Calvin on Justification

in this lecture we're looking at Calvin and the doctrine of justification and in this lecture we're picking up from where we left off in our last lecture we were looking at Luther on the same doctrine and in that lecture we mentioned how for Luther justification was the core it was the central identity of not only the believer but of the entire edifice of the church itself it was the core of the preaching it was the core of the Christian life and not surprisingly Luther said the justification was the doctrine by which the church stands and falls well where does Calvin fit in on this put simply Calvin is both in agreement with the essential principles that Luther has laid out on the doctrine of justification however the way he describes it the motif that he uses for justification and therefore the conclusions that he comes to about justification and by extension sanctification lead to a different trajectory than that of Luther so let's go through this bit-by-bit Calvin we can say just upfront is not out of step with Luther on the core of the doctrine in numerous places in Calvin's writing and in his central conviction about the doctrine of justification Calvin is in agreement on almost every principle about the role of the law and about the role of merit in the Christian life like Luther he had rejected the medieval system of merit and penance and sacrifice that was the core identity of medieval Catholic theology Luther in Calvin are in agreement therefore on the nature of the law as the thing that condemns as the thing that comes to us and shows us our sin and as a result Calvin just like Luther believes that we contribute nothing to our justification and we should remember of course that Calvin's 1536 Institute's was based in large part on a major work of Luther's Kalvin for the remainder of his career was very much working to draw the Reformed faith closer to the Lutheran line in the hopes of unity he was very much like boots are on this point but despite the fact that he had a great love for Luther and despite the fact that he believed that Protestantism was essentially unanimous on all the core convictions that doesn't stop Calvin from developing an alternative motif as to where he thinks the biblical theology of salvation and the Christian life lies and this is a real important point to embrace just because we are noticing different shadings in different emphases between Calvin and Luther and as we'll say at the end of this lecture just because there are a number of differences between the two that in terms of the ongoing legacy of these two men and the traditions that come after them doesn't mean that we're saying that they are fundamentally out of step with each other on the core doctrine this is one of the more important features to grasp when we're looking at two men who agree on a number of points but differ on certain key areas these differences always we have to ask ourselves maybe fundamental and may not be but when it comes to the doctrine of justification Calvin and Luther are fundamentally agreed and again where they differ is on the trajectory of how they describe justification in the Christian life and in the motif that each one uses for Luther you might say justification was the core principle I often say for students for Luther you draw a justification quite large on the blackboard and then you draw an arrow down and say well after justification comes everything else and it's a bit overstated but in many ways that fits Luther's rhetoric so many of Luther's peculiar views so many of the times he drew a line in the sand and cast someone out and so many of the times where people have trouble understanding Luther stems from the fact that he was so committed to making sure that his understanding of justification and the freedom of grace was central and not forgotten at the times he will express an idiosyncratic understanding of the Christian life now that idiosyncratic understanding is not so out of step with the other Protestant movements but it does signal some of the unique contributions that Luther makes to the Reformation era well where does Calvin fit into all this well simply put Calvin has a different motif when he approaches the core doctrines of the Christian life namely justification and sanctification again for Luther justification is central you have to understand repeatedly that the law condemns and that in the promise of the gospel preached we are to embrace the fact that Christ has died for us that dialectic that circular pattern of law gospel law gospel is the core motif for Luther for Calvin as historians and theologians have pointed out over the centuries but in particular in the 20th century the central motif is not justification run through the concepts of law and gospel but rather union with Christ now we should say something about this not a lot of people talk about this concept of union with Christ but it is fundamental to understand Calvin Calvin derives his understanding of union with Christ from the theology of Paul from the descriptions that Paul gives of how God in the person of Christ through the work of the cross having been resurrected and now the spirit having come down all of those motifs that Paul talks about are often described here and there throughout the New Testament as affecting our union with Christ biblical theologians will talk about how Paul frequently talks about us being quote in him meaning in Christ but the spirit unites us to the work of Christ and therefore that Union sometimes called a mystical union sometimes called a covenantal Union by modern theologians that Union is the crux of our Christian life so again Luther is justification run through law gospel and there are obviously other motifs substructures within that for Luther for Calvin it's Union now what does Calvin teach about Union why is this motif so important why have people made such a big deal about it over the last several decades in particular well put simply what Calvin does is he relies more on a patristic understanding you might say of our life and the Trinity of the way that we are engaged with the spirit one of the things we're going to notice actually throughout many of these lectures about Luther and Calvin's theology is the extent to which Luther really doesn't talk much about the spirit at all it's not that he doesn't believe in the spirit but for Luther everything runs through Christ everything was revealed in him God Himself is in the revelation of Christ and therefore any appeal to the Spirit as the one who does a work in us that unites us to Christ and in particular moon get to the dock from the sacraments Luther assists the idea of the spirits presence is sufficient for understanding the sacrament for Luther its Christ Christ in the Incarnation and in his resurrected body and again what did Luther call the reformed people what did he call Zwingli when he attacked him for his understanding of his sacraments he called them fanatics which was a technical word in Luther's mind to mean those who are overly reliant on the understanding of the spirits role in the Christian life as we'll see again over the next several lectures Luther believes that those who are touting the spirits role in things are getting too far removed from the cross now Calvin and them will say that this is crazy of course but Luther believes that if we don't stick fundamentally to the cross to the law and the gospel that would lose something fundamental in our faith if we become overly spiritual in the more generic sense if we focus on the Spirit's role Luther sees this as some sort of backdoor into a theology of glory this idea that the Spirit has empowered us to do good works and then there we are again back into play Jean ISM well with union with Christ Calvin goes back to the ancient Christological understanding of the divinity in the humanity of Christ and this is fundamental the way kalsa done for example described Christ as being fully God and fully man as being both the Divine Presence come down and yet also like us in every way and therefore our substitute for Calvin this union with Christ wrought by the Spirit as he comes into our heart to cry Abba Father therefore unites us not just to his human nature but to all of who Christ is now it's not a physical union obviously it's not some kind of weird neo Gnostic modern kind of hippie-dippie stuff either Calvin is pretty clear on this the union with Christ is not necessarily something that we experience on a regular basis in the sense of our emotional life or in terms of the mountaintop high that people sometimes describe whenever they have these prolonged retreats no for Calvin the Union is brought by the spirit and that Union unites us to Christ and gives us Calvin says this is a technical term a double benefit and that double benefit is that it unites us on the one hand to Christ's human nature as the substitute for our sinful life it is in Christ human nature that he was our substitute and therefore being United to his body we are united to his death Calvin says in this in other words our justification is wrought by our union with Christ United to him we are then united to his work for the atonement that he achieved for us Calvin then also says that the second benefit of being United to Christ relates to his divine nature that we are called up by this union having been embraced and wrapped by the atonement of Christ we are now sanctified the spirit is in us we have been united and fully adopted Calvin will say into the life of Christ so in other words Calvin says the double benefit that we receive is not justification that's run again and again and again through law and gospel but rather we have a double benefit by being united to Christ in the power of the Spirit we have in other words flowing from this Union both justification and sanctification Calvin will say the root of both those in our lives comes from this double benefit of being united to Christ when we are united to him we get justified his work is counted as ours our sins are counted as his on the cross but we're not just simply left to reckon with our justification for the remainder of our lives rather for Calvin he says sanctification flows naturally from this now notice he's not saying that sanctification is somehow required as if justification gets us into good graces with God and then we have to stay in by our works both rather flow from this Union it flows from something we don't affect in our own lives being in Christ means we are both justified and we're sanctified he both calls us and cleanses us and covers our sins and then flowing out of that as well there is sanctification so Calvin does not believe that justification and sanctification are two sides of the same coin rather he says that both are the result of something bigger something more important our being united to Christ we were far off but now were United one of the more important ways of describing this and this really is a fundamental difference between Luther and Calvin and from the followers of both Luther and Calvin over the centuries but that is that Calvin will focus enormous lis on the doctrine of adoption adoption in many ways is another way that Calvin gets at this idea of Union Calvin says we were under a judge we were condemned we were in the courtroom but by being united to Christ we move out of the motif of the courtroom and we are adopted and then adoption brings us into the life of God it unites us to Christ we are now sons and daughters and heirs and therefore sanctification flows out of that but it is not required in the sense of being works that we perform in the sense of we must do them or else we're going to be tossed out rather both our justification and our sacrificial Calvin will say are fundamentally based in the work of God in the way he gets at this is his understanding of union with Christ now depending on who you ask particularly the modern world some make a great big deal of this they say that Calvin's understanding with union with Christ makes him fundamentally opposed to any other Reformation movement period he stands tall while the others are left in the dust obviously these are people who are Pro Calvin others take a more muted view of this they say that Calvin's understanding of union with Christ is more of a way that he describes it or a way that he nuances Luther's understanding of justification and it's really hard to figure out where this is Calvin never attacks Luther not once on the issue of justification he never attacks luther either on the subject of sanctification he never chides luther for being overly zealous on justification and for avoiding the concept of Union Calvin just simply asserts this idea he teaches it regularly and it becomes the core conviction of his understanding of the process of salvation and I'm not gonna try and solve this problem for you but you need to know that whenever you see historians at times or theologians some of them are going to be really really zealous about of Union because they find in it a more satisfying at times articulation of the complex of a number of ideas within salvation the fact the matter is is sometimes parsing out the stages of salvation or the complexity of salvation can be quite difficult and I don't go with people who say that we should just avoid this and just enjoy our salvation there's nothing more fundamental than our salvation so really reflecting long and hard on this is not coming from a place of arrogance or trying to quote-unquote work this out in our own theology at the expense of the Bible the Bible gives us a lot of different motifs and language about our salvation and Calvin here has landed and he stands squarely on this idea of Union he says Union is the way to go if we're going to understand the flow of it now again from a mental image don't try to jam union somewhere in between justification or predestination or sanctification this is an important fact Calvin when he lays out the process of salvation you might say follows Paul in a manner of speaking that those whom he predestined he called those whom he called he justified etc etc Paul gives us an order of the steps of salvation and in other places he flushes this out even more again this is not just systematic theology run amok Paul gives us this flow of the way salvation works well to understand where union fits maybe it from a mental perspective from a pictorials perspective Union sits on top of justification and sanctification in that process for Calvin Union is the uniting factor between justification and sanctification it brings them together in a way that doesn't jeopardize either the work of the law and condemning us and therefore are not bringing anything to the table in terms of our merit but it also makes room Calvin says for sanctification talk for Christian living talk in a way that doesn't he believed make all the doctrines of justification go haywire and this is really one of the more fundamental problems of the Christian life at least whenever people begin to reflect on their faith how is it that the Bible seems at times to go effortlessly from you have done nothing you can do nothing you can contribute nothing to your salvation the cross is everything to then therefore go and be this that or the other maybe another way of putting it is we have to reckon with the fact that Paul goes seamlessly from describing the free grace of the gospel in Romans 8 to talking about being living sacrifices in Romans 12 and that's a fundamentally challenging problem he says on the one hand you did nothing but on the other hand go do something and Paul's not confused here and Calvin doesn't think that he is and so for Calvin he's trying to find a way to say that both are grounded in the work of God but it doesn't make his either passivist is sitting back letting God quote/unquote sanctify us without engaging in prayer and the sacraments and these kinds of things but on the other hand he doesn't want to say that everything is justification maybe the fundamental way to see this is that for Luther the way we are sanctified is by avoiding sanctification talk altogether and then focusing on the law and the gospel and the reapplication regularly of our justification Lutheran Lutheran catechisms and confessions over the centuries a pretty ironclad illness the works of sanctification the good works that come out of us spring as if spontaneous and free as if there had been no requirement placed upon the Christian and therefore as justification is wrought and reapplied and that bomb is applied again and again and again after the law has been preached well sanctification you might say just happens they don't talk about it it's not the focus within Luther or Luthor anism for Calvin the other trajectory that he goes down is he will at times talk about sanctification he will talk about Christian living he will talk about obedience now it would be wrong to believe that Calvin has somehow betrayed the doctrine of justification because for Calvin if we're talking about our being united to Christ we can double down and say you get both from the work of the Spirit in you so you can encourage both on the one hand to reapply and reaffirm their essential understanding that Christ has died for you and yet you can also encourage to obedience you can say for example you're an adopted son you are an adopted daughter you don't have to live like this anymore these things that enslave you that torture you that drive you nuts because they're your sin you can encourage them to say the Spirit is within you you can pray and seek sanctification in a fundamental way because you are united to Christ but at the end the difference is between these two motifs between justification in Lutheranism that is something that has reapplied and sanctification talk is off the table - with Calvin this idea of Union means that he can talk about both because he believes he's made room for both within this idea of Union the trajectory that flows out of both of these theologies is really quite different but simply Luther will not be a patron saint - Puritans there's a reason why Puritans or how they are they don't mind sanctification talk or Christian living talk in fact they excel in those subjects they love talking about how because they have been united to Christ that they can be serious about their obedience because they believe that they have held back their talk of obedience from falling into works or merit or any of the things that they left behind in the Catholic Church Luther's theology is not for these folks frankly but similarly Calvin's theology is not for piyah 'test the piety of those who come out of the Lutheran tradition and Piatt estar those who will not focus on our works on the process of our sanctification that is off the table again but rather they will explore new ways and some Lutheran's believe this is important and not really in keeping with Lutheran theology but Pyatt just will explore new ways to reapply their justification in an effort to become more piously engrained into the promise of the gospel and so again in the end you have two fundamental beliefs that justification is the core of our identity one from Luther and one from Calvin but you have two different motifs and you have two therefore different trajectories as to how this might be worked out in the Christian life okay that's it next we're to look at Calvin and Luther on the doctrine of predestination

Channel: Ryan Reeves

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Keywords: Calvinism (Religion), Justification, Sola Fide (Belief), Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (College/University), Lutheranism (Religion), Martin Luther (Founding Figure), John Calvin (Founding Figure), Protestantism (Religion), Protestant Reformation (Event), Religion (TV Genre), Evangelicalism (Religion), Union with Christ

Id: grN_9XhQ7qU

Length: 22min 31sec (1351 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 22 2015