embarrassing level of interpretive skill and grasp of theology. But really, this is par for the course for the highest levels of orthodox Reformed Protestant scholarship.

Dr Barrett starts off by making the standard Protestant claim that Christ's physical sufferings at the hands of men, as dreadful as they were, were in fact nothing compared to the spiritual suffering of enduring the Father's Divine Wrath. Such statements are so obviously outrageous that I'd expect others to be speaking up against it. Dr Barrett both trivializes the physical sufferings of Our Lord and introduces a completely foreign concept of God's Wrath being poured out on Christ. Sadly, as I noted earlier, this is in fact the best Protestantism has to offer. It's not that they do this on purpose, but they have serious 'blinders' on that prevent them from thinking clearly. Such is the reality of sin, and such is the position one is put in when they're outside the Catholic Church. Trivializing the physical sufferings of Christ is equivalent to denying the Crucifixion, and God help me if I or any Catholic trivializes the heart of our salvation like that.

I'm not going to beat a dead horse on the "My God, why have you forsaken me?" comments, because I've covered that many times before. I just want people, Protestant and Catholic, to just stop and look at how shallow Reformed theology is and the liberties and desperation it takes with the Sacred Text. It's truly an abuse of God's Word if there ever was one. And to follow this up, Dr Barrett brings up the main text in question, "It is finished," as if he had actually exegeted and proved his thesis. He is oblivious to the fact "It is finished" has it's own context in John, and he's oblivious to the fact John (and Luke) never mention the "forsaken me" quote, despite Dr Barrett's insistence that this "forsaken me" text is the heart of the true understanding of the Cross. He has the audacity to ask "What is finished?" without even looking at the context. And he concludes by quoting all these texts from Hebrews, not realizing the absolute silence in Hebrews about any reference to God's Wrath (or Active Obedience). What's going on folks? And to think this is the enlightened 'wisdom' of men who don't want you to be Catholic? Give me a break.

Once you have the right glasses on, you have a hard time taking Protestantism seriously. To get the right glasses on, you just have to realize that Protestants don't really follow the Bible at all, but rather they follow a completely unbiblical "tradition of men"  called Sola Fide, and they accept this as a starting premise and from there proceed to make Scripture fit. The Reformation wasn't about Sola Scriptura, it was about Sola Fide, specifically the agenda of presuming its truth and forcing the Scripture's to agree (resulting in numerous other "traditions of men" they are forced to embrace). 

I guess what's really hard about reading this kind of stuff is that I really hoped for better, and I truly believe Protestants owe us Catholics better. But it's almost as if God's Word has a built in safety feature, where the moment someone starts to tamper with it, absurdities surface. That's precisely what happens with Protestant scholarship, and Reformed theology in particular. If the Reformed blogosphere isn't going to call out such embarrassing statements which the Reformed PhD's routinely make, then how can we really take them seriously?

Can Protestants drink from Christ's Cup and Carry their Cross in obedience to Jesus? I don't think so.

Today on John Piper's Desiring God Blog a guest writer named Steven Lee wrote a post titled "The Cup Consumed for Us." The post is a brief reflection on Matthew 20:20-28 where the apostles James and John are asked by Jesus "Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?" Lee interprets this verse in the way many Calvinists do, claiming that this cup Jesus is going to drink is "the cup of God's wrath." But is this true? And wouldn't such a claim make nonsense of Our Lord's words? That's what I'll address in this post. 

Does the Catholic view of Christ's Atonement permit the Reformed view of "Penal Substitution"?

Some Reformed Protestants have commented to me that the Catholic Church doesn't have an official view of the Atonement and that the Catholic Church even permits the Reformed view of "Penal Substitution". The problem with these kinds of claims is that they don't understand what the Catholic Church means when the Church uses terms like "atonement" and "sacrifice" (and similar terms), so these Protestants end up reading foreign ideas into Catholic teaching. The fact of the matter is, the Catholic Church doesn't have to condemn every single error that comes up in history, especially if those errors are already condemned in other forms. So while you won't find any Church teaching that says "Penal Substitution is heresy," you will find the Church teaching things directly contrary to what Penal Substitution espouses. Typically, the Church lays out parameters for orthodoxy, and while one is free to work within those parameters, one is not free to transgress those parameters. For this post I'll be giving some examples of Catholic teaching that go against the concept of Penal Substitution, showing that a Catholic cannot embrace that view of the Cross and be within the parameters of orthodoxy and Catholic thought.

Protestant apologetics site GotQuestions? says Jesus "spiritually died" on the Cross.

Sorry to annoy you dear readers, but I'm going to have to post a third post this week, after finding yet another big name Protestant apologist making it clear that God the Father damned His Son Jesus in place of damning us. This time it's the website GotQuestions?, a popular online source where Protestants can get their theological questions answered from a conservative Protestant viewpoint. I'll try to make this brief since I mostly just want it to be a "for the record" type post.

The following quotes about what kind of suffering Jesus endured come from various Question & Answer posts on the GotQuestions? website, so I'll quote and provide the link to each (quotes are trimmed down for brevity).

• A physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. Spiritual death, which is of greater significance, is the separation of the soul from God. When Adam and Eve heard the voice of the Lord, they “hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God.” The fellowship had been broken. They were spiritually dead. When Jesus was hanging on the cross, He paid the price for us by dying on our behalf. Even though He is God, He still had to suffer the agony of a temporary separation from the Father due to the sin of the world He was carrying on the cross. After three hours of supernatural darkness, He cried, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:33-34). This spiritual separation from the Father was the result of the Son’s taking our sins upon Himself. That’s the impact of sin. Sin is the exact opposite of God, and God had to turn away from His own Son at that point in time. (Question: "What is spiritual death?")