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Owen on “Lively Justifying Faith”

Posted on 18. Sep, 2009 by Mark Jones in John Owen

One of the biggest points of contention over the Protestant doctrine of justification concerns the nature of true, saving faith.  The topic of conditions in the New Covenant also relates to this issue.  In this post I hope to address both topics.  In the first place, Owen asks in his “Greater Catechism”, “By what means do we become actual members of this church of God?” Answer: “By a lively justifying faith …”Note the language of the Second Helvetic Confession (Ch. 15 on Justification):

“Wherefore, in this matter [i.e. justification] we are not speaking of a fictitious, empty, lazy and dead faith, but of a living, quickening faith. It is and is called a living faith because it apprehends Christ who is life and makes alive, and shows that it is alive by living works.”

Owen echoes this himself:

“For there is a faith whereby we are justified, which he who has shall be assuredly saved; which purifies the heart and works by love. And there is a faith or believing, which does nothing of all this; which who has, and has no more, is not justified, nor can be saved …. Thus it is said of Simon the magician, that he ‘believed,’ Acts viii.13, when he was in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity” (Works, Justification, 5:79).

The nature of true faith consists in the “opening of the eyes of the sinner, to see the filth and guilt of sin in the sentence and curse of the law applied unto his conscience, Rom vii. 9, 10” (5:79). This results in the sinner being “sensible of his guilt before God” which is a condition that comes about by the act of sovereign grace. This sense of guilt does not merely consist in the assent (assensus) of the mind because believing is an “act of the heart” (5:81). But if it is “assentia alone”, then Owen rejects such a faith (5:83). This assenting faith is coupled with a “fiducial trust in the grace of God by Christ declared in the promises …” (5:84). While most Reformed theologians spoke of justifying faith involving three elements: knowledge (notitia), assent (assensus), and trust (fiducia), Owen seems to have placed knowledge and assent together.

Not surprisingly Owen identifies Christ as the object of justifying faith (5:86).  However, Owen argues that not only Christ but the Father also is the proper object.  He argues this because Christ is not the object of our faith absolutely but as “the ordinance of God, even the Father … who is also the immediate object of faith as justifying …. ‘He that believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life’ …” (Ibid). Relating to the covenant of redemption, we are to understand “God the Father as sending, and the Son as sent, – that is, Jesus Christ in the work of his mediation, as the ordinance of God for the recovery and salvation of lost sinners” as the object of faith (Ibid).  Owen includes, along with this, “the grace of God, which is the cause; the pardon of sin, which is the effect; and the promises of the gospel, which are the means, of communicating Christ and the benefits of his mediation unto us” (5:87).

The nature of justifying faith, then, consists in the “heart’s approbation of the way of justification and salvation of sinners by Jesus Christ proposed in the gospel, as proceeding from the grace, wisdom, and love of God …” (5:93). This includes a renunciation of attaining righteousness and salvation by any other means except through Christ (5:100). Because the nature of saving faith is not merely assensus for Owen, he makes an important distinction regarding obedience in relation to faith.

Wherefore we say, the faith whereby we are justified, is such as is not found in any but those who are made-partakers of the Holy Ghost, and by him united unto Christ, whose nature is renewed, and in whom there is a principle of all grace, and purpose of obedience. Only we say, it is not any other grace, as charity and the like, nor any obedience, that gives life and form unto this faith; but it is this faith that gives life and efficacy unto all other graces, and form unto all evangelical obedience (5:104).

This brings up another important issue, of which Owen was aware of. According to Owen, some maintain, wrongly, that whatever is a necessary condition of the new covenant is, therefore, also a necessary condition of justification (5:105). However, Owen answers that perseverance to the end, for example, is a condition of the covenant of grace. As a result, if perseverance, because it is a condition of the covenant, is a condition of justification, then no man can be justified while he is in this world. “For”, says Owen, “a condition doth suspend that whereof it is a condition from existence until it be accomplished” (Ibid).

Owen, then, does not equate the new covenant with justification. He does not equate salvation with justification, either.  Perseverance is also a blessing of the covenant of grace. That is, those who are effectually made partakers of the covenant of grace will surely persevere to the end (11:passim). However, justification in this present world, then, is not contingent upon final perseverance to the end.  The Westminster Confession states, similarly, concerning faith, that “Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God, not because of those other graces which do always accompany it, or of good works that are the fruits of it, nor as if the grace of faith, or any act thereof, were imputed to him for his justification; but only as it is an instrument by which he receiveth and applieth Christ and his righteousness” (WLC, 73). Justification, then, as a blessing of the covenant of grace, is distinct from other graces such as sanctification and perseverance.

The use of faith in our justification is next considered by Owen. Here he affirms, as did the Reformers and Westminster divines, faith to be “the instrumental cause of our justification” (5:108). This is derived from Paul’s teaching in Romans 3:28 where he speaks of the righteousness of God that is through faith (dia pisteo). Owen adds, “It follows, therefore, that where … we are said to be justified … ‘by faith’, an instrumental efficiency is intended” (5:109). Owen, aware that some argue “faith is the condition of our justification,” allows that faith may also be called the condition of our justification so long as no more is intended than God requires faith from us so that we may be justified (emphasis ours) (5:113). He warns, however, regarding faith and obedience, that

“…if it be intended that they are such a condition of the covenant as to be by us performed antecedently unto the participation of any grace, mercy, or privilege of it, so as that they should be the consideration and procuring cause of them, – that they should be all of them, as some speak, the reward of our faith and obedience, – it is most false, and not only contrary to express testimonies of Scripture, but destructive of the nature of the covenant itself” (5:113-4).

Here Owen speaks of the nature of both the covenant and justification. The covenant is conditional insofar as it is understood that faith is required on our part to apprehend the blessings of the covenant. However, this faith, which is the gift of God, brings forth obedience so that the grace, mercies and privileges of the covenant are not dependent upon obedience but obedience flows from the grace, mercies and privileges of the covenant.

Owen also discusses the question of conditions in the covenant of grace.  As he argues for the superiority of the promises in the covenant of grace against any other covenant, he makes the following qualification:

“I do not say the covenant of grace is absolutely without conditions, if by conditions we intend the duties of obedience which God requireth of us in and by virtue of that covenant; but this I say, the principal promises thereof are not in the first place remunerative of our obedience in the covenant, but efficaciously assumptive of us in the covenant, and establishing or confirming the covenant” (23:68-9).

We are only being good Reformed Protestants when we speak of conditions in the New Covenant and include in those conditions both faith and obedience.  Of course, the usual distinctions need to be made, but the language of conditionality should not cause us to bring out the crypto-Popish slurs.

Tags: faith, justification, Owen