Covenant, Justification and Pastoral Ministry

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Reformed Covenanter

Reformed Covenanter

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Just got this in Belfast today; anyone else read it?
 
Yep, I thought it was very good although some of the earlier chapters went a little over my head due to the Greek and Hebrew.
 
My elder has it and recommends it. He says it's quite scholarly with perhaps more footnotes than actual text (a good thing). And when he's finished he will lend it to me.
 
ADKing said:
For a healthy critique of this book, I encourage you to read Rev. Mark Garcia's review No Reformed Doctrine of Justification

Also, his recent lectures at the Thirteenth Annual Lynnwood Reformed Conference address many of these issues, and I think are valuable. Lynnwood Orthodox Presbyterian Church (under: audio-13th conference)

Not everyone in the anti-FV reformed camp is convinced the direction of this book is the best way to answer FV.
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Thanks Rev. King for pointing this helpful review. It was an enlightning reading!
 
Now, it needs to be mentioned that the problem here is not merely historical but the inevitable neglect of the theological benefit of Reformed theology on this point. Put most concisely, appreciating the biblical truth that sanctification does not result from justification, but is an aspect, like justification, of our union with Christ, alone safeguards the doctrine of justification against the Roman Catholic error. If we argue, with CJPM, that justification is the cause of sanctification, then we attribute to justification a generative, transformational quality (in that sanctification is generated or produced by justification) and thus, ironically in view of the driving concern in CJPM, compromise the purely forensic character of justification, its nature as a declarative act rather than the beginning of a work. This is the liability of the Lutheran model, but it is a liability that is entirely avoided in the Reformed model according to which justification and sanctification come to us as distinct, inseparable, simultaneous benefits of union with Christ, rather than one coming from the other (cf. WLC 69). CJPM urges a model which could have been pulled directly from the Formula of Concord. The Reformed model, however, best reflects the Apostle Paul’s own as it is expressed, for instance, in 1 Corinthians 1:30.
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That was indeed a very interesting review. Have any of the contributors to CJPM responded to it at all?
 
Garcia says that the doctrine of the imputation of the active obedience of Christ is not found "even 'seminally' " in Calvin before the last edition of the Institutes 1559. Garcia is simply wrong. Surely the doctrine is present more than seminally in these words of Calvin in his 1539 Commentary on Romans: "When, however, we come to Christ, we first find in Him the exact righteousness of the law, and this also becomes ours by imputation."
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I found this part of Mr. Garcia's critique to be quiet disturbing.
 
From the response to the review.
In light of this we would appeal to Garcia to uphold this sense of priority of justification to sanctification in the ordo salutis. This is not a doctrine to be embraced in place of union with Christ, but our theology of union must be compatible with this doctrine. We ought not begin with an abstract doctrine of union, conceived independently of the concrete blessings of justification, adoption, and sanctification, and then deduce from this abstract doctrine the idea that justification, adoption, and sanctification must be received simultaneously through union without a defined relationship to each other. Union with Christ (or any other doctrine) should not become a central dogma from which we derive everything else. Garcia refers several times to 1 Corinthians 1:30 ("He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption"). Certainly this verse indicates that our justification and sanctification are received in union with Christ, which we gratefully acknowledge. But this verse should not be freighted with more weight than it can bear. Though Paul is not teaching any particular priority of justification to sanctification in this passage, he does teach such a priority elsewhere. Garcia also refers to WLC 69 in support of his position ("The communion in grace which the members of the invisible church have with Christ, is their partaking of the virtue of his mediation, in their justification, adoption, and sanctification, and whatever else, in this life, manifests their union with him"). This statement also rightly connects our justification and sanctification to our union with Christ. But clearly it does not teach that justification and sanctification bear no ordo relationship to each other. If anything, WLC 69 warns us against starting with an abstract doctrine of union from which we deduce the relationship (or lack thereof) between justification and sanctification. The WLC points us precisely to justification, adoption, and sanctification as those blessings that manifest our union. If we want to understand union, then, we must look to our justification, adoption, and sanctification. These blessings show us what our union with Christ is.
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It seems that the hinge of this controversy is union with Christ.
 
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