Monday, February 22, 2010

Reformers' Exposition of Justification


J.I. Packer offers a summery of the Reformers' teaching on Justification. He "boils down" his summary into seven points (cited from A Quest for Godliness, pp 152):

  1. Every man faces the judgement [sic] seat of God, and must answer to God for himself. The church cannot shield him from this.
  2. Every man is a sinner by nature and practice, a nonconformist so far as God's law is concerned, and therefore can only expect God's wrath and rejection.
  3. Justification is God's judicial act of pardoning the guilty sinner, accepting him as righteous, and receiving him as a son.
  4. The source of justification is grace, not human effort or initiative.
  5. The ground of justification is Christ's vicarious righteousness and blood-shedding, not our own merit.
  6. The means of justification, here and now, is faith in Jesus Christ.
  7. The fruit of faith, the evidence of its reality, is a manifested repentance and a life of good works.

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