Is it important what we believe about justification by faith, as distinct from believing in God and the deity of Christ?
This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1992.
You have asked me specifically to deal with Russian Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, although you will be well aware that other Christian traditions also have similar views on baptismal regeneration, which I do not focus on here.
The absolute basic consideration must be our duty to be true to the gospel, and to see to it that, unlike Peter at Antioch, we behave straightforwardly and consistently according to the truth of the gospel; and that we are not guilty by our behaviour of suggesting that we do not believe what we really do believe (see Galatians 2:11–14). Paul's motive for standing fast and rejecting the circumcision of Titus was so that the truth of the gospel should not be compromised, but should stand out clearly defined for the benefit of all contemporary Christians and for future generations. We should aim to follow the same practice.
The gospel for which Paul contends in the Epistle to Galatians is not concerned merely with a general consent to the existence of God, or even to the deity of the Lord Jesus. It is concerned with the crucial and fundamental point: on what terms is anyone justified and accepted by God? According to Paul, to allow a ritual like circumcision any part in, or contribution to, justification, destroys the gospel completely. All who thus compromise have fallen from grace. Christ profits them nothing (see Galatians 5:2).
Luke reminds us in Acts 15 that some of those who argued that circumcision was necessary for salvation were Pharisees 'who believed' (Acts 15:5). They presumably believed that Jesus was the Messiah, but their doctrine of salvation was so fundamentally false that Peter described it as tempting God and putting a yoke on people's necks (see Acts 15:10).
In this connection, therefore, it is not enough to ask whether individual church members believe in the deity of Christ; do they sincerely endeavour to worship God and behave in a way that is pleasing to him, and enjoy mystical fellowship with him? The question at stake is what their church teaches about justification by faith.
Now, it is the fact that Orthodox theologians have very little to say about justification by faith. It seems largely irrelevant to them. Their emphasis lies rather on man's 'theosis', which may fairly be described as a concern for progressive and ultimate sanctification, and being taken up into God. But none of this will do if it is not founded on true justification. Sanctification without justification is—to borrow an Old Testament figure—like having the laver without first having the altar.
It is this fault that has also vitiated Roman Catholic theology. In times past, they did not like the term 'justification' either, and preferred to talk about sanctifying grace, which to them was the ongoing process of being made ever more holy. Now, sanctification without justification will not do, because a person cannot begin to be sanctified until he or she is in a right relationship to God, and that right relationship is brought about by being justified. If people have erroneous ideas on how anyone is justified before God, then their basic attitude to God is wrong, and their sanctification is vitiated.
If that seems too strong a statement, let us listen to Paul in Philippians 3. Before he was truly justified, he was full of the sincerest fervour and zeal for being sanctified, but it was useless. Even though in his unconverted days Paul was a believer in God, in the full Christian sense of the term he was an unbeliever (see 1 Timothy 1:13).
In Romans 11, Paul makes the point that the majority of his Jewish contemporaries—though exceedingly zealous for God, and therefore in one sense believers in God—were in fact unbelievers, but they did not yet realize that they were. Therefore, God was obliged to adopt the strategy of shutting them all up to unbelief—that is, to taking the most drastic measures to bring them to realize that they were unbelievers, so that he then might have mercy upon them (see Romans 11:30–32). It is not a kindness, and certainly not faithfulness to those who are not clear about justification by faith, to give them the impression that they are, nonetheless, right with God, so long as they are keen on sanctification.
Moreover, the question that we must face is not what individual members of those churches may believe, but what their Church teaches, both in its formal theology and in its rituals and liturgies. And here I suggest we must keep the following points in view:
- Orthodox, Roman Catholic and other traditions teach baptismal regeneration; and that doctrine, however some evangelicals may try to explain it away, destroys the very basis of the gospel. In this connection, perusal of the Roman Catholic book Christ Among Us by Anthony Wilhelm is very enlightening. Its main thesis is that the all-important matter is sanctifying grace, which is nothing other than a personal relationship with Christ. That relationship with Christ involves Christ being in us, working out his life in us, and thus bringing us into closer conformity with himself.
As far as that goes, it sounds magnificent. But then the book comes to a chapter that deals with the question of what happens when we die. And there its basic theology is revealed, for it says to this effect: 'When we come to die, few of us, if any, will feel that we have ever done anything worthy of being damned'. That contradicts the very basic principles of the gospel. Romans 3:19 informs us that the whole purpose of the law is to bring us to confess that being damned is precisely what all of us deserve to be, and until we admit that—in other words, until we repent—we cannot be justified.
The reason why this book makes this extraordinarily false statement is because of its underlying tradition that baptism washes away the taint of Adam's sin, and thus sets us on the course of sanctification. We are not yet perfect, but since our baptism we have never done anything so outrageous as to deserve damnation. That attitude, of course, vitiates the whole of their claim to sanctification.
- Then the book makes another statement, no less egregious than the first. When we come to die, it says, none of us will feel fit to enter the presence of God immediately; in fact, when we first see him we shall be struck with terror. This completely contradicts the New Testament's promise that when we see him we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. If, then, the first statement undermined repentance, this statement undermines faith. And it does so precisely for this reason, that when it talks of our being saved by grace, it means actually that God gives us the grace to do the works which qualify for eventual acceptance with God.
Of course, if ever we should manage to do the works well enough to gain acceptance with God, we should all confess that it was by God's grace we did the works. On the other hand, if we do not do works worthy enough we shall not be accepted by God. Once more, this contradicts the basic doctrine of justification by faith.
Now I know that Orthodox theology is not the same as Roman Catholic, but their doctrine of baptismal regeneration undermines and contradicts the very basis of the gospel and the biblical terms of man's acceptance with God no less than the Roman Catholic view does.
The very fact that Orthodox Churches have an altar upon which the sacrifice is offered contradicts the basic fact of the gospel. Christ is no longer offering his sacrifice before God; his work of offering is finished. It is false to say that the offering and the sacrifice on the altar in such churches is not a repetition of the sacrifice of Christ, but a realization of his eternal sacrifice. Christ is not eternally offering his sacrifice before God. During the reign of Tiberias Caesar he offered his sacrifice once, and then sat down. The sacrifice is for ever over.
The very structure of an Orthodox Church, with its iconostasis is a denial of the gospel, for the people have to stay outside the veil and door. Only the priests are allowed into the most holy place. Indeed, at certain times the central door in the iconostasis, the door of the King, is closed: the veil is drawn over it to indicate to the people that for the time being God is shutting them out because of their sins. This contradicts head on what Hebrews 10 says: even now all true believers have boldness to enter in spirit through the veil into the holiest of all.
I know it can be argued that there is another sense in which the veil of the Jewish tabernacle can represent the veil: whatever it is that hides the unseen world from the seen world. In that sense, Christ has entered through the veil into heaven and we are bodily still on the outside of the veil (see the end of Hebrews 6). And I know further, that it can be argued that the Orthodox liturgy is a kind of reenactment in which the priest plays out the part of Christ, who enters into the most holy place during the liturgy while the people have to stay outside. But even so, this would be conveying a false message, for any believer should have the right to represent the part of Christ; whereas in Orthodox practice and theology, only the priest is qualified to do that, and once more it contradicts the fact that every believer is already in a sense seated with Christ in the heavenly places.
And that brings me to the next point, which is this: that the dividing of the people of God into priests that can enter the holiest of all, and laity who cannot, is again a contradiction of the gospel.
It is to be noticed that Bishop Timothy Ware, the Eastern Orthodox theologian, explicitly denies that the sufferings of Christ were substitutionary. His view is the same as that of Dostoevsky, namely that we set ourselves on the road towards heaven when we come to see and admit that each one of us is personally responsible for the sins of the whole world, and are prepared to take upon ourselves the suffering that results not only from our ongoing sins, but from everybody else's sins as well. By thus accepting suffering, we ourselves are purged and eventually saved. Of course, we cannot do all the suffering ourselves, and that is why Christ came and suffered himself; indeed, took on himself the greater part of the suffering in order to encourage us in our suffering.
It amazes me, I must say, that so many evangelicals, struck by Dostoevsky's moral insights, such as 'If there is no God, then everything is permitted', are now recommending Dostoevsky as though he preached the pure gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Whereas this doctrine of man being saved by man's own suffering, helped out of course by the sufferings of Christ, is a plain contradiction of the gospel and a denial of the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ.
- In all our dealings with members of these churches we must, of course, be loving and tactful, but I suggest we must not be less than honest. Here our Lord's treatment of the woman of Samaria is a shining example. There was no trace in him of the bitter animosity that Orthodox Jews showed towards the Samaritans, but at the same time our Lord firmly and honestly told the Samaritan woman that the Samaritans were wrong in their worship: 'You worship you know not what . . . salvation is of the Jews' (John 4:22).
It would not do for us to be hypocritical, and to pretend that Orthodoxy is not basically wrong but is an acceptable, alternative interpretation of the gospel.
- Although I am aware that in the past professing Christian churches from various traditions have been guilty of oppression, and even persecution, when focussing particularly on Russia we should not forget that the Orthodox Church was a persecuting church and did its best to destroy the faith of the thousands of converts that were made in the late nineteenth century through the preaching of Lord Radstock and Dr Baedeker. We must also remember the pressing need to present the gospel in all its clarity to the vast number of professing atheists in Russia who never go anywhere near a church.
