Virtue and Christianity Today
Jul 20th, 2007 by Amanda
Christianity Today got something right. Not that they don’t often do that, but I have found myself disagreeing with many things in the conservative magazine lately. In “Virtue That Counts,” CT takes a look at the doctrine of justification by faith alone. It came about because of the decision of former president of the Evangelical Theological Society, Francis Beckwith, to return to the Roman Catholic church.
“As an evangelical, even when I talked about sanctification and wanted to practice it, it seemed as if I didn’t have a good enough incentive to do so,” Beckwith told Christianity Today. “Now [in Catholicism] there’s a kind of theological framework, and it doesn’t say my salvation depends on me, but it says my virtue counts for something.”
Wait. If my salvation doesn’t depend on me, how can my virtue count for anything? Isn’t that a contradiction? Scripturally speaking, nothing I do can save me. This is where faith comes in.
Scripturally, it goes like this: All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). Alienated from God, hostile in mind, we practice evil behavior (Col. 1:21). Though we offend his perfect holiness, God acquits those who trust in him and in what he has done for us through Christ: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).
Theologically, we understand it like this: In his perfect life and obedient death, Jesus succeeded where Adam failed and became the head of God’s new family. We belong to Christ; we belong to this new humanity. Christ is judged righteous, and we who believe are made alive in him.
Yes, yes, yes!
Another question that has troubled Christians since the days of Paul is this: “Why bother to be good when it seems to make no difference to our salvation?”
Paul has little patience for such an attitude, partly because it displays a fundamental misunderstanding of what happens in justification. It is not only about getting rid of personal guilt; it is also about taking on a new corporate identity. “We died to sin,” Paul says. “How can we live in it any longer?” (Rom. 6:2). We have been baptized into Christ’s death; shouldn’t we live with him in resurrection life? As members of his new humanity, shouldn’t we live like it? Paul’s conclusion: “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body” (Rom. 6:12).
Simply put, those who are truly justified will lead lives of holiness, knowing with Paul that “we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10).
Sadly, many in our churches have sold the extraordinary gift of justification for the pottage of therapeutic religion. Rather than finding assurance in Christ, some assure themselves they have done nothing so bad as to deserve condemnation.
Even worse, others flaunt their freedom, abusing the truth that Jesus covers a multitude of sins. As Paul said of people who accused him of teaching that we should sin to bring more grace: “Their condemnation is deserved” (Rom. 3:8).
Such attitudes do not exemplify trust in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who treats holiness with deathly seriousness. They turn the old notions of merit on their heads, treating a priceless gift—Jesus’ righteousness—as if it had no value.
The Bible says this type of faith—faith without good works—is as good as no faith at all. It’s as dead and meaningless as the selling of indulgences.
I can find nothing in this article to disagree with. It is faith alone - faith in Christ - that saves us. Nothing we do, nothing we have, be it virtue or any other good quality, matters. Christ is what matters.
I found this just now and thought of you. Mark Foreman is a conservative evangelical preacher, and his sons make up two of the members of the band Switchfoot. I didn’t listen to them, but I looked at the notes, and it looks like some really good stuff.
His series is called “No Thin Jesus” and you can hear it here:
http://www.northcoastcalvary.org/nccc_audio.html
Yes Yes Yes!!!
Wesley, when considering the question of God’s grace, talked of prevenient grace, justifying grace and sanctifying grace. The first is that grace that exists when we really don’t know God, he still loves us. The second is what happens at the moment of conversion, of accepting Jesus as your savior: the free gift of God, freely accepted. This, Wesley felt, was pretty much instantaneous. Finally, Wesley felt that as the Spirit moves in our lives, we begin and continue to be in a process of sanctification, pursuing what he called ‘personal holiness.’
Perhaps Beckwith finds that the structure of RC provides him, at least, with greater access to the means of grace—which can mean, quite literally, the actual sacraments of the church, but also the mindset that leads to sanctification.