Professor Berkhof talks about four ways of understanding the time of justification:
1. Justification from eternity (what Fortner is talking about in the OP)
2. Justification in the resurrection (Jesus' justification and ours accomplished at this moment in history)
3. Justification by faith (Our justification that we attain when we become converted)
4. A public justification in the final judgment.
All of these are part and parcel of the same justification. We are not justified four times. But it would be a mistake to ignore the other three in favor of just one because justification is more complex than that.
Yes, I agree and thank you for correctly using "from eternity" and not "in eternity." The opponents of this view often use "in" as a way to smear and attach antinomnian to the belief.
Dr. Gill instructs,
Justification is an act of God’s grace, flowing from his sovereign good will and pleasure; the elect of God are said to be “justified by his grace”; and as if that expression was not strong enough to set forth the freeness of it, the word “freely” is added elsewhere; “Being justified freely by his grace”, #Tit 3:7 Ro 3:24. Justification is by many divines distinguished into active and passive. Active justification is the act of God; it is God that justifies. Passive justification is the act of God, terminating on the conscience of a believer, commonly called a transient act, passing upon an external object. It is not of this I shall now treat, but of the former; which is an act internal and eternal, taken up in the divine mind from eternity, and is an immanent, abiding one in it; it is, as Dr. Ames {4} expresses it, “a sentence conceived in the divine mind, by the decree of justifying.”
Now, as before observed, as God’s will to elect, is the election of his people, so his will to justify them, is the justification of them; as it is an immanent act in God, it is an act of his grace towards them, is wholly without them, entirely resides in the divine mind, and lies in his estimating, accounting, and constituting them righteous, through the righteousness of his Son; and, as such, did not first commence in time, but from eternity.
First, It does not begin to take place in time, or at believing, but is antecedent to any act of faith.
1. Faith is not the cause, but an effect of justification; it is not the cause of it in any sense; it is not the moving cause, that is the free grace of God; “Being justified freely by his grace”, #Ro 3:24 nor the efficient cause of it; “It is God that justifies”, #Ro 8:33 nor the meritorious cause, as some express it; or the matter of it, that is the obedience and blood of Christ, #Ro 5:9,19 or the righteousness of Christ, consisting of his active and passive obedience; nor even the instrumental cause; for, as Mr. Baxter {5} himself argues, “If faith is the instrument of our justification, it is the instrument either of God or man; not of man, for justification is God’s act; he is the sole Justifier, #Ro 3:26 man doth not justify himself: nor of God, for it is not God that believes”: nor is it a “causa sine qua non”, as the case of elect infants shows; it is not in any class of causes whatever; but it is the effect of justification: all men have not faith, and the reason why some do not believe is, because they are none of Christ’s sheep; they were not chosen in him, nor justified through him; but justly left in their sins, and so to condemnation; the reason why others believe is, because they are ordained to eternal life, have a justifying righteousness provided for them, and are justified by it, and shall never enter into condemnation: the reason why any are justified, is not because they have faith; but the reason why they have faith, is because they are justified; was there no such blessing of grace as justification of life in Christ, for the sons of men, there would be no such thing as faith in Christ bestowed on them; precious faith is obtained through the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ, #2Pe 1:1 nor, indeed, would there be any room for it, nor any use of it, if a justifying righteousness was not previously provided. Agreeable to this are the reasonings and assertions of Twisse {6}, Maccovius {7}, and others. Now if faith is not the cause, but the effect of justification; then as every cause is before its effect, and every effect follows its cause, justification must be before faith, and faith must follow justification.
2. Faith is the evidence and manifestation of justification, and therefore justification must be before it; “Faith is the evidence of things not seen”, #Heb 11:1 but it is not the evidence of that which as yet is not; what it is an evidence of, must be, and it must exist before it. The “righteousness of God”, of the God-man and mediator Jesus Christ, “is revealed from faith to faith”, in the everlasting gospel, #Ro 1:17 and therefore must be before it is revealed, and before faith, to which it is revealed: faith is that grace whereby a soul, having seen its guilt, and its want of righteousness, beholds, in the light of the divine Spirit, a complete righteousness in Christ, renounces its own, lays hold off that, puts it on as a garment, rejoices in it, and glories of it; the Spirit of God witnessing to his spirit, that he is a justified person; and so he is evidently and declaratively “justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God”, #1Co 6:11.
The rest of the quote is
here.
Yours in the Lord,
jm
