The Ground Of Justification -- By: B. G. Felce

Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 02:1 (Winter 1956)
Article: The Ground Of Justification
Author: B. G. Felce


The Ground Of Justification

(The second of a series in which members set out the questions which give rise to their present researches)

B. G. Felce

Vincent Taylor makes the observation about justification that “The central place of the doctrine in St. Paul’s theology, and the crucial importance assigned to it at the Reformation, are in striking contrast with the virtual neglect of this teaching in current theological literature and in modern preaching” (Forgiveness and Reconciliation pp. 72f.) He continues: “What is required in modern teaching, and few things are needed more, is a renewed emphasis on the truths for which justification stands. ...So anxious have we been to exclude legal ideas from our thoughts of God that we have compromised the ethical foundations of our theology. We have created God in our own image and likeness.” (pp. 79-80). There is little reason to believe that the situation has radically changed for the better since 1941, when these words were written.

Last century saw the production of a fair number of works on the subject of justification, but literature has been very scanty so far this century. In any case the emphasis today seems to be on what man must do for salvation rather than on what God has already done in Christ for sinners. There is some discussion about man’s exercise of faith, but less interest in Christ as the object of faith.

In 1867 James Buchanan wrote: “The great cardinal question on the subject of Justification,--and that on the right settlement of which the determination of every other mainly depends,--relates to its immediate ground; and amounts in substance to this,--What is the righteousness, on account of which a sinner is forgiven and accepted as righteous in the sight of God? or, What is the righteousness to which God has regard in bestowing and on which a sinner should rely for obtaining, the forgiveness of his sins, and a title to eternal life? or in yet another form,--whether the righteousness which is revealed as the ground of our justification be the vicarious righteousness of Christ imputed, or our own personal righteousness, infused and inherent” (The Doctrine of justification p. 239).

Even Newman could write: “The purpose of this Appendix is to show that the cardinal question to be considered by Catholics and Protestants in their controversy about Justification is, What is its formal cause? (footnote p. 343) ...To determine what is the formal cause of our justification or what it is which under the Christian covenant constitutes us just in God’s sight, or what it is in us in which our justification consists, or what it is immediately upon which we receive God’s justification, is as important an undertaking as any one in the cont...

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