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law for us, we could no more be held responsible for the keeping of the law. Piscator regarded
the bearing of the penalty of sin and the keeping of the law as alternatives, of which the one
excludes the other. He left the door open for regarding the sinner’s own personal obedience as
the only ground of his future hope. This view is very much like that of the Arminians, and is
quite in line with the doctrine of Anselm in the Middle Ages.
3. THE VIEW OF OSIANDER.
Osiander revealed a tendency to revive in the Lutheran Church the
essentials of the Roman Catholic conception of justification, though with a characteristic
difference. He asserted that justification does not consist in the imputation of the vicarious
righteousness of Christ to the sinner, but in the implanting of a new principle of life. According
to him the righteousness by which we are justified is the eternal righteousness of God the
Father, which is imparted to or infused into us by His Son Jesus Christ.
4. THE ARMINIAN VIEW.
The Arminians hold that Christ did not render strict satisfaction to the
justice of God, but yet offered a real propitiation for sin, which was graciously accepted and
acted on as satisfactory by God in pardoning sin and thus justifying the sinner. While this only
squares past accounts, God also makes provision for the future. He just as graciously imputes
the believer’s faith to him for righteousness, that faith, namely, as including the entire religious
life of the believer, — his evangelical obedience. On this view faith is no more the mere
instrument of the positive element of justification, but the graciously admitted ground on
which it rests. Justification, then, is not a judicial but a sovereign act of God.
5. THE BARTHIAN VIEW.
While Barth does speak of justification as a momentary act, yet he
does not regard it as an act accomplished once for all, and which is then followed by
sanctification. According to him justification and sanctification go hand in hand all along the
line. Pauck says that according to Barth justification is not a growth or an ethical development;
it occurs ever anew, whenever man has reached the point of complete despair as to the beliefs
and values upon which he has built his life. Thurneysen also rejects the view that justification
takes place once for all, calls it the view of Pietism, and claims that it is fatal to the doctrine of
the Reformation.
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY:
What does the verb dikaio-o mean in classical Greek? Is
justification a creative or a declarative act? Is it possible to think of justification with respect to
past sins in any other sense than that of a judicial acquittal? Should justification be thought of
exclusively as something objective and external to man? What is meant in theology by the
formal cause of justification? How do the Romanists and Protestants differ on this point? Is the
justification of the Roman Catholics by the fides formata really a justification by faith, or a
justification by love under the guise of faith? What is the Antinomian doctrine of justification
from eternity? Is the distinction made by Buchanan and Cunningham between active and