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Justified in Christ (Romans 4:5) | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  Imagine walking into a courtroom.
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  You stand before a judge, and you confess to every single
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  crime on the docket. I mean, the evidence against you
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  is absolute, your guilt is unquestioned, and you have, you
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  know, absolutely nothing to offer in your defense.
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  You stand there waiting for the sentence to come down, but
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  instead the judge slams the gavel and declares you perfectly
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  innocent. Which is wild.
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  Yeah, in the human world, that makes zero sense.
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  It violates every category of justice we possess.
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  But today we are going to look at why Jonathan Edwards argued
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  that this counterintuitive scenario is the unbending logic
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  of the divine courtroom. Welcome to reformed thinking.
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  We are thrilled to have you listening today.
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  We really are, and our goal for this particular deep dive is
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  clear and very specific. We are breaking down the
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  theological logic of Jonathan Edwards in his piece on Romans
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  chapter 4 verse 5. The piece is titled Justified in
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  Christ. We want to understand how a
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  person is justified before God. Edwards argues that this
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  justification does not happen through any personal goodness or
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  like human merit, but rather through a specific mechanism
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  which is a union with Christ. Yeah, that union is the whole
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  core of it. It is.
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  We are looking directly at excerpts from Edwards own
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  writing, paying special attention to a systematic
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  breakdown of faith, union, and justification.
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  And just to establish our perspective upfront, both of us
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  approach this text as Protestant Christians who adhere to the
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  Westminster Confession of Faith. Absolutely.
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  So we view Edwards's arguments through that Reformed
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  theological lens, which validates his core premise
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  regarding justification by faith alone.
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  And as a quick note on our format for you, the listener, we
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  are going to take our time today.
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  We're maintaining A conversational yet deliberate
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  pace, making sure we listen entirely to one another with no
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  interruptions. Yeah, taking it step by step.
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  So let U.S. Open up the text and look at the
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  opening thesis Edwards presents. Getting straight to the text is
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  the best approach I think, because Edwards doesn't waste
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  any time getting to the core issue.
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  No, he really doesn't. He opens with the text of Roman
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  chapter 4 verse five that reads But to him that worketh not, but
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  believeth on him that justified the ungodly, his faith is
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  counted for righteousness. That's such a heavy verse.
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  It is, and Edwards immediately provides his interpretation of
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  what it means that we are not justified by any goodness of our
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  own. He writes that it is not out of
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  respect to the Excellency or goodness of any qualifications
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  or acts in US whatsoever, that God judges it proper that the
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  benefit of Christ should be ours.
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  That is a massive statement. Yeah, it strikes right at the
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  heart of human intuition, and the word ungodly in that verse
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  from Romans is. It's really the hinge upon which
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  the entire reformed understanding of justification
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  turns. Let's break that word down a
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  bit. Sure.
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  So the Greek word Paul uses there is Arizona BS which
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  carries the idea of someone who is completely destitute of
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  reverential awe towards God. Wow, so it's not just neutral?
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  You know it denotes active opposition.
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  It's not just a passive lack of goodness.
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  If God is justifying the asebes, the actively ungodly, he is
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  doing something that runs entirely contrary to the way
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  human beings operate in every other sphere of existence.
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  Think about how often you, as a listener, default to a wage
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  earning mentality in your own life.
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  It is wired right into your DNA. Oh totally.
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  I mean, you clock into your job, you perform your tasks well, and
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  at the end of the week you get a paycheck.
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  The money you receive is a direct response to the quality
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  of your work. Right, it is a transaction based
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  entirely on merit. Yeah, if you do not work, you do
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  not get paid. Now elevate that logic to the
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  highest level of human justice, a judge in a courtroom, right?
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  When a human judge looks at a defendant, that judge pardons or
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  acquits someone based on evidence of their innocence.
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  The judge sees a qualification in the defendant, namely that
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  they did not commit the crime or that they have some alibi, and
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  responds to that qualification with an acquittal.
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  Which is how a just system is supposed to work, yeah.
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  Yeah, in both the workplace and the human courtroom, the reward
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  or the favorable verdict is a response to something
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  intrinsically good or correct within the person standing
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  there. But here, Edwards points out
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  that God's courtroom operates in complete opposition to this
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  human instinct. Complete opposition.
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  So why must God's courtroom operates so differently?
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  Like why does the idea of justifying the ungodly require
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  God to dispense with looking at our intrinsic worth entirely?
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  That gets to the absolute core of what grace actually means in
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  a Reformed context. If God judged it proper to grant
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  you the benefits of Christ based on your own Excellency, or you
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  know, your own moral improvement, then the benefit
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  would simply be a wage. It would just be a paycheck.
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  Right, it would be a transaction, just like your
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  analogy of the workplace. The Apostle Paul actually
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  addresses this in the verse right before the whenever it's
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  quote. Oh.
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  Romans 4 verse four. Yeah.
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  Romans 4 verse 4 says that to the one who works, his wages are
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  not counted as a gift, but as his due.
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  That makes a lot of sense. If God looks at you and find
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  some intrinsic goodness and bases your justification on
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  that, then salvation ceases to be a gift of grace.
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  It becomes a legal obligation. God owes you.
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  And God owes us nothing. Precisely the theological weight
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  of justifying the ungodly means that God must assign the
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  benefits of Christ to a person while that person is still in a
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  state of ungodliness, destitute of any inherent moral Excellency
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  that could demand a reward. So the supreme judge looks at
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  the defendant, sees absolute guilt, and yet declares the
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  defendant righteous. Yes, this requires A mechanism
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  outside of the defendant's own character.
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  God must assign Christ's benefits without looking at our
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  intrinsic worth. Otherwise, the entire structure
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  of the gospel collapses into a mere system of ethical
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  bartering. Ethical bartering.
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  That's a great phrase. Thanks.
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  And historically, this is the specific distinction the
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  Reformers were fighting for against the Roman Catholic view
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  of infused righteousness. Right, the Council of Trent era
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  debates. Yeah, that view essentially
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  taught that God makes you inherently good first and then
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  justifies you based on that new goodness.
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  But Edwards, following the Westminster tradition, says no
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  God justifies the ungodly while they are still ungodly in
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  themselves. OK, so we have established a
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  scenario that seems, well, impossible.
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  You have a wholly, perfectly just judge, and you have a
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  completely guilty, ungodly defendant, right?
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  The judge cannot just wave a magic wand and pretend the guilt
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  does not exist because that would compromise his own
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  justice. A good judge cannot just let a
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  murderer walk free without a basis, no.
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  Justice has to be satisfied. So if the basis for the
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  acquittal is not the goodness of the defendant, what bridges the
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  gap? Edwards answers this by
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  introducing his first major proposition and.
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  This is where it gets really interesting, yeah.
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  He writes that it is certain there is some union or relation
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  that the people of Christ stand into him.
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  He points out that this is expressed in Scripture by the
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  phrase being in Christ. A very common Pauline phrase.
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  Right then, he lists out several biblical metaphors.
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  He mentions members united to a head, branches united to a
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  stock, and a wife united to a husband.
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  He is establishing the reality of this union before he even
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  explains how it happens. And Edwards is very careful with
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  his language here. He recognizes that the word
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  union can be a stumbling block for some people.
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  How so? Well, he states that if anyone
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  is disgusted at the word union as obscure and unintelligible,
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  the word relation equally serves his purpose.
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  Oh, that's practical of him. Very He is not interested in
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  getting bogged down and semantic disputes.
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  He wants to establish the undeniable biblical fact that
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  there's a peculiar relation between true Christians and
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  Christ, a relation that does not exist between Christ and the
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  rest of humanity. That makes sense.
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  We look at the specific nature of these metaphors, we see
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  something brilliant. Let's hear it.
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  The head and the members of a body share a single biological
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  life. The branches and the stock of a
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  tree share the exact same SAP. The husband and the wife share a
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  legal standing and a unified estate.
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  Wow, yeah. What Edwards is drawing out of
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  these scriptural metaphors is that union with Christ implies a
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  shared life and a shared legal standing.
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  The two entities are treated as one functioning unit.
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  So they are bound together in the eyes of the law and in
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  reality, yes. Theologians often refer to this
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  as the Uniomystica or the Mystical Union.
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  It is a category of reality that defies simple human explanation,
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  which is why the biblical writers had to use so many
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  different metaphors to capture his angles.
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  I am. Looking at those specific
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  metaphors and there is a fascinating blend of categories
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  here. What do you mean?
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  Well, when you look at the vine and the branches or the head and
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  the body, those are organic metaphors.
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  They are biological. Right, they imply life.
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  A branch gets sapped automatically just by being
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  physically attached to the trunk, but then Edwards brings
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  in the metaphor of the husband and the wife, which operates in
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  a completely different sphere. The legal sphere.
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  Yeah, a spouse gets a joint interest in an estate by law
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  through a covenantal agreement. The organic metaphor speaks of a
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  natural flow of life, while the marital metaphor speaks of a
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  legal right to an inheritance. That's a really sharp
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  observation. These are two very different
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  concepts, the organic and the legal.
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  We need a modern way to understand how these two
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  concepts merge. I'd love to hear an analogy for
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  that. Think about a mass of corporate
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  merger, specifically a situation involving A solvent parent
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  company and a bankrupt startup. Let's say you own a startup that
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  is millions of dollars in debt. OK, sounds stressful.
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  Very. Your company is mathematically
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  doomed, but then a multi billion dollar conglomerate comes in and
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  fully absorbs your startup. They buy you out completely,
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  Yeah. The moment the paperwork is
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  signed, your startup ceases to exist as an independent
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  financial entity. It is now part of the parent
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  company, right? So when the predators come
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  knocking looking for the millions you owe, they cannot
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  collect from you because your independent financial identity
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  has been swallowed up by the conglomerate.
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  The debt is instantly covered by the infinite assets of the
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  parent company. That's a brilliant way to frame
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  it. In that merger, you have an
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  organic reality. Your employees are now their
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  employees, your tech is their tech, and you also have a legal
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  reality where their financial standing becomes your financial
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  standing. The corporate merger analogy
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  works brilliantly to illustrate federal headship, which is a
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  core tenet of the Westminster Confession.
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  Let's talk about federal headship.
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  The confession conceptualizes our standing before God in terms
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  of covenantal representation in the eyes of the law.
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  The merger unites 2 distinct entities so that the assets,
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  debts and standing of 1 become the assets, debts and standing
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  of the other. So what's mine is his, and
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  what's his is mine. Yes, when you bring these
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  organic and legal categories together in Edward's thought,
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  being in Christ creates a scenario where the Supreme Judge
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  looks upon the two parties, Christ and the Christian, as one
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  in law. Because there is a real vital
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  connection, there's also a legal counting of the two as one.
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  Absolutely. The righteousness of the head
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  covers the body. The wealth of the husbands
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  covers the dead of the bride. The infinite assets of the
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  parent company cover the crippling debt of the startup.
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  That's spot on. The organic reality gives birth
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  to the legal standing. This completely solves the
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  courtroom paradox we started with.
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  It really does. The judge is not waving a magic
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  wand and ignoring justice. The judge is looking at the
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  defendant and seeing that the defendant is legally joined to
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  Christ. Therefore, the perfect record of
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  Christ is the legal property of the defendant.
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  Justice is fully satisfied not by the defendant's own actions,
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  but by the assets of the one they are united to.
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  Yes, the demands of the law are met entirely.
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  OK, so we have established that a union exists and that this
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  union is what allows a guilty person to be acquitted.
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  But practically speaking, how does that transfer of benefits
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  actually happen? The.
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  Mechanics of it. Yeah, What is the sequence of
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  events? Edwards tackles this next?
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  He writes that this relation or union to Christ is the ground of
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  the believer's right to his benefits.
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  He says this needs no proof that it is evident at first blush,
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  and he brings in some very specific scriptures to support
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  this. He loves to anchor everything in
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  the text. He does.
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  He quotes first John chapter 5 verse 12.
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  He that hath the Son hath life. He quotes First Corinthians
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  chapter one, verse 30. But of him are ye in Christ
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  Jesus, who of God is made unto us righteousness.
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  And he brings in Ephesians chapter one, verse 6, noting
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  that we are accepted in the beloved.
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  All pointing to that same sequence.
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  Yeah, he states that our being in him is the ground of our
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  being accepted. The order of operations Edwards
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  lays out here is absolutely critical for understanding
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  Reformed theology. How so?
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  Well, he explicitly writes, first we must be in him and then
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  he will be made righteousness or justification to us.
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  He is stressing the sequence. The order matters.
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  Immensely, you do not receive the benefits of Christ, such as
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  justification, forgiveness, or peace with God, and then
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  subsequently become united to Christ.
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  It doesn't work backwards. It is the exact opposite.
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  You must first receive the person of Christ.
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  You must be joined to the person.
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  OK. Once you're joined to the
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  person, the benefits of that person flow to you as a natural
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  consequence of the union. The benefits are in the person.
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  That makes perfect sense. To use the text from First John,
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  you do not just get life as a standalone commodity.
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  You get the sun. And because you have the sun,
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  you have the life that is inherent in him.
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  Like getting the whole package. Yes, John Calvin made this exact
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  same point centuries before Edwards.
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  Calvin argued that as long as Christ remains outside of us and
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  we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done
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  for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no
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  value to us. That is a stark warning.
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  It is the entire treasury of salvation is locked up inside
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  the person of Jesus. Let me push this a bit further.
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  To make sure we are tracking the logic, let's use an analogy
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  involving a royal inheritance. I think where this is going.
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  Imagine a vast Kingdom ruled by a king who has immeasurable
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  wealth, land, and privileges. Suppose a person living in
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  extreme poverty outside the castle walls desires the King's
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  treasure. OK, that person cannot simply
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  walk up to the castle gates and demand a portion of the royal
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  treasury based on their own need or even based on their own good
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  behavior. They'd be turned away
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  immediately. Exactly.
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  They could spend a lifetime sweeping the streets outside the
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  castle, trying to build up a resume of good deeds to present
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  to the King's treasurer, but the treasurer will just laugh at
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  them. The Treasury belongs exclusively
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  to the royal family. It's locked behind a familial
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  relation, yeah. The only way for that
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  impoverished person to gain a legitimate legal right to the
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  King's treasure is to be officially adopted into the
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  King's family, or perhaps to marry the Prince.
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  The relation has to come first. The relation must come first.
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  The relation is the ground of the right to the wealth.
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  You cannot have the inheritance without having the family name.
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  That's a great illustration. In the same way, Edwards is
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  saying you cannot have Christ's righteousness applied to your
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  account unless you were first brought into the family, joined
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  to the King himself. That helps unpack that beautiful
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  phrase Edwards quotes from Ephesians accepted in the
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  Beloved. Let's talk about that phrase.
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  Think about what that phrase actually means.
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  The text does not say we are accepted because we became
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  lovely. It says we are accepted in the
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  Beloved. There is a huge difference
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  there. A massive difference.
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  Our acceptance by the Father is entirely dependent on our
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  proximity to and our inclusion in Jesus Christ, who is the
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  Father's beloved Son. Right.
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  Without that union, without that inclusion in the family, as your
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  analogy puts it, there is no channel for the righteousness to
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  flow to the individual. God the Father loves the Son
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  with an infinite, eternal love. Then we get brought into that.
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  Yes. When the believer is united to
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  the son, the father looks at the believer and accepts them with
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  the exact same acceptance he has for the son.
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  The union is the prerequisite. It is the conduit.
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  So if you don't have the union, you have nothing.
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  If you sever the relation, you sever the right to every single
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  spiritual benefit. This is why Reformed theology
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  places such a massive focus on the doctrine of union with
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  Christ. It is the hub from which all the
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  spokes of salvation radiate. Establishing that union is the
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  prerequisite sets us up for the most debated and difficult part
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  of Edwards text. I know exactly which part you're
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  talking about. Yeah, this is where I'm going to
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  push back hard, because Edwards uses a word that seems to
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  contradict everything we have just discussed.
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  Let's hear the pushback. He writes that faith is the
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  qualification in any person that renders it fitting in the sight
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  of God that he should be looked upon as having Christ's
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  satisfaction and righteousness belonging to him.
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  Right, he uses This is the word qualification.
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  He says this is because faith is the thing that, on the believers
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  part, makes up this union between him and Christ.
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  Let's stop right there. The word qualification
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  immediately raises a massive red flag.
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  It definitely sounds concerning at first.
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  If faith is a qualification, it's a condition.
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  If I have to meet a qualification to get a job, I am
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  earning my position. That's how we use the word in
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  modern English, yes. If God looks at my faith and
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  says, ah, you have the qualification, therefore I will
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  justify you. How is that not a work?
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  Have we not just circled right back around to the wage earning
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  system? It sounds like it, doesn't it?
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  You just told me we do not earn it, but now Edwards is saying I
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  have to bring a qualification to the table.
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  That is the precise tension Edwards anticipates, and
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  resolving it requires a very careful theological distinction
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  regarding causality. Causality.
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  OK, walk me through that. When we hear the word
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  qualification today, we usually think of a merit based
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  attribute, like having a master's degree to qualify for a
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  job or having a high credit squirm to qualify for a
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  mortgage. Right, something you achieve.
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  But Edwards is using the word differently.
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  He goes out of his way to clarify that God does not grant
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  the right to Christ's merits as a reward for the loveliness or
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  the moral Excellency of your faith.
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  So he's not grading the quality of our faith.
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  No, God does not look at your faith and say that faith is so
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  pure, so strong, and so morally excellent that I'm going to
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  reward it with salvation. Because if he did.
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  If God did that, faith would indeed be a work.
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  Faith would become the new currency that buys salvation,
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  and we will be back under a covenant of works.
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  Which ruins the whole gospel. Completely.
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  Instead, Edwards argues that faith is the mechanism that, on
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  his part, makes up this union. The fittiness is not based on
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  the moral value of the faith, but on the connecting function
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  of the faith. Connecting function.
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  Yes, because faith joins the soul to Christ, it is legally
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  fitting for the judge to count the two as one.
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  The Westminster theologians use specific Latin terms to clarify
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  this. They distinguish between a
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  meritorious cause and an instrumental cause.
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  Hold on, instrumental cause and meritorious cause is heavy
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  theological jargon. We need to break that down.
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  What did the writers of the Westminster Confession mean when
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  they differentiated those two concepts?
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  Let's define them clearly. A meritorious cause is the thing
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  that earns the reward. It has intrinsic value.
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  Like the labor I do at a job, right?
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  If you work 40 hours and earn a paycheck, your labor is the
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  meritorious cause of the paycheck.
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  The paycheck is owed to you because your labor produced
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  value. Got it.
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  And an instrumental cause an. Instrumental cause, on the other
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  hand, is merely the tool or the conduit through which a benefit
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  is received. It has no intrinsic value of its
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  own in relation to the benefit. OK, that makes sense
• 19:34
  conceptually. The Westminster Confession
• 19:36
  states that faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ
• 19:39
  and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of
• 19:41
  justification. Can we anchor that with a
• 19:43
  practical example? Sure.
• 19:45
  Let's say a billionaire writes a check for $100 million and hands
• 19:48
  it to a homeless man. That would be quite a day.
• 19:51
  The meritorious cause of that wealth is the billionaire's bank
• 19:54
  account. The instrumental cause is the
• 19:57
  homeless man's hand reaching out to take the check.
• 20:00
  I see. The hand did not earn the money.
• 20:04
  The hand produced 0 value. The hand is completely worthless
• 20:10
  in terms of generating wealth. Its only function is to receive
• 20:14
  what another has provided. So it's just a delivery
• 20:16
  mechanism. Yes, when Edwards calls faith a
• 20:20
  qualification, he means it's strictly as an instrumental
• 20:23
  'cause. I understand the reaching hand
• 20:26
  analogy. The physical action of reaching
• 20:27
  out your hand has absolutely no monetary value.
• 20:30
  You could reach your hand out into empty air all day long and
• 20:33
  it would not generate a single penny.
• 20:35
  No it wouldn't. Your hand does not purchase the
• 20:37
  gift, it simply receives it. But I still have a problem with
• 20:40
  this. Well, let's hear it.
• 20:41
  Even in that scenario, I still have to choose to reach out my
• 20:44
  hand. If I have the willpower or the
• 20:46
  good sense to reach out and take the check, and the guy next to
• 20:49
  me is too stubborn or too foolish to reach out his hand,
• 20:52
  haven't I just proved that I am slightly better than him?
• 20:55
  That is a very common objection. Haven't I just located the
• 20:58
  deciding factor of my salvation in my own superior decision
• 21:02
  making? If I generated the faith, then
• 21:05
  my faith is a work, even if it is just a tiny instrumental
• 21:08
  work. That is a phenomenal pushback,
• 21:11
  and it forces us to bring in another crucial piece of
• 21:14
  Reformed theology, the doctrine of effectual calling and
• 21:17
  regeneration. How does that solve the issue?
• 21:20
  Well, the Westminster Confession teaches that the Holy Spirit
• 21:23
  works faith in US. Faith is not a product of
• 21:26
  natural human willpower. So we don't just drum it up on
• 21:29
  our own. Not at all.
• 21:30
  A person who is spiritually dead, utterly alienated from
• 21:33
  God, does not have the capacity or the desire to reach out their
• 21:37
  hand to Christ. The natural man suppresses the
• 21:39
  truth and loves darkness. They would just ignore the
• 21:42
  billionaire with the check. Right.
• 21:44
  In order for a person to believe God, the Holy Spirit must first
• 21:47
  regenerate their heart, removing the heart of stone and giving a
• 21:51
  heart of flesh the capacity to act.
• 21:54
  The opening of the blind eyes is a prior sovereign gift of God.
• 21:58
  Like it says in Ephesians. Yes, Ephesians 2 verse 8 says
• 22:01
  for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not
• 22:04
  your own doing, it is the gift of God.
• 22:06
  So the faith itself is a gift. So even the instrumental cause,
• 22:10
  the reaching out of the empty hand, is enabled and prompted by
• 22:14
  the Holy Spirit. You cannot boast about your
• 22:17
  superior decision making because the very fact that you made the
• 22:20
  decision is evidence that God was already at work in you.
• 22:23
  He graciously altered your desires so that you would
• 22:25
  willingly reach out. That answers the objection
• 22:27
  perfectly. God provides the gift and God
• 22:30
  provides the grace to receive the gift.
• 22:32
  Yes, it is all of grace. But this leads right into the
• 22:34
  next section of Edwards text where he talks about human
• 22:36
  agency. Even if God enables the will,
• 22:39
  Edwards makes a point to say that God treats men as
• 22:42
  reasonable creatures capable of act and choice.
• 22:45
  He doesn't bypass our humanity. Right.
• 22:48
  He argues that God sees it fit that in order for a union to be
• 22:51
  established between two intelligent, active beings,
• 22:54
  there should be a mutual act where each receives the other.
• 22:57
  Mutual consent. Yeah, God actively joins himself
• 23:00
  to the believer, but the believer must actively join
• 23:03
  themselves to God. This highlights the reality that
• 23:06
  faith is not a passive event where a person is dragged
• 23:09
  unconsciously into a union. It is a conscious mutual
• 23:13
  joining. Yes, and Edwards examines how
• 23:15
  the soul transitions into this state.
• 23:18
  He describes the condition of the soul before faith is being
• 23:21
  separate and alienated from Christ.
• 23:23
  So there's a real distance there.
• 23:25
  The soul's at a distance. When faith occurs, Edwards says.
• 23:29
  It is the soul's active, uniting with Christ.
• 23:31
  He uses a very specific phrase he calls faith, the very act of
• 23:35
  munition. Act of munition.
• 23:36
  That's a great term. It is the motion of a separate
• 23:39
  entity actively binding itself to the Savior.
• 23:42
  Even though God enables the action, it is still for the
• 23:45
  human being who acts. Right, God doesn't do the
• 23:47
  believing for us. God does not believe for you.
• 23:50
  The Holy Spirit does not repent for you.
• 23:53
  It is the human soul that actively reaches out and grasps
• 23:56
  Christ. That is such a vital distinction
• 23:59
  to make. God honors the agency of the
• 24:01
  creature by requiring them to willingly step into the
• 24:04
  relation. Think about the marital metaphor
• 24:07
  again. A marriage requires mutual
• 24:09
  consent. It requires vows from both
• 24:12
  parties. You can't just marry an
• 24:14
  unconscious person. No.
• 24:16
  If one party is forced into it against their will, or if they
• 24:19
  are unconscious, it is not a true relational union.
• 24:23
  God requires this act of reception because He wants the
• 24:26
  legal standing of being one with Christ to rest upon a genuine
• 24:31
  mutual consent. The language Edwards uses to
• 24:33
  describe this act of reception brings us to the scriptural
• 24:36
  lexicon he employs. He leans heavily on the Gospel
• 24:39
  of John to make his. Point.
• 24:40
  He quotes John quite a bit here. He brings up an extensive list
• 24:43
  of verses. He quotes John chapter 6 verses
• 24:46
  35 through 40 where Jesus says He that cometh to me shall never
• 24:50
  hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
• 24:52
  A classic passage. He quotes John chapter 5 verse
• 24:55
  40. And you will not come into me
• 24:58
  that you might have life. And he quotes the famous verse
• 25:01
  from John chapter one verse 12. But as many as received him, to
• 25:06
  them gave he power to become the sons of God.
• 25:09
  All very active verses. What I observe in this list is
• 25:12
  the reliance on very physical active verbs.
• 25:16
  Jesus does not just say agree with my philosophy, he says come
• 25:20
  to me, see the sun, receive me. That physical language is
• 25:23
  intentional. Edwards points out that these
• 25:26
  physical verbs are synonymous with the act of believing.
• 25:29
  Edwards does this intentionally. To defend these terms against
• 25:32
  critics of his day, we have to remember the historical context
• 25:36
  in which Edwards was writing in the 18th century.
• 25:38
  The Enlightenment era. Yes, he was dealing with the
• 25:40
  rise of Enlightenment rationalism.
• 25:42
  Yeah, many thinkers of his day preferred sterile, abstract
• 25:45
  definitions of faith. They wanted things to be purely
• 25:48
  logical. They wanted to reduce faith to
• 25:50
  mere intellectual assent, viewing it as nothing more than
• 25:53
  agreeing with a set of historical facts or moral
• 25:56
  propositions in your. Head just checking boxes on a
• 25:58
  doctrinal statement. Exactly.
• 25:59
  I mean, that's what they wanted. They looked at the mystical
• 26:02
  language of John's Gospel and dismissed it as obscure, flowery
• 26:07
  50 years of speech. But Edwards wasn't having it.
• 26:09
  Not at all. Yeah.
• 26:11
  Edwards defends these metaphorical expressions like
• 26:13
  coming and receiving, because they convey something vital
• 26:16
  about the nature of the union. He explains that coming and
• 26:19
  receiving perfectly described the cessation of distance.
• 26:23
  The cessation of distance. If a soul is alienated and
• 26:26
  separate, as we discussed earlier, then faith must be the
• 26:29
  act of closing that gap. To believe is to cease being
• 26:34
  alienated and to step into nearness.
• 26:37
  You are moving from a state of distance into a state of
• 26:40
  embrace. Think about what that means for
• 26:41
  your own life as a listener. This completely changes the
• 26:44
  texture of what it means to be a Christian.
• 26:46
  It really does. Visualize faith not as a mental
• 26:49
  checklist of theological facts that you agree with in your
• 26:52
  head. Do not view it as just signing a
• 26:54
  doctrinal statement or passing a theology exam.
• 26:57
  It's so much more than that. Visualize faith as the active
• 27:00
  motion of your soul moving from a state of cold distance into a
• 27:03
  state of warm closeness with the living person.
• 27:07
  When you come to Christ, you are actively ceasing your
• 27:10
  separation. You are closing the gap.
• 27:12
  When you receive him, you are opening the door of your life to
• 27:15
  a person, not a concept. This physical, spatial language
• 27:19
  that John uses and that Edwards highlights, makes Faith an
• 27:22
  intensely relational dynamic. It is the end of isolation.
• 27:26
  It means that Christianity is not fundamentally about adopting
• 27:29
  A worldview. It is about attaching yourself
• 27:32
  to a Savior. And that relational dynamic sets
• 27:34
  the stage for the climax of Edwards argument, where he
• 27:37
  brings the real and the legal together in one definitive
• 27:40
  statement. This.
• 27:41
  Is the big payoff. It is, Edwards writes.
• 27:44
  What is real in the union between Christ and his people is
• 27:46
  the foundation of what is legal. Let me repeat that what is real
• 27:49
  in the union between Christ and his people is the foundation of
• 27:52
  what is legal. This is perhaps the most
• 27:54
  critical sentence in the entire excerpt we're looking at today.
• 27:58
  He expands on it by saying that there is something really in
• 28:01
  them and between them, uniting them, that is the ground of the
• 28:05
  suitableness of their being accounted as one by the judge.
• 28:07
  So the legal standing is based on a reality.
• 28:10
  He is arguing that God does not engage in a legal fiction.
• 28:14
  Let's define legal fiction for a second, because that is a common
• 28:17
  accusation against reformed theology.
• 28:20
  We hear it all the time. Critics will say if God calls a
• 28:23
  sinful person righteous, God is lying.
• 28:26
  He is pretending something is true when it isn't.
• 28:29
  A legal fiction would be a judge arbitrarily declaring two people
• 28:33
  to be married, who have never met, who have no relationship,
• 28:36
  and who have made no mutual vows.
• 28:38
  The judge just stamps a piece of paper and says you are now
• 28:41
  legally one, even though there is no reality connecting them.
• 28:44
  And Edwards absolutely rejects that idea.
• 28:47
  God the Judge accounts Christ and the believer as one
• 28:50
  precisely because they are in fact truly united by the real
• 28:55
  mutual bond of faith. The bond is real.
• 28:57
  The legal declaration of justification rests upon the
• 29:00
  bedrock of a real vital connection.
• 29:04
  The righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer credited
• 29:08
  to their account, because the believer is genuinely united to
• 29:11
  Christ. So the imputation isn't just a
• 29:14
  Ledger trick. No, the real union justifies the
• 29:16
  legal reckoning. It is entirely suitable and
• 29:19
  fitting for a judge to look at a husband and wife and treat their
• 29:22
  financial assets as one because they have actually mutually
• 29:26
  entered into a covenant of marriage.
• 29:27
  In the same way, when a Sinner actively receives Christ by
• 29:31
  faith, a real spiritual bond is forged.
• 29:34
  Because that bond is real. The judge is acting in perfect
• 29:37
  accordance with reality when he declares the center is covered
• 29:40
  by Christ's righteousness. To bring this all together,
• 29:43
  let's contrast the two paradigms we have been tracking throughout
• 29:45
  this entire deep dive. Good idea.
• 29:47
  On one hand, we have the paradigm of faith as a
• 29:49
  rewardable merit. On the other hand, we have
• 29:52
  Edward's paradigm of faith as a unifying bond.
• 29:55
  How does Edwards summarize the massive gulf between these two
• 29:58
  ways of thinking and his concluding thoughts?
• 30:01
  Edwards brings it to a close by showing just how incompatible
• 30:04
  these two paradigms are. He writes that there is a wide
• 30:07
  difference between God saying your faith is so excellent and
• 30:10
  you have performed the act of believing so perfectly that I
• 30:14
  will reward you with Christ's merits.
• 30:16
  That is the wage paradigm. Yes, it looks at the quality of
• 30:19
  the faith. It makes faith the ultimate good
• 30:22
  work. And what's the alternative?
• 30:24
  The other paradigm, the true gospel paradigm, is God saying
• 30:28
  because your faith has successfully united you to
• 30:30
  Christ, it is fitting and proper that his merits now cover you.
• 30:34
  That is a night and day difference.
• 30:37
  In the first scenario, you are saved by the quality of your own
• 30:39
  action. In the second scenario, you are
• 30:42
  saved entirely by the person you're attached to.
• 30:45
  The judge accepts the satisfaction and merits of the
• 30:47
  one for the other as if they were their own, because the
• 30:50
  union makes them one entity in the eyes of the law.
• 30:52
  That distinction destroys any ground for human boasting.
• 30:56
  Completely levels it. Faith is not a currency paid to
• 30:59
  a judge to buy an acquittal. It is the active grasping of a
• 31:02
  Savior. The legal standing of
• 31:04
  righteousness that you receive is simply the natural,
• 31:07
  inevitable result of being joined to the one who already
• 31:10
  possesses all righteousness. That's the heart of it.
• 31:12
  We started this conversation by looking at a courtroom paradox,
• 31:16
  a guilty person being declared innocent by a just judge.
• 31:20
  Edwards has shown us that the paradox is resolved through
• 31:22
  union with Christ. You are not justified because
• 31:25
  you are good. You are justified because you
• 31:27
  are united to the one who is perfect.
• 31:29
  Amen. I want to leave you, the
• 31:31
  listener, with a final thought to Mull over as you go about
• 31:34
  your day. We have established that the
• 31:37
  saving element is not the perfection or the Excellency of
• 31:40
  your faith, but rather the reality of the union it creates,
• 31:43
  right? If that is true, how does that
• 31:45
  change the way you view times of spiritual doubt?
• 31:47
  That's a great question to ask. If your faith feels weak,
• 31:51
  trembling, or uncertain, but it still forms a true connection to
• 31:54
  Jesus, does a frail grip still unite you fully to an infinitely
• 31:59
  strong Savior? It's the object of the faith,
• 32:02
  not the strength of it. Yeah, if a trembling hand
• 32:05
  reaches out and takes $1,000,000 check, does the trembling reduce
• 32:09
  the value of the check? Not by a single penny.
• 32:12
  It is something to consider the next time you feel your faith is
• 32:15
  inadequate. Your justification rests on the
• 32:17
  strength of the Savior you are holding, not on the strength of
• 32:20
  your grip. Thank you for joining us for
• 32:22
  this thorough examination of the sources today on reformed
• 32:25
  thinking.