Quotable: Leithart on justification

These are just a couple of quotes I wanted to note down from "'Judge Me, O God': Biblical Perspectives on Justification" by Peter Leithart. Both magnify the scale of God's saving (justifying) work, while reminding us that while it may have already been done, it is still not-yet.

It is true that God "reckons" or "considers" us righteous prior to His taking action on our behalf, and that "reckoning" is an act of sheer grace for the sake of Jesus. But that secret decision is not justification, any more than the decree to save the elect is the salvation of the elect. A judge may conclude that the accused is innocent, but his private conclusion does not constitute a legal decision. A legal decision must be promulgated as a decision of the court, and in many passages of Scripture, God’s public declaration of righteousness occurs when He "gives to the righteous according to His righteousness." God’s forensic declaration does not ring through the heavens while leaving earth in silence; rather, god’s declaration "He is righteous" affects the righteous in real time and real history. […]

Decades ago, Leon Morris wrote in his little book on The Biblical Doctrine of Judgment (1960) about the difference between modern and Hebraic conceptions of judgment. For moderns, to pass judgment means to weigh evidence and declare a sentence. Once the sentence has been passed, the judge’s job is finished, and someone other that the judge ensures that the sentence is carried out and that justice is actually done. In Scripture, however, judgment includes establishing justice as well as deciding what is just.

(pp. 212-213, Peter J. Leithart, "'Judge Me, O God': Biblical Perspectives on Justification" in The Federal Vision, ed. Steve Wilkins and Duane Garner)

The gospel really is a lot better news than bare 'forgiveness of sins'. I remember a John Piper sermon where he said: "forgiveness of sins... who cares right... I mean really?" (hopefully not too misquoted there).

In all of this, it is crucial to remember continually that justification, however defined, is by faith. And in part that means that our justification/vindication is not completely and fully revealed before the Last Judgment. We are justified in the present, but in another sense we await final public vindication. Many believers have been faithful to death, and their bones now lie in forgotten graves or scattered on the earth. God our Father, for His own infinitely wise reasons, did not intervene to rescue and justify them. But they are not forgotten, and someday they will rise to public vindication, while their enemies and accusers are silenced in darkness. Vindication may not be now; it may not be soon; but it will come. Or God is not God.

(pp. 231-232, ibid)

A sobering vision but a better hope than Rupert Brooke's which came to mind as I read it.