Robert Reymond claims in his recent systematic theology that Christ’s righteousness is in heaven and not on earth within the believer: “the Christian’s righteousness before God is in heaven at the right hand of God in Jesus Christ and not on earth within the believer. It means that the ground of our justification is the vicarious work of Christ for us, not the gracious work of the Spirit in us” ( New Systematic Theology , pp. 742-743; emphasis in the original). This is soteriological objectivism gone to seed. Reymond no doubt realizes that Christ is present to and in the believer (Gal 2:20), but apparently does not want to say that Christ’s righteousness is in the believer. But that can be only if Christ’s righteousness is somehow separable from His person, such that Christ can be present but His righteousness absent. But that would run afoul of 1 Cor 1:30, which states not that righteousness accompanies Christ but that Christ has BECOME righteousness “to us.” A righteousness that can be detached from Christ’s personal presence is an abstraction in the most direct sense; a Christ that can be present without His righteousness is equally an abstraction, and a worse one.
Reymond’s comments also highlight the tendency of certain forms of soteriology to ignore the Spirit’s role in justification. If Christ’s righteousness is in heaven and only in heaven, and this heavenly righteousness is the ground of justification, then our justification is an act of Father and Son but not Spirit. But that cannot be, since opera ad extra indivisa sunt.
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