The third essay in Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministy is by Iain Duguid, and is entitled “Covenant Nomism and the Exile.” It is really quite good overall, and my critical comments will not be extensive at all. There is one place where he has a superb interaction with N.T. Wright’s confusion about courtroom imputation. In a famous passage in What St. Paul Really Said, Wright says that “righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas that can be passed across the courtroom” (p. 98). In his treatment of Zechariah 3, Duguid shows that it is an object that can be passed across the courtroom — it is a clean cloak that replaces the filthy cloak that Joshua had been wearing previously. The first 87 pages of this book has not been joy upon joy, but that one argument has made it worthwhile. Everything can go downhill from here, and I am still okay.
So, then, my two critical comments. On page 73, Duguid says this:
[The Lord] “will sprinkle his defiled people with clean water, making them clean and able to stand in his sight . . . ‘justified,’ to use the language of systematic theology. The subsequent inner transformation, ‘sanctification,’ flows out of that prior act of God as its fruit”
But the person who is justified is already regenerate. That regeneration is an inner transformation. What need is there for a subsequent inner transformation? There is need for an ongoing transformation, but this process does not start immediately after justification — not if we are going to follow the traditional Reformed ordo. And we are going to do that, aren’t we?
When Duguid implies that all forms of inner transformation are subsequent to justification, he is departing from the historic Reformed understanding of this business. That doesn’t make him wicked, or a heretic, but it does mean that those among the Reformed who have actually noticed William Perkins’ Golden Chaine ought not to be accused by R. Scott Clark of tinkering around with the ancient landmarks. As good old, Monergism.com puts it, “In the Reformed camp, the ordo salutis is 1) election, 2) predestination, 3) gospel call 4) inward call 5) regeneration, 6) conversion (faith & repentance), 7) justification, 8) sanctification, and 9) glorification. (Rom 8:29-30)” Notice how “inward call” and “regeneration” (a renovation of the heart) precede justification. And it will not do for those who say that all sanctification is subsequent to justification to try to get off the hook by saying that temporal terms are not strictly accurate and are to be held provisionally. If you are going to follow the chronological, then follow it. If you are not going to follow it, then don’t upbraid us for chronological reasons. And for those who want to pursue this further, a very helpful discussion of some important aspects of this can be found in John Murray’s marvelous article “Definitive Sanctification.”
The second point I want to make here is that Duguid is arguing “that human unfaithfulness cannot annul God’s covenant commitment” (p. 81). I think this is good, and an important point to make. But there is an additional qualification that desperately needs to be made. Human unfaithfulness cannot annul God’s covenant commitment for the elect. But since we are dealing with a covenant people which also contains within her ranks members who are not elect, we have to be careful how we navigate between corporate and individual realities. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the wilderness. Covenant branches are cut out. Bodies are scattered across the desert. The old Jerusalem the great harlot that God puts away in divorce, but does so in such a way as to marry the New Jerusalem. For the elect, nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. But for non-elect covenant members, it is quite possible to fall from grace.