Evangelicals and Tradition by D. H. Williams

Author:D. H. Williams [D. H. Williams]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781441206381
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group

We agree that justification is not earned by any good works or merits of our own; it is entirely God’s gift. . . . In justification, God, on the basis of Christ’s righteousness alone, declares us to be no longer his rebellious enemies but his forgiven friends, and by virtue of his declaration it is so.

We understand that what we here affirm is in agreement with what the Reformation traditions have meant by justification by faith alone (sola fide).

Still, not enough has been said for those who harbor a deep concern that the current dialogues with Roman Catholicism threaten to undermine the historic distinctives of the Reformation’s assertion of justifying faith.[9] A renewed defense of the Lutheran position has been given by Eberhard Jüngel, who claims that the “Joint Declaration” reconstructs only a superficial agreement between the Reformation churches and the Roman Catholic Church. Whatever doctrinal rapprochement has been fashioned between the two churches, the theological deficiencies of the Roman Church as defined by the Council of Trent cannot be sidestepped. The sixteenth-century definition of justification by faith alone is absolutely central to maintaining the integrity of the Christian message of grace.[10] Some Protestant apologists from the ranks of evangelicals more forcefully proclaim justification by faith in the terms of the Augsburg Confession as the only legitimate form of expressing the gospel. Justification by faith is the doctrinal axis around which all other Christian doctrines turn.

In reaction to the Evangelicals and Catholics Together statement, a paper was recently produced by evangelical scholars and activists called “The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration.” It declared that the “doctrine of imputation (reckoning or counting) both our sins to Christ and of his righteousness to us . . . is essential to the biblical Gospel” (art. 12). It is not sufficient that one accept the theological necessity that a sinner is justified by faith. A specific theory of how justification works—a forensic declaration of God’s righteousness and that justification and sanctification are two entirely distinguishable acts in salvation—must be adopted as the only faithful biblical understanding. Inherent to this understanding is the reaffirmation of Luther’s establishment of Pauline theology as a sine qua non of the Christian message. In effect, justification by faith as articulated in Paul’s letters (or at least how Luther and his successors interpreted it) is the teaching of the New Testament and of the gospel.[11] These are strong statements that place particular Reformation perspectives about justification on par with biblical teaching. It is one thing to insist that justification by faith is a major aspect of the gospel, but it is quite another to equate it with the gospel. Jüngel goes so far as to state that Paul’s opposition to Peter’s legalism in Galatians 2 is “after a fashion, the birth of Protestant theology.”[12]

How should we regard the teaching of justification by faith in light of the great tradition? Does it see justification by faith alone as the single most important criterion for interpreting the Christian faith? This

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