“I honestly do not see how it can be considered possible to separate Christ from His benefits. So when I speak of the imputation of the active obedience of Christ, this means that I am ultimately speaking of the imputation of Christ Himself, and there is no way to understand this apart from the Pauline idea of union with Christ. We may distinguish Christ and His benefits (as the Bible frequently does), but if we try to separate them, we are guilty of a very serious mistake.”
A Paper-Mache Ordo
“The ordo is an illustration, a metaphor, meant to preserve a right understanding of God’s sovereignty in salvation. It is like a paper-mache model of an atom, hanging above a fifth-grade classroom. There is a point to the illustration, which must be grasped, but, once it is grasped, you ought to stop thinking of the atom as a teeny solar system.”
Faith Like a Carcass
[Responding to a rejection of active, living, obedient faith] “Apparently the only way to get through ambiguous justification debates is to insist that we are justified by an inert, dead, and disobedient faith. That way all the glory goes to Christ, and nobody gets the wrong idea.”
Srtrike Four
“A slight difficulty arises because, as readers of this blog know full well, I hold that there are two covenants, one before the fall and one after. I hold to the imputation of the active obedience of Christ, and I do so with robust gesticulations. And I deny that faith justifies because of any Boy Scout qualities it may have. Strike three. At this point, Clark needs to hand his bat to the bat boy and respectfully take his seat in the dugout. But he does nothing of the kind. He just assumes the stance again and looks at the pitcher with a steely gaze. ‘That all you got? Three pitches? I’ll hit one eventually. C’mon.’ Okay. I also affirm that justification is primarily about right standing before God. Strike four.”
Calvin Said That?
[On Calvin’s view that the “covenant of grace is common to hypocrites and true believers”] “If this is an error, it is an error within the Reformed pale—we share the error with no less than ol’ Jean himself. If it is not an error, then certain schoolmarm librarians at the John Calvin Memorial Archives and Book Stacks need to do a little less shushing and a little more reading.”
Like a Purple Boa
“In the aftermath of this debate everybody could plainly see that I hold to a Westminsterian soteriology and that I wear the traditional Reformed ordo around my neck like it was a feather boa. Where did all the plain heresy go?”
Appealing to Caesar
“You have appealed to the confessions, and so to the confessions we have gone. Saving faith yields obedience to the commands of God. Among many other activities, saving faith trusts in Christ alone for sanctification.”
Headfirst
“In a thought experiment (I am out of my mind to talk like this), if God were to stop the process of an individual’s salvation just before the moment of justification, but after the effectual call, and if He were to judge that individual on the basis of the loving qualities of the person’s new heart, what does Wilson think would happen to that guy? Is this question esoteric enough for you? I believe that if God were to interrupt the moment of someone’s conversion with judgment this way, the person concerned would go straight to Hell headfirst. If God were to mark iniquities, who could stand?”
Confetti-Counters
“But what about this? ‘I saw Christ in His glory because God gave me a faith that could see Him.’ Now what? If someone thinks this means he was justified ‘on account of what a fine boy he was for having living faith,’ then he deserves whatever the Reformed confetti-counters do to him. But if he simply means that had God given him any kind of faith other than the living faith that He did give, and that he was justified because he had been given that kind of faith (instead of the other kind), this is simply Reformed orthodoxy. This is the difference between necessity and merit.”
A Living Eye Does Not See Itself
“The fact that my faith is alive makes it possible to see Christ, the sole basis or reason for anyone’s justification. If my faith were dead, it would be blind also, and incapable of looking to Christ as the sole ground of justification . . . True faith is an eyeball and cannot look to itself. True faith sees Christ alone. But unless it is a living eyeball, it cannot see. Dead eyeballs have no vision. So this life is necessary but it is in no fashion meritorious. God does not give living faith so that it might admire itself in the mirror.”