It's not just a difference of opinion.
If "Justification does indeed provide us with Christ's holy Life, which is our "actual righteousness,"
if "the spiritual virtue of Christ, is being actually *transferred,*" in justification, and
if "Christ actually *does* provide us with his holy righteous life in Justification"
then there is no need for sanctification,
for Christ's life is totally efficacious and complete, and can in no way be improved upon in us.
That notion of justification, in contradiction to the Biblical definition of justification (dikaiosis), is serious error for the body of Christ.
There is a reason that your qualified Pastor brother does not agree with you.
Actually, my brother holds to the more traditional Protestant view. However, he initially pointed out to me that this is debatable, that the view I hold is *not* heretical, but rather, held as a recognized theological perspective.
I just talked with him about it last Sunday, and he actually seems more amenable to my view now, though in a non-committal way. He seemed to agree with some of the major ideas underlying my view, that righteousness is certainly more than merely imputed, but more, imparted, as well.
The way you phrase the argument above illustrates that you don't even understand my argument. No wonder you disagree with it!
1) Justification does provide us with an "actual righteousness." If it doesn't then we can't be sanctified.
2) Christ imputed *his sinless record* to us in giving us the right to participate in his righteousness. The is the equivalent of having his righteousness transferred to us *for purposes of participation!*
You appear to think that if God transfers Christ's righteousness to us that it remains something we cannot participate in because of its perfection? That makes no sense at all, since by its very nature, his righteousness transferred to us enables us to participate in it. That is the very essence of Justification by Grace, to enable us to participate in something that is flawless and qualified for Eternal Life.
My "opinion" of apostolic teaching is "opinion" only when you Biblically demonstrate its error, in consistency with its context and the rest of the NT.
Because you don't "know" Ro 5:18-19.
Again, that is your opinion. In my opinion you mis-read Rom 5.18-19, because you've completely ignored the element of "Life" in the passage, which is the Righteousness that we reign in and that we participate in. Unless we participate in it, we have not actually received Christ, and we do not have Eternal Life.
You are in disagreement with the apostolic Greek text where
justification (
dikaiosis) does
not mean
actual righteousness of Christ, as demonstrated in post #79.
This misunderstanding of the term "justification" is the source of your breaking Paul's exacting parallel, thereby making your view in disagreement with the text of Ro 5:18-19.
I've explained to you that this is *not* an exact parallel because the passage itself says it is not! Adam and Christ run parallel only up to a certain point where there are significant differences, and this is a central point of the passage, that these parallels were meant to differentiate at a critical point.
It is where Christ's Justification enables people to perform differently from how their record presents them that is relevant to Paul's point. Otherwise, Adam's Sin caused people to perform exactly as Adam's record presents them.
Imputing Christ's perfection to sinful people is precisely the point Paul wished to make, whereas there was nothing to impute anything different to Adam's offspring after Adam had sinned. You focus only on the difference in reward, whether death or Eternal Life. That is true, but that is not the only import of the passage.
"
Of Christ" is not in the text of
Ro 5:18, by which addition you declare all disagreement with you to be simply "opinion."
You don't think Paul is talking about "the Life of Christ?' The Life we've received is the Eternal Life resident in Christ. This is plainly what the Scriptures teach.
Per its Biblical definition, "justification" (dikaiosis) in the Biblical Greek is not a provision of Christ's holy life as our actual righteousess.
You are trying to define Justification so as to exclude any view of it other than your own. But I've informed you that *many Christians* don't hold to your "narrow" Protestant view of Justification.
Not even Protestants would deny that there is Moral Law or actual Righteousness! They just wish to exclude human works in Christ's Justification--something I would agree with, though I don't require the language they use.
As demonstrated in post #79, it is
a declaration, a sentence, a verdict, a legal finding of acquittal of guilt, which is not a transferring of actual righteousness, which definition does not allow the "life" in Ro 5:18 to be Christ's holy righteous life of sanctification.
It allows only a positional right standing with justice; i.e., not guilty, fine paid.
That is certainly what Justification is, but I'm referring to what it *leads to,* which is our Sanctification. That involves our "Life," which is something we participate in. You don't allow for this in Rom 5.18-19, but I do. The word "Life" is there. You seem to think that because we, as Christians, receive Life from Christ that it doesn't belong to Christ. How strange!
Rom 5.17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!
18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
The mechanics of how Christ atoned for our sins and forgave us in order to qualify us to receive his life, even though we do not have his perfection, is Justification. But it is absolutely essential that we understand that the purpose of this Justification was to actually give us this Life and Righteousness. We are qualified by Justification to receive it in our imperfect condition, and we are thereby able to receive it as Life and Virtue from him.
You can see this in the analogy of a branch off of a vine. The Life in the Vine shares the same Life with the Branch.
In other words, Justification involves both our undeserved receipt of the Gift as well as our ability to use it. You seem to define Justification in such a way as to exclude our using the Gift. But I know you, like most Christians, would admit that our Justification also leads to our putting Christ's Righteousness into action!
You refer to this as "Sanctification," and yet wish to distinguish this from Justification, even though one leads to the other. They cannot, therefore, be separated! Justification cannot take place unless it leads to our Sanctification.
And Sanctification is clearly a part of Justification, since Christ himself is both the Justifier and the Sanctifier. His righteousness and separation from Sin is what is offered to God, and then to us, in our place, And this is so that we may receive it and then do it.
Life in Ro 5:18 is eternal life of the new birth, not Christ's righteous life of sanctification.
Christ's Life is both his own Eternal Life and the Life he gives us through Justification. Christ's Life is from the start "eternal," and is is by nature "sanctified from Sin." So he made his Spiritual Life available to us by Grace. That is Justification and that involves both his own Sanctified Life and the Sanctified Life we receive from him. Beyond this, we sanctify ourselves by choosing to live by that Life and by avoiding carnal living.
In receiving Christ's Spiritual Life we do not own the Divine Nature entirely, but merely participate in it. In this way our Sanctification is both received and worked out in our own lives. See 2 Pet 1.4.
The newly born-again Christian has eternal life, but he does not have sanctifiction, holiness, actual righteousness.
All Christians, new-born or not, have a degree of Sanctification simply by virtue of their having received Christ, who *is* our Sanctification!
That comes through obedience in the Holy Spirit, which leads to righteousness leading to holiness (Ro 6:16, 19, 22).
Sanctification, holiness is not imputed, it is imparted (Ro 6:16, 19, 22). Positional right(eous) standing with God ("not guilty") is imputed.
Sanctification and holiness are provided to us by God imputing to us Christ's Righteousness, as if we are worthy of it. It is essentially His forgiveness and atonement for our sins. Forgiving us our sins, He determined to give unworthy people His Righteousness to make us righteous, and thus, worthy of it by choice to both receive it and practice it.
The common Protestant sense seems to require nothing of us through Justification, since we are unworthy to obtain it. But my own Protestant sense considers that Justification is designed to enable us to practice Christ's Righteousness, and so become worthy of it through Christ's imputation of his perfect record to us.
Imputing Christ's perfect record to us is really just God giving His holy Life to people who do not deserve it. Since Christ's Spiritual Life is pure and sinless, it appears that God has imputed to us the worth to possess it.
But Christ provides us with that Eternal Life *now* so that we may be sanctified now! We are actively engaged in the righteousness of this Life. Justification, therefore, is not purely legal, but also active, as I've been saying. You reign in life now, and not just in the future Kingdom.
