Regeneration and Justification in Vermigli

Frank James, translator of Vermigli’s treatises on predestination and justification, has these intriguing comments on Vermigli’s views on the relation of justification and regeneration:

“Vermigli’s understanding of forensic justification is not particularly unusual. Indeed, it corresponds generally with the Reformed branch of the Reformation. What is unusual is the inclusion of regeneration and sanctification under the rubric of justification. Like his friend and mentor Bucer, Vermigli had long espoused a threefold justification, which includes three distinguishable but inseparable components: regeneration, justification, and sanctification. This threefold character of his doctrine of justification was explicit in his earliest treatment of this doctrine in his Strasbourg exposition of Genesis in 1543 and his 1548 lectures on 1 Corinthians at Oxford. Perhaps the most surprising feature of the Romans locus is that, unlike both previous loci on justification, he does not speak explicitly of a threefold righteousness. Apparently, Vermigli has continued to read and think on this subject and has concluded that there are better ways to say what he means. He has not substantially altered his view, but he has reconfigured somewhat the relation of justification to regeneration. Vermigli had always held that regeneration and justification are distinct but not separate. In previous treatments, regeneration had been construed as a constitutive part of justification, but in the Romans locus it undergoes a chance of status from a constitutive element to a necessary precursor. In the Genesis commentary, regeneration is explicitly identified as belonging to forensic justification. In his commentary on 1 Corinthians, regeneration is still viewed as belonging to justification, but in a different category. In the Romans commentary, regeneration no longer comes under the aegis of justification. Now regeneration provides the context but is not a cause for justification . . . . This development reflects the trend in Protestantism to distinguish more sharply sanctification from justification.”

Vermigli thus uses justification language in both a strict forensic sense, and in a “broader moral” sense: “When speaking of justification in the strict or proper sense ( propria significatione ), he has in view only the divine acquittal and its basis. But when speaking more broadly of justification, he considers both the cause and the effect of the divine acquittal. Forensic justification, which is based on the imputed righteousness of Christ alone, is necessarily preceded by the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit, who then produces sanctification or moral transformation in the sinner.” He thus is not content to talk of justification in a strictly forensic sense, though he argues that in its strict sense the term refers to a forensic act. Vermigli, Augustinian to the core on original sin, knows that a change of legal status does not solve the problem of sin, and thus he insists that the application of redemption must deal with the problems of moral corruption and spiritual death as well as guilt: “Certainly he would argue that to break the law of God is not only a legal violation, but a moral infraction as well. In essence, Vermigli invests justification with a comprehensiveness equal to the magnitude of original sin.”

James draws the conclusion that “the Protestant doctrine of justification was not static, but went through a process of theological amelioration. To be sure, Luther blazed a path that others would follow, but it must be recognized that Luther’s initial insights provoked decades of Protestant refinement, both from Lutheran and Reformed theologians.” Citing McGrath, he notes a “definitive movement within early Protestantism, from a dynamic view of justification that stressed the unity (but not identification) of justification and sanctification to a more constructive understanding that stressed the distinction between justification and sanctification.” Zwingli, Bucer, Bullinger, and Oecolampadius all saw a close link between justification and sanctification, often going so far as to say that regeneration and sanctification were “constitutive elements of justification.” Calvin maintained the “distinct but not separate” formulation, providing a deeper unity between the two with his doctrine of union with Christ. Despite the variety of formulations, James says, the core of the Protestant doctrine was the “imputed righteousness of Christ for the forgiveness of sins.”