Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 64:2 (Fall 2002)
Article: A Question Of Union With Christ? Calvin And Trent On Justification
Author: Craig B. Carpenter

WTJ 64:2 (Fall 2002) p. 363

A Question Of Union With Christ?
Calvin And Trent On Justification

Craig B. Carpenter

[Craig B. Carpenter is a Ph.D. student in New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary.]

I. Introduction

The question of justification is discussed as much today as it was in Calvin’s time, especially in connection with two matters. One is the recent, unofficial dialogue between Protestant evangelicals and Roman Catholics. Two documents, “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” (ECT) and “The Gift of Salvation,” have made the historic differences on justification between the Church of Rome and the churches of the Reformation once again a subject of international discussion. In particular, the joint statement on justification in “The Gift of Salvation” suggested a fair amount of agreement on the doctrine between Roman Catholic dogma and Protestant orthodoxy, and it did so by curiously leaving some of the most historically contentious issues to be resolved later, notably what is meant by imputation. This prompted some other evangelicals to restate their understanding of sola fide in terms that reinforced the disagreement between the two sides, especially as concerns imputation. They focused particularly on the Catholic understanding of justification’s relation to sanctification, namely, the order in which they take place (ordo salutis). The legal, forensic character of salvation (imputation of righteousness) must occur, these Protestants insist, prior to the subjective, renovative character of salvation (infusion of righteousness).1

WTJ 64:2 (Fall 2002) p. 364

A second sphere in which justification figures significantly is in recent New Testament studies. Many NT scholars contend that justification is not the issue that should divide the church but unite it.2 As they label the Protestant view of imputation a legal fiction (itself not a new charge) and, to one degree or another, reject its reading of justification as the means by which one gets saved, such scholars are zealous to maintain the eschatological nature of justification and thus see justification as integrally related to theodicy. One scholar, Richard B. Hays, writes that “justification is interpreted as God’s act of deliverance wrought in Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, whose sacrificial death avails for the salvation of the covenant people.” Justification is used to indicate that God has proved himself faithful to his covenant promises to Israel. Those who are justified in Christ (i.e., incorporated into him) are those who are included in this divine, saving action. The term righteousness of God is vi...