Religious Causes, Changes, And Comparisons In The American Civil War

By Kaley Middlebrooks Carpenter[1]

[Kaley Middlebrooks Carpenter is a Ph.D. student in American church history at Princeton Theological Seminary.]

In The Story of Religion in America, church historian William W. Sweet reflected upon one of the its saddest chapters—that of the Civil War—in this way: “There are good arguments to support the claim that the split in the churches was not only the first break between the sections, but the chief cause of the final break.”[2]

When Sweet penned these words in 1950, Perry Miller’s groundbreaking works on Puritan New England had already led a legion of scholars to study the Christian influences and character of the colonial period. In similar fashion, other historians began to turn their attention to the Civil War era and religion’s role in the sectional crisis. Sweet’s own The Methodist Episcopal Church and The Civil War, Joseph Blount Cheshire’s The Church in the Confederate States, Chester Forrester Dunham’s The Attitude of the Northern Clergy Toward the South, 1860–1865, and Benjamin J. Blied’s Catholics and the Civil War were some of the first books to examine the responses of religious leaders and their followers during the war.[3] Over the next four decades even more writings appeared on subjects as diverse as Civil War chaplains, churches, dioceses, missionaries, prayer books, Sanitary Commissions, synagogues, and even religiously motivated conscientious objectors.[4]

By the late 1980s, bibliographies documenting this growing collection of scholarship on religion during theWar Between the States began to appear. Yet they often referred to early classics that remained unsurpassed in setting the period’s historiographical standard. For instance, James W. Silver’s Confederate Morale and Church Propaganda (1957) was still considered “the best study of religion as a bulwark to the Confederacy” in 1987, a full thirty years after its publication.[5] And while the scholarship on religion and the Civil War was significant, it was neither sizable nor unassailable in its assumptions. In the words of Sydney Ahlstrom, “For [many] reasons the ‘tragic era’ is of maximum importance to the moral and religious history of the American people. Yet its treatment by historians has been apologetic and evasive. Like the political historiography on the period, the conventional church-historical accounts need revision.”[6]

This is precisely the gap that historians Randall M. Miller, Harry S. Stout, and Charles Reagan Wilson have sought to close with the publication of Religion and the American Civil War. This volume, which brings together papers presented at a 1994 conference on Religion and the Civil War in Louisville, Kentucky,[7] models and identifies new directions for antebellum, war time, and postwar historiography.[8] It combines the methods of social, cultural, literary, and intellectual history, and it explores under-researched populations such as women, ethnic minorities, and conservative confessionalists. Most importantly, the essays in Religion and the American Civil War succeed in “bringing religion—too often merely a prop in a military or political drama—onto center stage” (p. 314).

The book is divided into three main sections treating “Ideas,” “People,” and “Places.” These divisions, however, fail to capture what is truly unique about the volume. A close reading of the book suggests that Religion and the American Civil War might more profitably be discussed through three different categories, beginning with the subject of Sweet’s profound quote above: (1) how religion functioned as a cause of the Civil War; (2) how aspects of American religion were vitally changed because of the Civil War; and (3) how dominant American religious ideas promoted during the war compare to those of other subcultures in the country at the time, or to those of other countries also torn by civil war in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.[9]

As Sweet’s quote attests, the idea that religion was at least one of many factors to cause the Civil War has existed in scholarship for well over fifty years (if not since the time of war itself). The contributions of Mark Noll, Eugene Genovese, Bertram Wyatt-Brown, and George M. Frederickson detail in new ways precisely how religion constituted a cause to the war. They do so primarily by examining the power of the clergy and the country’s theological elite. Noll’s “The Bible and Slavery” presents a fascinating and thorough analysis of how the Bible, or, more precisely, how the unique American interpretation of the Bible, “helped start” the Civil War (p. 50). Noll supports his description of religion’s role by showing two things: (1) the ways in which the North’s and the South’s opposing positions on the Bible’s treatment of slavery shared a common hermeneutical history that was peculiar to America, and (2) how those contrary positions on slavery’s biblical warrant called into question nothing less than the authority of Scripture itself. According to Noll, the war was for both sides not only a military and moral battle, but a theological one as well—a battle that could have ended differently had other biblical interpretations been heard.

Noll reaches back into colonial and revolutionary history to show how the “dominant American hermeneutic” of interpreting the Bible literally (as opposed to more systematically and theologically) and according to the Reformed tradition (which considered “every direction contained in [Scripture’s] pages as applicable at all times to all men”) helped to forge the country’s identity as a “chosen nation.” This democratic and individualistic hermeneutic became employed in the service of American exceptionalism, or the set of republican beliefs that made the United States worth fighting for in the first place (pp. 43–50). The tragedy of religion’s role in the Civil War, Noll observes, was the inability of slavery’s critics to transcend this hermeneutic in order to make persuasive arguments against literalist, pro-slavery exegetes such as James Henley Thornwell and Robert L. Dabney. To mount such a challenge without compromising scriptural authority or jettisoning the Bible altogether was especially difficult (pp. 50–53). Black, Catholic, German Lutheran, Dutch Reformed, and confessionally conservative Reformed intellectuals advanced other viable theological positions about Scripture’s bearing on the “slavery question.” However, obscured by American biblicism on one side, and by nativism and racism on the other, they never made a difference in the public domain (pp. 53–61). Most regrettably, even earnest opponents of slavery and faithful supporters of Scripture like Charles Hodge could not rise above culturally ingrained prejudices against African Americans to discern how much even their interpretations of the biblical accounts of slavery were, quite literally, colored within limited racial lines (pp. 61–66).

Eugene Genovese’s essay, “Religion in the Collapse of the American Union,” demonstrates how religious doctrine and sensibility “rent the Union” (p. 82) by focusing on the Old and New School split in the Presbyterian Church.[10] Like Noll, Genovese documents how the religious language used by both sides made the sectional crisis a “holy war.” He describes the seeming impregnability of pro-slavery biblical arguments and traces the ascent of Protestant liberalism to anti-slavery advocates’ separation of the letter from the spirit in God’s Word. Genovese uniquely argues that at the heart of this division was a southern Christian critique of northern free-market social-relations: slavery advocates criticized the industrial North’s exploitation of the working class, yet they failed to realize that such capitalistic oppression of a population was precisely what the two labor systems held in common. Southern free-labor advocates could not see this because they were blinded in part by a biblical ideal of slavery and its social relations that never materialized: a paternal and protective system in which cruel masters were punished, in which slave families were protected by law, and in which slavery met “the highest standards of the Abrahamic household and the teachings of Christ” (p. 81).

Describing a southern clergy more reticent than that which appears in Genovese’s essay, Bertram Wyatt-Brown fleshes out the cultural constraints upon pastors to justify slavery in “Church, Honor, and Secession.” Precisely because of the strength of denominational ties and a concern to retain their northern brethren’s support on theological battles, southern shepherds more readily understood slavery as a consequence of the Fall to be suffered (and in time, even ameliorated) along with the pains of disease and death. Wyatt-Brown shows how, until the point of secession, these preachers were also spared public involvement on the issue because of their commitment to the doctrine of the spirituality of the church. He subsequently traces their conflicted concession to pro-slavery and, later, secessionist arguments to sociological and cultural factors. These included physical threats from slave owners and a culture of male honor that abetted violent behavior. In addition to taming that culture with exhortations to godliness, Confederate clergy had to defend southern convictions when they were discredited and disgraced by northern constitutional interpretation. As soon as the “slavery issue” became political rather than spiritual, however, the clergy’s constraints disappeared. Their partisan preaching increased exponentially, furthering the division between northern and southern opinion (p. 101).

George M. Frederickson’s study, “The Coming of the Lord: Northern Protestant Clergy and the Civil War Crisis,” illustrates equally well how the Civil War presented this class of professionals a renewed opportunity to exert their influence on an increasingly secular and democratic society. As ethical and moral arbiters during the national crisis, Yankee pastors, like their southern counterparts, eagerly bridged the church and state divide. Their official involvement in the sectional crusade, however, only served to diminish their power once they became increasingly identified in service of the dominant, political culture. On the other hand, northern pastors continued to preach, and they eventually spread what became the Social Gospel. Ironically their criticisms of industrial capitalism echoed ante-bellum southern arguments. Frederickson calls this phenomenon “a conscious revival of political preaching and religious activism of the war period” (p. 125).

Similarly, the split of southern Baptists into their own convention on the eve of the Civil War, as described by Paul Harvey in his article “Yankee Faith and Southern Redemption,” enabled the ministry’s active support of the Confederacy and, later, Reconstruction’s dismantling. Harvey effectively contrasts the church’s glorification of “Redemption” and countenancing of KKK activities in the nineteenth century with resistance to Supreme Court enforcement of racial equality in the twentieth. The separate religious culture created by Southern Baptists, he provocatively argues, thus became “a cornerstone of white supremacy and theological conservatism” that dominated the region right up to the second Reconstruction of the Civil Rights era.[11] Daniel W. Stowell’s “Stonewall Jackson and the Providence of God” traces the unswerving southern assurance in God’s providential approval of such partisan positions—even in the face of Jackson’s death and the Confederates’ defeat—to the spiritual, psychological, and ideological foundation of the cult of the Lost Cause, which arguably continues to this day.

As these essays show, religious causes of the Civil War seem also to have produced lasting religious change—evidence of which still remains in contemporary America. Harry Stout and Christopher Grasso’s study of Richmond provides another example of religion’s lasting effects on post-bellum society. “Civil War, Religion, and Communications” illustrates how the Confederacy’s short-lived unity and history were singularly shaped through the introduction of jeremiads and feast-days. Such explicitly Christian sermons and repentant sacrificial discipline had served as a staple of New England piety since the seventeenth century. Yet these same rituals were completely novel to the South, a fact completely missed by modern historians, until the increasingly devout Jefferson Davis introduced them to Richmond’s inhabitants when the city suddenly became the capital of the “new Christian nation.” The secret of this essay’s success is one well known to Stout: he has again found an overlooked fact, assumption, or source and mined it for all its worth.[12] The result is an essay that reads like a drama, not only because of the elegant, exciting prose portraying Richmond’s gradual destruction, but also because of the way the authors analyze new primary sources to reveal how crucial religion was to the Confederacy and to the development of modern southern society after the war.

One could not fully understand Confederate society, as each of these preceding chapters clearly demonstrates, without a comparison of it with that of the North.[13] How much less would one understand American antebellum and post-war society as a whole without a trans-national and trans-cultural critique? Five chapters that offer such comparative analyses constitute Religion and the American Civil War’s greatest scholarly contribution.

Noll, for instance, highlights the uniqueness (and weakness) of American exegesis of biblical texts relating to slavery by comparing regional scholars’ conclusions with those of Scottish, English, and Canadian Protestant theological writings (p. 52). He also documents anti-slavery arguments from several (silenced) American sub-cultures, including German Lutheran, Catholic, and African American believers. Charles Reagan Wilson’s essay, “Religion and the American Civil War in Comparative Perspective,” more thoroughly still compares and contrasts America’s Civil War with the civil wars in England and Spain. Wilson’s chapter masterfully identifies several factors that each conflict had in common, such as contests over constitutional authority and power, the role of millennialism, moral crusade and reform, a corporate sense of special status under God, and the promoting of nationalism and civil religion. The unique struggles of African Americans, Irish-Catholic Americans, and American women (who in the antebellum and Victorian eras could certainly qualify as a distinct sub-culture) are highlighted by Noll, Phillip Shaw Paludan, Randall M. Miller, Elizabeth Fox Genovese, and Drew Gilpin Faust.

Genovese’s literary-historical “Days of Judgment, Days of Wrath” captures especially well the different ways in which northern and southern women writers understood their roles in both religious and secular society. Genovese reads modern individualism, religious feminization, and moral superiority in between the lines of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Louisa May Alcott. Their books, she argues, simultaneously reflected and inspired the lives of northern women who imbued their separate domestic sphere with moral authority and fought with religious conviction in abolition, temperance, and suffrage campaigns. Though southern women would also soon deal with the consequences of industrial capitalism through similar organizations, writers like Augusta Jane Evans turned women’s coming of age stories into “parables or allegories for the state of southern culture as a whole.” Her novels preached against northern individualism and seated moral authority not in women, but in God and his ministers (p. 244). On the other hand, Faust’s “Without Pilot or Compass” recounts the ways in which elite southern women were let down by the men, the government, and the God to whom they had been trained to submit.

She similarly concludes, however, that these women’s perseverance during the war continued on in their fight against Yankee control, even as their northern sisters fought for social reform and female suffrage. Again, these essays demonstrate how religion, having passed through the crucible of the war, became an agent for later and greater social change.

Taken together, these chapters themselves, and others not mentioned, should change the way historians of the Civil War research, analyze, and write about religion’s role in it. The volume contains few weaknesses, and it is difficult to determine whether these reside in its constituent parts or in the whole. One notable lacuna is the lack of any essay dedicated exclusively to religion in the African American experience. Works such as Eugene Genovese’s Roll, Jordan, Roll and Albert Raboteau’s Slave Religion have documented “the invisible institution” since American slavery’s inception, and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham’s Righteous Discontent chronicles the strides made by women in the independent black Baptist church after the Civil War.[14] Yet much research still needs to be done on black religion during the Civil War, particularly how it changed and developed as slaves and freedmen followed the conflict’s progress. Over the last seventeen years, the Freedman and Southern Society Project has made available a wealth of documentary evidence in the four volumes of its series Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867. This is an indispensable and perhaps underutilized source for further research into black religious experience and thought during the war years.[15] None of the authors in the Religion and the American Civil War seems to have mined the treasures of first-hand data in this series.

As for the volume’s parts, some chapters try to deliver more than their pages comfortably allow. For instance, one wonders if Eugene Genovese’s article on the collapse of the American union would have been aptly subtitled “Christian Community in Free Labor or Free Markets?” because its most forceful argument concerns religious rationales of the sections’ respective economic systems. Each side, Genovese claims, promoted what it believed to be a Christian ideal of human social relations. The North argued for the abolition of slavery upon God-given equality and individual rights. The South in turn predicted that any society, agrarian or otherwise, would dissolve on the basis of such radical individualism: only a hierarchical, Abrahamic family model, as opposed to a capitalistic one, could unite and care for all. These religious “roots” to which Genovese traces the collapse of the American union form the strongest part of his essay. Although the last pages examine which religious-economic system lays the more convincing claim to having natural law and the Constitution in its corner, they are not enough to do justice to the complicated theories that Genovese introduces. Had he been able to spend less time covering the same ground already trod by Noll and more time developing his unique points, the essay would have been stronger. Responsibility, however, may lie less with Genovese than with the editors and space limitations.

Other essays also seem to overlap. While introducing the new student of the Civil War to the significance of classic literary texts (such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Emily Dickinson’s poetry), Paludan’s “Overview” covers recent historiography on religion and the Civil War. His literary analysis is only one among many ways he tries to explore the role of religion during the Civil War. The chapter thus offers a not-so-satisfying foretaste of what Fox-Genovese later dishes up in abundance. Paludan also tries to cover many issues that are dealt with more fully in other essays, such as the rise of the Social Gospel and liberal Protestantism, the cult of the Lost Cause, southern guilt, and the myth of the martyred Lincoln. These same topics are treated by Samuel Hill. Both Paludan and Hill attempt to acquaint the reader with old and new subjects worthy of study, and though their essays could stand by themselves, together their discussion seems redundant. Again, one wonders why the choice was made to incorporate both of these essays since they cover such similar themes.

As a result, the reader wishes that more pages were left for Fox-Genovese and Faust to continue the story of how southern women’s religious convictions developed and functioned after the war. Despite hinting that southern women weren’t far behind their northern sisters in joining WTCU chapters and challenging their God-given “place” in society, Faust and Genovese also concede that “southern women had not shared the spiritual and social empowerment experienced by … their northern sisters during the prewar years” and that “the vast majority of southern women settled back into traditional gender roles” (p. 258; see also p. 244). Neither author sufficiently explores the links between these women’s faith and the Cult of the Lost Cause, the Ladies of the Klan, or the Christianized culture of the New South—all of which warrant more investigation for the light it will shed on civil religion’s development in both North and South. As James M. McPherson notes in the book’s afterward, “In God We Trust” was first printed on United States coins during the Civil War. At the same time Lincoln, a president who refused to associate himself officially with any particular denomination or creed, explicitly instituted Thanksgiving as a day of spiritual reflection and rejoicing (p. 409). While several of the aforementioned essays refer to the concept of civil religion as famously defined by Robert Bellah in the 1970s (and ably illustrated by him with examples like Lincoln), their passing references call attention to the need for continued examination of the Civil War’s legacy in this regard.[16]

Perhaps the lines between individual, sectional, and national faith are impossible to parse definitively. The essays in Religion and the American Civil War have begun to trace them nevertheless. It is no longer the case that “because the American Civil War was not a war of religion, historians [tend] to overlook the degree to which it was a religious war” (p. 409). A failing of the volume, then, may be its tendency to portray the sectional conflict more as the former than the latter. To be sure, the greater frequency with which competing sides are identified with and wrapped in God’s favor, the greater the difficulty there is in distinguishing between the two kinds of battle. Additional study of and reflection on the relationship between the Civil War and civil religion is thus needed, perhaps no more urgently than today. When Americans are being called to unite together across sectional, racial, and social differences to defend and possibly fight against a foreign enemy’s jihad, an understanding of what constitutes a war of religion and a religious war is crucial.

These are only minor shortcomings of an important volume that largely leaves students of the Civil War only wanting to read more. The influence of Religion and the American Civil War has, in fact, also paved the way for more writing in these areas. Since the book appeared in 1998, several significant monographs on the war’s religious aspects have subsequently been published and develop the original studies found in Miller, Stout, and Wilson’s edited work. Eugene Genovese expands his treatment on the concerns of southern citizens and the failings of their peculiar institution in A Consuming Fire: The Fall of the Confederacy in the Mind of the White Christian South, which stems from a series of lectures delivered at Mercer University in 1997.[17] Warren B. Armstrong’s For Courageous Fighting and Confident Dying: Union Chaplains in the Civil War, also published in 1998, is the first book-length work on American chaplaincy in nearly thirty years or more. Armstrong proposes to “explain what the government of the United States did to address the religious concerns of its soldiers through the chaplaincy during the division of [the] nation … to examine their attitudes toward the conflict in which the nation was then engaged; and … to assess the value of the service these men rendered to their nation in those years of social, political, and moral crisis.”[18] Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President, by Allan C. Guelzo, is a fascinating intellectual history that re-examines the leader’s moral, religious, and philosophical thought in the context of nineteenth century.[19] Finally, Stephen J. Ochs’s A Black Patriot and a White Priest: Andre Cailloux and Claude Paschal Maitre in Civil War New Orleans continues the much needed research on Catholics during the Civil War. The book intends to “contribute to a growing literature on lives of free persons of color in New Orleans, the black military experience, black Catholicism, and Afro-Creole radicalism” in particular. Ultimately, Ochs hopes to shed “more light on … the admixture of war, race, religion, and political activism” in general (p. xvi).[20] Alongside Religion and the American Civil War, which remains the most current and comprehensive look at the state of scholarship on religion during the era, these volumes indicate that a new chapter on the long neglected story of religion’s role in the Civil War is at last being written.

Notes

1. A review of Randall M. Miller, Harry S. Stout, and Charles Wilson Reagan, eds., Religion and the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 422 pp. $24.95, paper).
2. William W. Sweet, The Story of Religion in America (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), 312 (my emphasis).
3. William W. Sweet, The Methodist Episcopal Church and the Civil War (Cincinnati: Methodist Book Press, 1912); Joseph Blount Cheshire, The Church In the Confederate States (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1912); Chester Forrester Dunham, The Attitude of the Northern Clergy Toward the South, 1860–1865 (Toledo, Ohio: The Grey Company, 1942); and Benjamin J. Blied, Catholics and the Civil War (Milwaukee: n.p., 1945).
4. See Charles Pitts’s Chaplains in Grey: The Confederate Chaplain’s Story (Nashville: Broadman, 1957); Roy J. Honeywell’s Chaplains in the United States Army (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Chaplains, Department of the Army, 1958); and the numerous articles by W. Harrison Daniel, Edgar Pennington Legare, Sidney J. Romeo, and Bell Irvin Wiley, among others. For two exhaustive bibliographies of religion and the Civil War, see Charles H. Lippy, Bibliography of Religion in the South (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1985), especially the section on “The Civil War and The Confederacy”; and William F. Deverell, “Church-State Issues in the Period of the Civil War,” in Church and State In America: A Bibliographical Guide—The Civil War to the Present Day (ed. John F. Wilson; Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1987).
5. James W. Silver, Confederate Morale and Church Propaganda (Tuscaloosa, Ala.: Confederate Pub. Co., 1957). See Deverell, “Church-State Issues,” 8.
6. Sydney Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 691. Notable exceptions to this criticism of the extant scholarship were several significant works, including James Moorhead, American Apocalypse: Yankee Protestants and the Civil War, 1860–1869 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978); Charles Reagan Wilson, Baptized in Blood: the Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865–1920 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980); C. C. Goen, Broken Churches, Broken Nation: Denominational Schism and the Coming of the American Civil War (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1985); Richard E. Beringer et al., Why the South Lost the Civil War (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986); and Gardiner H. Shattuck, Jr., A Shield and Hiding Place: The Religious Life of the Civil War Armies (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1987).
7. The October symposium was co-sponsored by the Louisville Institute of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. It was funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
8. Stout’s hand seems to continue to guide the profession in this regard; see his and D. G. Hart’s editorial efforts in New Directions in American Religious History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
9. Note that “Comparison” is indeed the title of the book’s last section, but strangely contains only one essay.
10. Had it not been for the southern church’s influence in convincing its people—through superior, literal, biblical arguments made in pamphlets and pulpits—that God sanctioned the peculiar institution, the war could not have been waged; quoting Albert Barnes: “No influence out of the church could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it” (76).
11. Harvey also hints at the relationship between the (albeit inconsistent) southern mode of private and introspective religion and the later phenomenal exploits of revivalists like Dwight Moody.
12. This is precisely what Stout did so well in The New England Soul with sermons hitherto neglected by historians such as Perry Miller, author of the famous The New England Mind. In part by finding and analyzing forgotten texts, Stout’s path-breaking work significantly revised what had been considered forgone conclusions of the period’s historiography.
13. This is not to exclude the society of border states, which authors in this volume like Noll explore with great skill.
14. See Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972); Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Woman’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993). James McPherson writes in his “Afterward” that the freedman’s education movement described by Higginbotham is one of the “missing links” between the clergy’s increased activism during the Civil War and “the emergence of the Social Gospel a generation later” (p. 411).
15. Ira Berlin, Marc Favreau, and Steven F. Miller, eds., The Destruction of Slavery (Freedom I/1; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); idem, The Wartime Genesis of Free Labor: The Upper South (Freedom I/2; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); idem, The Wartime Genesis of Free Labor: The Lower South (Freedom I/3; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); and idem, The Black Military Experience (Freedom II/1; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). See also Ira Berlin et al., eds., Slaves No More: Three Essays on Emancipation and the Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Ira Berlin, ed., Free At Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom, and the Civil War (New York: New Press, 1992); Ira Berlin and Leslie S. Rowland, eds., Families and Freedom: A Documentary History of African-American Kinship in the Civil War Era (New York: New Press, 1997); Ira Berlin, Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland, eds., Freedom’s Soldiers: The Black Military Experience in the Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); and Ira Berlin, Marc Favreau, and Steven F. Miller, eds., Remembering Slavery: African Americans Talk about Their Personal Experiences of Slavery and Freedom (New York: Norton, 1998).
16. The volume does offer Ronald C. White’s fresh reading of Lincoln’s second inaugural in the essay entitled, “Sermon on the Mount.” It insightfully illustrates Lincoln’s evolving religious thought by comparing the famous short text with other documentary evidence of how the war had affected Lincoln’s political and philosophical beliefs before his death.
17. Eugene D. Genovese, A Consuming Fire: The Fall of the Confederacy in the Mind of the White Christian South (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1998).
18. Warren B. Armstrong, For Courageous Fighting and Confident Dying: Union Chaplains in the Civil War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), x. Also noteworthy is William Furry, ed., The Preacher’s Tale: The Civil War Journal of Rev. Francis Springer, Chaplain, U.S. Army of the Frontier (Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 2001), a new primary source documenting the life of a Union Civil War chaplain.
19. Allan C. Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).
20. Stephen J. Ochs, A Black Patriot and a White Priest: Andre Cailloux and Claude Paschal Maitre in Civil War New Orleans (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000), xvi. See also C. P. Weaver, ed., Thank God My Regiment an African One: The Civil War Diary of Colonel Nathan W. Daniels (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1998). For an older primary source on another French Catholic Chaplain, but one serving on the Confederate side, see A Frenchman, A Chaplain, A Rebel: The War Letters of Pere Louis-Hippolyte Gache, S.J. (trans. Cornelius M. Buckley; Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1981).

Covenant Theology And Constructive Calvinism

By Tim J. R. Trumper[1]

[Tim J. R. Trumper is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary.]

Having suggested in a previous review (WTJ 62 [2000]: 153-57, esp.156–57) that the contemporary preoccupation among Westminster Calvinists with a covenant of works (notably the Murray-Kline debate) is myopic, it may seem somewhat contradictory to return to the subject. My reasoning is straightforward. If read well, Jeong Koo Jeon’s volume could serve to dissipate the suspicion that has created unnecessarily a tension among those who really ought to be standing shoulder to shoulder in defense of federal theology. The following extended review serves then to publicize the fact that whether one is “of Murray” or “of Kline” (see 1 Cor 1:11–12) there is much to be gained from the reading of Jeon’s balanced and dispassionate yet largely descriptive treatment of the debate. If Jeon achieves nothing else, it is sincerely to be hoped that his study will encourage a lowering of the register of the debate, not least because for long enough it has served the cause of federal theology counter-productively in the broader Reformed community that extends far beyond the ranks of conservative Presbyterians. More of this later. Suffice to say for now that in what follows, my purpose is to summarize and analyze Jeon’s study with a view to drawing from it the clear implications that are but implicit in the volume itself.

I. The Account of the Debate

In the four lengthy chapters that constitute the study, Jeon first traces out the historical development of federal theology from John Calvin to Geerhardus Vos. In this overview Jeon includes Calvin (whose version of federal theology was a primitive form that lacked a covenant of works, but which nevertheless possessed a motif of natural law that became a pointer towards the future development of a covenant of works (foedus naturale, foedus legale, or foedus operum [pp. 27–28]); Caspar Olevianus (“the forerunner of the antithesis between the covenants of works and grace hermeneutics” [p. 31]); Robert Rollock (responsible for making the rubric of the covenant of works part of the staple of covenant theology [p. 34]); the Westminster Confession (the first Reformed confession to place the doctrine of the covenant in the foreground [p. 40]); John Owen (for whom the distinction between the covenants of works and grace was foundational [p. 54]); Francis Turretin (who deepened the hermeneutical principle to include redemptive history and applied it to the doctrine of justification by faith alone [pp. 56 and 66]); Charles Hodge (who defended the covenantal distinction between works and grace against rationalism [p. 69]); and Geerhardus Vos (who “characteristically developed his biblical covenant theology under the rubrics of eschatology and the Kingdom of God, responding to the Ritschlian moralistic Kingdom of God and the dehistoricization of biblical history represented by the Wellhausen School, which emphasized the dynamic historicity of the biblical epochs” [p. 79]). By introducing Vos at the end of his initial historical overview, Jeon prepares the way for his treatment of Murray and Kline (chs. 2 and 3): “It is evident,” says Jeon, “that both … were greatly influenced by Geerhardus Vos” (p. 79).

Reflecting on this preparatory historical overview, Jeon argues, contra the neoorthodox (p. 11), that for all the differences of expression between Calvin and the later Calvinists the reformer’s antithesis between Law and Gospel is really compatible with that between the covenants of works and grace (pp. 14 and 94). Accordingly, Jeon denies in orthodox-Calvinistic fashion the neo-orthodox claim that later Calvinists reversed the biblical order from grace and law to law and grace.[2] As we shall go into later, a more objective or, what we call at Westminster Seminary (Philadelphia), a sympathetic-critical (in that order!) reading of the history and theology of the tradition,[3] suggests that while Jeon is right, it is possible to see why neo-orthodoxy has understood the tradition in the way that it has.

Beginning with Murray, Jeon notes that he held to a modified version of the covenant theology found in the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF). As is well known, Murray’s modification was shaped by his reservations about the covenant of works (foedus operum, which he renamed Adamic administration) and, less significantly, the covenant of redemption (renamed “the inter-trinitarian economy of salvation” [p. 116]). Although Jeon does not make much of Murray’s rejection of the covenant of works (leaving aside the covenant of redemption), the similarities between the shape and sound of the federal theology of Calvin and Murray should not be lost on the observant reader. Far from making concessions to neo-orthodoxy, Murray’s unusual later-Calvinistic version of federal theology was an attempt to reflect biblical teaching more closely. It is small wonder then that his theology resembles that of Calvin, the exegete par excellence of the tradition. All Murray did was to state explicitly what Calvin’s biblico-theological sensitivity implies, namely, that a biblical-theological methodology does not necessarily prove either a covenant of works (pp. 103–4) or a covenant of works. Even if it proved a covenant, the term “covenant of life” (cf. WCF 7:2 and LC 20) would be a more appropriate designation (p. 105 n. 4). It seems then that Murray considered his understanding of an Adamic administration to be in accord with the spirit of Westminster Calvinism, if not strictly according to its letter (WCF 7:2). This may explain why he does not seem to have shared his views with the faculty before making them known (p. 106 n. 4 cont.). Neither do we appear to know (at least, at the seminary) whether he ever took an exception to the WCF in regard to this issue.

Nevertheless, Jeon defends Murray’s orthodoxy on the basis of his retention of the Law-Gospel antithesis (in that historical order [p. 111]). It is Murray’s unmodified retention of the unsuffused antithesis (pp. 148 and 158ff.) that leaves untouched his Protestant understanding of justification as well as his Reformed perspective on the third use of the Law (pp. 105, 143 n. 79 cont., 144ff.). That said, for all the importance Murray attaches to a forensic doctrine of justification, Jeon correctly notes his broader focus on union with Christ, which, in line with Scripture, and Calvin we may add, he perceived to be the governing principle of the application of redemption: “Union with Christ does not vitiate … the principle of justification by faith alone apart from good works …, because in his detailed discussion of justification, the Law and Gospel antithesis remains a vital reference point” (p. 163; cf. p. 175 n. 141; cf. also p. 22 on Calvin’s perspective on union with Christ). All this sets Murray apart from both Roman Catholic theology and the modern theology of the likes of C. H. Dodd and Emil Brunner.

For many Murray’s impeccable credentials are obvious. For others, who have been hindered from objecting to Murray’s theology by the sacrosanct standing he occupies in the more recent tradition of Westminster Calvinism, the Shepherd controversy of twenty years past has provided a convenient foil by which to attack Westminster Seminary. Yet, Jeon helpfully, fairly and accurately notes that “Murray stands in the tradition of covenant theology by arguing that the antithesis between Law and Gospel and Letter and Spirit are interchangeable” (p. 187). Accordingly, the rumor that subtly hints that Murray is ultimately responsible for the so-called theological demise of Westminster Seminary just does not fit the facts. Such a thesis is not simply wrong. It is in fact shoddy in its treatment of Murray and his admirers. We may go further. It is Gemeingefährlich (dangerous to the public), because it downplays, for whatever reason (let God discern), the diversity that exists in the history of the Reformed tradition among theologians (whether Calvin or the later Calvinists) whose orthodoxy was unquestionable.[4] More of this later.

In the third chapter Jeon turns his attention to Kline, specifically his focus on covenant or kingdom theology (they stand or fall together). Contrary to those arguing that the covenant motif overshadows that of kingdom, Jeon tells us that according to Kline covenant hermeneutics must justify the kingdom motif (p. 191; cf. p. 194). Kline is therefore to be congratulated in his efforts to do justice to the kingdom motif in a tradition that has too frequently allowed the narrower concept of covenant to overshadow kingdom.[5]

Unlike Murray, however, Kline’s references to covenant recognize a covenant of works as well as a covenant of grace (labeled by Kline the covenant of redemption and including what has traditionally gone by the same name, only now renamed by Kline the Intratrinitarian covenant [p. 213]). In fact, it is at this very juncture that the stakes are increased, for whereas Murray could fully support his colleagues in the publication of material that countenanced a covenant of works (p. 106 n. 4 cont.), “Kline sees the modern rejection of the foedus operum as a serious theological deviation because it obliterates the antithetical principles of works and grace in subsequent covenants that impinge on the bestowal of the original eschatological kingdom goal” (p. 191). It is this antithesis that serves as the hermeneutical reference point for depicting the divine kingdom program in historia salutis.

For support of a covenant of works (which he prefers to call a covenant of creation [p. 196]), Kline draws together a wide range of ideas. Given that Jeon later describes Kline’s “extensive development of the original eschatology of the Garden” as his “distinctive contribution to covenant hermeneutics” (p. 272), it is worth summarizing in greater detail the description of Kline’s thought at this point. First, Jeon mentions that man’s creation in the divine image was intentionally covenantal. The relationship that existed between God and Adam was not, therefore, covenantal in a supplemental sense to that natural relationship that there evidently was. Thus, the creation account contains no disjunction between nature and covenant (p. 196). Accordingly, the Sabbath was a covenantal blessing patterned after God’s work in creation and indicative of the fact that God’s glorious work of creation was a process of covenant-making (p. 200). Other indicators of a covenant of creation include the awesome presence of the Glory-Spirit—a token of God’s sovereign and covenantal lordship over creation (p. 203) and an act of covenantal engagement (p. 204); the marriage ordinance, being covenantal or communal, reflecting the nature of the relationship between Adam and Eve and their Maker (ibid.); the eschatological sanctions, which focused on the tree and were understood in sacramental and probationary (conditional) terms respectively (Gen 2:9 and 3:22, and 2:16-17); and the primal parousia of the Glory-Spirit, which attended the fall of Adam and Eve, serving as a portent of “the day of the Lord”—a later reference to the divinely administered lawsuit against covenant-breakers (p. 212). If all these factors were not sufficient evidence of the covenantal nature of the relationship between Godand Adam, Kline points finally to the confirmation derived from the Old Testament’s use of creation motifs first encountered in the original Edenic order (p. 202).

With Kline’s confident defense of a covenant of works laid out, Jeon proceeds to unpack how he followed Vos in understanding redemptive history to be governed by an a priori establishment of the covenant of works. Thus, having briefly unpacked Kline’s case for the Intratrinitarian covenant (p. 214), Jeon then turns to a lengthier treatment of Kline’s view of the covenant of redemption (alias the covenant of grace). To those familiar with covenant theology, Jeon’s repeated reassurances that Kline is in the tradition of classic covenant theology seem overdone. Those in the Murray tradition do not doubt this. They simply object to the dogmatism of the mindset that Kline has fostered, which seems to imply that one has to be Klinian in order to be orthodox. Nevertheless, Jeon’s reassurances are intended for practical purposes. That is, to provide a readiness for his exposition of the discontinuity running parallel to the continuity of Kline’s understanding of the covenant of redemption: from the inauguration of the covenant of redemption through the prediluvian and postdiluvian Noachic covenants, the Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic and New Covenants. In order to avoid implying that Kline’s talk of the discontinuity of the covenant is an incipient form of Dispensationalism, Jeon sets out to demonstrate that while there are discontinuities at a covenantal level between the various modi administrationis of the covenant of redemption (pp. 214–35), the continuities can be discerned from the ongoing unfolding of the typological kingdom throughout the old covenant. What discontinuity there is is rooted in the transition from old to new covenants: typological to antitypological kingdom. Even here, however, the discontinuity is bridged by the Christocentric motif (p. 239), which connects the typological to the eschatological fulfillment of the kingdom (p. 240). Thus, in the pages that follow Jeon explains Kline’s application of his scheme to classical, revisionist and half-way or progressive Dispensationalists respectively on the one hand (pp. 240–46), and Daniel Fuller, an American neoorthodox representative, on the other (p. 252ff.). Accordingly, he fairly arrives at the deduction that “if we carefully observe the substance of Kline’s thesis, then we cannot identify Kline with a Lutheran or dispensationalist position because Kline adopts and builds on classic covenant theology in his understanding of the Old Covenant” (p. 238).

With this Westminster Calvinists can agree. Kline’s straightforward hermeneutical distinction between the covenant of works and grace, being equivalent to the Law-Gospel antithesis, enables him to support a classic Protestant understanding of justification. Accordingly, the remainder of Jeon’s third chapter is taken up with Kline’s appropriate insistence that Protestants safeguard their heritage. There must be no mixture of Law and Grace (pp. 262–63). Given the Adam-Christ parallel, Christ’s meritorious obedience must imply that Adam could only have received justification on the same basis, namely the strict justice of merited obedience. Accordingly, there was, strictly speaking, no grace in Eden.[6]

The problem with Kline’s pioneering attempt to put covenant in the context of kingdom is not ultimately theological (although we are free to differ from him where necessary), rather it is methodological and attitudinal. Methodologically speaking, after a while the complexity of Kline’s perspective on the old and new covenants begins to challenge the perspicuity of Scripture! Not only so. Jeon’s criticism of Moise´s Silva for not fully elaborating Kline’s system (p. 250) suggests rather startlingly that every complex nuance of Kline’s schema has become in certain eyes a non-negotiable of Reformed orthodoxy. This assessment is apparently confirmed by the increasing rash of somewhat quick, easy and irresponsible accusations of neo-orthodoxy generally arising from the insistence that to be Reformed is to be Klinian. The Reformation application of the Humanist principle of ad fontes to both Scripture and the tradition suggests, however, in light of the renaissance in Calvin studies, that “jot and tittle” Klinians do not have a monopoly on what it means to be genuinely Reformed, as Calvin’s federal theology amply demonstrates.

In the fourth and final chapter, which is most crucial, Jeon draws together his findings, focusing particularly on three issues: the reaffirmation of the distinction between the covenant of works and grace respectively, the Mosaic covenant, and the doctrine of justification in the light of the Law-Gospel antithesis. As to the first issue, Jeon lauds Murray’s accent on divine sovereignty in his defining of the term covenant, but laments—from what appears to have been an a priori presupposing of Murray’s error—that the definition has only the covenant of grace in view; that is, a limitation of the covenant concept to the context of redemption (p. 286). He notes by contrast Kline’s broader definition, which incorporates both the covenants of works and grace respectively, and is also inclusive of the concept of kingdom and the supplementation of divine sovereignty with human responsibility (pp. 280–81).

In regards to the second issue, the Mosaic covenant, Jeon writes: “Murray seeks to revise, whereas Kline tries to mature and flower covenant theology in respect to the Mosaic covenant” (p. 307). Although both are agreed that believers in the Old Covenant were saved and justified by the principle of foedus gratiae they differ sharply about the inauguration of the Mosaic covenant in Exod 19–24. Whereas Murray understood it to have been unilateral and in continuity with the Abrahamic and New covenants—thereby channeling clear water between his brand of covenant theology and Dispensationalism (pp. 312–13)—Kline, as mentioned earlier, understands the inauguration as both continuous and discontinuous. This may explain why his intricate understanding of the Mosaic covenant appears to operate at two levels. In terms of the covenant-making process grace was operative, but in the limited terms of the administration of the typological nation of Israel the principle of law operated as a reapplication of the prelapsarian covenant of works (pp. 308–9, 311).

Despite Kline’s noteworthy emphasis on kingdom, further work is nevertheless warranted if Kline’s theology is to avoid the breeding of confusion. Jeon notes this also. If, on the basis of the reapplication of the covenant of works to the Mosaic covenant, the Israelites’ corporate obedience was necessary to merit continuation of their national blessings and security in the typological kingdom, the obedience required must have been perfect. As this was not possible, the word merit must be inappropriate here (pp. 313–14; cf. p. 333). Whatever, such are the intricacies of Kline’s position that one can but hope that his followers will come up with a less complex version, yet one that is substantive enough to demonstrate why it has not in fact been guilty of perpetrating an unwitting Dispensationalism, regardless of denials to the contrary.

In regard, finally, to the doctrine of justification, Jeon concludes that by virtue of holding to the Law-Gospel antithesis both theologians are in basic agreement (pp. 314 and 318).That said, given the new perspective interpretation of Paul (on E. P. Sanders in particular see the extensive n. 75 on pp. 314–18), with the challenge it presents to the Reformation doctrine of justification, those of both the Murray and Kline trajectories will have to justify their continued adherence to the all-importance of the Law-Gospel antithesis. Yet, it is to be hoped that in their shared commitment to both the Law-Gospel antithesis and the Protestant doctrine of justification the admirers of Murray and Kline may yet come to a glad appreciation of the fact that what unites them far outweighs that which divides them. Accordingly, Jeon’s work demonstrates that it is not too late for a united (even if not uniform) front in proclaiming and defending the riches of federal theology.

II. The Implications of the Debate

The great strength of Jeon’s account is its descriptive qualities, and the clarity with which the author has summarized the complex arguments. To have the covenantal theologies of the two theologians summarized in juxtaposition within the same volume is indeed helpful. Yet, the volume possesses in addition a fivefold significance of which even Jeon may not be aware.

First, by committing a passing factual error in referring to Murray as Kline’s predecessor (p. 191), the author draws the reader’s attention to the thought that only perhaps in the orbit of Westminster Seminary or conservative Presbyterianism in general could the thoughts of a systematic theologian and an Old Testament scholar be compared and contrasted! Although Jeon misses some of the all-important sub-text of what is going on in the theological reflection of conservative Presbyterians, it is worth noting that the reason for being able to deal with Murray and Kline together is that the former, as is well known, sought to inform his systematics with biblical theology, while the latter, as is not so widely recognized, desired to demonstrate somewhat apologetically how his Old Testament biblical theology coalesces with the teaching of Reformed orthodoxy (p. 192). All this is somewhat ironic, for whereas those of a Klinian bent have not been slow in suggesting that Murray was biblicistic ( Jeon included [pp. 286 and 331]), there has been inadequate recognition of the dogmatic construal that has influenced, however subtly, the multiple terms and nuances found in Kline’s exposition of Scripture. Thus, whereas Murray appears keen to maintain the credibility of the tradition’s theology by debunking more scholastic aspects of its form, Kline sets about the same goal by weaving into his biblico-theological reflections nuances more reminiscent of the traditional scholastic methodological structure of the theology of Westminster Calvinism. Whether intentional or not, Jeon unwittingly implies as much when he claims that “Kline’s biblical covenant theology brings to maturity classic covenant theology while maintaining the validity of the antithesis between the covenants of works and grace” (p. 279). The impact of these various approaches for their respective theologies as well as the future of Westminster Calvinism we shall consider below.

Secondly, Jeon exposes the unnecessary polarization of the debate. Kline must take considerable responsibility for this. While well-meaning no doubt, it was he, according to Jeon, who set the regrettable precedent of placing Murray in a so-called “revisionist tradition” (p. 254 n. 120). While it is true that Murray was a revisionist in his understanding of the Old Covenant, it is a signal unfairness to him to rank him alongside the neo-orthodox such as Daniel Fuller in America, Karl Barth in Switzerland, and James and Thomas Torrance in Scotland.[7] It is to the detriment of Kline’s reputation that neither he nor his followers have corrected this slur. We are grateful to Jeon, then, for belatedly correcting Kline when he notes that “Fuller, however, unlike Murray, does not explain the covenant of grace in the light of the antithesis between Law and Grace” (ibid.). It is important that Jeon has done so, for in doing so he makes inexcusable any further charges of neo-orthodoxy against Murray and those sympathizing with him.

Thirdly, Jeon draws our attention to the fact that Westminster Calvinism, far from being a complete or closed system, contains much scope for development, especially the shaping of a consensus on issues not yet settled by either the Westminster Confession or the history of the tradition, and which may not be subject to tight dogmatic definition in Scripture either:

(1) In all the debate about the Edenic scenario there has been little attempt to define the meaning of grace.[8] It is to Kline’s credit that he has made the attempt. However, we could have wished that he not made orthodoxy to hang so definitely on the assumed correctness of his particular understanding of grace. In terms of contemporary discussion among Westminster Calvinists, Kline has had the first word on grace, not the last. It is inappropriate then for either Kline or his admirers to deduce somewhat dogmatically that the positing of grace in Eden must inevitably forma denial of Reformation doctrine.[9] To be consistent the same would have to be said of Calvin (and quite probably the WCF as well [see 7:1]), but who is going to make that charge?

(2) Also unresolved is the related question of Adam’s status in Eden. Was he a son or a subject of God, or both? While the question has considerable significance for the positing of grace in Eden the absence within the tradition of a definition of divine Fatherhood has, on the rare occasions when the matter has arisen (such as in the Candlish/Crawford debate of the 1860s), prevented a definitive resolution of the matter.

(3) Debate continues as to the very definition of the term covenant. Jeon notes not only the difference of opinion between Murray (“a sovereign administration of divine grace and promise” [p. 286]) and Kline (“a particular administration of God’s kingdom” [p. 194]), but also the mediating definition of O. Palmer Robertson (“bond in blood sovereignly administered” [p. 281]).

(4) A fresh examination is required as to how essential a covenant of works is for the maintenance of the Law-Gospel antithesis. It is one thing to be persuaded that Scripture unpacks the Edenic scenario in explicit covenantal terms; it is quite another to argue that this is the only permissible interpretation that guarantees the legitimacy of the language of Law and Gospel.[10] Certainly Murray appears not to have thought so. He was in good company, for from the little we can glean from Calvin’s less detailed brand of covenant theology he does not appear to have thought so either.[11] Why, then, has it become essential in later Calvinism for Law and Gospel to be understood against the backdrop of a covenant of works? Why could not God’s encounter with Adam have been rooted in natural law (the law written on his heart) rather than in a relationship understood explicitly as covenantal? Unless, of course, Adam could exercise no representative headship of the human race without that relationship to his posterity being defined in explicitly federal (foedus) terms. Or is the choice that stark? Is it possible that the Edenic scenario was non-covenantal, yet contained pre-covenantal (that is, anticipatory) emblems? We merely pose the question. Nevertheless, it determines whether a covenant of works is a non-negotiable of federal theology, which, of course, Klinians insist it is. If so, the issue is settled as to whether the covenant of works was an improvement on Calvin in the historical development of federal theology.[12] While these matters are not new, they are worthy of being revisited in the fresh light of the contemporary study of Calvin.[13]

Fourthly, Jeon exposes the need of caution against the overload of extrabiblical theological terminology. While our tradition needs to follow Kline’s example in investigating how the motifs of kingdom and covenant connect, a more preachable version ismuch to be preferred. That said, we realize the complexities of interrelating the concepts of covenant and kingdom, but Klinians ought to hesitate before charging Murray with biblicism. The charge that Murray’s “covenantal theological logic is biblicistic in that it causes him to overlook the rich biblical-theological evidence for the covenant of works such as man as the imago Dei, the Sabbath motif and others” (p. 286) is an accusation that cuts both ways, for much that is biblical in Murray’s thought will inevitably appear biblicistic when governed by a perspective liable to the charge of dogmatically construing Scripture. It was precisely because Murray wished to work within categories and concepts obviously rooted in Scripture that he was drawn to an expression of federal theology more reminiscent of the biblical-theological expression of Calvin’s federal theology than that of later Calvinism.

Why, then, should Murray’s theological credentials be any more suspect than Calvin’s? After all, the reformer subsumed all redemptive history under the covenant of grace as is clear from his vague reference to “all men [being] adopted [cooptat ] by God into the company of his people since the beginning of the world were covenanted [ foederatos] to him by the same law and by the bond of the same doctrine as obtains among us.”[14] To be consistent Klinians must surely conclude that Calvin fell as far short as Murray of the impeccable standards they have set for Reformed orthodoxy. This is possible, for Calvin was fallible, but it is also plausible that the standard set is inappropriate.

The time has come for some generosity on the part of Kline and his epigones. Before dismissing those of the Murray tradition with misplaced suggestions of neo-orthodoxy, in the name of Christian charity there may be some mileage in investigating whether in fact Murray was influenced by sixteenth-century Geneva rather than twentieth-century Basel. That said, those sympathetic to Murray will need to think very clearly about how a biblical dogmatic can give greater attention to the kingdom motif alongside that of covenant while maintaining much of the beautiful simplicity of his exposition of Scripture. Fifthly, implied in these methodological issues is not simply the defense of federal theology and with it the doctrine of justification, but the manner in which such an apologia is undertaken. This is no small matter. Our chosen apologetic approach will determine for many the credibility of Reformed orthodoxy for years to come. A mere repetitive banging of the forensic drum, for instance, is proving ineffective in persuading multitudes of the reformers’ understanding of justification. This cardinal doctrine is set firmly in the biblical context of paternal grace and love, as it is in Calvin. Thus, while Kline’s references to both the forensic and familial aspects of scriptural teaching are in principle reminiscent of Calvin, contrary to Kline, Calvin sets law very much in the context of grace.

Accordingly, we cannot but infer that Kline’s setting of grace in the context of law is the perpetuation of a reactionary mindset shaped by the Reformation and post-Reformation need to defend the forensic nature of justification. Such a defense was (and is) extremely necessary, but its weakness lies not in what it says of the law of God, but in the manner in which it allowed an apologetic emphasis on the forensic nature of justification to overshadow the grace of God in the gospel as manifest in the forgotten themes of the Fatherhood of God and the adoption of his sons and daughters. In fact, it may be claimed with some warrant that our failure to do justice to the grace of God from within a biblical framework was what gave rise in the first place to aberrant attempts to balance law with grace. These attempts may very well account for either the reversal of Law and Gospel (Gospel-Law, as in Barth) or the suffusion of one with the other (Law in Gospel and Gospel in Law, as is characteristic of legalistic and antinomian systems of belief). The fact that these attempts ended up diluting the forensic element of the gospel should not blind us to the imbalance they sought to correct. Our point in all this is that the strength of Kline’s endeavor to protect the place of law proves to be its very weakness. In this he but continues the apologetic inadequacies of the later Calvinism of the preceding centuries.[15]

Yet awareness of the extent of these implications is absent from Jeon’s monograph. To be fair to him, his omitting of much comment on the broader relevance of the Murray-Kline debate is really a reflection of the truncated nature of the covenantal and soteriological discussions of later Calvinism. Accordingly, Jeon’s volume makes certain assumptions that require substantiation in the current climate. These include the very defining of the Law-Gospel antithesis as well as the understanding of that to which it refers. A uniform definition and a convincing warrant for its hermeneutical usefulness is particularly requisite if the Protestant community is to remain persuaded that the antithesis is indeed a yardstick of orthodoxy. In short, Jeon’s volume would have proven more useful had he not assumed so many first principles which, while acceptable to Murray and Kline and their admirers, are not necessarily so to the contemporary reader.

III. The Limitations of the Debate

With insufficient exposure given to the motives prevalent among the neoorthodox for their rejection of federal theology, Jeon’s worthy ecumenical endeavor to reduce the tension of the Murray-Kline debate restricts the relevance of his work to Westminster Calvinists. The volume has little if anything to say to the Reformed community at large, which provides further evidence that contemporary debates among Westminster Calvinists have become but a sideshow in the context of the broader Reformed tradition. This is to an extent our own doing. Our incapability of discerning the kernel of truth in the neoorthodox protest has proven costly to the welfare of Westminster Calvinism. Had we taken the trouble to listen to our critics we could have responded in such a way as both to defend and advance the cause of Westminster Calvinism. As things stand, however, the acceptance of the validity of aspects of the neo-orthodox protest has become tantamount to the rejection of federal theology, when, in reality, conceding the kernel of truth may be the very means of resuscitating the credibility of federal theology in the mainstream of Reformed thought. Take, for instance, the fundamental issue of the Law-Gospel antithesis. Simply rejecting as illegitimate attempts to modify its formulation does nothing to address the underlying concerns that have led to the discarding of it. As these usually include a concern to reflect more proportionately the biblical profile of the paternal grace and love of God our community would do well to listen before arriving at judgment. For to pre-judge the issue does nothing to improve either the exposition or the defense of the Reformed faith. What is needed then is a fresh approach to the Law-Gospel hermeneutic that does justice to both the forensic nature of justification on the one hand and, on the other hand, to the paternal grace and love of God to which the doctrine points. Stated otherwise, we ought not to expect a diminishing of the criticisms leveled against Westminster Calvinists until we begin to do justice to the familial, gracious and loving nature of the gospel, yet without falling prey to the Roman Catholic and neoorthodox rejection of much that is forensic.

While the great strength of the Law-Gospel antithesis is the emphasis it gives to the objective nature of the atonement, rooted as it is in the strictly judicial principle of meritorious obedience, there is something unsatisfactory about the glib manner in which the hermeneutic is appropriated. What is apparent from Jeon’s discussion is that the Law-Gospel antithesis has become a catchphrase for the essential core of the gospel, which, if used excessively encourages a reductionist approach not only to the content of the gospel but to its wonder as well. We need to guard ourselves, therefore, from referring to the Law-Gospel antithesis as if all we have in mind is a mechanical legal process. Four reasons account for this possibility.

First, the historical prioritization of the Law-Gospel order (law in Adam, gospel in Christ) does little to accent the divine causation of the gospel. When understood causally we may more readily and more fully understand why there must have been either grace in Eden (contrary to Kline’s later teaching [p. 287]), or at least graciousness. However this grace or graciousness is understood to have emanated from God (revealed as either Judge, Father or both), it is clear that it set the context for the operation of divine justice in the garden. Such a description of life in Eden goes some way to expressing the encircling or encapsulating of the forensic core of the gospel with a biblically commensurate emphasis on the grace and love of God. Thus, by the language of encircling or encapsulation we may affirm the teaching of the WCF when it says that the gospel began with a voluntary condescension of God (7:1). We may add that it also culminates in the descension of God through a rejuvenated heaven to its terrestrial counterpart (Rev 21:1–5). In this sense we must ensure that any shorthand references to law and gospel imply a gospel that is all of grace—from protology (predestination) to eschatology (consummation), from election to glorification. By doing so we will balance the forensic workings of the gospel with a more explicit focus on the gracious intent of God, often unwittingly downplayed among later Calvinists.

As things stand, Kline’s strong defense of orthodoxy is in danger of making but implicit the explicit lavishness of God’s saving grace. In other words, the Klinian emphasis on strict terms of justice may express the fullness of the Reformation principle of sola fide, but not necessarily sola gratia! The question then is not the validity of the Law-Gospel antithesis per se, or the order of it (Gospel- Law), nor indeed the suffusion of it (Law in Gospel/Gospel in Law), but the way in which the Law-Gospel antithesis requires encircling or encapsulating from first to last with divine grace. It is this grace that has so ordered things that with the failure of the first Adam to merit eschatological blessing a second and last Adam was ordained to succeed.

In a similar vein, it follows, secondly, that the Law-Gospel antithesis provides little explicit systematic expression of the love of God. The hermeneutical principle shifts our attention from the gospel as a remarkable placarding of the love of God, to the strict justice that must prevail if a forensic view of justification is to be protected. Safeguarded it must be, but a portrayal of the gospel that does not leave us overwhelmed by the superlative love of God in providing us with a meritorious Savior, is tantamount to a heresy of silence. Thus, the problem with our later Calvinism is not what it says about strict justice, but what it does not say about the abundance of divine love. However the relationship between God and Adam is defined (whether as a covenant of creation or as an Adamic Administration), shining through the condescending grace of God was a love so extravagant that upon Adam’s failure to merit the blessedness and reward of obedience “the Lord was pleased [no judicial sanction or reticence here] to make a second, commonly called the Covenant of Grace” (WCF7:3). In this Covenant of Grace God “freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved; and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe.”

Get the picture? God in love so throws himself into saving his people that he found a way by which, in his unsurpassable wisdom, he could both save the apples of his eye and yet retain the integrity of his justice; only, however, at a personal, extortionate yet payable cost: the death of the God-man! To fall back on Anselm’s theory of satisfaction: As God, he alone could pay the price, as man he alone ought to pay it. Again, then, we see that the Law-Gospel antithesis is encircled not simply by a gracious condescension—for that need not necessarily imply a knowledge of those upon whom God looks—but with a love that conspires to find a way in which the unholy and the unlovely may yet be in relationship with the Holy One.

Thirdly, a bare exposition of the Law-Gospel antithesis is inadequate to express the familial tenor of the gospel. To date, there has been little concern that it should do. There are signs, however, that things are slowly changing. As they do, the difficulties of introducing into the picture the complementary notions of the Fatherhood of God and the sonship of believers will become apparent. Such has been the sensitivity to protect all that is forensic that any belated concern to retrieve these notions will sound to ears bred on the juridical atmosphere of later Calvinistic theology like either a throwback to Victorian liberalism or a concession to the current distaste for the forensic in salvation. The truth is that there is no reason ex necessitate why such fears should prevail, especially given the precedent set in the tradition by no less a figure than Calvin. Whereas these fears may yet prove to be unfounded, glaringly obvious has been the past and present failure of the persistent one-dimensional approach to the defense of Reformed orthodoxy. The exclusive pre-occupation with the forensic aspects of the gospel has neither succeeded in stemming the hemorrhaging of the Westminster Community (notwithstanding the successive generations of newcomers to the Reformed faith), nor in reflecting the familial tenor of both New Testament teaching, the WCF (ch. 12) or the Calvinism of the Reformation era. Whether in the exposition or the defense of Westminster Calvinism, the assumption remains that the gospel terminates on the sinner’s freedom from condemnation and not his reception into the family of God.

Fourthly, and briefly, the glib, inadequate and yet convenient structure of the Law-Gospel antithesis does not express sufficiently the third use of the law in Christian living. In which case, we may legitimately speak of Law-Gospel-Law, or, given the preceding paragraph even Gospel-Law-Gospel-Law. To this it may be objected that the hermeneutical principle has to do with salvation. This being so, what is to guard us from antinomianism? After all, was not one of the purposes of the principle to guard us from antinomianism and not solely legalism? On the other hand, the purely theoretical description Gospel-Law-Gospel-Law would leave us with the impression that Gospel begins with grace but ends in legality. Thus, to express the fact that the gospel begins with grace but ends with glory we might want to settle for a Gospel-Law-Gospel-Law-Gospel definition.

Now, of course, all this is becoming somewhat bizarre and a confusion of grace and gospel. But perhaps this is the very point. While the current discussion of the Law-Gospel antithesis requires more definition and qualification, there is a problem. Are we to accept unquestioningly the glib manner in which the hermeneutical tool is currently appropriated? If not, how far is it possible to go in defining the principle more rigorously before it becomes unwieldy. Let us be clear. We do not question its validity; what is questionable is the extent to which it has been pressed into service with seemingly little clear-cut consensus concerning its very definition.[16] Although a warranted expression of the essential core of the gospel, the antithesis’s shorthand ought not to be considered the gospel’s full ambit. Accordingly, the admirers of Murray and Kline may continue to go back and fore about how best to state the Law-Gospel antithesis, but in a climate of less suspicion they may feel freer to consider issues besides strict justice and the meritorious obedience of Christ. In making this point, we would not want to say that the gospel is less than strict justice, but we do want to say that it is a lot more. It is a matter of the grace and love of God, displayed in the adoption of his own, having met through the obedience of Christ the demands of divine justice.

While all this may seem increasingly far afield from the concerns of Jeon’s volume, it is our belief that what is genuinely significant about the Murray- Kline debate can only be rightly understood in a broader historical, theological and ecclesiastical context. Such a context relativizes the importance of the debate itself, specifically the disagreement over a covenant of works, while heightening the significance of the fact that these two recent theologians, against all the influences at work in the broader Reformed community, considered federal theology worthy of both exposition and defense. Were today’s up and coming federal theologians to reassess the importance of the more basic lesson emerging from the Murray-Kline debate then perhaps we could have greater hopes for a unified defense of federal theology. As things stand, however, this is unlikely. Readings of the history of our theology that are intended to forge a uniform approach to federal theology are, at present, far too monolithic to give way to a more nuanced understanding of the tradition conducive to a genuine unity on the non-negotiables of federal theology.

We owe it to future generations of Westminster Calvinists to reduce the debate to a discussion of the issues based on the acceptance of the orthodoxy of Murray and Kline and geared toward the joint defense of the non-negotiables of federal theology. In this way we may finally move beyond the current impasse, a stalemate that is destructive to the internal harmony of Westminster Calvinism and so counter-productive to an apologetic defense of federal theology within the broader Reformed community.

We may begin looking to the future by asking whether it is possible for unwarranted charges of Barthianism and Torrancianism against Murrayite sympathizers to be dropped?[17] Certainly Jeon’s work begs such a question, but so does a fresh consideration of the current landscape of Reformed theology.

Accusations of neo-orthodoxy so easily arise because it is generally perceived that in the Reformed community of the English-speaking world two parties (broadly speaking) operate: those who accept the WCF as an acceptable and workable creed and those who do not (Westminster Calvinism and, what I have elsewhere called, revisionist Calvinism respectively [see below]). In the context of discussions of federal theology the logic runs as follows. To deny a covenant of works is contrary to the confession, therefore the one denying the Edenic covenant does not accept the confession. Consequently, such a person must belong to the neo-orthodox (revisionist Calvinistic) wing of the Reformed tradition. However such logic appears to the reader, it was probably what determined Kline’s erroneous lumping of Murray with Daniel Fuller in a revisionist tradition. In other words, if Murray’s teaching of the Adamic administration was not clearly a Westminster Calvinistic position he must have been, by default, a revisionist Calvinist. While such a deduction appears plausible and has been repeated in numerous other instances by Kline’s followers, Jeon’s work makes clear that Murray did not have neo-orthodox leanings. How then are we to understand his place in Westminster Calvinism?

What is increasingly apparent from the parallel debates over subscription, creation, the Sabbath, worship and so on is that among Westminster Calvinists (that is, those accepting the WCF as an acceptable and workable creed) two parties now operate: what we may call orthodox and constructive Calvinists.[18] While this distinction is by no means absolute, and is subject to the general problems endemic in the use of labels, we may say in this context that whereas orthodox Calvinists are traditional later Calvinists seeking to be faithful to the form and content of the WCF, constructive Calvinists are usually the product of later Calvinism and in sympathy with it, yet wish to see the moderate scholastic form of Westminster Calvinism recast in the biblical-theological approach to theology of Scripture and, in the Reformed tradition, of Calvin most notably. Thus, constructive Calvinists differ from orthodox Calvinists on issues of method, a difference that gives rise to modest theological and attitudinal variations within the realm of Reformed orthodoxy.

Whatever the drawbacks to this distinction, it nevertheless gives valid expression to what is going on in Westminster Calvinism today. Had Kline recognized the distinction within Westminster Calvinism between orthodox and constructive Calvinism he may never have created such a culture of suspicion in which Murray or his admirers could become perceived as neo-orthodox. In fact, within the orbit of Westminster Seminary we may say that Murray was the Father of constructive Calvinism. Being a Westminster Calvinist through and through, yet influenced by Calvin’s more biblical-theological approach he occupied a center-right position vis-à-vis neo-orthodoxy (revisionist Calvinism). Remaining loyal to Reformed orthodoxy, constructive Calvinists who follow Murray’s example nevertheless often discern justification for some of the neoorthodox concerns; but, being in sympathy with orthodox Calvinism, they will demur from neo-orthodox solutions to the theological issues at stake in Westminster Calvinism. It is in this sense that the difference between orthodox and constructive Calvinism is in the final analysis methodological and attitudinal, as is seen, for example, in the Murray-Kline debate.

By desiring to place the Law-Gospel antithesis in a broader and fuller context of redemptive history, the constructive Calvinist seeks to uphold the idea of strict justice while nevertheless giving bolder expression to the gracious, loving and familial nature of God’s relationship to his people. While the attempt to balance the juridical and familial expression of the gospel entails a modification of the form of Westminster Calvinism, necessarily involving a modest and sound knock-on effect on its content, what is essential to the federal theology of Westminster Calvinism ought not only to be maintained but also enhanced by a fresh tenor resonating with that of Scripture. If constructive Calvinists succeed in this then we shall not only have answered the Barthian and Torrancian (revisionist Calvinist) critics of federal theology, we shall have terminated years of theological sterility among Westminster Calvinists (traditional orthodox Calvinists), brought on by an understandable yet shortsighted mindset that has proven unable in recent centuries to see beyond the defense of Westminster Calvinism.

IV. Conclusion

All in all, then, Jeon’s work is useful. It gives a thorough overview of an important debate within our tradition. As his sympathies evidently lie with Kline, speaking methodologically mine lie with Murray, although I remain open to benefit from Kline. What criticisms I have made of Kline have been intended to reduce the level of acrimony among Westminster Calvinists and not to aggravate it.[19] But there can only be genuine unity in the defense of federal theology if it is made to rest on the Law-Gospel antithesis itself and not on a covenant of works in se (p. 329). Therein lies the issue. Our response will be determined by whether we consider a covenant of works to be the regulating principle of federal theology. But that is an investigation for another day.

Notes

1. A review of Jeong Koo Jeon, Covenant Theology: John Murray’s and Meredith Kline’s Response to the Historical Development of Federal Theology in Reformed B.AXSY||Thought (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1999. X + 363 pp. $57.50, cloth).
2. For a brief and partial explanation of the terms orthodox Calvinism, revisionist Calvinism and constructive Calvinism see below.
3. The term “sympathetic-critical” was used by Klaas Schilder. See R. B. Gaffin, Jr.’s citation of the phrase in his essay “The Vitality of Reformed Dogmatics,” in The Vitality of Reformed Theology: Proceedings of the International Theological Congress June 20-24th 1994, Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands (ed. J. M. Batteau, J. W. Maris, and K. Veling; Kampen: Uitgeverij Kok, 1994), 21.
4. For newer members of the faculty the controversy at the seminary concerning the doctrine of justification that surrounded the teachings of Norman Shepherd is just not our frame of reference. In fact, some of us have been working from the premise that what we did not know about we could not be accused of. We have since learnt that regardless of the facts, where there is a will to make accusations there is a way. The truth is, however, that only with the publication of Norman Shepherd’s book The Call of Grace: How the Covenant Illuminates Salvation and Evangelism (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2000) have we been faced with first-hand access to his thought. Talk then of the Shepherd-Gaffin teaching or theology is calculated to mislead and is therefore insidious.
5. See the comments of Herman Ridderbos, e.g., in The Coming of the Kingdom (ed. Raymond O. Zorn; trans. H. de Jongste; Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1962), 22–23.
6. For Kline’s own comments see his volume Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview (Overland Park,Kans.: Two Age Press, 2000), 107–17. Kline’s point is that the principle of works in Eden is governed by either merit or demerit, determined judicially by performance of either covenant obedience or disobedience. Thus, to introduce the idea of grace (unmerited favor) into Eden is inappropriate. “If we appreciate the forensic distinctiveness of grace we will not thus confuse the specific concept of (soteriological) grace with the beneficence expressed in the creational endowment of man with his ontological dignity” (ibid., 114).
7. After hearing Professor James B. Torrance lecture in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the late 1990s, this reviewer asked him whether he would regard Professor Murray as being of his school of thought. Professor Torrance’s reply was, as those who know the Torrances would expect, a swift “no.” Why? Professor Torrance’s answer was unsurprising; it was because of Murray’s belief in definitive atonement. The purpose of relating this tale is to demonstrate how far apart the Torrances and Klinians generally are in what makes a thoroughgoing federal theologian. Klinians may believe that a covenant of works is the definitive gauge of where one lies on the theological spectrum, but the Torrances do not. For them the crucial issue is the extent of the atonement. Thus, when Westminster Calvinists continue the dispute about the covenant of works they do but give credence to the Torrancian claim that a covenant of works is the regulative principle of federal theology. Our forefathers did not necessarily think so, and we need not either. See, e.g., the perspectives of Hugh Martin (The Atonement: In its Relation to the Covenant, the Priesthood, the Intercession of our Lord [Edinburgh: Knox Press, 1976], 29, 39) and John L Girardeau (Discussions of Theological Questions [ed. George A. Blackburn; The Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1905; repr., Harrisonburg, Va.: Sprinkle Publications, 1986], 68–69). Both authorities on federal theology understood its regulative principle to be union with Christ.
8. This helps explain other debates in the tradition such as the ongoing reservations about the term “common grace” among the Protestant Reformed.
9. Kline assumes that the positing of grace in Eden goes hand in hand with “the mischief “ that “the covenant that ordered man’s existence could not be a covenant of works” (Kingdom Prologue, 114). On the basis of the denial of a covenant of works, he then assumes the denial of the Law- Gospel antithesis by a “blurring [of ] the concepts of work and grace,” which in turn involves “the blurring of works and faith in the doctrine of justification” leading, of course, “to the subversion of the Reformation message of justification by faith alone.” Now while Kline’s concern for the preservation of the gospel is most welcome, the logical leaps that bring him to the conclusion that the positing of grace in Eden is ex necessitate the result of a Romeward drift (ibid., 115) are simply counter-productive to the maintenance of a genuine unity among orthodox Protestants. Only on the basis of a consensual agreement with Kline’s definition of grace may we readily accept this conclusion.
10. One may readily agree with E. J. Young (cited p. 280 n. 1) that a covenantal understanding of Eden can alone do justice to the scriptural data, but that is a far cry from the assertion that a noncovenantal understanding of Eden is by definition neo-orthodox. Nothing confirms this more than what we now understand afresh of Calvin’s brand of federal theology.
11. For a recent overview of Calvin’s covenant theology see Peter Lillback’s volume The Binding of God: Calvin’s Role in the Development of Covenant Theology (Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post- Reformation Thought; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 126–41.
12. Later Calvinistic federal theologians, shaped by the moderate Protestant Scholasticism of the seventeenth century, have assumed that it was. See the comments, for instance, of John L. Girardeau, The Federal Theology: Its Import and its Regulative Influence (ed. J. Ligon Duncan III; Greenville, S.C.: Reformed Academic Press, 1994), 15. Yet, the contemporary challenges of biblical theology and the renaissance of Calvin studies re-opens the question.
13. Westminster Calvinists would do well, however, not to assume that the renaissance of Calvin studies has been hijacked by those with a Barthian agenda. To do so would not be true to the facts, although it is true to say that the divisions within the Reformed community, broadly perceived, are reflected in the study of Calvin as well as in perspectives on Westminster Calvinism. Furthermore, to brush off completely the implications of the study of Calvin for Westminster Calvinism would only exacerbate the complacency that has consistently hindered an overdue sympathetic-critical yet, nonetheless, self-critical assessment of Westminster Calvinism. What has been inadequately realized to date is that, humanly speaking, the future of Westminster Calvinism very much hangs on a fresh approach that takes into account the methodological alternative to the moderate scholasticism of the Westminster Standards that the biblical theology of Calvin presents.
14. Inst. 2.10.1 [CO 2 (30): 313].
15. For an unpacking of this see part two (especially chs. 6 and 7) of my unpublished doctoral dissertation “An Historical Study of the Doctrine of Adoption in the Calvinistic Tradition” (Ph.D. diss., University of Edinburgh, 2001). In short, it was the ongoing necessity to defend the doctrine of Justification that kept Protestants pre-occupied with the forensic elements of the faith, with the result that the emphasis on law came increasingly to predominate over grace (especially a familial portrayal of grace). Much of what follows below is, then, a continuation and an outworking of the implications of the history of the doctrine of adoption in the Calvinistic tradition.
16. It is worth noting that in discussions of Law and Gospel divorced from the Murray-Kline debate there has been far less interest in the Edenic scenario. See, e.g., John Colquhoun, A Treatise on the Law and the Gospel (ed. Don Kistler; New York: Wiley and Long, 1835; repr., Morgan, Pa.: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1999), 3–25 excepted. In fact, the evidence of the tendency of inferring as much theological data from the age of Adam as from the age of Christ suggests that despite our understanding of the progressive nature of revelation (the lessons of Rom 5:12–21 and 1 Cor 15:21–22 notwithstanding) there has been, in the process of appropriating the Adam-Christ parallel, a flattening out of the contours of redemptive history. Accordingly, there is a very real present danger of implying that the biblical parallel between Adam and Christ must produce equal quantities of theological data. While not denying the necessary details that we learn from the Edenic scenario, this is by no means automatically possible without running the danger of dogmatically construing the early chapters of Genesis.
17. In this context it ought to be said that those intent on keeping alive the controversy surrounding Norman Shepherd do so precisely because that sad episode in the seminary’s history appears to provide plausibility to what is otherwise a weak argument. But it is not the weakest. Arguments to the effect that past and present members of the faculty who have lived and studied in Scotland have thereby tacitly imbibed neo-orthodoxy are simply not worthy of refutation or explicit mention. Enough to say that while such innuendo may reflect on those against whom it is directed, for those abreast of the issues it reflects more directly and more negatively on the credibility of the apologetic orientation of Kline’s theology. Most regrettable and ironic of all, it reflects poorly on the Westminster Calvinistic case for federal theology.
18. Brief reference was made to these three terms of self-perception—orthodox Calvinism, constructive Calvinism and Revisionist Calvinism—in my article “Westminster Systematics: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” in the Westminster Bulletin (Winter 2002), but the origin and context and definition of these terms is found in my doctoral dissertation (see n. 15 above).
19. We could have wished that Kline had undertaken this endeavor, for he has an ongoing responsibility to curb those charges brought by a fringe element among his many admirers that have neither the force of truth nor the motivation of love. That he has been silent in this regard is regrettable, not simply because he has a duty to the community, but also because his credibility as a theologian is being overshadowed by the belligerency of a few of his most zealous advocates. It would be to the detriment of Westminster Calvinism were the longevity of Kline’s influence to be cut short as a result of his failure to demonstrate to his admirers the necessity and possibility of irenic discussion on matters relating to federal theology.

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

By 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]

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 viewed almost exclusively covenantally (“will God be faithful?”) and eschatologically (“how will Israel’s story end?”), so that, says Hays, “it becomes apparent that the term refers neither to an abstract ideal of divine distributive justice nor to a legal status or moral character imputed or conveyed by God to human beings.”[3] Against the background of evidence that multiple sects of first-century Judaism emphasized salvation based on God’s electing grace and not on human merit, Paul’s theology is cast more covenantally, corporately, and eschatologically than previously, with one’s reading of such key terms as “the righteousness of God,” “justification,” and “the works of the law” following suit. The supposed parallel between the medieval Catholic soteriology that stressed one’s (meritorious) works in justification and the first-century Judaism that Paul opposed breaks down. Hence, the historical debates between Catholics and Protestants are seen to be misguided at best and unfaithful to Paul at worst. Neither side, according to some of these “new perspective” advocates, puts its finger on the central covenant-eschatological pulse in Paul.[4]

It should be borne in mind that the so-called “new perspective” is not a monolithic entity, and in fact it might be more precise to speak of “new perspectives” (plural) on Paul—that is, various understandings of Pauline theology that begin from a certain consensus about Second Temple Judaism. The idea of a unified movement is a common misperception. It is really just a new starting point for understanding Paul.[5]

Both of these issues—Protestant-Catholic dialogue and the “new perspective” —cannot be settled here, but they do invite a reassessment of the doctrine of justification understood by Roman Catholics, as expressed by the Council of Trent, and by Protestants, as articulated by John Calvin.[6] To be sure, Calvin does not speak for the entire Protestant world,[7] but he is theological forebear of many weighing in on the contemporary discussions. The historical theological soundings in this paper, therefore, should not be taken to adjudicate either the ECT/“The Gift of Salvation” or the “new perspective” debate. But it is hoped that the descriptive evidence presented here, drawn principally from three sources spanning the Reformer’s career, will show that Calvin’s view of justification depends on his understanding of what he labels variously union with Christ, participation in Christ, engrafting into Christ, and communion with Christ, and that it does so to a much greater degree than is commonly recognized.[8] I argue that Calvin differs from Rome on justification not primarily in terms of the relative sequential occurrence of legal and subjective soteriological aspects, but rather in terms of the manner by which a sinner is united to Christ. If this can be established, it suggests that Calvin’s response to ECT and “The Gift of Salvation” in particular and to Roman Catholicism in general might not be the same as that historically prosecuted by some of those who claim him as spiritual father. It also intimates that Calvin, by his insistence on union with the exalted Christ as the means by which sinners benefit from God’s salvation activity in Christ, may be more faithful to Paul’s redemptive-historical orientation than some critics admit his influence on Reformed Protestantism to have been.[9]

II. The Council of Trent’s View of Justification

Calls for an ecumenical council had been sounded well before a council gathered in Trent in December 1545. What was known as the conciliar movement began in the Middle Ages in response to clerical abuses (e.g., immorality, lack of education, simony) and to papal instability and schism (e.g., Avignon papacy, Great Schism). By the time of the Reformation, the papacy had reconsolidated its power in Rome, but the general concern of clerical abuses had yet to be addressed. To the mind of the Reformers, more important even than the issue of abuses were questions of doctrine. Any ecclesiastical reforms that did not take into consideration the dogmatic differences within the church, they believed, would be tantamount to treating a gunshot wound with a band-aid. Martin Luther himself repeatedly appealed for a council to help arbitrate the debated issues, yet his own study and experience made him less than confident that such a meeting would resolve matters in a manner faithful to Scripture.[10]

Military and political campaigns throughout the 1520s and 1530s delayed the convocation of a council, campaigns not unrelated to the nationalism that had partially lit the Reformation fires. By the time Pope Paul III convened a council in Trent the European scene was altered not only by the emerging nation-states but also by the Protestant Reformation itself. Church and state were not neatly distinguished. The decision to assemble in Trent, located in northern Italy but technically in southern Germany, was itself a political concession on the part of the Pope to the Hapsburgs. Political posturing and ecclesiastical decisions were intimately related. The Council of Trent then was inherently a reaction to the recent changes taking place in Europe, most especially the Reformation. The order in which Trent addressed the issues before it bears this out.

The council met in three periods: 1545–47 (Sessions 1–10); 1551–52 (Sessions 11–16); and 1562–63 (Sessions 17–25). Lewis Spitz relates that “the president of the council, Cardinal del Monte, cited as the two main reasons for the convening of the council the growth of heresy and the need for reform of abuses.”[11] In the main, doctrinal matters were clarified in the first two gatherings, while church abuses were tackled in the last. So it was that the Council took up the doctrine of justification in the Sixth Session of its first period.

Trent’s decree on justification consists of sixteen chapters and thirty-three canons. The chapters, first, provide detailed explanations of the Roman Catholic position; the canons, then, concisely anathematize all who hold a stance which the Roman Catholics reject. In general, the chapters explain justification positively, the canons negatively. As we now turn specifically to the Roman Catholic view, W. Robert Godfrey’s six-point comparison of Trent and Calvin on justification will ably serve as a starting point for our investigation of their respective positions.[12]

In his essay “Calvin and the Council of Trent,” Godfrey enumerates six chief elements that together comprise the Roman Catholic stance on justification. First, Trent teaches that the “Christian is justified by grace, but human free will, although weakened by sin, can and must cooperate with grace.”[13] Without God’s grace, justification is impossible. All men because of Adam’s sin are no longer innocent but are children of wrath. All humans, Trent affirms, are “servants of sin,” yet their free will is “attenuated” and “by no means extinguished.”[14] To this weakened will and sinful disposition God adds his prevenient grace through an outward call. This grace enables a person to arrive at full justification. Men and women, therefore, are not entirely inactive in their salvation:

The Synod furthermore declares, that, in adults, the beginning of the said Justification is to be derived from the prevenient grace of God … that so they, who by sins were alienated from God, may be disposed through his quickening and assisting grace, to convert themselves to their own justification, by freely assenting to and co-operating with that said grace … yet is he not able, by his own free will, without the grace of God, to move himself unto justice in his sight. (ch. 5; cf. canons 1–5, 9)

Although affirming the necessity of grace, because of what it says about human free will and cooperation, this first point is most instructive, for it reveals Rome’s view of fallen man’s moral and volitional ability prior to the acquisition of the righteousness that saves.[15]

Second, the Tridentine Fathers affirm, according to Godfrey, that “[f ]aith alone does not justify, but faith and love (which produces good works) justify.”[16] Rome had traditionally held that “unformed” faith does not justify; unformed faith was tantamount to intellectual assent, what James might call devil’s faith ( Jas 2:19). Rather, faith must be “formed,” that is, filled out by one’s loving obedience. This formed faith (faith plus love/charity) allows one to be justified, couched here, notably, in terms of union with Christ: “For faith, unless hope and charity be added thereto, neither unites man perfectly with Christ, nor makes him a living member of his body [neque unit perfecte cum Christo, neque corporis eius vivum membrum effecit]” (ch. 7; my emphasis).

Put differently, and connecting this to the first point, prevenient grace grants a disposition by which sinners are “freely moved towards God, believing those things to be true which God has revealed and promised—and this especially, that God justifies the impious by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus … and they begin to love him as the fountain of all justice [= righteousness]” (ch. 6). Believing the announcement of the gospel, “understanding themselves to be sinners,” “turning themselves, from the fear of divine justice whereby they are profitably agitated, to consider the mercy of God,” and “confiding that God will be propitious to them for Christ’s sake”—all of this is viewed by Trent as the necessary preparation for, the requisite disposition prior to, receiving the righteousness of justification (ch. 6; cf. canon 9). In other words, a faith accompanied by these components (e.g., incipient love of God as the source of all blessing and renunciation of sin) is not alone sufficient to “unite man perfectly with Christ” (ch. 7).

Rather, and this is the third point Godfrey highlights, justification comes after preparation, when the merited righteousness of Christ that has been infused into the believer is inherent in him. The cooperating believer is not merely reckoned to be just, or righteous, but actually is righteous:

If anyone saith, that men are justified, either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, and is inherent in them; or even that the grace, whereby we are justified is only the favor of God: let him be anathema. (canon 11; my emphasis) … the alone formal cause is the justice of God, not that whereby he himself is just, but that whereby he maketh us just … and we are not only reputed, but are truly called, and are just, receiving justice within us. (ch. 7; my emphasis) 

For, although no one can be just, but he to whom the merits of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ are communicated, yet is this done in the said justification of the impious, when by the merit of that same most holy Passion, the charity of God is poured forth, by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of those that are justified, and is inherent therein: when, man, through Jesus Christ, in whom he is ingrafted [cui inseritur], receives, in the said justification, together with the remission of sins, all these gifts infused at once, faith, hope, and charity. (ch. 7; my emphasis)

In a word, justification for Trent involves the sinner’s becoming righteous in himself. Godfrey’s summary of the statement employs more familiar theological idioms: “Justification is not solely by the imputation or crediting of Christ’s righteousness to the Christian, but by the infusion of Christ’s righteousness into the Christian so that he actually becomes righteous.”[17]

Godfrey’s assessment certainly agrees with the intent of the Council itself: “This disposition, or preparation, is followed by Justification itself, which is not remission of sins merely, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man, through the voluntary reception of grace, and of the gifts, whereby man of unjust becomes just” (ch. 7). His focus on the language of imputation and infusion, however, does not permit him to seize upon the ideas of “ingrafting,” “union,” and “membership in Christ’s body” at work in Trent’s statement on justification. Perhaps Godfrey equates them with the concept of infusion, yet it is not clear that the ideas of union and ingrafting are strictly synonymous with infusion. The latter appears to culminate in the former; ingrafting into Christ ostensibly occurs along with justification after the requisite preparation. To be united with Christ and a living member of his body by formed faith seems to be integral to Trent’s conception of justification and the sinner’s remission of sins. It needs to be pointed out, then, that the question concerning disparate views of justification between Rome and Protestants may not turn solely on the question of infusion or imputation, as is usually thought (and fought!), but perhaps rather, or at least also, on the question of how and when one is united to Christ. The fourth element that Godfrey notes, appealing again to chapter 7, underlines more specifically Rome’s view of the relation between moral progress and justification: “Justification finally rests on the Christian acquiring and maintaining a certain level of sanctification.”[18] This more simply restates the second and third elements.

Fifthly, Trent insists, in Godfrey’s words, that the “Christian can fulfill the commands of God.”[19] Canon 18 echoes chapter 11 when it affirms that it is possible for the justified to keep the divine requirements: “If any one saith, that the commands of God are, even for one that is justified and constituted in grace, impossible to keep: let him be anathema.”

Finally, the Council of Trent denies that a Christian can be certain of his standing in grace, of his election, and of his perseverance except by special revelation; moreover, summarizes Godfrey, “such assurance would not be spiritually profitable, but would produce spiritual pride and moral indifference.”[20] Canons 13–17 discuss this point, as do chapters 9, 12, and 13.

Compared alongside Trent’s actual decrees, Godfrey’s six-point summary quite faithfully reflects the Council’s views. There is one important facet of Rome’s position, however, that Godfrey fails to mention explicitly. It is that a Christian may lose the grace of justification, although subsequently regain it through the sacrament of penance (cf. chs. 14–15; canons 23, 27–29). This loss may occur in two instances: first, if faith itself is lost; second, if a mortal sin is committed while faith remains. Godfrey alludes to this in the fourth point when he says that justification depends upon the Christian’s maintaining a certain level of sanctification, but it is curious that nothing more is made of it, especially since Calvin himself thinks this worthy of rebuttal in his “Antidote.” There he counters that neither assurance of grace nor one’s justification can be lost because faith once-for-all inseparably binds, unites, links, the believer to the indwelling Christ and to the Spirit of holiness.[21] But we are getting slightly ahead of ourselves.

Although Trent may have been convened in reaction to the novel theological exigencies in Europe at the time, the character of its dogmatic decrees was not so novel. As with any church council, differing opinions were represented, which forced the Council to state its doctrines, according to James Buchanan, “in vague and somewhat ambiguous terms, which everyone might interpret in favour of his own views.”[22] It is true that the Church had not before made any official pronouncement on justification, but reasoned opinions of the doctrine were held by ecclesiastical officials and religious orders. So although the decrees of Trent on justification may have been characterized by reaction to the Reformation (it did seek to respond to the Augsburg Confession) and by compromise to differences in the Church (it did desire to disseminate its conclusions across Christendom), they were in the final analysis a crystallization of the unofficial historic Roman Catholic consensus. Whether the decrees accurately represented the doctrine of justification taught by most parish priests is another question.[23]

To summarize, Trent makes the meritorious work of Christ the necessary presupposition of justification, which is defined as “not remission of sin merely, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man, through the voluntary reception of grace, and of the gifts whereby man of unjust becomes just, and of an enemy a friend” (ch. 7). Its doctrine of justification then involves at least these four points: (1) the prevenient infusion of divine grace; (2) the movement of the weakened but free will toward God through the awakening of faith; (3) the movement of the free will against sin as faith is linked to love and becomes formed faith; and (4) the remission of guilt as the completion of justification.[24] Although perhaps an oversimplification, Rome teaches that renovation of the person precedes remission. The critical question, however, is what this renovation entails.

III. Calvin’s View of Justification

Even the very best theologians cannot extricate themselves from the times in which they live.[25] John Calvin was not immune from his contagious polemical milieu. Many of his statements about justification are set against errors he believes others to have committed. We find his views situated in contexts of controversy and shaped somewhat apophatically. But this does not mean that Calvin’s doctrine of justification lacks its own positive freshness. Just as his teaching on the real presence in the Lord’s Supper is not a mere via media between Luther and Zwingli but possesses a scripturally faithful uniqueness, Calvin’s doctrine of justification reveals his distinctive—perhaps even incisive—scriptural insight into this important issue of soteriology. Put differently, Calvin does not develop his view of justification simply over against the errors of others; rather, when he combats the errors of others he does so based on his definite view of justification. And his positive view sees justification as a key element or benefit in the soteric complex that brings a believer into an indissoluble union and communion with Christ.

There may be some formal merit in discussing Calvin’s view of justification in six counterpoints to Godfrey’s summary of Trent, as Godfrey himself does in his lucid article. However, Calvin’s view is not most fully articulated in his “Antidote to the Council of Trent—1547,” as Rome’s view is by the Council’s official decrees. A full twelve years would elapse between his “Antidote” and the final version of his Institutes. Although in Book 3 of the 1559 Institutes Calvin echoes expressions from his earlier polemical “Antidote,” the different, more didactic and edifying purpose that guides his exposition of the book’s subject, “the way we receive the grace of Christ,” suggests that it is there, in the 1559 Institutes, where Calvin’s full systematic articulation of justification is to be found.[26] This is not to give the impression that there is a notable discrepancy between Calvin’s earlier and later views. Far from it. Just because there is a fundamental continuity between Calvin’s polemical writings, for example his letter to Sadoleto and his “Antidote,” on the one hand, and his mature Institutes, on the other, it will be instructive for us to consider these in turn.[27]

1. Justification in Calvin’s Reply to Sadoleto. When the Genevan responded in 1539 to Cardinal Sadoleto’s epistolary appeal for the Protestants to return to Rome, justification was but one of several subjects discussed. Nevertheless, Calvin identifies it as “the first and keenest subject of controversy between us.” In fact, he takes issue with what he considers to be Sadoleto’s slander against the Protestants, namely his “alleging that by attributing everything to faith, we leave no room for works.” Calvin’s response is admittedly brief: “I will not now enter upon a full discussion, which would require a larger volume … however I will briefly explain to you how we speak on this subject.” Yet his brevity is instructive, because it shows what Calvin wanted to emphasize in the matter of justification and the role of works.[28]

The Reformer put the matter in terms of a sinner’s reconciliation to God, that is, the way in which the sinner receives the righteousness that becomes his through faith. Calvin does not mince words:

We maintain that in this way man is reconciled in Christ to God the Father, by no merit of his own, by no value of works, but by gratuitous mercy. When we embrace Christ by faith, and come, as it were, into communion with Him [in eius communionem veniamus], this we term, after the manner of Scripture, the righteousness of faith.[29]

The sinner’s faith-embrace of Christ is the moment when he comes into communion with Christ and therefore receives saving righteousness. This is fully gratuitous, and just several sentences later, as elsewhere, Calvin affirms that righteousness is imputed. But his dominant point is that “God hath reconciled us to Himself in Jesus Christ. The mode is afterwards subjoined—by not imputing sin.”[30] In these statements Calvin both defends himself against Sadoleto’s slander and attacks the Roman view which would be voiced at Trent, namely, that possession of faith does not mean simultaneous possession of Christ and his justifying righteousness.

The same point is put more expansively by Calvin when he focuses in on the connection between one’s regeneration (i.e., here, definitive and progressive sanctification) and his justifying union with Christ:

We deny that good works have any share in justification, but we claim full authority for them in the lives of the righteous. For if he who has obtained justification possesses Christ, and at the same time, Christ never is where His Spirit is not, it is obvious that gratuitous righteousness is necessarily connected with regeneration…. Wherever, therefore, that righteousness of faith, which we maintain to be gratuitous, is, there too Christ is, and where Christ is, there too is the Spirit of holiness, who regenerates the soul to newness of life. On the contrary, where zeal for integrity and holiness is not in vigor, there neither is the Spirit of Christ nor Christ Himself; and wherever Christ is not, there is no righteousness, nay, there is no faith; for faith cannot apprehend Christ for righteousness without the Spirit of sanctification.[31]

This passage articulates several significant points. For Calvin, but not for Rome, the presence of Christ cannot be separated from his Spirit. Because Rome gives the Spirit an assisting role in the regeneration/sanctification of the believer, which must occur prior to, and as a condition of, justification, the believer possesses the Holy Spirit and his benefits but may not possess Christ and his benefits. Trent, we have seen, agrees that “he who has obtained justification possesses Christ,” the first premise in Calvin’s argument. They balk, however, at the second premise, viz., that Christ and his righteousness are present where his indwelling and regenerating Spirit is. No point is more basic in Calvin’s conception of salvation than this.

Onto this essential point Calvin adds two indispensable corollaries: (1) righteousness is only present where Christ is present; (2) faith is only present where Christ is present. Put positively, this means that Christ and his Spirit work together to communicate the benefits of redemption merited by Christ in his work of humiliation and exaltation. Moreover, only because Christ is actively dwelling in the believer, who is united to Christ by the Spirit, can the believer’s good works be righteous. Good works depend for their goodness on the justification that accompanies one’s possession of Christ. And just because the Spirit is present where Christ is, the Spirit of holiness will see to it that holiness is cultivated and pursued in the life of the believer. If anything, the excitement to holiness in the believer is increased on Calvin’s view because of the righteous energy of the Holy Spirit and Christ that motivates and empowers the new creature. Put negatively, Rome’s charge against Protestants that works are nowhere to be found in the believer cannot be maintained.

2. Justification in Calvin’s “Antidote.” In 1547, the same year that Sadoleto died, Calvin turned his polemical pen against the decrees that had emerged from the first sessions of the Council of Trent. These decrees would not become official until more than a decade later, but they had entered the public sphere, which to Calvin’s mind meant they were fair game for criticism. And criticize he did. The Reformer answered the dogmas chapter by chapter, canon by canon, meticulously and tirelessly. In his response to the Sixth Session on justification he accordingly begins where Trent does—and where his thoughts on justification would always end—namely, humankind’s full depravity after the fall and his absolute need to be made a new creation in union with Christ.

The first major error Calvin seeks to refute is the Roman Catholic view that a human’s spiritual will after the fall is weakened but not dead. The Genevan clearly believes, with Paul, that no matter how much the prevenient grace of God may excite man’s weakened will to cooperate in the matter of forming faith for justification, nothing less than a monergistic rebirth, a spiritual resurrection from the dead, is required for man to possess faith in the first place. What humans need, Calvin contends, is not coaxing but coercion. To put it in the form of popular idiom, it’s no use kicking a dead horse. And that is just what humans are in their will apart from the Spirit’s new creation work, in which the will to believe God’s promises and fulfill God’s commands is given to humans, implanted in them, formed in them:

… they assert that we are prepared by the grace of God for receiving Justification, but they assign to this grace the office of exciting and assisting, we ourselves freely co-operating; … But I ask, Is it the same thing to excite a will, and aid it when in itself weak, as to form a new heart in man, so as to make him willing? … It is one thing for the will to be moved by God to obey if it pleases, and another for it to be formed to be good. Moreover, God promises not to act so that we may be able to will well, but to make us will well.[32]

Later when replying to canon 4, Calvin addresses Rome’s faulty view of depravity in his discussion of effectual calling by the Spirit. The genius of his polemic lies in affirming, after a fashion, what Rome demands for a person to be justified: that a moral change must occur for justification to take place. Calvin speaks of the moral change in terms of the enlivening of a dead and sinful will by God himself, not by the sinner, and of the formation of a renovated will in man that irresistibly arrives at the destination of God’s intention:

Paul declares, not that a faculty of willing is given to us, but that the will itself is formed in us [velle ipsum in nobis effici praedicat ] (Phil. 2:13), so that from none else but God is the assent or obedience of a right will. He acts within [Intus agit ], holds our hearts, moves our hearts, and draws us by the inclinations which he has produced in us [voluntatibus eorum, quas in illis operatus est ]…. The will of man will, indeed, dissent from God, so long as it continues contrary, but when it has been framed for obedience [verum si in obedientiam composita], the danger of dissenting is removed.[33]

By accenting the requisite reversal of human will, Calvin not only seemingly grants a degree of what can be described as nothing less than infused grace which is necessary for justification, but he also underlines the exclusion of cooperation in human willing spiritual good, excluded because the willing will is produced by divine monergism, not left to the uncertain and weakened disposition of the person. Or, as Calvin puts it elsewhere: “The whole may be thus summed up—Their error consists in sharing the work between God and ourselves, so as to transfer to ourselves the obedience of a pious will in assenting to divine grace, whereas this is the proper work of God himself.”[34]

This naturally affords Calvin opportunity to explain himself in terms that he views to be decisive in the matter of justification. I have in mind his introducing the concept of union with Christ as the soteric answer to human depravity: “Assuredly a bad tree can only produce bad fruit. But who will be so shameless as to deny that we are bad trees until we are ingrafted into Christ [donec insiti in Christum simus]? … Let them anathematize Christ and Paul, who declare that all unbelievers are dead, and are raised from death by the gospel!”[35] For Calvin, regeneration (rebirth) by the Spirit and ingrafting into Christ are the necessary conditions that allow a believer to produce good fruit, which the Roman notion of a will inclined to spiritual good prior to its owner’s union with Christ effectively denies.

The second major error Calvin addresses is related to the first. Because the papists misunderstand man’s sinful nature they necessarily misunderstand justification itself. Trent is mistaken about three elements integral to the doctrine: (a) the meaning of the term; (b) the cause of justification; and (c) the role of faith as the cause.

a) Terminology. Calvin begins his refutation of Trent’s seventh chapter by contrasting definitions: “The verbal question is, What is Justification? They deny that it is merely the forgiveness of sins, and insist that it includes both renovation and sanctification.”[36] The flaw in Rome’s understanding of the term justification is that it subsumes the progressive character of one’s personal holiness under it. That is, Calvin believes that Trent conflates the theological terms justification and sanctification, thereby voiding justification of its scriptural meaning. At the same time, Calvin is keen to clarify that justification and sanctification are intimately related: “It is not to be denied, however, that the two things, Justification and Sanctification, are constantly conjoined and cohere; but from this it is erroneously inferred that they are one and the same.” He provides an illustration: “The light of the sun, though never unaccompanied with heat, is not to be considered heat. Where is the man so undiscerning as not to distinguish the one from the other? We acknowledge, then, that as soon as anyone is justified, renewal [i.e., progressive sanctification] also necessarily follows: and there is no dispute as to whether or not Christ sanctifies all whom he justifies.” His explanation of why this is echoes the answer he gave Sadoleto about the integrity of the grace that comes in connection with Christ: “It were to rend the gospel, and divide Christ himself, to attempt to separate the righteousness which we obtain by faith from repentance.”[37] These are two soteric realities not one. They are distinct but not separate. As we will see, it is the remission of sins and acquisition of righteousness in justification that does double-duty, giving value to the good works in one’s sanctification.

b) The Cause of Justification. Calvin regards justification’s cause as the heart of the disagreement between him and Rome:

The whole dispute is as to the cause of Justification. The Fathers of Trent pretend that it is twofold, as if we were justified partly by forgiveness of sins and partly by spiritual regeneration; or, to express their view in other words, as if our righteousness were composed partly of imputation, partly of quality. I maintain that it is one, and simple, and is wholly included in the gratuitous acceptance of God. I besides hold that it is without us, because we are righteous in Christ only [quia in solo Christo iusti sumus].[38]

The cause of free forgiveness of sins and imputation of righteousness which characterize justification is the sinner’s being “in Christ” by faith. Calvin’s affirmation is made explicit when he notes what Trent denies: “They deny that we are made living members of Christ by faith [Viva nos Christi membra fide effici, negant ].”[39] Again he clarifies: “when we say a man is justified by faith alone, we do not fancy a faith devoid of charity, but we mean that faith alone is the cause of justification.”[40] Faith is the cause of justification in this sense, because the sinner possesses Christ and all his righteousness when he possesses faith:

Let us remember that the nature of Faith is to be estimated from Christ. For that which God offers to us in Christ we receive only by faith. Hence, whatever Christ is to us is transferred to faith, which makes us capable of receiving both Christ and all his blessings. There would be no truth in the words of John, that faith is the victory by which we overcome the world, (1 John 5:4), did it not ingraft us into Christ [nisi nos in Christum insereret] ( John 16:33), who is the only conqueror of the world.[41]

Justifying imputation may then be considered one of the blessings (perhaps the key blessing) that is given to the believer when he is united to Christ in faith. Calvin reveals this intimate relation between imputation and union when, before summing up his thoughts via Eph 1 in reference to canon 15, he discusses together Rom 4:4–6 and 2 Cor 5:20–21 in connection with canon 11: “For [in 2 Cor 5:20–21] he immediately explains how that reconciliation comes to us…. Behold, when we have been reconciled to God by the sacrifice of Christ, also at the same time we are righteous, and indeed we are reckoned in him [En ut Christi sacrificio reconciliati Deo, simul etiam iusti, et quidem in ipso censeamur]…. One of the most striking passages is the first chapter of Ephesians (v. 6), where, going on word by word, he tells us that the Father hath made us acceptable to himself in the Son.”[42]

The force of this statement must not be missed. Calvin temporally coordinates (“simul”) the application of reconciliation to the believer and the actual possession of righteousness (“iusti”), both of which lead up to the emphatic statement (“quidem”) that we are “reckoned in him”—a reckoning, by the way, which is not fictive but actual as it points to the vital union between believer and Christ. Reconciliation and the non-imputation of sin mentioned in the just cited 2 Cor 5:17, then, are applied to believers by means of their “becoming righteous” and being “made acceptable” to God “in the Son.”[43] Hence, Calvin consciously distinguishes imputation from actual possession of righteousness through the language of union, but this distinction does not admit a separation.

Leaving to the side for the moment the precise import of the words “and are righteous,” Calvin would not, and does not, agree with Rome that in any sense sinners are declared righteous on the basis of the inherent rectitude they have cooperated to achieve. Elsewhere the Reformer vigorously contends “that it is false to say that any part of righteousness ( justification) consists in quality, or in the habit which resides in us, but we are righteous ( justified) only by gratuitous acceptance.”[44] This denial and counter-affirmation have traditionally invited the response from Roman Catholics that the Protestant view of justification is a legal fiction. Calvin’s understanding, however, of the relation between one’s imputation and one’s union with Christ, between one’s justification and his incorporation into the resurrected Christ by faith—that is between the fact that we “are righteous, and indeed we are reckoned in him”—deflects the charge. How so?

Both 2 Cor 5:20–21 and Eph 1 employ the language of being “in Christ,” which is the typically Pauline way to indicate the idea of union or incorporation into Christ as exalted Christ, not only in an elective/predestinarian sense (Eph 1:4) but also in an existential/vital sense (Eph 1:3–4, 6–7, 10–11, 13; 2 Cor 5:21).[45] In bringing together the “reckoning” of Rom 4:4–6 with especially the multiple references to union in Eph 1, Calvin apparently stresses that the righteousness of Christ approved by his exaltation (Eph 1:3–4, 20–23) is both reckoned to the believer (Rom4:5–6) and is the believer’s actual possession because sealed by the Spirit (Eph 1:13–14), who not only certifies but effects the union between Christ and believer. This is confirmed by examination of his commentaries on these passages [46] That is, Calvin’s exegetical insights lead him to affirm justification not as a legal fiction but as the profoundest Spiritual truth. Because Christ’s righteousness is the believer’s by virtue of his vital union with Christ, it is also reckoned his.[47]

c) Role of Faith as the Cause. The point to be grasped is of supreme importance in the controversy between Calvin and Trent. Whereas Trent maintains that possession and exercise of faith is the beginning step toward justification, Calvin maintains that one does not have faith without being justified: “I presume, it is already superabundantly clear, that the completion, not less than the commencement of justification, must be ascribed to faith.”[48] If faith (which is never bare intellectual assent, or “unformed” faith) instrumentally unites the believer to Christ, so that where there is faith in the believer there is Christ and every Spiritual blessing with him, then Trent cannot be right to posit the presence of the one without the presence of the other. One cannot lose one’s justification while retaining true faith (a living, working, and loving faith) anymore than one can exercise true faith and await one’s existential justification as a yet unrealized goal. One’s justification is complete the moment the Spirit unites a person to Christ, and the Spirit unites one to Christ by working faith in him. This completion of justification provides him with deep assurance and compelling incitement to holy living, which leads us to the last substantial portion of Calvin’s critique of Trent.[49]

After treating Rome’s confused doctrines of human depravity and justification, the third major error Calvin addresses is the value of good works, which was touched on briefly above. There we noted that justification labors on two fronts: by imputation a believer’s sins are remitted and he is reckoned righteous; by the same imputation a believer’s good deeds, despite being tainted with sinful imperfections, are reckoned righteous by God. When Trent affirmed that a Christian can fulfill the commands of God, Calvin responded by saying in effect, “Yes, the Christian renders real obedience to God, but that obedience is not so inherently righteous as to secure acceptance by God; the Christian’s good works are accepted by divine grace because he is ingrafted into Christ, not by intrinsic merit.” Calvin puts it this way, granting that God rewards a believer’s good works but denying that they increase his justification: “That we are regarded as righteous when we are accepted by God, has already been proved. From this acceptance, too, works derive whatever grace they had.”[50] Such a truth is not dangerous but feeds one’s joy and assurance that his life is forever safely hidden with Christ in God, because God has united him in his life to Christ.

On the three major issues identified in his “Antidote”—human depravity, justification, and the value of good works in progressive sanctification—Calvin finds the theological implications of the believer’s union with Christ to be both polemically expedient and the necessary remedy. Justification and sanctification, imputation and infusion, Christ and the Holy Spirit—these are as inseparable in salvation as the sun’s light is from its heat. God’s monergistic formation of faith in the Christian unites him irrefragably to Christ, who is his righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. To embrace Christ in the gospel is to embrace every redemptive blessing purchased by him as well. Justification and sanctification are distinct soteric aspects, or benefits, of one’s union with Christ.

3. Justification in the Institutes.[51] After witnessing the basic agreement in orientation between Calvin’s 1539 epistle to Sadoleto and his 1547 “Antidote” to Trent, it should be no surprise that the 1559 version of the Institutes reconfirms and amplifies the Reformer’s stance on justification and the salvific complex of which it is a part. In what follows I hope to demonstrate from a number of passages in the Institutes that Calvin’s understanding of union with Christ is not something found here and there in his treatment of salvation in general and justification in particular. Calvin’s view of justification itself is a function of his view of one’s vital union with Christ. As important as justification by imputed righteousness is for him, it is not justification by faith but union with Christ that is the controlling principle of the Reformer’s doctrine of applied soteriology.[52]

Nowhere does Calvin present union with Christ as that which governs his theology of the application of redemption more explicitly than in the first two chapters of Book 3 of the 1559 Institutes:

How do we receive those benefits which the Father bestowed on his only-begotten Son—not for Christ’s own private use, but that he might enrich poor and needy men? First, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us. Therefore, to share with us what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and to dwell in us… .We also, in turn, are said to be “engrafted into him [in ipsum inseri]” [Rom. 11:17], and to “put on Christ” [Gal. 3:27]; for, as I have said, all that he possesses is nothing to us until we grow into one body with him. It is true that we obtain this by faith…. [It is] the secret energy of the Spirit, by which we come to enjoy Christ and all his benefits … the Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectually unites us to himself. (3.1.1; CO 2, col. 393)

The significance of this lengthy statement can hardly be overestimated. That it appears at the head of Calvin’s discussion is noteworthy in itself, signifying that everything that follows must be understood under this rubric. All the grace we receive in the gospel comes to us by means of our union with the resurrected Christ by faith and the “secret energy of the Spirit.” The roles of the Holy Spirit and faith in the reception of Christ and with him all his benefits are here, as we have seen above, conceived together in terms of the ingrafting effected. Calvin succinctly states the implication elsewhere: “This union alone ensures that, as far as we are concerned, he has not unprofitably come with the name of Savior” (3.1.3).

Christ himself is the supreme gospel blessing that sinners receive. As they receive him they also receive the salvific blessings, including justifying righteousness, that he won for them: “For we await salvation from him not because he appears to us afar off, but because he makes us, ingrafted into his body [corpori suo insitos], participants not only in all his benefits but also in himself “ (3.2.24; CO 2, col. 418). Calvin makes the same point rhetorically when discussing the instrumental role of saving faith (“But how can there be saving faith except insofar as it engrafts us into the body of Christ [in Christi corpus inserit]? … it does not reconcile us to God at all unless it joins us to Christ” [3.2.30; CO 2, col. 422]) as well as the nature of justifying righteousness (“You see that our righteousness is not in us but in Christ, that we possess it only because we are partakers in Christ [Christi sumus participes]; indeed, with him we possess all its riches” [3.11.23; CO 2, col. 552]). This joining to Jesus puts the sinner in possession of all Christ’s benefits, which give us our salvation entirely: “To sum up: Christ, when he illumines us into faith by the power of his Spirit, at the same time so ingrafts us into his body [insere in corpus suum] that we become partakers of every good” (3.2.35; CO 2, col. 427).

Incidentally, and in connection with this last point, it appears that Calvin’s ordo salutis does not require the logical or temporal priority of a forensic act to a renovative act. Although he does speak of one’s progressive sanctification following in time one’s justification, the legal and the transformative blessings of salvation are given together in the Spirit’s act of uniting the sinner to Christ. Calvin may have been reluctant to join either side in subsequent Reformed debates about the priority of one aspect to the other, since the gift and exercise of faith that legally justifies us itself entails a moral change of disposition, viz., the will to believe the truth.

The relation of justification to union in Calvin then may be said to be one of identical action, or simply one of specific aspect: “Thus, him whom [God] receives into union with himself the Lord is said to justify [Quem ergo Dominus in coniunctionem recipit, eum dicitur iustificare]” (3.11.21; CO 2, col. 550). This does not mean that union and justification are themselves identical; rather, it means that when one is ingrafted into Christ that person is also necessarily justified, one key salvific blessing. In his discussion of Paul and James on justification and faith, the Genevan answers his own question about the way true faith justifies, and he once again introduces the concept of union with Christ: “For in what way does true faith justify save when it binds us to Christ [Christo conglutinat ] so that, made one with him, we may enjoy participation in his righteousness [ participatione iustitiae eius fruamur]” (3.17.11; CO 2, col. 599). Here Calvin speaks of justification as a particular beneficial result (“so that”) of union, but one that accrues “when [faith] binds us to Christ.” Justification, again, is a distinct soteric aspect, or benefit of one’s union with Christ.[53]

Although Calvin never tires of underscoring just how important it is for sinners to participate in Christ, and therefore in his righteousness, he is careful to distance himself from Osiander’s view of essential righteousness, by which sinners became righteous through their participation in Christ according to his divine nature (3.11.8–12). Because Osiander recoils from a free imputation of righteousness in justification, decrying as impossible God’s reckoning righteous those who remain wicked (i.e., the legal fiction charge), Calvin’s rejection of Osiander provides a slightly different perspective on how the Reformer handled a Protestant error concerning justification similar to Trent’s. In both cases Calvin takes basically the same tack. Misunderstood is the nature of our union with Christ, the way Christ is in us and we are in Christ, which holds “the highest degree of importance” in articulations of the way we receive the grace of Christ:

… I confess that we are deprived of this utterly incomparable good [justifying righteousness] until Christ is made ours. Therefore, that joining together of Head and members, that indwelling of Christ in our hearts—in short, that mystical union—are accorded by us the highest degree of importance, so that Christ, having been made ours, makes us sharers with him in the gifts with which he has been endowed. We do not, therefore, contemplate him outside ourselves from afar in order that his righteousness may be imputed to us but because we put on Christ and are engrafted into his body [insiti sumus in eius corpus]—in short, because he deigns to make us one with him. For this reason, we glory that we have fellowship of righteousness [iustitiae societatem] with him. (3.11.10; CO 2, col. 540; my emphasis)

Calvin abhors Osiander’s “gross mingling of Christ with believers,” but in this positive statement of the nature of a sinner’s union with Christ he is equally concerned to avoid a notion of justifying imputation that conceives this vital, mystical union to be of secondary status. Justification, in other words, occurs only “because we put on Christ and are engrafted into his body” (cf. also 3.11.24).[54]

When Calvin sets his eyes on refuting Roman Catholic dogmas, he picks up where he left off in his “Antidote.” Unlike many of his followers, Calvin does not immediately or always seize on Rome’s view of the sequential place of good works relative to justification. He seems equally, if not more, comfortable highlighting its skewed view of the priority of good works to one’s engrafting into Christ: “So all sorts of ‘moral’ good works have been discovered whereby men are rendered pleasing to God before they are engrafted into Christ [Christo inserantur]. … As if good fruits could come from an evil tree!” (3.15.6; CO 2, col. 583). As we saw above, this mystical union answers the problem of depravity. In this same paragraph Calvin next points out the mistake regarding justification that is entailed by this foundational confusion of positing good works prior to union, but he concludes by restating positively the role of engrafting for both one’s justification and his polemic against Rome: “Therefore, as soon as you become engrafted into Christ through faith, you are made a son of God, an heir of heaven, a partaker in righteousness, a possessor of life; and (by this their falsehood may be better refuted) you obtain not the opportunity to gain merit but all the merits of Christ, for they are communicated to you.”

By noting the inseparable bond between justification and sanctification that union with Christ ensures, Calvin repeats the arguments that he marshaled in his “Antidote” to combat the papists’ claims that he voids the Christian life of moral improvement (3.16.1). He restates his related view of double imputation as regards the good works of believers (3.17.5, 8). Assurance depends on this righteousness conferring union (3.13.5). And he provides in the Institutes a more overt statement than appears in his “Antidote” about the eschatological nature of applied soteriology that exists because of this union. For after mentioning the redemption, reconciliation, and adoption bestowed to the believer who is united to and participates in Christ, Calvin summarizes his interpretation of Paul by saying, “… thus ingrafted into him [cf. Rom 11:19] we are already, in a manner, partakers of eternal life, having entered the Kingdom of God through hope” (3.15.5; my emphasis). Although brief, this is a clear articulation of inaugurated eschatology at the personal soteric level which has its hope centered in the consummation of the kingdom of God.[55]

In the 1559 Institutes, then, Calvin develops and clarifies the centrality of union with Christ to his understanding of justification by faith. He affirms, against the Roman Catholics, the gratuitous imputation of righteousness in justification, but he just as vociferously affirms that this imputation occurs because a sinner is engrafted into Christ. Calvin seems to see these as occurring simultaneously, when faith is both given by the Spirit and concurrently exercised by the regenerated believer, who is raised up with Christ through the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the bond of this union, which is itself the principle that governs Calvin’s conception of the way we receive the grace of Christ, including justification.

IV. Conclusion

To seemingly every objectionable point related to justification raised by Roman Catholics, from total depravity to the necessity of assurance, Calvin responds by developing his doctrine of union with Christ. The critical element of applied soteriology for him is one’s becoming ingrafted into the resurrected Christ, for to receive Christ by faith is also to receive all his benefits. The believer’s reception of Christ involves a resurrection from death to life, a transfer from a state of guilt to a state of innocence. The juridical change requires a subjective change. Faith receives Christ for justification, but one does not possess or exercise faith until the willingness to believe is formed in the sinner by the Holy Spirit, who changes his nature. The presence of faith, the Holy Spirit and Christ are inseparable, as are objective and subjective benefits/results of salvation, which accompany one another. So Rome particularly errs in asserting that faith and the works that God reckons as good may be present in a person while Christ, and all of his saving benefits, may be absent. Because this vital union indissolubly connects the believer to the exalted Christ, who has already experienced everything for which the believer hopes, the Christian’s present salvation is eschatological.[56] Justification then, as a forensic benefit stemming from a believer’s union with Christ, is an in-breaking of the future declaration of the forgiveness that will be shown to be true in the day of judgment, which the believer has now, already. Then the believer will be fully shown to be what he is now, one of God’s covenant people.

As mentioned at the outset, the scope of this study was limited primarily to three texts that fairly span the course of Calvin’s theologically productive life. It remains, however, to trace the particular theme of union with Christ through the whole corpus of his commentaries, tracts, treatises, sermons, revisions of the Institutes, etc., and then to ask whether this additionally illumines Calvin’s differences with Rome on the question of justification. The present article, however, narrow in its scope though it is, may suffice to shed some light on this question concerning their disagreement. And if the disagreement has historically been described in different terms, with less attention to one’s union with Christ, that might be because the 1539 edition of the Institutes emphasizes it less than the 1559 version.[57] If Richard Muller is correct that the 1539 Institutes must be recognized “as the principal text of that work to be examined for a sense of Calvin’s impact on his own time” because it was “the primary form [along with its major expansions in 1543 and 1550] by which his theology was known and assessed by his contemporaries,” then it is somewhat understandable why the Reformed tradition developed with more emphasis on imputation than on union with Christ in its debates with Roman Catholics. Especially welcome, then, is a chronicle of the historical development of union with Christ in the various editions of the Institutes as well as the texts leading up to and constituting the period of Protestant Orthodoxy.[58]

Nevertheless, a couple of broad conclusions can be drawn from the foregoing. On the one hand, Calvin’s understanding of justification as a function of one’s union with Christ may have anticipated in some respects certain features in Paul that NT scholarship is presently highlighting.[59] Nevertheless, I do not want to overstate the matter. There are some real differences. For instance, Calvin’s understanding of the NT, for obvious historical reasons, was not informed by textual discoveries of the last two centuries that have expanded our view of the diverse groups and views that make up Second Temple Judaism. And though Calvin is more “ecclesiocentric” than some are willing to recognize, he does not speak of salvation as corporate or covenantal in the same way that scholars such as Hays, Wright, Dunn, and Sanders do.

On the other hand, it is not clear that Calvin’s view is entirely in line with that brand of Protestant soteriology whose characteristic mark, A. A. Hodge notes, “is the principle that the change of relation to the law signalized by the term justification … necessarily precedes and renders possible the real moral change of character signalized by the terms regeneration and sanctification.”[60] The question might then be raised: to what extent does appealing to Calvin promote a rapprochement between Protestants and Roman Catholics? Although Calvin certainly believes that justification precedes any sustained moral improvement by the believer (progressive sanctification), the way he coordinates regeneration, the formation of and exercise of faith, union with Christ, and justification as a particular benefit of this union leads one to doubt that, if he were alive today, he would level his polemic against Roman Catholic soteriology on the precise sequence of salvation’s renovative and juridical aspects in the believer. This, however, is precisely what many Protestant apologists who identify themselves with Calvin have historically done and what some are doing with respect to ECT and “The Gift of Salvation.” Just as he did in his own day, I suspect that Calvin would spend more energy challenging Rome’s view of sin and depravity, on the one hand, and of union with Christ, on the other, always underscoring the controlling significance of this union for every saving benefit, including justification by faith.[61]

Notes

1. “Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium,” First Things 43 (May 1994): 15-22; “The Gift of Salvation,” First Things 79 ( January 1998): 20-23. Reformation reactions can be found in Roman Catholicism: Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Divides and Unites Us (ed. J. Armstrong; Chicago: Moody, 1994); “An Appeal to Fellow Evangelicals: The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals’ Reply to ‘The Gift of Salvation’,” Modern Reformation 7 (September/October 1998): 29-32; R. C. Sproul, Faith Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine of Justification (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995); idem, “What ECT II Ignores: The Inseparable Link between Imputation and the Gospel,” Modern Reformation 7 (September/October 1998): 24-28; W. Robert Godfrey, “A Discussion on Justification,” The Outlook (February 1999): 5-7; and, somewhat differently, Mark Seifrid, “ ‘The Gift of Salvation’: Its Failure to Address the Crux of Justification,” JETS 42 (1999): 679-88. For a broad attempt to define what it means to be “evangelical” in light of the recent Protestant-Catholic dialogue, see “The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration,” Christianity Today, 14 June 1999, 51–56; for a critical response, see Robert H. Gundry, “Why I Didn’t Endorse ‘The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration’ … even though I wasn’t asked to,” Books and Culture ( January/February 2001): 6-9. More generally, see Catholics and Evangelicals: Do They Share a Common Future? (ed. Thomas P. Rausch; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000). On the related Catholic-Lutheran dialogue, see The Lutheran World Federation and The Roman Catholic Church, Joint Declaration of the Doctrine of Justification (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000).
2. E.g., N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 157–60.
3. Richard B. Hays, “Justification,” ABD 3:1129–1133; quotes from 1130, 1131. Further, idem, “Adam, Israel and Christ,” in Pauline Theology (ed. D. M. Hay and E. E. Johnson; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 3:68–86; idem, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure B.AUTO||of Galatians 3:1–4, 11 (SBLDS 56; Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1983). Most recently, see his “Three Dramatic Roles: The Law in Romans 3–4, ” in Paul and the Mosaic Law (ed. James D. G. Dunn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 151–64.
4. For a few scholarly surveys of recent Pauline studies, among others, see Joseph Plevnick, “Recent Developments in the Discussion Concerning Justification by Faith,” TJT 2, no. 1 (1986): 47-62; P. T. O’Brien, “Justification in Paul and Some Crucial Issues in the Last Two Decades,” in Right With God: Justification in the Bible and the World (ed. D. A. Carson; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 69–95; Douglas J. Moo, “Paul and the Law in the Last Ten Years,” SJT 40 (1987): 287-307; Stephen Westerholm, Israel’s Law and the Church’s Faith: Paul and His Recent Interpreters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), esp. 1–101; Mark A. Seifrid, Justification By Faith: The Origin and Development of a Central Pauline Theme (Leiden: Brill, 1992), esp. 1–77; Colin G. Kruse, Paul, the Law, and Justification (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1997), 27–53. Instructive also is the first part of Brendan Byrne’s “Interpreting Romans Theologically in a Post-‘New Perspective’ Perspective,” HTR 94 (2001): 227-41.
5. I was reminded of this by Prof. Stephen Taylor of Westminster Theological Seminary. The literature on the subject is voluminous, but for articulations of some prominent positions, see the essays in Paul and the Mosaic Law (n. 3 above); E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1977); idem, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1983); Nils A. Dahl, Studies in Paul (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1977), 95–120; Peter Stuhlmacher, Reconciliation, Law and Righteousness: Essays in Biblical Theology (trans. E. Kalin; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986); N. T. Wright, Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992); idem, “Justification” and “Righteousness,” New Dictionary of Theology (ed. S. B. Ferguson, D. F. Wright, and J. I. Packer; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1998), 359–61, 590–92; idem, “Romans and the Theology of Paul,” in Pauline Theology, 3:30–67; Frank J. Matera, “Galatians in Perspective: Cutting a New Path through Old Territory,” Int 54 (2000): 233-45; James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of the Apostle Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 354–71; James D. G. Dunn and Alan M. Suggate, The Justice of God: A Fresh Look at the Old Doctrine of Justification by Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 5–42. For recent critiques of these formulations, see Gerald Bray, “Justification: The Reformers and Recent New Testament Scholarship,” Churchman 109 (1995): 102-26; Friedrich Avemarie, “Erwählung und Vergeltung: Zur optionalen Struktur rabbinischer Soteriologie,” NTS 45 (1999): 108-26; Dan G. McCartney, “No Grace Without Weakness,” WTJ 61 (1999): 1-13; Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., “Paul the Theologian,” WTJ 62 (2000): 121-41; Mark A. Seifrid, “The ‘New Perspective on Paul’ and Its Problems,” Them 25, no. 2 (February 2000): 4-18; idem, Christ, our Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of Justification (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000).
6. Both issues, in fact, lie behind the focus on justification in a recent issue of Modern Reformation (11, no. 2 [March/April 2002]), which appeared after this article was initially accepted for publication.
7. On two common historiographical errors—(1) of reading Calvin as though he were the sole source of “Calvinism” and (2) of positing a decisive cleavage between Calvin and the subsequent period of Protestant orthodoxy largely because of misunderstandings of “humanism” and “scholasticism”—see Richard A. Muller’s two-part essay, “Calvin and the ‘Calvinists’: Assessing Continuities and Discontinuities Between the Reformation and Orthodoxy,” CTJ 30 (1995): 345- 75; 31 (1996): 125-60. Similarly, idem, Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988); Robert Letham, “Saving Faith and Assurance in Reformed Theology: Zwingli to the Synod of Dort” (Ph.D. diss., University of Aberdeen, 1979).
8. For a helpful list, with references, of the various ways in which Calvin speaks of this union, see Dennis E. Tamburello, Union with Christ: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St. Bernard (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 111–13.
9. For a revisionist reading of the place of union with Christ in Luther’s theology, if not in Lutheranism, see Tuomo Mannermaa, “Why Is Luther So Fascinating? Modern Finnish Luther Research,” in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther (ed. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 1–20; and Robert Jenson, “Response to Tuomo Mannermaa, ‘Why Is Luther So Fascinating?’,” 21–24.
10. Lewis W. Spitz, The Renaissance and Reformation Movements. Volume II: The Reformation (rev. ed.; St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia, 1987), 484.
11. Ibid., 486.
12. W. Robert Godfrey, “Calvin and the Council of Trent,” in Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation (ed. Michael Horton; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 119–28.
13. Ibid., 121.
14. “The Canons and Dogmatic Decrees of the Council of Trent,” in The Creeds of Christendom. Volume 2: The Greek and Latin Creeds (ed. Philip Schaff; rev. David S. Schaff; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 89; Sixth Session, ch. 1. (Subsequent references will correspond to this version of the Sixth Session and will appear in the text in parentheses by chapter or canon number. Some italics are removed.)
15. This discussion and what follows have in view adults, not baptized infants. The Roman Catholic views of baptismal regeneration and sacerdotalism are certainly relevant, but for the most part the Reformation debate on justification, and Trent itself, centered on the place of faith in adults, or at least those believed to be able to exercise faith.
16. Godfrey, “Calvin,” 122.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., 123.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. E.g., John Calvin, “Acts of the Council of Trent with the Antidote,” in Tracts and Treatises in Defense of the Reformed Faith (ed. T. F. Torrance; trans. Henry Beveridge; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958), 143–44 (CO 7, col. 470–71).
22. James Buchanan, The Doctrine of Justification (1867; repr., Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1961), 140; cf. 139. A. A. Hodge (“The Ordo Salutis; or, Relation in the Order of Nature of Holy Character and Divine Favor,” The Princeton Review 54 [1878]: 304-21) points out a “palpable inconsistency” in Thomas Aquinas regarding the priority of full forgiveness of sins to infusion of grace, which Hodge suggests contaminated “after him the whole Romish Church” (307).
23. Buchanan ( Justification, 140) claims the practical system was worse than the Council’s decrees indicate. Further, notes Alister E. McGrath, “A point not often appreciated is that the Tridentine decree on justification did not settle the debate on the matter within the Roman Catholic church” (“Justification: Barth, Trent, and Küng,” SJT 34 [1981]: 517-29).
24. Slightly modified from Ritschl’s History of the Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation, quoted in Hodge, “The Ordo Salutis,” 307–8.
25. For a striking (because perhaps unexpected) comment on the “historically complexioned” nature of creeds generally and the Westminster Confession of Faith in particular, to the effect that they may not “reflect the particular and distinguishing needs of subsequent generations,” see John Murray, “The Theology of the Westminster Confession of Faith,” in Scripture and Confession: A Book about Confessions Old and New (ed. John H. Skilton; Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1973), 126.
26. For a cogent defense of the position that Calvin was a “systematic” theologian and understood himself in the Institutes to be writing “systematic theology” by sixteenth-century standards and in light of scholasticism, see esp. Richard A. Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition (New York: Oxford, 2000), 39–61, 101–17, 174–81.
27. In this admittedly limited way, I am attempting to keep in mind the methodological premise articulated by Muller, Unaccommodated Calvin, 186: “The Institutes cannot be rightly understood apart from Calvin’s exegetical and expository efforts, nor can his exegetical and expository efforts be divorced from his work of compiling the Institutes.” Similarly, David Steinmetz, “The Theology of John Calvin and Calvinism,” in Reformation Europe: AGuide to Research (ed. S. Ozment; St. Louis: Center for Reformation Research, 1982), 1:216, 218–19.
28. John Calvin and Jacopo Sadoleto, A Reformation Debate: Sadoleto’s Letter to the Genevans and Calvin’s Reply (ed. John C. Olin; New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 66 (CO 5, col. 385–416; quotes from col. 396–97).
29. Ibid., 67 (CO 5, col. 397).
30. The two Latin sentences fully read: “Illa, inquam, est nostra iustitia, quae a Paulo describitur, quod Deus nos sibi in Christo reconciliavit (2 Cor. 5, 19). Modus deinde subiicitur, non imputando delicta” (CO 5, col. 397–98). Calvin’s Romans commentary appeared in 1540, a year after the reply to Sadoleto. According to H. Paul Santmire, esp. in view of his comments on Rom 4:25 and 6:5, “Calvin uses the word ‘imputation’ to designate the way in which the believer is perfectly righteous. By imputation of righteousness he means both God’s pronouncing the believer righteous (this is the forensic act) and God’s giving the believer actual communion with the righteousness of Christ (this is the participatory aspect)” (“Justification in Calvin’s 1540 Romans Commentary,” CH 33 [1964]: 294-313; quote on 302).
31. Debate, 68 (CO 5, col. 398). For Trent’s view of baptismal regeneration, preparation, and the need for formed faith, see Sixth Session., chs. 3–6. For an updated statement of the same view, see Catechism of the Catholic Church (New York: Image/Doubleday, 1995), §§1250–54, 1257, 1271–74.
32. “Antidote,” 110–11 (CO 7, col. 444–45).
33. Ibid., 148 (CO 7, col. 473-74; my emphasis).
34. Ibid., 113 (CO 7, col. 446).
35. Ibid., 150 (CO 7, col. 475).
36. Ibid., 114 (CO 7, col. 447).
37. Ibid., 116; cf. 152-53 (CO 7, col. 448; cf. col. 477).
38. Ibid., 116 (CO 7, col. 448; my emphasis).
39. Ibid., 119 (CO 7, col. 450; my emphasis).
40. Ibid., 151; cf. also 152-53, 157-58 (CO 7, col. 476; cf. also col. 477, 481-82).
41. Ibid., 119 (CO 7, col. 451). It is curious that Godfrey refers only once to this all-important union by which the believer receives both Christ and with him all his blessings, and then he simply uses the term “connects,” choosing instead to focus on imputation (“Calvin,” 124). “But this imputation,” rightly noted by François Wendel, “is made possible only by our union with the Christ and because we become at that same moment members of his body, although the union with Christ cannot be regarded as the cause of the imputation of righteousness,” which is technically reserved for faith (Calvin: Origins and Development of His Religious Thought [trans. Philip Mairet; 1963; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997], 258). It should be noted that the volume in which Godfrey’s essay appears also contains a brief chapter by Michael Horton on “Union with Christ” (Christ the Lord, 107-15). Horton does cite Calvin from Institutes 3.1.1 (p. 109), he explains union with Christ as the basis of justification and sanctification (pp. 111-12), and he even seems to view union with Christ as occurring “prior” to one’s individual conversion (pp. 112, 114). But, probably because of the polemical aim of the book as a whole and because of the more historical focus of Godfrey’s essay in particular, Horton does not discuss union with Christ (or Calvin’s view of it) in connection with the justification debate with Rome.
42. My trans.; see ibid., 152-53, which more visibly distinguishes imputation from possession of righteousness (CO 7, col. 477-78). Cp. with Trent, Sixth Session, ch. 7.
43. The point would hold if the Latin were rendered “… at the same time we are indeed reckoned righteous in Him.” If anything, this would further point up the governing role of the union.
44. Ibid., 117 (CO 7, col. 449; Beveridge’s emphasis and parentheses).
45. For an alternative reading of 2 Cor 5:21, see N. T. Wright, “On Becoming the Righteousness of God,” in Pauline Theology (ed. D. M. Hay and E. E. Johnson; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 2:200–208.
46. Consult his commentaries in loc., e.g., comm. on Eph 1:10: “The proper state of creatures is to cleave to God. Such an άνακεφαλαίωσις as would bring us back to regular order, the apostle tells us, has been made in Christ. Formed into one body, we are united to God, and mutually conjoined with one another. But without Christ, the whole world is as it were a shapeless chaos and frightful confusion. He alone gathers us into true unity… .By ‘gathering’ both into his own body, Christ has united them to God the Father, and established actual harmony between heaven and earth” (my emphasis)—where the manner of the eschatological summing up is said to be done by Christ (“He alone gathers us”), which is to say “in Christ” (The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians [ed. D.W. Torrance and T. F. Torrance; trans. T. H. L. Parker; Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1965], 129 [CO 51, col. 151]). Cp. with comm. on 1 Cor 1:4: “I preferred to keep the phrase ‘in Him’ rather than change it to ‘by Him’ because in my opinion it is more vivid and forceful. For we are enriched in Christ, because we are members of his body [… in Christo, eo quod corporis eius membra], and we have been ingrafted into Him [et quatemus in ipsum sumus insiti ]; and furthermore, since we have been made one with Him, He shares with us all that He has received from the Father” (The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians [ed. D. W. Torrance and T. F. Torrance; trans. J. W. Fraser; Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1960], 21 [CO 49, col. 310]). It would exceed the bounds of the present study to trace fully through the commentaries Calvin’s exegetical thoughts on union; use has been made here only to corroborate my understanding of his meaning in the “Antidote.”
47. Although Calvin does not use the term, the character of this vital, Spiritual union between the believer and the exalted Christ is decidedly eschatological. On this as regards Pauline theology more specifically, see Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1987), esp. 127–43; the wording of this last sentence is dependent on Gaffin’s on p. 132.
48. Calvin, “Antidote,” 122 (CO 7, col. 453).
49. For an example of Calvin’s use of Aristotelian categories of causality, see his comm. on Eph 1:4–5 (CO 51, col. 147–49). Note also there the attention esp. given to adoption as a soteric benefit. As Prof. Timothy Trumper of Westminster Theological Seminary reminds me, there is a close relation between union with Christ and adoption in Calvin (e.g., Institutes [1559] 3.15.5-6), but given the limited scope of this article I have chosen not to explore this dimension.
50. Ibid., 158 (CO 7, col. 482).
51. Unless otherwise noted, English citations are taken from John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (ed. John T. McNeill; trans. Ford Lewis Battles; 2 vols.; LCC; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960).
52. It may bear mentioning that other studies have, to varying degrees of thoroughness, examined Calvin’s view of justification and the place of union with Christ in Calvin’s soteriology; however, unless I am missing something, there is no notable and sustained investigation that explores the differences between Calvin and Trent/Rome on justification as a function of their different understandings of both the way one is united to Christ as well as the nature of that union. E.g., though perhaps most to the point, see William M. Thompson, “Viewing Justification through Calvin’s Eyes: An Ecumenical Experiment,” TS 57 (1996): 447-66, whose Barthian influence and methodological limitations are noticeable; Theodore W. Casteel, “Calvin and Trent: Calvin’s Reaction to the Council of Trent in the Context of his Conciliar Thought,” HTR 63 (1970): 91-117, who traces Calvin’s desire for rapprochement between Protestant and Catholic churches; and Jae Sung Kim, “Unio Cum Christo: The Work of the Holy Spirit in Calvin’s Theology” (Ph.D. diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 1998), esp. 102–55, 220–47, who underscores the centrality of union in Calvin’s soteriology, but who leaves largely unexplored the broader implications of this centrality and who does not frequently respect the integrity and historical progression of Calvin’s works. See also T. H. L. Parker, “Calvin’s Doctrine of Justification,” EvQ 24 (1952): 101-7; Thomas Coates, “Calvin’s Doctrine of Justification,” CTM 34 (1963): 325-34; François Wendel, Calvin, 233–90; H. Paul Santmire, “Justification in Calvin’s 1540 Romans Commentary;” W. Stanford Reid, “Justification by Faith According to John Calvin,” WTJ 42 (1979–80): 290-307; Charles Partee, “Calvin’s Central Dogma Again,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 18 (1987): 191-99; Jonathan H. Rainbow, “Double Grace: John Calvin’s View of the Relationship of Justification and Sanctification,” ExAud 5 (1989): 99-105; D. Willis-Watkins, “The Unio Mystica and the Assurance of Faith According to Calvin,” in Calvin: Erbe und Auftrag (ed. Willem van ’t Spijker; Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1991), 77–84; Tamburello, Union with Christ, esp. 41–63, 84–110; W. Robert Godfrey, “What Really Caused the Great Divide?” in Roman Catholicism, 65–82. Although not specifically focused on Calvin (or Trent), see the insightful discussion in William Borden Evans, “Imputation and Impartation: The Problem of Union with Christ in Nineteenth-century American Reformed Theology” (Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 1996), esp. 8–48, 144–46.
53. The same conclusion is drawn by Kim, “Unio Cum Christo,” 120, 154, 241, and by Evans, “Imputation and Impartation,” 9, 144–46. Evans writes pointedly of, in his estimate, the developmental disjunction between Calvin and his Reformed heirs: “Here the fundamental incompatibility of Calvin’s view of union with Christ with the later ordo salutis should be noted. On Calvin’s view, salvation is an organic unity communicated in toto through spiritual union with Christ. On the ordo salutis model, however, salvation is bestowed through a series of successive and discrete acts” (145). On ordo see further Gaffin, Resurrection, 127–43.
54. On this passage, Thompson (“Viewing Justification,” 452) not incorrectly observes: “Texts such as this indicate that it would be simplistic to equate justification with the forensic or imputed dimension of saving grace, or to equate sanctification with the intrinsic or transforming, sanative dimension. Justification is already intrinsic and transformative.”
55. It is interesting that Calvin refers here and elsewhere in the Institutes (e.g., 3.1.1) to the ingrafting of Rom 11 in support of his view of union with Christ. Perhaps this reveals something of the way in which he sees Gentiles incorporated into the covenantal history of Israel through their union with and incorporation into Christ.
56. This point of difference between Calvin and Trent is made somewhat differently but helpfully by Casteel, “Calvin and Trent,” 111–12: “At any rate, [for Trent] justification is a process, a matter of degrees, and something capable of being increased or diminished…. For Calvin, this change of relation to God is a complete work, once and for all, and incapable of degrees.”
57. Though in the 1539 edition the language of “participation” is used more than ingrafting: see CO 1, col. 746, 751, 776, 786–87.
58. There was at least one defender of the soteriological centrality of union with Christ at the Westminster Assembly. Obadiah Sedgwick, an English member of but not a commissioner to the Westminster Assembly, wrote: “The faith which brings us into the Covenant, is that faith which doth unite us unto Christ, which makes us one with him: And we being thus united to Christ, we are thereupon, and therefore in the Covenant: Faith considered as justifying, doth not bring us into the Covenant; for our justifying follows our being in the covenant; we must first be in the Covenant before we can have Righteousnesse and forgivenesse of sins” (The Bowels of tender Mercy Sealed in the Everlasting Covenant [ed. H. Chambers, E. Calamy, S. Ash, and A. Byfield; London: Edward Mottershed for Adoniram Byfield, 1661], 185; his emphasis). (I am grateful to Chad Van Dixhoorn for supplying me with this quotation.) Sedgwick’s view seems to be represented, e.g., in Westminster Larger Catechism 165–69 and latent to a degree in the Reformed tradition (cp. WLC with Heidelberg Catechism Q. 20, 32, 64, 70, and 76, and with Belgic Confession Art. 22). A burden of this article, in many ways, has been to retrieve this aspect of the tradition’s soteriology, to underscore union’s capital-”s” Spiritual (and not simply federal) nature, and to reconsider this doctrine’s relevance to a familiar debate.
59. In addition to the NT literature cited above, see Udo Schnelle, “Transformation und Participation als Grundgedanken paulinischer Theologie,” NTS 47 (2001): 58-75.
60. Hodge, “The Ordo Salutis,” 311.
61. I am grateful, in particular, to Professors Richard Gaffin, Stephen Taylor, and Timothy Trumper for providing helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.