Category: Theological Reflections

John Calvin, Commentary on Colossians 2:9,10

Further, when he says that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ, he means simply, that God is wholly found in him, so that he who is not contented with Christ alone, desires something better and more excellent than God. The sum is this, that God has manifested himself to us fully and perfectly in Christ.
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And ye are complete in him. He adds, that this perfect essence of Deity, which is in Christ, is profitable to us in this respect, that we are also perfect in him. �As to God�s dwelling wholly in Christ, it is in order that we, having obtained him, may posses in him an entire perfection.� Those, therefore, who do not rest satisfied with Christ alone, do injury to God in two ways, for besides detracting from the glory of God, by desiring something above his perfection, they are also ungrateful, inasmuch as they seek elsewhere what they already have in Christ. Paul, however, does not mean that the perfection of Christ is transfused into us, but that there are in him resources from which we may be filled, that nothing may be wanting to us.

Leo the �Great, Letter XXVIII, to Flavian (the Tome)

He took the form of a slave�without stain of sin, increasing the human and not diminishing the divine:� because that emptying of Himself whereby the Invisible made Himself visible and, Creator and�Lord�of all things though He be, wished to be a mortal, was the bending down�of pity, not the failing of power.� Accordingly He who while remaining in the form of�God�made man, was also made man in the form of a slave.� For both natures retain their own proper character without loss:� and as the form of�God�did not do away with the form of a slave, so the form of a slave did not impair the form of�God.

John Calvin, Commentary on Titus 3:4

Goodness and love. He has with propriety assigned the first rank to �goodness,� which prompts God to love us; for God will never find in us anything which he ought to love, but he loves us because he is good and merciful. Besides, although he testifies his goodness and love to all, yet we know it by faith only, when he declares himself to be our Father in Christ. Before Paul was called to the faith of Christ, he enjoyed innumerable gifts of God, which might have given him a taste of God�s fatherly kindness; he had been educated, from his infancy, in the doctrine of the law; yet he wanders in darkness, so as not to perceive the goodness of God, till the Spirit enlightened his mind, and till Christ came forth as the witness and pledge of the grace of God the Father, from which, but for him, we are all excluded Thus he means that the kindness of God is not revealed and known but by the light of faith.

Geerhardus Vos, The Eschatology of the Old Testament, p.7, speaking of Romans 8 says:

This is a longing, a prayer, a beseeching of God that only the redeemed subject of religion can experience. The groaning of the irrational creature is left far behind by it. The Christian alone can experience it and does experience it with such intensity that it became to Paul in itself a prophecy of fulfillment. It is like the craving hunger that knows there must be bread somewhere.

Is anyone else reminded of C.S. Lewis?

The Reformed Orthodox were very clear that faith is justifying only because it is receptive of Christ. Heinrich Heppe collects evidence of this in his, Reformed Dogmatics, pp.553 and 554:

The condition to which the attribution of Christ’s righteousness is attached is not the performance of a work (for by works fallen man can merit nothing nor satisfy God in any way), but only faith in Christ and his work of redemption. But this faith effects justification not as a meritorious work or as the root of good works, but purely as a causa instrumentalis, not for one moment as a condition fulfillable by man,�for a condition of justification can only be laid down by the law, but not by free grace, and the single real condition of justification is perfect obedience to the law.

Mastricht (VI, vi, 14): “It is worth while inquiring how faith inflows into justification.�(1) It does not do so as the meritorious cause of it.�Nor (2) because of faith;�but we are justified through faith”.

Witsius (III, viii, 52): “Nor does it seem to me an accurate statement, that faith is the condition which the gospel demands of us, that we may be held righteous and innocent with God. Strictly speaking the condition of justification is nothing but perfect obedience. � This the law enacted. Nor did the gospel substitute another; it teaches that the law has been satisfied by our sponsor Christ. It is at once the duty of faith to accept and by accepting to make its own satisfaction offered for it.”

Crocius 1223: “So not only are those works excluded from the act of justification, which are emitted by a man before faith and conversion, but also those which proceed from faith.”

Burmann (VI, v, 25): “Indeed faith is so opposed to works in this matter that it even excludes itself, if it is considered as a work. Although regarded by itself it is a work, in justification it is not regarded after this manner but purely as an instrumental work.”

Bucan (XXXI, 34): “In what sense are we said to be justified by faith? It is not regarded in its own intrinsic dignity or merit, nor as a work or a new quality in us, nor in its force and efficacy minus love; nor because it has love added to it or works through love; nor because faith imparts the Spirit of Christ, by whom the believer is rendered just because we are bidden seek righteousness not in ourselves but in Christ; but because it seeks and embraces the righteousness offered in the Gospel Rom. 1:16,17. As regards justification faith is a purely passive thing, bringing nothing of ours to conciliate God, but receiving from Christ what we lack.”

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Faith is not a meritorious cause of justification; faith does not meet the demands of the law; faith does not justify because it produces good works, nor do the good works that proceed from faith play any role in justification. The only reason we are justified by faith is that faith apprehends Christ our righteousness.

But what more iniquitous than to hold blasphemous opinions, and not to give way to those who are wiser and more learned than ourself.� Now into this unwisdom fall they who, finding themselves hindered from knowing the truth by some obscurity, have recourse not to the prophets� utterances, not to the Apostles� letters, nor to the injunctions of the Gospel but to their own selves:� and thus they stand out as masters of error because they were never disciples of truth.� For what learning has he acquired about the pages of the New and Old Testament, who has not even grasped the rudiments of the Creed?

Leo the �Great, Letter XXVIII, to Flavian (the Tome)