I do have a couple of things to say about David VanDrunen’s contribution to By Faith Alone. First, he is guilty of continued misrepresentation of those he is debating with.
“Although recent criticism of the traditional Reformed doctrine of justification has taken many forms, nearly all critics seem to concur in dismissing the idea of active obedience. This is true of figures associated with the New Perspective on Paul and the Federal Vision” (p. 127).
Second, when he gets into particulars, he interacts with Rich Lusk and Jim Jordan in such a way as to reveal that he does not really understand the ground of their objections. For example, when he quotes Jim Jordan, he selects a quote that affirms double imputation and rejects the idea of merit (p. 132). The issue is not imputation; the issue is merit. And you cannot prove that the merits of Christ’s obedience are imputed to us by proving that all of Christ’s life and death and life again are reckoned to His people. I affirm the latter, and deny the former. Those who want to argue that those who deny the former must of necessity deny the latter need to do something more than assume it to be true. Something like that needs to be shown. I maintain that it is possible to hold to the doctrine of imputated obedience (both active and passive) while rejecting the idea of accumulating merit.
Third, I would like to raise the question of the relationship between imputation and union with Christ. This is not a particular point in VanDrunen’s chapter; what he was writing just made me think of it. Does God impute the righteousness of Jesus Christ to us as a consequence of uniting us to Christ, or does He unite us to Christ as a consequence of imputing the righteousness of Jesus Christ to us? Or a third option like neither — both happening together?
And last, I would like to comment on a typical misunderstanding of the relationship of the new covenant to the law of Moses. Speaking of Galatians, VanDrunen says this:
“In context, the yoke of bondage clearly in mind here is life under the Mosaic law. Remarkably, Paul has just associated life under the Mosaic Law with life under paganism, referring to them by similar terms (4:3 and 4:8-9)” (p. 138).
At best, this is confusing. It makes sense to say that Israel corporately in the time of the first century was in this condition, and it makes sense to say that Caiphas was. But Zecharias and Elizabeth? Mary and Joseph? David and Jonathan? Isaiah and Jeremiah? Indistinguishible from pagans?
And it makes sense to say that if any of the Galatians returned to this old Judaism, they would find it impossible to be an Isaiah, or David, or Mary. That time had past, and to return to it was indistinguishible from paganism — that was what was behind Paul’s equation of circumcision to pagan self-mutiliation. This is what the Galatian temptation was, and this is what Paul was writing about. But we also have to take into account (full account) the fact that Hebrews 11 is filled with a list of names who lived by faith, and who therefore lived in the liberty of faith. God did not deliver Israel out of the bondage of Egypt into a different kind of bondage. The Exodus was not a transfer from Cell Block D to Cell Block E.