Theological Journal – February 11 Torrance Tuesday: Justification

“When the Protestant doctrine of justification is formulated only in terms of forensic imputation of righteousness or the non-imputation of sins in such a way as to avoid saying that to justify is to “make righteous”, it is the resurrection that is being by-passed. …justification is empty and unreal, merely a judicial transaction, unless the doctrine of justification bears in its heart a relation of real union with Christ. Apart from such a union with Him through the power of His Spirit, Christ would remain, as it were, inert or idle. We require an active relation to Christ as our righteousness, an active and an actual sharing in His righteousness. This is possible only through the resurrection; – when we approach justification in this light we see that it is a creative event in which our regeneration or renewal is already included within it.”

(Torrance, Thomas F. – Space, Time and Resurrection)

“It is the resurrection that is being by-passed.” Bingo! Give TFT a prize! It would take a book (at least) to unfold the issues involved in this claim. I believe he is quite right that making the forensic aspect of justification and emphasizing only impartation sidesteps the resurrection. N. T. Wright has pressed this claim most vigorously in recent years.

Here I want to lift up another piece of that claim that cuts as importantly at a different slice of this claim than the forensic v. participation one Torrance highlights. And that is this: by-passing or marginalizing the resurrection leads in both conservative and liberal wings of Christianity to a moralism that privileges human performance (in different ways, of course). For Paul (and for Torrance) it is “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal.2:20). Paul lodges this truth, this reality against both legalism and antinomianism where he encountered either in his ministry.

This “Pauline mysticism” (Albert Schweitzer) is the very heart of Christian faith. People can sense the difference between meeting someone who presses a moral vision on us as the “thing” about being Christian and someone in whom we truly meet the resurrected Christ. And it is the latter than alone that makes and keeps us Christian. Moral performance has its place but only as Christ acting in and through us and not as human alone. As Torrance notes: “We require an active relation to Christ as our righteousness, an active and an actual sharing in His righteousness. This is possible only through the resurrection; – when we approach justification in this light we see that it is a creative event in which our regeneration or renewal is already included within it.” Amen.