Beyond the Salvation Wars Review
Part 3 - Final part
In this last part of my review, I want to interact with Bates’s claim that justification needs remodeling. Bates argues, pulling on recent scholarship, that justification—while juridical—cannot be purely judicial. He positively appropriates Peter Leithart’s suggestion that justification is a “deliverdict”—a verdict which delivers from bondage to sin, death, and the devil.
Bates’s broad case here is fantastically argued. I am in almost wholesale agreement, and to some extent I think the book is worth the (not-so-high) price for the last chapter. Bates rightly argues, from Romans 6 and elsewhere, that justification for St. Paul seems to have in view the verdict of resurrection pronounced over Jesus. Hence, one’s being raised with Christ is the concrete instantiation of that verdict.
While The Gospel Coalition, unfortunately, has claimed that Bates argued that one is justified by mirroring the exemplary faith of Jesus, this is actually quite inaccurate. Bates argues that union with Christ is by faith alone—an allegiance which is characteristically dispositional. Now, as I’ve mentioned before, I think a significant shortcoming of the book is its lack of thorough engagement with historical sources. For instance, Bates might have reclaimed the notion of faith as a habitus to talk about allegiance. But be that as it may, he is insistent that “initial” justification is through sharing the verdict pronounced over Jesus in his resurrection, and is consummated in final justification through the life lived. Incidentally, he is right in line with Martin Bucer at this point.
My critique here, as elsewhere, is with the quality of historical engagement. For instance, Bates might be surprised to learn that “sharing the verdict pronounced over Jesus” is what many Reformed theologians mean by imputation. J.V. Fesko on page 236 of “Death in Adam, Life in Christ”, or Brandon Crowe,[1] among others all affirm this.[2] However, Bates, I suspect, is following N.T. Wright in this “reconfiguration” of imputation; in truth, this isn’t so much a reconfiguration as a reclamation (or rediscovery?) of an older scheme.
My second complaint is one that’s really not unique to Bates, but to the trend in scholarship in general to speak of “initial” justification. I think this language is broadly unhelpful. I have a paper under review arguing this, but I’ll summarize the crux of my view: what “justification”—being found in-the-right—precisely means will depend on the nature of the case tried. In my judgment, we should speak of filial justification (the adjudication of one as an heir of the Abrahamic promise) and eschatological justification (the adjudication of one’s fitness to receive that inheritance). The former is by faith alone, the latter is by the Spirit-empowered life lived. As long as one remains filially justified, they will be eschatologically justified. But arguing this point would be a massive project in its own right.
I well recommend this book. Even though I have mentioned many disagreements, it is carefully argued and pastorally motivated. May the Lord bless you through it!
[1] Brandon D. Crowe, Why Did Jesus Live a Perfect Life? The Necessity of Christ’s Obedience for Our Salvation (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2021).
[2] John V. Fesko, “Reformed Orthodoxy on Imputation : Active and Passive Justification,” Perichoresis 14, no. 3 (January 1, 2016): 61–80, https://doi.org/10.1515/perc-2016-0016; David I. Starling, “Covenants and Courtrooms, Imputation and Imitation: Righteousness and Justification in ‘Paul and the Faithfulness of God,’” Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters 4, no. 1 (2014): 37–48.