Dikaioo, declarative or real?

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arapahoepark

Puritan Board Professor
Reading Piper's Future of Justification I found this quote from Wright, that Piper didn't dive too much into lexical studies, so to speak, about it: “The word dikaioø is, after all, a declarative word, declaring that something is the case, rather than a word for making something happen or changing the way something is."

So I was wondering if someone could explain why that it is not merely the case. No doubt, it being a forensic and declarative the reformed would agree but, obviously it is not merely God's stating something that has already happened to a believer.
 
Primarily declarative, since judges only declare something to be the case (a judge doesn't make someone guilty). There is a "real" moment, though, in that God's speech-act of effectual calling creates a real situation.
 
The question is, What is declared?

Not sure I follow. Are we defining the word declared or what the declaration is? Maybe, I am not just understanding what is being said with dikaioo and its cognates.

There is no disagreement over the declarative function of the word. The disagreement is over what is declared. Traditional Protestantism says the ungodly is declared righteous in the sight of God on account of the reckoning of Christ's righteousness to him. So the declaration conveys something substantial and real to the believer in Christ. In the new perspectives the declaration is merely "nominal" and states what is a matter of fact without any "real" benefit flowing from it.
 
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