Living in a forgiven world
John H Tuesday 26th June, AD 2007
A comment made by Alastair on his site the other day got me reading up on the concept of “objective justification”. This is the teaching that (as a helpful essay (PDF) by Siegbert Becker puts it):
God has justified, declared righteous, or acquitted, the whole world of sinners, or, in other words, that God has in His heart forgiven the sins of all men.
This “objective justification” of all people is then the basis for our “subjective justification” as individuals.
This is a teaching that I have previously struggled with: partly because it seems to imply universalism, partly because the term “objective justification” is jargon found neither in Scripture nor in the Lutheran confessions. It’s also an ugly and unclear term: to my mind, the alternative terms “universal justification” or “general justification” seem preferable.
However, even if we dislike adding yet more extra-biblical language to the Christian lexicon, objective/universal justification is still taught by Scripture. Becker cites a number of texts in support of this claim.
First, 2 Corinthians 5:19:
[I]n Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them…
Becker points out that the NIV obscures the meaning of this verse by translating it as “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ not counting men’s sins against them”. Paul’s words are “not counting their trespasses against them” (as in the NRSV), referring to “the world”; in other words, all people.
Second, Romans 5:18:
Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.
Becker argues that the “all” for whom Adam’s sin led to condemnation is the same as the “all” for whom Jesus’ act of righteousness led to justification and life, namely all people without exception. He favours the following translation of the verse, from the 20th Century NT:
Just as a single offence resulted for all mankind in condemnation, so, too, a single decree of righteousness resulted for all mankind in that declaration of righteousness which brings Life.
In this view, what Paul is referring to as that which brings life for all humankind is not Jesus’ act of righteousness (in dying on the cross) but the verdict of acquittal “that God spoke over the crucified Christ when He raised Him from the dead”, the same verdict of acquittal that is for all those for whom Christ died.
But whichever translation we use, the central point remains the same: just as all are condemned in Adam, so all are justified in Christ.
Third, Romans 4:25:
[He] was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.
Again, the “our” for whose justification Christ was raised is the same as the “our” for whose trespasses he was handed over to death. That is, all people without exception (2 Corinthians 5:14).
Now, this is very strong and stark language, and our minds may rebel against it, but it is the language of Scripture, just as much as those texts which make it clear that not all will be saved in the end, and that those who persist in unbelief (and thus reject Christ’s righteousness and the forgiveness he has won for them) face condemnation. This is exactly the sort of apparent contradiction that Walther had in mind when he said (in the words quoted in my previous post):
In one place the Bible offers forgiveness to all sinners; in another place forgiveness of sins is withheld from all sinners. In one passage a free offer of life everlasting is made to all men; in another, men are directed to do something themselves towards being saved.
As Walther goes on to point out, the answer to this “riddle” comes when we see “there are in the Scriptures two entirely different doctrines”, namely law and gospel. To those who persist in unbelief and impenitence the message of the law is that they face condemnation; to those who are troubled by their sins and seek God’s forgiveness, the message of the gospel assures them that God has already forgiven and accepted them in Christ.
And indeed what is crucial about this teaching – whatever term we use for it – is that it forms the basis for our proclamation of the gospel. As Becker puts it:
God does not forgive us because we have faith. He does not forgive us if we have faith. He has forgiven us long ago, when He raised His Son from the dead.
The risen Savior commanded His apostles to preach that good news of forgiveness to every creature, to all nations. And the apostles are still preaching it today through their writings and through those who by word of mouth pass the same message on, whether they are pastors or laymen, men or women, adults or children.
That’s the key point: the proclamation of the gospel is not an offer with conditions attached (“if you believe”); it is the announcement of a completed accomplishment, a done deal.
Which brings us onto N.T. Wright. But that’s a separate post.
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- Comments(16)
Very odd. I was just reading that Becker article yesterday. I blogged it here.
It struck me that Becker’s argument about justification as shared legal verdict is more like what Wright talks about then the traditional Reformed view of imputed meritorious works by Jesus.
[...] It’s a small world: PDuggie left a comment on my earlier post pointing out that he wrote a post yesterday on exactly the same essay by Siegbert Becker (PDF) on universal justification. He writes: My heart is occasionally strangely warmed by the secret Lutheran doctrine (a secret to many Reformed, who express shock when you tell them about it) of universal objective justification. [...]
A couple of questions come to mind, of the “Reformed shock” variety.
You know, of course, the petals of which notorious flower lurk beneath my questions; I’m not looking to discuss that, but I’m interested in plumbing where this notion takes you.
Now, when God says he forgives, he says “their sins and wickedness I will remember no more”. That means that my sin will never be dredged up, ever again. Ever. It is completely, finally, utterly and totally dealt with. God won’t punish me for it; it is finished. Okay, so if that’s forgiveness, then how can God forgive some people and then punish them for their sins? This isn’t, by the way, the “exact payment” Owenic line of argument; it’s a simple question of trusting God’s promise. How do I trust this promise that my sins and wickednesses are remembered no more, when you’re saying that God will break it for some people?
Also, you probably know the Stuart Townend hymn “In Christ Alone”, which contains the couplet “And on that cross, as Jesus died, The wrath of God was satisfied.” I believe such a sentiment is Scriptural. Does universal justification provide that force of conclusion to the matter?
Phil: God will not break his promise to anybody. Some people will reject it by their unbelief (Romans 11:20 comes to mind here).
I’m as acutely aware as you are of the logical problems this gives rise to. But I think we have to give due weight to both sets of teachings. On the one hand we have texts such as those quoted in my post which teach that all people have been justified and forgiven by God in the death and resurrection of Christ. On the other, we have texts that make it clear that some will not be saved and will face eternal condemnation.
As I said in my post, this comes down to law and gospel. We can’t reconcile or harmonise law and gospel: we can only distinguish them, and ensure we apply the right message to the right people. To those who harden themselves in unbelief and reject the promises of the gospel, the law condemns them. To those who turn to God for mercy, they find the mercy is already there, waiting for them – that God had already forgiven them in Christ long before.
So it’s not a case of saying, “If you believe, then God’s attitude towards you will change from condemnation to forgiveness”. Rather, it is a case of saying “God’s forgiveness for you has already been won by Christ. Now you can enter into and take possession of that forgiveness, appropriate it for yourself, by faith”.
Stuart Townend’s hymn marvellously expresses the teaching of universal justification: the wrath of God has been satisfied for all people through Jesus’ death on the cross. But that is gospel, and whether the gospel is God’s word for you depends on whether you are penitent or not.
It may also be worth pursuing the thought that the promises are made to us “in Christ”, and the law condemns us “in Adam”. If someone remains (by their unbelief) “in Adam” rather than “in Christ”, then no promise has been broken there.
It’s not really logical problems; it’s existential. The notion that God has [objectively] forgiven people whom he will later [objectively] condemn is simply terrifying.
Phil: I agree. That’s why the NT’s warnings against apostasy are so stark and have such urgency.
However, I don’t see why it is any less terrifying than the Calvinist position in which people who subjectively believe themselves to be forgiven by God may turn out later to be condemned by him.
At least with universal justification you can believe with total confidence that you are forgiven, justified and accepted by God and that no-one can snatch you out of his hand, without any doubt over your status before him right now as a believer.
Dunno where I said that people who are trusting Christ, in whom God’s promise of forgiveness is revealed, should be terrified lest they prove not to be trusting him enough. In fact, I’m known for being something of a stuck record in my church: “our faith is not in faith.”
I accept that there are some Reformed trends which have emphasised the importance of a morbid introspection, but as the inimitable Pirate would say, we need to semper reformanda that right out of our system. After all, you guys had your Pietists to fight, yeah? And you’ve not even got a snazzy Latin tag to do it with. 
Now, perhaps you mean that there can be those who are attached to the visible church, but whose faith is in something other than God’s promise of forgiveness? So, for example, if someone believes that they’re forgiven by God because they’ve given x% to church since their first pay packet, or because they walked up an aisle twenty years ago, or simply because they’re in the church and that’s enough, then I would counsel them that their faith is in the wrong place. I can’t think you’re saying something different at that point; so who is this person who would think he’s forgiven, but [on the Calvinist scheme] isn’t?
I just don’t see how this universal justification gives total confidence, or, indeed, any. If God forgave *everybody* in Christ, and yet condemned some later, then what Christ did on the Cross was clearly insufficient for them; something else was needful. But if it was insufficient for them, how do I know it won’t be insufficient for me? In fact, I’d go further: if it were insufficient for them, there’s no way it could be sufficient for me.
PS–your point about the language of “in Adam” and “in Christ” is absolutely spot-on. But by dividing humanity into those “in Adam” and those “in Christ”, you’re moving back towards the Dark Side. I mean, um, our position.
Hi Phil: I know you weren’t saying that, and that wasn’t my point. It’s not that Calvinists ought to be afraid lest their faith be in vain, just that the Calvinist denial of apostasy – and consequent explanation of apparent apostasy as evidence that the individual never had faith in the first place, even if that individual and those around him had been convinced he did for years* – puts the present faith of any individual in doubt, whether they realise that or not (and hopefully the answer to that is “not”, because they are following your sound advice to look to Christ alone and not within).
(* In passing, the Calvinist approach to apostasy reminds me of Roman Catholic annulments of marriage…)
In contrast, for an Augsburg Evangelical the message of the gospel is, “Your sins are forgiven (because all sins of all people are forgiven)”. We still have to take proper account of the NT’s warnings against apostasy, but the danger of future apostasy does not put present faith in question.
To expand on my passing thought before: the Lutheran (indeed, non-Calvinist generally) approach to apostasy is comparable to that of divorce. The possibility of future divorce does not put in question the present status of the marriage. However, the Roman Catholic practice of annulment does put the present status of the marriage in question, because there is always the possibility that the marriage will later be declared never to have existed. The application to the “never a Christian in the first place” approach to apostasy is left as an exercise for the reader.
If God forgave *everybody* in Christ, and yet condemned some later
Well, there’s the problem, I think. Who said anything about “later”? God’s two messages to humanity, at one and the same time, are the law’s message that “Your sins have condemned you (because all people are condemned because of sin)” and the gospel’s message that “Your sins are forgiven (because all sins of all people are forgiven)”.
Those messages cannot be reconciled, whether conceptually or chronologically. If you believe the gospel then its promises are yours. If you reject the gospel then the law’s condemnation rests upon you again.
The “later” comes because (with thanks to the Genius of Durham) there will be an eschatological vindication—parallel with the eschatological condemnation. And at that point, everyone will *either* be sheep or goats (Matt. 25). So for each person, there will either be vindication (= justification) with Christ, or condemnation apart from him. But we are promised that all who share in Jesus’ vindication in the here-and-now will have a share in that eschatological vindication (Rom. 8:28-30 and Rev. 20:4-6). So how can someone be justified now but condemned at the eschaton?
I think you are still trying to harmonise law and gospel rather than letting each speak for itself.
And the law’s present condemnation is as much an anticipation of the eschaton as is the gospel’s present vindication.
[...] The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the key to bringing these two approaches together lies in the “secret” and “shocking” Lutheran doctrine of objective universal justification. What this does is add to the objective announcement that “Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead” the additional statement that “and he has won forgiveness from God for all people”. It does so on the strongest biblical grounds, both in terms of texts such as those examined in a previous post and the examples we see in Acts of how the apostles proclaimed the gospel (e.g. Acts 2:38, 5:31, 10:42,43, 13:38,39). [...]
“Shortly before I engaged in discussion with John H about a post of his, other discussions about the doctrine of election made me wonder about doing a series on the comfort that the so-called “Five Points of Calvinism” give. Since the very interesting discussion with John raised exactly that issue, I’ve decided I’ll go for it. I won’t be defending the Scriptural basis for these doctrines, but simply explaining how beliefs, commonly thought to be deadening and draining, are in fact a source of true comfort. So, first up: Total Depravity!”
I think this may be one tip on the atonement iceberg that is slowly floating through theologica these days.
Will there be forgiven people in hell?
Bruce Ware’s thinking on the atonement (which has Piper in a twist) comes to mind.(http://www.powerofchange.org/blog/docs/ware_atonement.pdf)
These are days of interesting thoughts.
the Lutheran (indeed, non-Calvinist generally) approach to apostasy is comparable to that of divorce. The possibility of future divorce does not put in question the present status of the marriage. However, the Roman Catholic practice of annulment does put the present status of the marriage in question, because there is always the possibility that the marriage will later be declared never to have existed. The application to the “never a Christian in the first place” approach to apostasy is left as an exercise for the reader.
OK John, I did the exercise. Very interesting. I see the point that future divorce doesn’t call into question the present marriage while the Calvinist perspective on apostasy does. You’re analogy could be strengthened even further by saying that God promises he won’t divorce you, but you might divorce him.
Here’s my problem. Total Depravity leads me to believe that if I could divorce him I would. And if I don’t divorce him and you do, doesn’t that leave me ground for boasting? And in the New Covenant God doesn’t just promise to be faithful to us, he promises to make us faithful to him. To circumcise our hearts so that we love him, to cause us to walk in his ways, etc. etc. If I divorce him, did he fail to do that for me? My assurance is based on the fact that I am sure that he won’t fail to do that for me because of what he already did for me on the cross. But if he did that for everyone…
I leave the implications as an exercise for the reader.
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