My work on justification

The PCA FV Report includes a brief, and fairly accurate, summary of a paper I wrote on justification. This is one of the few things on justification that I’ve published. Since some may read the Report without reading the article, let me summarize what I thought I was doing in the article.

The main thrust of the article was an exploration of what Turretin calls the “improper” use of “justification” language in Scripture. The most prominent passage is Rom 6:7, where Paul uses the phrase “justified from sin” to describe (in the view of John Murray and other Reformed and non-Reformed commentators) our deliverance from the dominating power of sin. That is, Paul uses the word “justify” where Reformed theologians (following Murray) would be more likely to use the phrase “definitively sanctify.”

From this and similar uses, I concluded that “justify” in Scripture sometimes means a verdict that is simultaneously an act of deliverance – what I’ve called a “deliverdict,” a delivering verdict.

As I say, my exegetical point from Rom 6:7 and other passages is not unique in the least. But I’ve pressed for Reformed theologians to draw systematic conclusions from that exegetical point. My point was simply this, If we are going to be fully biblical in our understanding of “justification,” doesn’t the deliverance aspect of justification – which is present in Paul at least in Rom 6:7 and arguably too in Rom 8:1-4 – need to be included in our formulations? I think that aspect is implicit in Protestant formulations of justification, but I was pushing for more explicit and thorough-going attention to that aspect.