I am somewhat bewildered at this understanding of Leithart’s work on justification (just as I am bewildered at the mess the PCA federal vision committee report made of the issue).

First, is Lane insisting on John Piper’s revisionism regarding Romans 6.7? I can’t imagine that he is, but I was completely amazed that someone of John Piper‘s great (and deserved!) stature would lead readers to believe that the standard Reformed interpretation of Romans 6.7 was an attack on the Reformed doctrine of justification by faith alone. So anything is possible.

But if Lane is simply saying that the forensic is not identical to the transformative, that is really beside the point. It seems like demanding a nanosecond between justification and sanctification (though I’m not saying Lane would do so, since it would be Arminian). Does the word, “condemnation,” cease to be forensic if it involves an enacted declaration? Nothing in Dr. Leithart’s work merges the forensic with the transformative.
Is it not a straightforward contradiction to claim that justification is “declarative” and that there is no declaration involved? A judge passes sentence with his voice, God justifies Jesus by raising him from the dead, and yet the “declarative” verdict in the justification of sinners is not declared?

So when the Psalmist prays,

The Lord judges the peoples;
judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness
and according to the integrity that is in me.
Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end,
and may you establish the righteous—
you who test the minds and hearts,
O righteous God!
My shield is with God,
who saves the upright in heart.
God is a righteous judge,
and a God who feels indignation every day.

the request “judge me” is asking for a change in legal status and not for a change in circumstances?

When God says to Moses before the Passover, “on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments,” he is referring to an invisible change in legal status and not a public humiliation of them?

This is just messed up, in my opinion. “Justification” starts being God doing math in his head. Eternal justificaiton will inevitably follow along with a bunch of other hyper-calvinistic creatures.

And it is all unnecessary. We can admit that justification is an event in time that is declared in history without merging the forensic into the transformative. In fact, if we are orthodox that is exactly what we have to do.