Help with Ryrie on Justification

[Fly Caster]

I need some insight on this. I'm reading Charles Ryrie's book Dispensationalism, and am working through his arguments that the system does not teach two ways of salvation. Here is a quote from page 28--

After the coming of Christ, God's governing relationship with mankind was no longer through the Mosaic Law The rent veil and the end of approach to God through the sacrificial system show this. Witness, too, the distinguishable difference in relation to justification as summarized by Paul in his sermon at Antioch in Pisidia: "Through Him everyone who believes is freed [justified] from all things, from which you could not be freed [justified] through the Law of Moses" (Acts 13:39). Here is unquestionably a distinguishable and different way of running the affairs of the world regarding man's responsibility in relation to the most important area of justification. Whatever his responsibility was under the Mosaic Law may be left unspecified at present (see chapter 6), but with the coming of Christ the requirement for justification became faith in Him. This, too, is obviously a distinctive stage in the progress of revelation. Therefore, we conclude that a new dispensation was inaugurated, since the economy and responsibility changed and the new revelation was given.

Then in chapter 6--

This statement was made in direct answer to the charge that Chafer taught two ways of salvation, and Chafer himself said that the other statements so often quoted to show that he taught two ways of salvation had no bearing on that subject. May we not take him at his word as being his own best interpreter, especially when he is speaking to the specific point on which he was being attacked? In another place, and twenty years before the Presbyterian church leveled the charge against him, Chafer said with equal clarity, "The law was never given as a means of salvation or justification."198
Scofield, too, was equally clear that the law was not a means of salvation: "Law neither justifies a sinner nor sanctifies a believer,"199 and, "It is exceedingly important to observe... that the law is not proposed as a means of life."200 William Pettingill, another older dispensationalist, also declared clearly, "Salvation has always been, as it is now, purely a gift of God in response to faith. The dispensation-al tests served to show man's utter helplessness, in order to bring him to faith, that he might be saved by grace through faith plus nothing."201

Am I missing something here? Apart from the contradiction, it appears that Ryrie is stating two different ways of justification. Things that are different are not the same.

Any thoughts?

 

[Notthemama1984]

I believe Ryrie is making a distinction in man's responsibility in justification. Man expressed his faith in the Messiah through the keeping of the Law (which pointed towards the coming Messiah) and now man expresses his faith in Christ (though in the passages Ryrie does not show how one does this).

In the end justification is the same because it is placing faith in the Messiah for both groups. The difference is in how one expresses that faith.

Then again, I could be way off. If this isn't Ryrie's views exactly, it is pretty close to DTS' stance which has me read Ryrie's book in just about every class it seems like.