Justification Through New Creation

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JUSTIFICATION THROUGH NEWCREATION

The Holy Spirit and the Doctrine by Whichthe Church Stands or FallsFRANK D. MACC HIA

Justification by grace through faith alone has become for man

Protestants the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiaethe article b

which the church stands or falls. Martin Luther never used thiphrase, although it does capture the importance that he gave the doctrine

Luther wrote, "We must learn therefore diligently the article of justifica

tion, as I often admonish you. For all other articles of our faith ar

comprehended in it: and if that remain sound, then are all the rest sound."

Without going into the technical problems involved in discerning wha

Luther meant by this statement, I quote him here only to note th

importance that justification has been granted in the Lutheran traditio

and, to an extent, in other Protestant traditions as well. In the light of thi

importance, many welcomed the signing of the recent Joint Declaratioon the Doctrine of Justification (31 October 1999) by the Vatican and th

Lutheran World Federation with the hope that a renewed, ecumenica

understanding of the doctrine could be achieved. Some, however, hav

been somewhat disappointed that the Declaration did not proceed muc

beyond negotiating sixteenth-century conflicts. In particular, the Declara

tion reveals the lack of a role for the Holy Spirit in justification beyond th

limited confines of the individual life of faith, despite the affirmation of

trinitarian foundation for the doctrine in Article 15. If justification is t

offer a liberating word in an increasingly graceless world, the doctrinmust be reworked precisely at its point of neglect, namely, at the relation


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ship between justification and the work of the Spirit as the giver of newlife. What follows is an attempt at outlining the directions that such arethinking of justification may take to open the doctrine to the full breadthof the Spirit's work in and through Christ to make all things new.

THE FORENSIC MODEL IN LUTHER AND BEYOND

Luther was a child of the Middle Ages, convinced that God burned withholy wrath against sinful humanity. The gracious God seemed out of reachfor Luther, because the reality of sin was inescapable, even for believers.How can believers escape God's wrath? The answer came from Christ asmediator who provided the basis on which God would accept sinners.Luther stated the fundamental problem at the base of justification in thisway:

For God cannot deny his own nature; that is, he must needs hate sin andsinners: and thus . . . does of necessity, for otherwise he should be unrighteous and love sin. How then can these two contradictions stand together: Iam a sinner and most worthy of God's wrath and indignation; and yet theFather loves me? Here nothing comes between except Christ the mediator.

2

As a person still burdened with sin, Luther sought assurance in the faceof judgment in the word of pardon through Christ alone. There would benothing in himself that could account for this word because he was a

sinner. Rather, he found his justification before God extra nos (apart fromourselves) through the alien righteousness of Christ that was imputed tohim by grace through faith alone. We thus have Luther's unique contribution to the history of theology in the west: We are simul Justus et

peccator(simultaneously just and sinner). We are sinners whose justification is dependent exclusively on Christ's imputed righteousness thatovercomes God's wrath and wins God's favor for us. For example, Lutherdisagreed with the "Papists" who reasoned out of Aristotle that "righteousness is essentially in us," responding that grace is outside of us "in the

grace of God only and in his imputation."

3

Are we to assume, therefore, that Luther held to a notion of justificationthat was unrelated to our actual transformation as sinners toward therighteous and holy life? Not at all. In the sense that Luther still regardedhimself as a sinner in need of Christ's perfection, his translation to thekingdom of Christ's righteousness is something "separate from us" andimputed to us. But Christ's righteousness imputed to us is not whollyoutside the actual experience of the believer in the here-and-now forLuther. He wrote inArticle 23 of his Disputation Concerning Justification,

"For we perceive that a man whois

justified is not yet arighteousman, butis in the very movement or journey toward righteousness."4This "journey


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toward righteousness" obviously includes a foretaste of new life and tvictory over sin and death in the here-and-now. Indeed, this justificatiowon by Christ alone sustains and heals us throughout life until finrighteousness is achieved beyond this earthly life. As Luther wrote, "Da

we sin, daily we are continually justified, just as a doctor is forced to hesickness day by day until it is cured."5 As the Finnish interpretation Luther has shown us, the living Christ in union with the believer by faiis the cause of justification as an eschatological reality in which wpresently participate by the grace of God.6 Luther himself stated, "SChrist, living and abiding in me, takes away and swallows up all eviwhich vex and afflict me. This union or conjunction, then, is the cause thI am delivered from the terror ofthe law and sin, am separate from myseand translated into Christ and his kingdom."7

In Christ, we are slain in order to be reborn with his righteousness bfaith. In Luther's words from Articles 29 and 30 of the DisputatiConcerning Justification, Christ's ultimate and perfect righteousne"slays the whole world," which means that it is "too great to allow anreckoning or consideration of our work."

8Faith must therefore invol

God's act of imputing Christ's righteousness to us, "for, after faith, theremain yet certain remnants of sin in our flesh."9 In faith, "we have tfirst fruits of the Spirit, but, because faith is weak, it is not made perfewithout God's imputation."

10In other words, the imputation of Chris

righteousness is required to bring about justification because the dowpayment of the Spirit and the corresponding act of faith are penultimaand fall short of Christ's ultimate perfection and glory. Christ's righteouness imputed to us serves as a bridge for Luther between participation Christ through the life of faith, which is still weak and imperfect, and tultimate justice and perfection as an eschatological reality. This finrighteousness, which Christ has won for us and which is imputed to usconnected implicitly for Luther with the final, new creation "in whirighteousness shall dwell." He stated concerning our eschatological ex

tence as justified sinners, "In the meantime, as long as we live here, we acarried and nourished in the bosom of the mercy and long-sufferance God, until the great day. Then shall there be new heavens and new eartin which righteousness shall dwell."11

5Ibid., 191.6See the essays in Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, eds., Union with Christ:

New Finnish Interpretation of Luther(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). See also Veli-MKrkkinen, "Deification and a Pneumatological Concept of Grace: Unprecedented Co

vergences between Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, and Pentecostal-Holiness Soteriologi(paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, SpringfieMO, March 1998).


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Luther's understanding of justification begs for greater exploration intoits accomplishment ultimately through the Spirit's final work in newcreation on a broad cosmic scale. Such an exploration needs to exploitLuther's understanding of justice as redemptive justice that God's victo

rious reign will establish through the transformation of creation broughtabout by the death and resurrection ofChrist. As Gustaf Auln has shown,this "classical" understanding of the atonement that upholds Christ asvictor over sin and death was at the heart of Luther's understanding ofsalvation.12 Luther, however, was not entirely free from the passion ofAnselm to view the justice won by Christ as merited favor and escapefrom wrath. This latter view of justice reflects the priorities of the secularRoman understanding of distributive justice, which, as Allster McGrathhas noted, was unable to capture the theological depth of redemptive

justice, or justice won by the actual deliverance of creation from thevictimization of sin and death.13 Luther's understanding ofthe justice wonby Christ is complex, and one could argue that his view of redemptive

justice was not adequately explored in subsequent Lutheran theology,leading to an understanding of forensic justification as a legal acquittaldetached from the redemption of creation by the Spirit of God.

This forensic theory that came to dominate later Lutheran confessionsand subsequent evangelical theology needs to be questioned.14 The pictureit supports is of an impartial judge who must regard us as guilty but whose

wrath is turned away by the work of Christ, which merits favor in ourstead. Where in this doctrine of forensic justification is the God ofScripture who functions as an injured party pursuing us relentlessly inlove? Where is the biblical sense of justice that is not fundamentallypunitive but redemptive? Most of all, where is the Holy Spirit in thisforensic model of justification, the Spirit who serves as the agent by whichGod makes things right for, and with, fallen creation? Does Jesus satisfyGod's righteousness through meritorious deeds, or does he inaugurate itfor all of creation in the power of the Spirit?

There is some promise for correcting the rather one-sided forensicdoctrine of justification in the Catholic response to the Reformation in theCouncils and Decrees of Trent. There one finds much that had beenmissing from the shallow well of the forensic model. Here was an attemptto see justification as something God does (and not merely declares orimputes). God makes us right with the divine life by a justice that redeemsand heals. Naturally, this is a dated document with obvious limitations and

12

Gustaf Auln, Christus Victor: A Historical Study of the Three Main Types ofthe Ideofthe Atonement(New York: Macmillan, 1969).

13Allster E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History ofthe Christian Doctrine ofJustification


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shortcomings. Mention of our merits before God made possible by thgrace of God reveals a somewhat skewed understanding of righteousneThe elaborate theology of grace and infused qualities was unlike Lutheemphasis on the miraculous work of the Spirit in pouring out God's lo

into our hearts. One misses the sharp focus on justification as a judgmeof God heard in faith as assurance in weakness, which is the real power the forensic model, despite its one-sided and distorted presentation

justification. Finally, Trent's focus on penance and the subjective responof faith and love revealed an anthropocentric focus on the role of pnematology in justification. Yet, the fact that most ofthe framers at Trent hlittle direct exposure to the writings and responses from Reformers causone to wonder how applicable Trent was to the complexity of thethoughts, and the fact that Trent did not name the Reformers but mere

cautioned against erroneous ideas revealed a certain willingness on tpart of its framers to keep the door open to further dialogue. These fachold great promise for ecumenical exchange today.15

More recent ecumenical efforts have focused on bridging the typicalProtestant, forensic understanding of justification as a declaration of orighteous standing and the Catholic understanding of justification astransformation whereby we are made just. The Catholic theologian HaKng, in his classic dissertation on the doctrine of justification in ttheology of Karl Barth, argued that God's declaration of our justificatio

also transforms because it is God's declaration. God's declaration creatthe reality it proclaims.16 Justification is thus both declarative and tranformative, a view shared by Lutherans and Catholics today in ecumenicdiscussion, culminating in the recent signing of the JointDeclarationthe Doctrine of Justification. Other bilateral dialogues have worked ward similar conclusions. It is noteworthy that the international CatholiMethodist dialogue did not reject forensic categories, claiming that blievers are "regarded and treated as righteous" but that this treatmeculminates in their participation in the divine.17 Yet, such ecumenic

agreements still tend to be individualistic, confining what little emphasexists on the Spirit to the life of faith in relation to works.

What is still needed, however, is a fresh focus on the foundational roof the Holy Spirit's work in new creation in understanding the holistnature of justification. Robert Jenson's remarks on the need to attempttrinitarian doctrine of justification may be helpful toward this end. Jenso

15Erwin Iserloh, "Luther and the Council of Trent: The Treatment of Reformati

Teaching by the Council," in Justification by Faith: Do the Sixteenth-Century Condetions Still Apply?, ed. Karl Lehmann, Michael Root, and William J. Rusch (New YoContinuum, 1999), 161-73.


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describes three different views of justificationthe Pauline, the Protestant, and the Catholicand parallels them with the work of the TriuneGod. According to Jenson, the Pauline understanding of justificationcenters on the issue of how God the Father maintains divine righteousness

in the midst of redemptive acts. The Protestant view of justificationfocuses on the word of grace in Christ that is heard and embraced in faith,while the Catholic understanding emphasizes the transformation of theperson through the Spirit.18

It would be interesting to pursue how pneumatology can inform all threeunderstandings of justification mentioned by Jenson and so contributetoward a multidimensional view of justification as a work of the Spirit innew creation while avoiding discussion of pneumatology within the limited confines of the believer's subjective response of faith. Promising

toward this end is Jrgen Moltmann's suggestion that the doctrine ofjustification must be developed christologically and eschatologically.19

More promising still is Moltmann's shift under Christoph Blumhardt'sinfluence from a "works-centered" to a "victim-centered" view of justification as accomplished by therighteousnessthat comes from the breakingin of the kingdom of God and the deliverance that this brings to thosevictimized by sin and injustice, as well as to those who victimize.20 Inwhat follows, the pneumatologically barren notion of forensic justificationwill be challenged and replaced by a view of justification as a work of the

Spirit in the risen Christ toward the renewal of all of creation.

JUSTIFICATION AS REDEMPTIVE JUSTICE IN CHRIST AND NEW CREATION

The Hebrew understanding of the righteousness of God is savingrighteousness, namely, a righteousness that is revealed in God's redemptive acts among the people ofGod. Brevard Childs asserts that righteousness in the Old Testament "consists, above all, in acts of the saving deedsof redemption by which God maintains and protects the divine promise tofulfill the covenant obligations with Israel."21 Righteousness in the Old

Testament is a new "creation event" that sets thingsrightfor creation andbetween creation and God.22 The sense of forensic judgment is not absentfrom the Old Testament. God declares in advance what God will do, andthese words sustain people in faith, even in absence of sight (Isa 46:10).

Robert Jenson, "Justification as a Triune Event," Modern Theology 11 (1995), 421.19

Jrgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress,1992), 149.

20Jrgen Moltmann, "Was heisst heute 'evangelisch?' Von der Rechtfertigungslehre zur

Reich-Gottes-Theologie," Evangelische Theologie 57 (1997), 41-6.21Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on thChristian Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 488.

22


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Also, as Thomas Finger notes rightly, the legal implications of forensicjustification in the Old Testament are highly metaphorical. He points outhat God's forensic judgment takes place in the midst of "clashes amongpolitical and cosmic forces and of God's righteousness as a power which

overcomes them in concrete reality."23

This promised righteousness achieved by God as therighteousjudge inthe midst of redemptive deeds extends to the deliverance of the poor anddowntrodden. It also reaches, according to Childs, to all of creation, to a"cosmic order" that spans law, wisdom, nature, and politics. The cosmicgoal of righteousness suggests an eschatological dimension to justification. Childs notes that in the late postexilic and Hellenistic periods, "theeschatological longing for the manifestation of God's righteous salvationincreases in predominance."24 By the time we reach the New Testamen

witness, justification is ultimately defined as the justice or righteousnessthat God's final act of redemption will create by the Spirit in the resurrection of the faithful and in the transformation of creation.

This Old Testament and ancient Jewish understanding of justificationhas carried over into the New Testament. As Childs states, "clearly theNew Testament usage stands in the tradition in continuity with the OldTestament in emphasizing, not God's revenging justice but [God's] savingrighteousness."25 Ernst Ksemann noted that the Old Testament andJewish apocalyptic backgrounds inform Paul's reference to the saving

righteousness of God as both a gift and the redemptive power by whicGod manifests God's eschatological saving activity toward creation. According to Ksemann, Paul was convinced that justification would beachieved through Christ's death and resurrection, which set in motion aneschatological hope of a cosmic restoration that has already appeared as apresent reality to be grasped in faith.26 As Ksemann wrote, "To be

justified means that the creator remains faithful to the creature, as thefather remained faithful to the prodigal son, in spite of guilt, error, andgodlessness; it means he changes the fallen and apostate into new crea

tures."

27

As Karl Barth claimed, justification is God's self-vindication as Creatoand Redeemer of creation against all denials and charges to the contrary.2

Justification is also God's act of faithfulness to the covenant promises tocreation, establishing justice for creation by delivering it from sin, oppres

23"An Anabaptist Perspective on Justification," in Justification andSanctification in Traditions ofthe Reformation: Prague V, the Fifth Consultation on the First andSe

Reformations, Geneva, 13 to 17 February 1998, ed. Milan Opocensky and Praic Ram

(Geneva: World Alliance of Reformed Churches, 1999), 57.^Biblical Theology, 488-99.25Ibid., 494.26


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sion, and death, and, at the same time, setting things right between creationand God. Through the work of the Spirit in Christ, there is justice for thevictimized and the possibility of pardon and righteousness for the victim-izer. Justification is thus inconceivable apart from such concepts as rec

onciliation and sanctification.One must wonder why such insights from the Bible have had such little

effect on ecumenical documents on justification, which tend to lack anappreciation for the work of the Spirit beyond the narrow confines ofpersonal faith and works, or the preaching and sacramental ministries ofthe church. A greater appreciation is needed for the Spirit as the breath ofGod in creation (Gen 1:1) and in the coming kingdom of God, whichfulfills all righteousness by setting free those who are oppressed (Matt12:28), raising the dead, and renewing the entire creation (Rom 8:18-25).

Part ofthe reason for the neglect of such a broad pneumatology at the baseof justification has been the gradual neglect in the west ofthe essential roleof the Spirit in creation and the kingdom in Jesus' work as Redeemer.Historically, the gradual victory of logos christology over the typicallyJewish spirit christology involved the danger of eclipsing Jesus' humanity,including his need of the Spirit and his history of openness to the Spirit.From the foundation of a logos christology, the possibility existed ofneglecting the Spirit's essential role in the church's understanding ofChrist's redemptive work.

Protestant theology has tended, including Wesley, to confine justification to the cross as the event in which God's justice and wrath weresatisfied and the basis of justification of the sinner objectively established.Where is the Holy Spirit in this understanding of Christ's redemptive workfor our justification? Since the New Testament witness clearly establishesthe resurrection of Christ as an event of the Spirit (Rom 8:11), theresurrection was thus reserved for the basis of our subjective faith response to a justification "objectively" won in the cross. It is then sanctification that has its basis in the resurrection. The cross justifies by

satisfying God's justice while the resurrection sanctifies with new life. Theend result is that the Spirit has nothing directly to do with the origin of

justification.Joseph Fitzmyer thus complains that the resurrection as an event of the

Spirit was viewed as "an appendage or even as an exemplary confirmationof Jesus' death, which was considered to be the real cause of forgivenessof sins and justification."

29Ifthe cross, and not the resurrection, is the real

basis for justification, what is one to do with Rom 4:25, which states thatChrist was "raised for our justification"? There are commentators who

have gone out of their way to avoid the implication that Rom 4:25,


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especially in the light of 8:11, clearly makes Jesus' resurrection by tSpirit of God the very basis of our justification. For example, CharlHodge regards the reference of Rom 4:25 to the resurrection as the me"evidence" that justification through the satisfaction of the cross has be

accomplished.30 Others would play with the text so that it has Christ beinraised "with a view to" our reception of justification by faith, although thinterpretation has little support from the language of the text.31 In whalmost seems to be a protest against this text, Everett Harrison in hcommentary on Romans states, "It may be helpful to recognize th

justification, considered objectively from the standpoint of God's provsion, was indeed accomplished in the death of Christ and therefore did nrequire the resurrection to complete it."32

"Jesus was the justifiedSon of Godprecisely as the Personofthe Spirit, a justification that was fulfilledin hisresurrection, and we are justified in him as bearers oftheSpirit, an experience that willculminate in our resurrection.'

Calvin disagreed. He interpreted Rom 4:25 to mean that justificatiothrough the resurrection was a "renovation" from the old creation to tnew.33 One looks in vain, however, for a systematic development of ththought in his Institutes. Aquinas called Christ's resurrection and ascesion "the cause of our justification, by which we return to newness

justice."34 The basic thought of this gospel is clear: Christ took our plaon the cross to bear our trespasses and death and, by the Spirit in tresurrection, to inaugurate redemptive justice for us and all of creation

Christ was the holy and elect Son of God through his conception by t

Spirit in Mary's womb (Luke 1:35). He took the place of sinners in hbaptism "to fulfill all righteousness" (Matt 3:15) and was endowed withe Spirit toward this purpose. By the Spirit, he set at liberty those whwere oppressed (Luke 4:18), which was the beginning of God's redemtive justice in action. The fulfillment of all righteousness initiated Christ's baptism and endowment with the Spirit and promoted in hliberating ministry occurred in the cross and the resurrection. AccordingHeb 9:14, he offered himself by the eternal Spirit on the cross to take oplace as sinners and to bear our sin and death. He was raised by the Spi

to inauguratethe

just creation (Rom 8:11). Indeed, Christ was "revealed


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the flesh and justifiedin the Spirit" (1 Tim 3:16). The Spirit's work in thejustified new creation inaugurated in Jesus' life, death, and resurrectionwill one day be realized in the resurrection of the just and the new heavensand new earth. As Wolfhart Pannenberg states, only in the final newcreation will God's verdict of "goodness" over the creation be justified.35

It is interesting, however, that Pannenberg does not view this final newcreation under the category of justification.

Rom 4:25 should, therefore, be connected to Rom 8:22, which associates our future resurrection with our "adoption as children of God,"implying that our justification is ultimately fulfilled only when the Spiritfully duplicates in us what the Spirit has done in the resurrected Christ asthe new creation and, as such, as the decisive act of redemptive justice.Rom 8:15-16 locates our current experience of adoption as an experience

of the Spirit, which allows us to claim our adoption before it is fulfilled inend-time resurrection. Such verses imply that the work of the Spiritthrough Christ, which culminated in his resurrection from the dead, is thevery basis of our justification as adopted children of God in covenantrelationship. The Pauline notion of justification is not implying that theSpirit merely "applies" the work of Christ for our justification to the lifeof faith and obedience. No, what is maintained here is that Jesus was the

justified Son of God precisely as the Person of the Spirit, a justificationthat was fulfilled in his resurrection, and that we are justified in him as

bearers of the Spirit, an experience that will culminate in our resurrection.The Pauline texts to which I have just referred suggest that the work of theSpirit in Christ is at the very basis of justification.

B Y GRACE THROUGH FAITH ALONE

Paul's entire insistence is that justification does not come through theworks of the law but through God's saving act in Christ and the Spirit,experienced now through the gift of the Spirit and culminating in the

resurrection of the body and the new creation. Paul assumes, for example,in Romans 7-8, that new creation through Christ and the Spirit, and not thelaw, represents the locus of God's savingrighteousness,for "what the lawcould not do, God did by sending God's Son into the world" (Rom 8:3).The law is "holy, just, and good" (Rom 7:12), but it is not the means bywhich God's new life in the Spirit is realized.

Paul is not working with some abstract notion of divine justice thatcannot be satisfied or merited among us by the works of the law, with theresult that Christ had to merit it for us. The point is, rather, that the Spirit,

not the law, brings the new life that will be fulfilled in the achievement offinal justice through new creation and that we grasp already now in faith.The presence of the living Christ through the Spirit among us allows us to


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an eschatological reality is the reason why faith, and not the works of thlaw, is the means by which this new creation lays claim to us in the hereand now.

In Galatians, this theme of justification as new creation is presen

through the gift of the Spirit received in faith. The major point behindPaul's discussion of his gospel of justification in Galatians 1-2 is that thpresence of the Spirit of new life is grasped in faith and not works of thlaw. The major point involving justification is given clearly in Gal 3:2"The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spiriby works of the law or by believing what you heard?" The blessing oAbraham is indeed justification (3:6-7), but Paul also defines this blessingas the gift of the Spirit: "In Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham mighcome to the gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit by

faith." Justification and the gift of the Spirit are both defined as thblessing of Abraham, because the new life of the Spirit received in faith ithe means by which thefinaljustification, as savingrighteousnessand newcreation, lays claim to us in the here and now. In Chapter 5, Paul contrastworks of the law with the walk in the Spirit that fulfills the law. The lawcannot bring thefinalrighteousnessas new creation, but such new creatioand its foretaste in our walk in the Spirit will fulfill the law. The justice othe law is fulfilled in new creation, not by meritorious works (6:15).

Righteousness is "reckoned" to us in faith in Rom 4:3, not becaus

Christ's "merits" have been transferred to us, but because the new creationto be experienced in the resurrection has already laid claim to us in oupresent state through the presence of the Spirit and our correspondingresponse of faith. Paul states in 4:24 that righteousness will be reckonedto us who believe "in him who raised Jesus from the dead," and he thenfollows in 4:25 that Christ "was put to death for our trespasses and raisedfor our justification." The righteousness that is reckoned to us in faith inot defined as meritorious works transferred to us from Christ, but as thnew life of the Spirit unleashed in the resurrection and yet to be fulfille

in new creation.The Reformers were correct in insisting that faith is the means by which

the gift of justification is received. Catholics were also right in insistingthat faith will involve love present in us as a result of the love of Godpoured into our hearts through the down payment of the Spirit (Rom 5:5)Trent made this point quite well. Luther was not opposed to the integrarole of love in the fulfillment of justification, so long as this love iunderstood as God's love poured into our hearts by the Spirit and not thloving response ofthe creature.36 The refusal of many within Reformation

traditions to include our loving response in the means by which we receivthe gift of justification was rooted in the fear that such an admission migh

h d h b li f h i b i j ifi i Thi


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concern is legitimate, but, as Karl Rahner noted, if the love involved in ourreception of justification is understood as a gift of grace, a pelagianimplication is avoided.37 Kng notes that justification is received by faithalone, but that this faith has the seed of our love already in it.38 If faith is

the first step of obedience to God, and if such obedience is motivated fromthe start by love, faith must include love as a gift of grace and cannot beconceived, even theoretically, without it.

"The formal distinction between justification and

sanctification cannot occur in such a way as to prevent

justification from involving the life of the Spirit and the new

creation to come."

I do not wish to deny that justification brings a word of pardon andforgiveness of sins, for Paul states in the context of a discussion of

justification, "Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven" (Rom 4:7).The word of pardon comforts us in weakness and guilt and creates faith inthe absence of sight. But this word of pardon in justification is integrally

tied to our participation as bearers of the Spirit and as people of faith,hope, and love in Christ and, through him, in our own future eschatological existence. This existence is reconciled existence delivered from boththe guilt and the power of sin. God's favor and pardon are tied to the final

justice that both Christ and the Spirit have won for us and is now attributedto us by grace as a people in need of deliverance from sin and death andas a people requiring pardon and deliverance from promoting such oppression among others.

Some may wish to view this discussion as confusing justification with

sanctification, or as subordinating the former to the latter. One might evensuggest that I am opening the door to "moralism," allowing justification tobe based on works. To counter this danger, an emphasis has been placedon justification as the work of the Spirit in the Christ-event and then,through Christ, in all of creation. In the light of justification as thetrinitarian act of God, one could view the discussion above as advocatinga transformative model of justification that makes sanctification integral toGod's fundamental acts of redemptive justice. The major point here is thatthe formal distinction between justification and sanctification cannot occur

in such a way as to prevent justification from involving the life of theSpirit and the new creation to come. Even a "logical" distinction between


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justification that neglects its true essence as redemptive justice won byChrist and the Spirit and participated in by us through faith, hope, andlove. A careful examination of Paul's understanding of justification wilnot allow this. Those who disagree are left with the difficulty of explaining

how justification is theologically integral to sanctification. The discussiothus far suggests that sanctification is the means by which the Spiritachieves justification in the person of Christ and then, through Christ, inall of creation.

As important as faith, hope, and love are to our participation in thejustified life won for us by God, justification, particularly in its pneumatological dimension, cannot be confined to the life of the believer. Justification is a trinitarian act of cosmic proportions that is based in the Fatheas the one who creates and elects, in the Son as Redeemer, and in the Spiri

as the giver oflife. By refusing to define election as an abstract and eterna"absolute decree" (decretum absolutum), Karl Barth opened the door to aunderstanding of election and justification as worked out in the actuahistory of Christ and the Spirit toward the redemption of creation.39 AG. C. Berkouwer stated, the absolute decree and its timeless metaphysicwhich Barth rightly rejected, "plants the kiss of death on eschatology, andon the way of salvation, and on the doctrine of justification as well."

40

In particular, by basing justification in both the crucifixion and theresurrection, Barth came close to challenging the removal of justification

from the work of the Spirit and from its trinitarian foundation. Barth wouldonly say that the Spirit in the resurrection "proclaims" the justificationestablished in the cross.

41He discussed the Spirit in justification solely

within the context of our subjective appropriation of justification in faithHad Barth replaced his emphasis in pneumatology on revelation with dominant focus on new creation, he would have recognized that the worof the Spirit in Christ's resurrection did a great deal more than proclaim

justification. Rather, the resurrection inauguratedjustification as redemptive justice.

A full trinitarian understanding of justification would not confine theSpirit's role to the subjective or even interpersonal dimension ofthe life offaith. In this regard, I am intrigued by Wilhelm Dantine's refusal to limitthe Spirit's role to such narrow confines. Dantine wants to take advantageof the Spirit's work in all of creation in order to open up the doctrine of

justification beyond anthropocentric limitations. He refers to the "forensicstructure" of the Spirit's work in creation as advocate, intercessor, andwitness.42 Although Dantine does not proceed beyond this interestingexpansion of the forensic model of justification, his suggestion does

provoke deeper thinking. The Spirit's involvement as advocate and intercessor for creation is implied in the Spirit's groaning in and through us for


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the suffering creation (Rom 8:26). The divine will and judgment to justifyand redeem may be seen as a response to an advocate and an intercessoralready present in all of creation. If the "Father's" will to justify isexpressed in the divine will to send the Son, and the Son's will is

expressed in the willingness to be sent, the Spirit's will would therefore bein the cry from creation to receive the gift that will be sent and in thecooperation with the Son in the shaping ofthe christological answer. Trentwas correct in insisting that the Spirit prepares one to receive justificationby faith, but it was shortsighted in not viewing this preparation as a cosmicphenomenon that gains unique focus as a preparation for faith. Thispreparation is the call to which the church attempts to respond in itsmissionary life.

JUSTIFICATION AND THE CHURCH'S LIFE AND MISSION

Krister Stendahl and others have drawn our attention to the fact thatPaul wrote of justification as an ecclesiological and social phenomenon.Justification by the Spirit through the death and resurrection of Jesus

breaks down the wall between Jew and gentile and makes them one inChrist (Ephesians 2). Stendahl offers the compelling thesis that the rise ofhostility toward Judaism in the life ofthe earlychurch helps to explain thenear absence of the doctrine of justification in the writings of the early

church fathers. When this Pauline doctrine emerges again in St. Augustinein thefifthcentury, it lacks Paul's sharp focus on justification as a force ofreconciliation between parties that are alienated from each other.

43

The fundamental issue for justification is, actually, not the church butChrist, the Spirit, and how the saving righteousness of God brings thenew creation and the final justice through them and not through law oranything else. In this regard, the efforts of scholars such as . T. Wrightto make justification a doctrine, not of salvation, but of the vindication ofone's legitimate place in the ekksia of God is valid to a degree but

shortsighted.44

Stendahl and Wright are correct in assuming that justification is realized in the present situation, not only in transformed lives of

individuals, but in justice and reconciliation in the midst of transformed

communities that live from diverse spiritual gifts. These gifts {charismata,

a term related to "grace" [charts]) may be viewed as "individuations of

grace" in the church.45

The church affirms and lives as a justified com

munity through a diversity of gifts, including the ordained clergy who are

chiefly responsible for nourishing this community in its foretaste pf

justified existence by the preached word of God and the celebration of the

sacraments.


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216 Theology Today

If God defined final justice historically through the Spirit's work in thlife, death, and resurrection of Christ, justification has far-reaching ethicimplications. If saving righteousness gained its substance and direction a work of the Spirit in the liberating story of Jesus, justification as the wo

of the gospel proclaimed today resists racism, sexism, and any form oliving that seeks to destroy or oppress God's creation. Such human formof oppression and denials of life fall under the judgment of what God accomplishing and will accomplish through justification as saving rigteousness. Jan Milic Lochman notes that God's righteous judgment

justification overturns all penultimate social judgments concerning thvalue of human beings and the creation. All one-dimensional views ohumanity, along with any attempt to exploit humanity and the creation, funder the judgment of God's justifying grace.46 Human communities an

creation have their own value and dignity before God apart from ojudgments concerning them. They are not dependent on us for theexistence and destiny. We therefore have no right to define humanity ancreation according to our self-serving purposes.

We can only conclude, then, that the mission of the church consists preaching the gospel and seeking to be channels of God's new life in thworld, as Jrgen Moltmann has shown.47 Such savingrighteousnessat thsource ofthis new life seeks to bring human life and all of creation towarthe fulfillment of God's covenant promises. According to the gospel, suc

new creation is the only way that final justice and righteousness will bfulfilled. The current tension involved in the relationship between thgospel of justification and the responsibility of the church to be agents social liberation implies a pneumatologically empty understanding o

justification. For if justification is the fulfillment of divine justice anrighteousness through new creation, a proclamation of this gospel nonsensical in the context of a church that refuses to be agents of new liand justice in the here and now. When justification is understood as merea word of pardon that relieves us of the need to merit favor from God, i

connection with the social mission ofthe church becomes questionable. fact, the compartmentalization of justification and sanctification found mainstream Protestant theology may carry over into the same lack ointegration and holism in the relationship between the kerygmatic and thsocial missions of the church.

In the church's social witness, it will encounter other communities ofaith that seek peace and justice. In the church's witness to the gospel o

justification toward such communities, there can be no illusions of selrighteousness. Apologetics that center on the moral or spiritual superior

J M Lochman "Die Rechtfertigungsbotschaft und der gesellschaftliche Auftrag d


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of Christianity are disallowed from the beginning. Our witness is not toChristianity but to God. If the path to justification in resurrection and newcreation is the cross, the church cannot make any claims for itself in itswitness. Our witness is exclusively to God's redemptive justice or saving

righteousness in Christ through the Spirit. Such a witness will humblyengage in dialogue with communities of faith outside the church thatsignal in their own unique ways the redemptive justice of God establishedby the Spirit in the resurrection of Christ.

There can be no compromise on the resurrection ofJesus as the locus ofthe Spirit's work toward justification. Justification itself will prevent thechurch from thinking that it alone signals this redemptive justice of Godin the world. Such forms of self-justification contradict the gospel andprevent the church from incarnating the gospel message. Our gospel is

centered on God as Trinity, but it is by no means ecclesiocentric. Thoughwe incarnate the good news as a reconciled community, we do not makeour community the object of our mission. The "full gospel" must certainlypoint us away from ourselves to the saving activity of Christ in the worldthrough the life-transforming power of the Holy Spirit. Toward this end,the church gives of itself completely, and in this humble self-givingdiscovers its true self-affirmation.

ABSTRACT

Despite significant ecumenical discussion on justification, what is stillneeded is a trinitarian understanding of the doctrine that is filled out by theHoly Spirit's work to bring about justice through new creation. This viewseeks to move beyond the preoccupation with meritorious works indicative ofthe forensic model of justification and to concentrate instead on the life-transforming righteousness of the kingdom of God. Both Luther and Paulsupport the idea of justification as achieved through the Spirit's work in thedeath and resurrection of Christ to deliver the oppressed and to make all

things new, thus fulfilling redemptive justice for all of creation and betweencreation and God. Such righteousness is reckoned to us in faith as bearers ofthe Spirit of new life and is lived out in the here and now as the church seeksto be agents of new life in the world.


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Justification Through New Creation