{"id":1665,"date":"2012-05-04T10:21:04","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T17:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=1665"},"modified":"2012-05-04T10:24:28","modified_gmt":"2012-05-04T17:24:28","slug":"forde-got-out-of-biblicism-you-can-too-%e2%80%93-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=1665","title":{"rendered":"Forde got out of Biblicism; you can, too \u2013 15"},"content":{"rendered":"

Romans 3:24: \u201c[T]hey are justified by his grace as a gift<\/strong>\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

This verse is used by some to justify a semi-Pelagian<\/strong> view of salvation: To be saved, the gift of faith must be received by responding in faith. Thus the believer has a crucial role in salvation.<\/p>\n

Forde: This semi-Pelagian interpretation of Scripture is wrong:<\/p>\n

The assertion of \u201cjustification by faith<\/em>\u201d in the sixteenth-century Reformation can be understood only if it is clearly seen as a complete break with \u2018justification by grace<\/em>,\u2019<\/strong> viewed according to the synthesis we have been describing, as a complete break with the attempt to view justification as a movement according to a given standard or law, either natural or revealed.<\/strong> For the reformers, justification is \u201csolely\u201d a divine act. It is a divine judgment. It is an imputation. It is unconditional. All legal and moral schemes are shattered. Such justification comes neither at the beginning nor at the end of a movement; rather, it establishes an entirely new situation. Since righteousness comes by imputation only, it is<\/strong> absolutely not a movement on our part, either with or without the aid of what was previously termed \u201cgrace.\u201d<\/strong> The judgment can be heard and grasped only by faith. Indeed, the judgment creates and calls forth the faith that hears and grasps it. One will mistake the reformation point if one does not see that justification \u201cby faith\u201d is in the first instance precisely a polemic against<\/em> justification \u201cby grace<\/em>\u201d according to the medieval scheme. Grace would have to be completely redefined before the word could be safely used in a reformation sense.[1]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See also the footnote to the above paragraph:<\/p>\n

The recent penchant for combining grace and faith into the formula \u201cjustification by grace through faith\u201d is perhaps understandable given certain modern developments, but (in spite of words suggesting such a formula in the Augsburg Confession IV) it is strictly speaking at best redundant and at worst compounding a felony. When one misses the complete interdependence of grace and faith (grace is<\/em> the gift of faith; faith alone lets grace be<\/em> grace), one turns faith into a \u201csubjective response\u201d and can only then cover one\u2019s tracks by saying, \u201cOf course, it comes by grace!\u201d<\/strong> Faith<\/em> then simply takes the place once occupied by \u201cworks\u201d or \u201cmerit\u201d in the medieval system and all the problems repeat themselves. Given such misunderstanding it is clear that one cannot use the formula \u201cjustification by faith\u201d today without careful work of reclamation. [2]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


[1]<\/a> Gerhard Forde, \u201cJustification,<\/em>\u201d Church Dogmatics<\/em> II:407. Italics in the original, bolding added.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Forde, Church Dogmatics<\/em> II: 407, footnote 7, on page 423. Italics in the original, bolding added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romans 3:24: \u201c[T]hey are justified by his grace as a gift\u2026.\u201d This verse is used by some to justify a semi-Pelagian view of salvation: To be saved, the gift of faith must be received by responding in faith. Thus the believer has a crucial role in salvation. Forde: This semi-Pelagian interpretation of Scripture is wrong: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1665"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1671,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665\/revisions\/1671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}