Lane thinks we are making progress, and I agree. But I don’t think we agree on what that progress actually is. He makes four points that I would like to address.
The first is on the “aliveness” of faith. “But in what does faith’s aliveness consist? Does it not consist in sanctification? Does it not consist in good works?” No, that is part of what it consists in. Of course, the liveliness of faith does consist in the obedience of sanctification during the course of that sanctification. But the aliveness of faith also consists in receiving, resting in, and relying upon, the Lord Jesus Christ for justification. If faith were not alive, it could not “do” the latter any more than the former. It could not rest without being alive any more than it can do without being alive.
Second, Lane tries to answer my challenge to provide words or phrases that describe faith’s “response in justification.” He offers as candidates “the gift of God” and the “righteousness of God.” But this is nothing but a deft sidestep. I didn’t ask for a word or phrase to describe faith’s response in justification. I asked for a word or phrase to describe faith’s response to a command, the result of which is justification. Now I agree that our response to the command is the gift of God, and I agree that the gift is the righteousness of God. But neither phrase comes close to describing a response to God’s command to believe. That is what my “good and necessary consequence” argument depends on. God command us to believe. We either do or we don’t. What is that? It is either obedience or disobedience. Category mistakes have Lane all tangled up here. It makes no sense to debate whether or not I gave my wife a birthday present or a necklace for her birthday. We have moved the pieces back and forth enough on this one. Checkmate.
Third, Lane was grateful that I excluded works of every kind from justification, but is still troubled over my use of the phrase “Spirit-filled faith.” He asks, “Do we have to be sanctified in order to be justified?” Well, if we define sanctification as any form of infused righteousness, then the orthodox Reformed answer to this is clearly yes. Just for the record, I have raised this point multiple times, and no one has offered a satisfactory answer to date. In the ordo, the first item of business is regeneration, which is a transformation in us. It is a form of infused righteousness, a type of sanctification. If my heart is not changed, then I cannot believe the right way, and if I cannot believe the right way, then I cannot be justified. The order we affirm is “change of heart in me,” “repentance and faith,”righteousness imputed to me,” and then “ongoing changes in me.” If Lane objects to this, then he can rewrite the Reformed ordo. But when he does that, he ought not to call that rewrite “walking in the old paths.”
And fourth, I will refer the readers back to Romans 6, but three points as they go. First, I agree with Lane that the entire course of life is in view there, but we also see the crossroads of two ways of life — the point at which a person transitions from the way of death to the way of life. That point of transition is clearly effected by the obedience of faith. Second, my argument throughout our discussion been a “good and necessary” consequence argument, not an argument from a particular text. If I were to argue that way from a text, Romans 6 would be a good choice, and I believe it establishes the point well enough. But I return to my argument. Lane still has to explain how “Smith is justified by _________________ the command of God to believe.” I have asked Lane for a word that fits in there instead of “obeying.” His suggestions of “the gift of God” and “the righteousness of God” just make the sentence incoherent. And last, Lane doesn’t want to use the word obedience anywhere close to justification because there are too many occasions for stumbling — if I say that we are “justified by the obedience of evangelical faith,” this is far too close to the precipice of popery for him — because I am talking about justification and obedience in the same breath. People will too easily tumble into a brownie points view of salvation. But Lane can look at Romans 6 and tell at a glance what use the dikai-righteousness-justification word is being put to there. Using the same word for the infused righteousness of sanctification and the imputed righteousness of justification is not a stumbling block when Paul does it. Must not be too hard to tell dikai-infusions from dikai-imputations. I agree. And I don’t think it too hard to tell evangelical obedience that rests in Christ alone from every form of impudent disobedience that doesn’t rest in Him but still wants to use the word obedience. Lane says,”‘Righteousness’ is the word in verse 17, not justification.” But that is not true. The word is dikaiosynen. So we shouldn’t freak out over the word obedience having an interesting semantic range either.