Asking questions

Picking up on my last post . . .

So far as I know, no one has challenged my paper on justification exegetically. Perhaps someone has offered a devastating critique, one that shows I’ve misinterpreted every passage I discuss. If such a critique is out there, though, I’ve not seen it.

The responses I’ve seen have been more systematically and Confessionally based: If I’m right in my exegesis and my suggestion concerning the biblical usage of “justify,” what does that do to our Confessional and systematic formulations of the doctrine of justification?

My answer to that question is, I’m not entirely sure.

I know that justification is not by works, and I know that we never merit justification. It doesn’t mean that it makes justification our work instead of God’s. I know that I am right before God because of what Jesus did, and because He shares all He has with me. Those are fixed points, rightly so.

But on a host of other questions, I don’t entirely know what the implications are. I haven’t worked things out thoroughly enough to know.

My question: Is this kind of exploratory biblical theology tolerable in the PCA? Is there room to discuss so central a doctrine of justification? Is it possible that we might discover some dimension of biblical truth that has been overlooked or under-emphasized in the past? If I notice that “justify” in Rom 6:7 doesn’t exactly fit the Shorter Catechism definition, what am I to do?

Is the PCA a place where we can ask questions?