New Family Connections

Citing Luther in The Freedom of a Christian, Glen spoke on Sunday evening of faith union with Christ as like a marriage. When I am married to Christ by faith in the Spirit, Jesus pays my debts, I take his name, I gain his wealth, his family connections and his status, just as someone marrying a royal might become royal too.

I think the passage Glen had in mind is Three Treatises (Fortress Press, 1970), p286, the section beginning "The third incomparable benefit of faith is that it unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom".

Here it is nicked from the Theology Network site:

The third incomparable grace of faith is this: that it unites the soul to Christ, as the wife to the husband, by which mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul are made one flesh. Now if they are one flesh, and if a true marriage--nay, by far the most perfect of all marriages--is accomplished between them (for human marriages are but feeble types of this one great marriage), then it follows that all they have becomes theirs in common, as well good things as evil things; so that whatsoever Christ possesses, that the believing soul may take to itself and boast of as its own, and whatever belongs to the soul, that Christ claims as His.

If we compare these possessions, we shall see how inestimable is the gain. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation; the soul is full of sin, death, and condemnation. Let faith step in, and then sin, death, and hell will belong to Christ, and grace, life, and salvation to the soul. For, if He is a Husband, He must needs take to Himself that which is His wife's, and at the same time, impart to His wife that which is His. For, in giving her His own body and Himself, how can He but give her all that is His? And, in taking to Himself the body of His wife, how can He but take to Himself all that is hers?

In this is displayed the delightful sight, not only of communion, but of a prosperous warfare, of victory, salvation, and redemption. For, since Christ is God and man, and is such a Person as neither has sinned, nor dies, nor is condemned, nay, cannot sin, die, or be condemned, and since His righteousness, life, and salvation are invincible, eternal, and almighty,--when I say, such a Person, by the wedding-ring of faith, takes a share in the sins, death, and hell of His wife, nay, makes them His own, and deals with them no otherwise than as if they were His, and as if He Himself had sinned; and when He suffers, dies, and descends to hell, that He may overcome all things, and since sin, death, and hell cannot swallow Him up, they must needs be swallowed up by Him in stupendous conflict. For His righteousness rises above the sins of all men; His life is more powerful than all death; His salvation is more unconquerable than all hell.

Thus the believing soul, by the pledge of its faith in Christ, becomes free from all sin, fearless of death, safe from hell, and endowed with the eternal righteousness, life, and salvation of its Husband Christ. Thus He presents to Himself a glorious bride, without spot or wrinkle, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word; that is, by faith in the word of life, righteousness, and salvation. Thus He betrothes her unto Himself "in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies" (Hosea ii. 19, 20).

Who then can value highly enough these royal nuptials? Who can comprehend the riches of the glory of this grace? Christ, that rich and pious Husband, takes as a wife a needy and impious harlot, redeeming her from all her evils and supplying her with all His good things. It is impossible now that her sins should destroy her, since they have been laid upon Christ and swallowed up in Him, and since she has in her Husband Christ a righteousness which she may claim as her own, and which she can set up with confidence against all her sins, against death and hell, saying, "If I have sinned, my Christ, in whom I believe, has not sinned; all mine is His, and all His is mine," as it is written, "My beloved is mine, and I am His" (Cant. ii. 16). This is what Paul says: "Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ," victory over sin and death, as he says, "The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law" (1 Cor. xv. 56, 57).

Faith & Works

Someday I might plagarise Rev'd John Cheeseman's outline on James 2 regarding the relationship between faith and works.

Despite Rm 3:28 and James 2:24, James is not contradicting Paul. Since Romans and James are the Word of God and God doesn't make mistakes or lie, context must allow us to reconcile the apparent, superficial verbal contradiction.

James is saying that "such" empty intellectual in-word-only-and-not-in-deed hearing-and-not-doing faith cannot save.

We must distinguish and ask in what sense Paul and James are speaking of faith and justification.

If James and Paul had a chat, they would agree that faith alone saves and that faith which is alone does not save, since it is not true faith. They would agree that we can neither in any way merit salvation or contribute our good works to it, nor say we believe in Jesus and wilfully indulge in a sinful lifestyle. Romans 6 shows that Paul could be just as strong as James in combating antinomianism. Faith is the cause, basis or grounds of justification. Good works are the proof or fruit of justification.

James then gives 4 illustrations about faith and works. The first 2 are examples of conterfeit faith and the final 2 are examples of real faith.

A: (1) vv15-17. The case of the armchair do-gooder

(2) vv18-20. The case of the "believing" demons

B: (3) vv21-24. Abraham's unbelievable faith in God's promise and power

(4) vv25-26. Rahab the Harlot's risky faith

27 Theses on law, faith, works, obedience, covenants etc.

(v6) Updated: 5/3/07 - Nos 33 - new today

Fascinating discussion in post-graduate seminar today of some of these issues.

There seemed to be a growing consensus of insights from the New Perspectives on Paul, Covenantal Objectivism and Biblical Theology but an unwillingness to re-join Rome just yet.

So another look at the perhaps somewhat repetitious, numbered for convenience not logical order theses:

See also Tuesday, February 06, 2007 and Monday, Feb 26th: Law, Faith, Works, Obedience & Justification (versions 1 & 2); (v5) Updated: 2/3/07 - Nos 28- new today

1. No one has ever been or will ever be justified by what they do on the basis of merit (with the possible exception of the Lord Jesus Christ, though even in his case we may distinguish).

2. Justification is only ever in union with Christ alone, in the Spirit, through faith alone.

3. The Old Testament law could be kept in the sense that one could be a faithful covenant keeping member of the people of God and blameless because of the grace of God and forgiveness of sin under the terms of the covenant (sacrifice etc).

4. The Old Testament law could never be kept by human sinners in the sense that once could attain sinless perfection and merit salvation.

5. The Old Testament law always had 3 purposes:
(a) Mirror / sword - to reveal sin and condemn
(b) Telescope / signpost - to point to salvation by the sacrifice of Christ
(c) Light / blueprint - to show God's people how to live
and continues to fulfil each of those functions today.

6. Present justification is God's verdict of the future announced in the present on the basis of trust in Christ; future justification will be according to works as a genuine (evidential) non-meritorious ground on the basis of a whole life fundamentally lived on God's side.

7. The Old Testament law is not abolished or abrogated by Christ but fulfilled, transformed and renewed.

8. The (propitiatory) sacrificial and Aaronic priesthood ends with Christ (and AD70) in the sense that it is not to be set up again today in the Jerusalem temple.

9. The Mosaic administration is ended and the Covenant is now in its (re)newed administration.

10. All God's laws have lasting force but must be applied according to local circumstances and in a manner appropriate to the stage of salvation history.

11. Attempting to be justified by supposedly meritorious human works legalistic righteousness was always and is an abuse of the law.

12. Christians are not under the Mosaic law in the same sense that Mosaic believers where; Christians are under the law of Christ which is the Mosaic law renewed.

13. Christian believers keep the law / terms of the new covenant by a faithful life empowered by the Spirit.

14. Mosaic saints were marked out by visible obedience to the law (e.g. circumcision); New Testament believers are defined and marked out more obviously by baptism and allegiance to Jesus as the badge of New Covenant membership.

15. The active and explicit command to the all nations to repent and trust in Jesus is a new element of the New Covenant since the risen Jesus is now enthroned as king of the world in a new way, though this is anticipated in the Old Covenant.

16. Under the Old covenant everyone of all nations ought to have attached themselves as much as they could to God and his people. People could participate e.g. in the Davidic covenant without being fully under the Mosaic law as full Israelites.

17. Being grounded in the nature and will of God, the Torah is a manifestation of God’s Law which applies more generally, a particular instance from which we may generalise.

18. “Being under the law” (of Moses) can be a particular technical term for having the law of Moses promulgated to you at Sinai.

19. “Law” in the Bible almost always means something like Torah, God’s Fatherly instruction to his people, especially as in the law of Moses of the Pentateuch.

20. Faith is true covenant loyalty, submissive obedience. All real faith is obedient faithfulness which perseveres in good works.

21. Good works function as evidence of faith(fullness) for God in a rather different way than they would for a finite human judge, but part of their character is as public legal vindication of God’s accurate assessment that these are his people who are in the right and should be declared so.

22. Deuteronomy is primarily concerned with the national life of Israel and prophesies the inevitable death of the nation as covenant breakers.

23. The covenants should be understood in both individual and corporate terms: a corporate view tends to include individuals and individuals tend to make up a body.

24. Inability to keep a law does not show a law to be deficient in itself. Israel’s inability to keep the covenant does not mean that the New Israel cannot keep the covenant since the Spirit is now poured out in a new way to ensure that it is kept by God’s elect.

25. Christ keeps the law perfectly for his people but they also keep it truly in him and adequately though not perfectly in their own experience, through the strength that he gives.

26. We may distinguish civil, ceremonial and moral aspects of the law and of many individual laws but the Law does not easily divide up in this way.

27. Both Old and New covenants have inner and outer, visible and invisible, subjective and objective aspects. One can participate in the covenant (in some senses and degree) without finally saving faith / election.

28. It seems historically doubtful that the law of Moses was every strictly applied "as is" or that it was ever intended to be so. It is not statute law or even quite case law in our modern sense. Much of it is story. It embodies principles which need to be applied in differing contexts in different ways. Some of the stipulations are culture specific, though easily transferable: we need not fence our roofs but we might fence our swimmin pools.

29. The law of Moses probably give maximum penalties.

30. We must destinguish crimes with legal and/or divine covenantal sanctions from sins, which may result in loss of blessing but not criminal or civil disabilities or the status of covenant breaker. The law gives the floor (minimum requirements for life in the covenant, e.g. no murder) and ceiling of full perfection (love the Lord your God with all your heart etc. and love your neighbour as yourself).

31. The law is a present standard and a future aspiration (e.g. there shall be no poor among you...)

32. The law is given for an imperfect sinful context to tell you what to do in the situation of sin and in reaction to it (e.g. sacrificial system, crimial codes esp. e.g. rape laws). The law does not always lay out an ideal but takes account of hardness of heart (e.g. write her a certificate of divorce).

33. Under both old and new covenants, those professing faith and having duly recieved the sacrament of initiation into the covenant (circumcision in the Old Covenant and baptism in the New) must be treated as members of the covenant in a full, objective, real, legal way, unless they are covenant breakers under legal church discipline. They enjoy all the genuine rights and privileges of outward membership of the covenant including participation in the sacraments though they may not be believers and may be damned at last.

34. Under both Old and New Covevants, any child of a believer is entitled to covenant membership and to the sacraments and is to be treated as a believer, unless they prove to be a covenant breaker.

35. Under both Old and New Covenants the sacraments have a real objective significance and affect those who participate in them, though they are always to be recieved with faith if benifit rather than condemnation is to be recieved.

36. It is never possible to tell with certainty whether or not someone is a believer and it is not our business to judge the servants of the Lord in that way. We must proceed on the basis of a person's profession and his visible legal status with regard to the covenant. If someone commits covenant breaking crimes, he should be subject to a public legal process of church discipline.

Theses on faith, law, works, justification etc. (v3)

See also Tuesday, February 06, 2007: Law, Faith, Works, Obedience & Justification (version 2)

Somewhat repetiously, perhaps, and in no great order:


1. No one has ever been or will every be justified by what they do on the basis of merit (with the possible exception of the Lord Jesus Christ, though even in his case we may distinguish).

2. Justification is only ever in union with Christ alone, in the Spirit, through faith alone.

3. The Old Testament law could be kept in the sense that one could be a faithful covenant keeping member of the people of God and blameless because of the grace of God and forgiveness of sin under the terms of the covenant (sacrifice etc).


4. The Old Testament law could never be kept by human sinners in the sense that once could attain sinless perfection and merit salvation.

5. The Old Testament law always had 3 purposes:
(a) Mirror / sword - to reveal sin and condemn
(b) Telescope / signpost - to point to salvation by the sacrifice of Christ
(c) Light / blueprint - to show God's people how to live
and continues to fulfill each of those functions today.

6. Present justification is God's verdict of the future announced in the present on the basis of trust in Christ; future justification will be according to works as a genuine (evidential) non-meritorious ground on the basis of a whole life fundamentally lived on God's side.

7. The Old Testament law is not abolished or abrogated by Christ but fulfilled, transformed and renewed.

8. The (propitiatory) sacrificial and Aaronic priesthood ends with Christ (and AD70) in the sense that it is not to be set up again today in the Jerusalem temple.

9. The Mosaic administration is ended and the Covenant is now in its (re)newed administration.


10. All God's laws have lasting force but must be applied according to local circumstances and in a manner appropriate to the stage of salvation history.

11. Attempting to be justified by supposedly meritorious human works legalistic righteousness was always and is an abuse of the law.

12. Christians are not under the Mosaic law in the same sense that Mosaic believers where; Christians are under the law of Christ which is the Mosaic law renewed.

13. Christian believers keep the law / terms of the new covenant by a faithful life empowered by the Spirit.

Do you ever have doubts?

My correspondent (who asked about omnipotence) said he finds the problem of evil / innocent suffering pretty insummountable and asked if I ever had doubts.

He's my quick reply:

Yes. I think the problem of evil is a biggy.

On doubts, I must say I'm normally pretty convinced. I think I could show you really good evidence and satisfying arguments. My expererince and that of millions of others down through time and around the world backs up the Bible. And when I read what the Bible says about Jesus it just "tastes right": it has a kind of immediate power and I believe him, and stake my life on it.

And I guess I've been a Christian sometime and am quite well indoctrinated / programmed (praying, reading my Bible and singing hymns most days). I do sometimes have doubts. But I think I've got an ordinary robust kind of certainty: the same kind of certainty that I have that my wife loves me, though I couldn't absolutely prove it to you.

I've written "problem of evil" on a post-it note on my desk in my study and I might try and blog something about it in the next few days, though I'm not sure I could "solve" the "problem".