Justification vs. Calling

[arapahoepark]

So reading The Future of Justification by Piper, I am not sure he rebuts enough Wright's notion that we Reformed are somehow confusing justification and effectual calling. In a previous thread I posted, apparently William Dumbrell saying something similar. Now it does not make sense the view that God just declares what already is; after all what's the point?
What other argues are there for justification as seperately as the acceptance/imputation or pardon rather than the declaration that it has happened in calling or regeneration?

 

[arapahoepark]

Bump

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Trent,

I'm not sure what you're asking but the Reformed confessions rejected the idea of eternal justification. There is a sense in which the Covenant of Grace is unconditional but it is also conditional. The exercise of faith is seen as the condition for justification but it is not meritorious but instrumental. The sinner does actually reach out to Christ (by the regenerating work of the Spirit). Consequently, justification is not simply the declaration of what is already the case from calling. They may be connected but they are distinct.

 

[arapahoepark]

I guess I am not talking about eternal justification, rather the notion that in calling (some believe i.e. NPP) faith is exercised and then justification doesn't involve the 'saved' part but it the declaration you have been saved (apparently b/w the calling and justification the declaration). Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Toasty]

Calling has to do with God causing the sinner to come to Christ. Justification is God's declaration that the sinner is righteous. The sinner is declared righteous as soon as he trusts in Jesus to save him from his sins.

 

[jwithnell]

You may not have mentioned eternal justification, but it logically comes into play. If we are justified since the time God called us, then at the very least, our justification would have even predated the existence of the earth. How is that possible unless we have an eternal (looking backward) soul which is definitely not an orthodox view. Our physical and spiritual life has a distinct moment-in-history beginning as does our new birth in Christ which is separated in time from our calling which the scriptures tell us occurred before the foundation of the earth.

 

[arapahoepark]

Ok I guess I am going onto a related question. How do we refute the idea that Justification is only a recognition or declaration of what already is true? I know Rome uses Romans 4 in a similar way Wright does

 

[MW]

Ok I guess I am going onto a related question. How do we refute the idea that Justification is only a recognition or declaration of what already is true? I know Rome uses Romans 4 in a similar way Wright does

Perhaps look at the different "causes" as defined by Protestant orthodoxy. Each of these indicate something substantive. Then there is the appropriation by faith, which flows from an uniting to Christ who is made righteousness to the believer. There is also the experimental side, expressed in passages like Phil. 3, where the individual is pressing on to make more of his justification. If it were a bare declaration of an existing reality it could not have these substantive elements.

 

[MW]

The following from Thomas Goodwin might be of some assistance (Works 4:14):

And to clear it farther, we must conceive, that the promises of forgiveness are not as the pardons of a prince, which merely contain an expression of his royal word for pardoning, so as we in seeking of it do rest upon, and have to do only with his word and seal, which we have to shew for it; but God's promises of pardon are made in his Son, and are as if a prince should offer to pardon a traitor upon marriage with his child, whom in and with that pardon he offers in such a relation; so as all that would have pardon, must seek out for his child; and thus it is in the matter of believing. The reason of which is, because Christ is the grand promise, in whom, 'all the promises are yea and amen,' 2 Cor. 1:20, and therefore he is called the Covenant, Isa. 49:8.