Does a student who get 100% right on a test merit an A? Yes, because an A grade is defined so that it includes a grade of 100%.
Likewise, if Adam and Eve had continue to live righteous lives and not fall into sin, they would have merited the verdict from God that they were righteous in his sight. God would have been dishonest and unfaithful to claim that they were not righteous–which is impossible.
So that is a definition of merit that I think everyone can agree with.
FOR FURTHER READING:
Their faces were different in all ways but similar in one: They looked oddly incomplete, like pictures with holes for eyes or a jigsaw puzzle with a minor piece missing. it was the lack of desperation, Richards thought. No wolves howled in these bellies. These minds were not filled with rotted, crazed dreams or mad hopes.
These people were on the right side of the road, the side that faced the combination marina and country club they were just passing.
On the other side, the left, were the poor people. Red noses with burst veins. Flattened, sagging breasts. Stringy hair. White socks. Cold sores. Pimples. The blank and hanging mouths of idiocy…
Here on the right, folks, we have the summer people, Richards thought. Fat and sloppy but heavy with armor [i.e. police protection]. On the left, weighing in at only a hundred and thirty–but a scrappy contender with a mean and rolling eyeball–we have the Hungry Honkies. Theirs are the politics of starvation; they’d roll Christ himself for a pound of salami. Polarization comes to West Sticksville. Watch out for these two contenders, though. They don’t stay in the ring; they have a tendency to fight in the ten-dollar seats. Can we find a goat to hang up for both of them?
Slowly, rolling at thirty, Ben Richards passed between them.
Stephen King, originally writing as Richard Bachman, The Running Man, pages 223 & 224 (bold added).
Rene Girard is all over that book.
For more see:
This reminds me of an interesting point on “greed” that cuts across the usual “Left-Right” continuum. I remember when Russell Kirk first launched the contemporary conservative movement in this country, in the mid-l950s. One of the leading young conservatives of that era addressed a rally, and opined that the whole trouble with the world, and the reason for the growth of the Left, is that everyone is “greedy,” the masses of Asia are “greedy,” and so on. Here was a person who owned half of Montana, attacking the mass of the world population, who were trying to rise above the subsistence level, to better their lot a bit. And yet they were “greedy.”
via A Future of Peace and Capitalism – Murray N. Rothbard – Mises Daily.
You aren’t compelled to loan your car to anyone who wants it, but you are compelled to surrender your school-age child to strangers who process children for a livelihood, even though one in every nine schoolchildren is terrified of physical harm happening to them in school, terrified with good cause; about thirty-three are murdered there every year. Your great-great-grandmother didn’t have to surrender her children. What happened?
If I demanded you give up your television to an anonymous, itinerant repairman who needed work you’d think I was crazy; if I came with a policeman who forced you to pay that repairman even after he broke your set, you would be outraged. Why are you so docile when you give up your child to a government agent called a schoolteacher?
via Bianca, You Animal, Shut Up!, by John Taylor Gatto.
Meanwhile, in California: Bill That Could Jail Parents of Truants Passes State Senate
Near the beginning:
Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man (John 2.23-25).
And then as he was about to be betrayed:
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another (John 15.12-17).
Jesus entrusted his mission to those who had become (“no longer do I call you…”) his friends.
I’ll start with an extract I have already quoted from (originally pointed out by Jeff Meyers):
Elijah had come to God and said, “Lord, You promised. I believe this is Your word. It must be so. Let it be so in answer to my prayers.” Daniel’s praying was of the same order as his appeal to the “righteousness” of God eloquently testifies (vv. 7, 16). The Old Testament term “righteousness” has a specifically covenantal orientation. The young Martin Luther could not see this when he struggled to understand what Paul meant by “the righteousness of God” (Rom. 1:17). Of course, Luther was not helped by the fact that his Latin Bible translated Paul’s Greek word dikaiosune (righteousness) as justitia (justice). Luther’s mistake has sometimes been repeated by evangelical Christians. Often righteousness has been thought of merely as the equivalent of the just punishment of God. Preachers therefore may often accompany the use of the phrase “the righteousness of God” with the gesticulation of a clenched fist. It is clear even from this passage, however, that this is to reduce the full biblical meaning of God’s righteousness. Daniel sees the righteousness of God both as the basis for God’s judgment of the people (v. 7) and also as the basis for his own prayer for forgiveness (v. 16). How can this be? In Scripture, “righteousness” basically means “integrity.” Sometimes it is defined as “conformity to a norm.” In the case of God, the norm to which He conforms is His own being and character. He is true to Himself, He always acts in character. God has expressed the norm of His relationship to His people by means of a covenant. He will always be true and faithful to His covenant and the promises enshrined in it. Plainly, God’s righteousness is His faithfulness to His covenant relationship (Sinclair Ferguson, Daniel (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1988; b0ldface added).
The fundamental need of the human race is for salvation–deliverance from evil, in the forgiveness of sins, and the liberation from the bondage of sin and death. We need a savior, a rescuer from sin. In Isaiah 45 the prophet tells all the nations that their many gods and many lords are not saviors–that they cannot deliver them from death or rescue them from their misdeeds. The LORD alone, as the one true God, is a savior, a deliverer, a rescuer. And God is a savior, according to this passage, especially because of two attributes which He alone possesses. This post will center on one of these attributes, so I will tell you what the other one is right now: Strength. God alone is a savior because he alone is capable of saving us from our sins, delivering us from death, and rescuing us from the curse. But there is another attribute which God alone possesses of all the so-called gods, which makes Him alone the savior.
Isaiah 45.21-25:
Declare and set forth your case;
Indeed, let them consult together.
Who has announced this from of old?
Who has long since declared it?
Is it not I, the LORD?
And there is no other God besides Me,
A righteous God and a savior;
There is none except Me.
Turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth;
For I am God and there is no other
I have sworn by Myself
The word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness and will not turn back,
That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.
They will say of Me, “Only in the LORD are righteousness and strength.”Men will come to Him,
And all who were angry at Him shall be put to shame
In the LORD all the offspring of Israel
Will be justified, and will glory.
Consider, on the other hand, certain slogan that Reformed congregations are often taught:
These are pretty common statements in circles popularizing Reformed theology. And they make a good deal of sense. After all, there is no man or woman who does not sin, and if God was to deal with us as we deserve according to our sins, we would all be condemned by God’s judgment. That is true. That is Biblical.
Nevertheless, it is not biblical to tell Christians to “never pray for justice.” In fact, it is totally unbliblical. Christians are supposed to pray for justice. Indeed we are given public prayers in the Bible so that, when we read or sing them, we have to pray for justice from God. I’m referring, to the Psalter:
Psalm 7.8
The LORD judges the peoples; Judge me, O LORD according to my righteousness and my integrity that is in me.Psalm 10.17-18
O LORD, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their heart, You will incline Your ear To judge the orphan and the oppressed, that man who is of the earth may cause terror no more.Psalm 26.1-3
A Psalm of David. Judge me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity; And I have trusted in the LORD without wavering. Examine me, O LORD, and try me; Test my mind and my heart. For Your lovingkindness is before my eyes, And I have walked in Your faithfulness.Psalm 35.24
Judge me, O LORD my God, according to my righteousness.Psalm 43.1
Judge me, O God, and plead my case against an ungodly nation.Psalm 96.10-13
Say among the nations: “The LORD reigns; Indeed the world is firmly established, it will not be moved; He will judge the peoples with equity.”Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
Let the sea roar and all it contains;
Let the field exult, and all that is in it.
Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy
Before the LORD fro He is coming;
For He is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness,
And the peoples in faithfulness [emphasis added].
I could go on and on from the Psalms alone, but I’ll stop there with that last passage. Notice that not only is God’s judgment something the whole world rejoices in, but that judgment of God is tied to His righteousness.
He will judge the world in righteousness,
And the peoples in faithfulness..
Before I go any farther, let me stress Reformed tradition singing paraphrases of the Psalms (though overstated when demanded exclusively), and reciting often from translations of the Psalms, is a wonderful safeguard of our faith from unbiblical error. You see, if all Evangelicals in America had been raised praying these public prayer-hymns, then these slogans that are tossed around so easily would never make it off the ground. Everyone would know that we are supposed to pray for justice: to beg God to judge us in righteousness, and to plead with Him to do it sooner rather than later. If we had all been brought up singing these paraphrased hymns, or, better, chanting more accurate translations, we would all know what we are supposed to pray for because we would have been doing it corporately all our lives.
If you want to to understand the relationship of Christian mercy and charity to the state welfare system, you need to remember the ideal of national security. Think about feeling safe and cared for. Then think about what it is actually like going through airport security.
Delegating mercy to the state is the same as being unmerciful.
PS Thoughts inspired by this.
Since the time of the Reformation the doctrine of justification has been a central doctrine of Protestantism. This doctrine is set forth especially in the Epistles of Paul to the Romans and the Galatians and has been summarized as the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The Epistle of James, however, has proved to be a problem for Protestantism because James says that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. Martin Luther encountered the problem and responded to it by denying to James full canonical authority among the books of the New Testament. We must admire Luther’s candor and integrity in dealing with James. It is a manifestation of his steadfast commitment to his basic Reformational insight. But we cannot follow his example. Fidelity to the attainments of the Protestant Reformation requires fidelity to the principle of Scripture alone as well as to the principle of justification by faith alone, and Scripture alone (sola Scriptura) requires obedience to the whole of Scripture (tota Scriptura). We are not faithful to the Reformation if we by-pass the basic truth the Epistle of James is concerned to enunciate.
The message of James is not unique to his Epistle. It carries forward the work of the Prophets under the Old Covenant and has its parallels in the ministries of the other Apostles. Moreover, James is an Epistle, which is faithful to the gospel proclaimed by our Lord himself during his earthly ministry. Our task, therefore, is to appreciate the way in which the message of James is integrated with the message of the New Testament as a whole, and to grasp the structure in terms of which James and related passages are to be understood not as subversive of the gospel but as furthering the gospel. In pursuit of this task we shall look first at the teaching of James and the consonance of his teaching with Paul (1). James will then be placed in the broader context of the Epistle to the Hebrews (2), the teaching of Paul (3), and the ministry of our Lord (4) in order to observe how the specific concern of James has its parallels in the literature of the New Testament.
READ THE REST: Theologia » The Grace of Justification.
And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. And he came and took her by the hand and raised her up, and the fever left her, and they began to serve her because Christians always help and never expect anyone to support themselves or others.
And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, then lie back down on your bed and have your four friends carry you home’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, rise, then lie back down on your bed and have your four friends carry you home.” And he rose and immediately lay back down again, and ordered his friends to pick up his bed and was carried out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”
However, we do not mean, properly speaking, that it is faith itself that justifies us—for faith is only the instrument by which we embrace Christ, our righteousness. But Jesus Christ is our righteousness in making available to us all his merits and all the holy works he has done for us and in our place. And faith is the instrument that keeps us in communion with him and with all his benefits. When those benefits are made ours they are more than enough to absolve us of our sins.
via Mark Horne » Blog Archive » Why hypercalvinism is back of the “FV controversy.”.
So states the Belgic Confession. But I wonder… If I preach that one is maintained in a justified state by faith would that be considered orthodox by the watchbloggers?
FOR FURTHER READING: Union with Christ allows us to keep both forensic justification and justification by faith alone.