Psalm 45 Publications

Recently, I was asked by a friend of mine, Chris Poteet, to give a response to this article, in which a Roman Catholic is arguing for his view of justification. Following is my response.

From the outset, I must candidly confess that a thoroughgoing, point-by-point rebuttal of the positions argued for in the article above is beyond the scope of my brief response. The positions espoused were hundreds of years in the making, and to unravel everything assumed or explicitly stated would take a rather lengthy volume. And besides, there are already many good, exegetically-sound explanations of the Reformed views on justification and sanctification, an excellent example of the former being Obadiah Grew’s The Lord Our Righteousness; and of the latter, Walter Marshall’s The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification. If anyone is seriously wanting to understand the historic Protestant teaching on these important topics, I would point him to these works.

Instead, I only desire two things: first, to point out, in brief, how the article misrepresents the Protestant viewpoint, for the benefit of anyone wanting a more accurate description to consider. And second, to give a brief explanation of why this viewpoint is so vital and non-negotiable to us. Continue Reading

Introduction

While the issue of authority no doubt underlay the Protestant Reformation, so that the basis upon which men began to question the corruption of Rome was only the “formal principle” of sola scriptura; and while the sole weapon which the Reformers ever wielded against their doctrinal foes was the grammatico-historical hermeneutic; it is no less certain that the one great battlefield upon which the war was waged was constituted of the biblical word groups for “righteousness”: in the Old Testament tsedek/tsedekah, and in the New Testament dikaiosis/dikaiosune. It is no accident that the question of justification, or how a sinner may be declared righteous before a holy God, is the question to which sola scriptura must ultimately give rise: for from the beginning of the scriptures, man’s plight is cast in the direst of terms, and the basic direness is the result of a lack of righteousness, and all the troubling effects to which that condition must succumb, when the righteous Judge appears upon the scene. In other words, the “formal principle” of the Reformation, namely sola scriptura, could not but give rise to its “material principle,” justification by grace alone through faith alone. Continue Reading

It is a tragedy of the highest degree that so many theologians today are emphasizing such models of the atoning work of the Savior as Christus Victor to the minimization of penal substitution. The tragedy is not that the reality of Christ’s conquering Satan through his work on the cross is acknowledged or even emphasized, but rather that this idea is passed off to some degree as mutually exclusive of his bearing his people’s sins, and undergoing the just wrath of the Father in their place. The Serpent’s enmity against God has ever been waged in terms of tempting his children to sin, and thus barring them from his holy presence; and the final defeat of the enemy was won by a Substitute who found a way to reconcile them again to God, without compromising his righteousness. The weapon which destroyed the forces of darkness is only the spear which pierced Jesus’ side as he hung upon the cross in the place of his people. Take that weapon away, and you may talk all you want to of how Jesus won a victory against Satan on the cross, but the victory becomes nothing but hollow words. I can’t help but think that the Devil laughs at all those who make a great show of announcing his defeat, but forget the sin-bearing nature of the Lamb of God, who took away the sin of the world by being lifted up as a curse. But mention Golgotha as the place where the Messiah bore the wrath of God, and in our place was lifted up to die, and he must flee in terror, acknowledging his final failure to accomplish his antagonistic designs. Jesus made an open show of the rulers of darkness, triumphing over them by his blood, when he took the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, and nailed it to the cross (Colossians 2:14-15). That is what we must ultimately emphasize, or we have cut away the very foundation of every other claim that we might make about what transpired on Calvary.

In all of our zeal to contend for every doctrine of the bible (as commendable as such an attitude is), we would do well to remember that only a relatively few doctrines are so vital for the purity of the gospel that, to deny them is, in essence, to corrupt the good news of salvation in Christ. It is only fitting that, when we see these doctrines under attack, we give the primacy of our attention to defending them. And such a doctrine is the biblical conception of the atonement; that is, the conception that the atonement involves the substitution of Christ for us, by which, having taken upon himself our sins, he willingly undergoes the righteous wrath of the Father in our place. In other words, it is vital that we contend for an account of the atonement which views it as penal (that Christ satisfied the penalty of the law, as the righteousness of the Father demanded) substitution (that he underwent this penalty in our place). Any other model of the atonement will both fail the test of biblical witness, and leave us without an adequate plea for forgiveness and acceptance with God. So the question arises, “Is this biblical doctrine under attack today?” Continue Reading

The topic of the extent of the atonement has certainly been a point which has sparked many fiery debates among evangelical Christians. The typical understanding of this debate has been that full-fledged Calvinists have limited the atonement, whereas Arminians/Amyraldians (4 point Calvinists) have ascribed to an unlimited atonement. But is this really the case? Let’s take a look at what is actually being suggested by both sides of the argument. Continue Reading