Two lines of truth

I came across this gem today while reading "The Pauline Doctrine of the Righteousness of Faith" (Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, Volume 7, pp. 349ff):

This is evidently a deep and serious question. It is really this: What is salvation? Is it making good the old state of man before God, as alive and responsible in this world? or is it transferring him into a new one, of which the second Adam is the pattern and perfection as risen from the dead? I affirm that, according to scripture, it is the latter and not the former. I believe man is wholly condemned and set aside on the ground of his old responsibilities. The first Adam has no more place before God. God is not looking for fruit from the old tree. I believe he is accepted in Christ risen and ascended, and there only has his place before God; that salvation is not making good the defect and completing the status of the first Adam, but the total setting aside of this, and an introduction into the last — the Second man; and that, in the accepted place, there is no mingling them. (p. 355)

It's worth spending some time mulling this over. But first let's go back to W. R. Newell's statement:

We know what debt under God all those who have the truth today owe to Darby, through whom God recovered more truth belonging to the Church of God, than through any other man since Paul, and whose writings are today the greatest treasure of truth and safeguard against error known to instructed believers. (Romans, Verse-by-verse,  p. 464)

What is it about Darby's writings that Newell found so compelling? I can't speak for Newell, of course, but I have read his book. I'm confident in saying that what distinguishes both Darby's and Newell's work is the recognition of two lines of truth in the New Testament epistles: on the one hand, we are justified freely in God's sight by grace through faith. The one "who does not work, but believes upon Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness" (Romans 4:5). "[A]nd from all things from which ye could not be justified in the law of Moses, in him every one that believes is justified" (Acts 13:39).  On the other hand, we have been brought into an entirely new place: "if any one [be] in Christ, [there is] a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold all things have become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

What makes Darby's views – and Newell's, and Kelly's, to name just two – unique is that he doesn't confuse these two truths. He doesn't try to separate them, but he doesn't confuse them either. He leaves them as he finds them: distinct and yet not separated.

Let's follow the order in Romans: chapter 4 comes before chapter 6. Romans 3:20–5:1 lay out the principle that we cannot be justified by works. It is the one who does not work, but believes that God justifies. Why? First, because He is the God "who justifies the ungodly." 

God is described three times in Romans 4:

• "him who justifies the ungodly" (Romans 4:5)
• "who quickens the dead, and calls the things which be not as being" (Romans 4:17)
• "him who has raised from among [the] dead Jesus our Lord" (Romans 4:21)

We might summarize those statements and say that Romans 4 is describing God who does impossible things. But notice the second one: He's the God who calls things into being. God's declaring us righteous (even though we're not) has the effect of actually making us righteous.

(As an aside, this is where James 2:14ff comes in. Notice James 2:23 and Romans 4:3 both quote Genesis 15:6. Romans quotes it to show that Abraham's righteousness comes by faith (and only by faith). James quotes it as the start of something that needed to be fulfilled. And, James says, it was fulfilled in Genesis 22:9–18. 

Now, if we're to take James 2:14ff as a fulfillment of Romans 4:1–8, we might want to notice the timeline. How much time passed between Genesis 15:6 and Genesis 22:9–18? Scripture doesn't actually tell us, but I'm confident it was no less than 20 years, and maybe significantly longer. How do we know that? Well, Ishmael wasn't born until Genesis 16:16, and Isaac was born 14 years after that (Genesis 16:6 cf Genesis 21:5), and Isaac was old enough to recognize there were some complications with the sacrifice he went to make with Abraham (Genesis 22:7). So yes, there are at least 20 years between Genesis 15:6 and Genesis 22:9. 

So next time you're tempted to retort with James 2 when someone mentions Romans 4, you should probably be sure at least 20 years have passed.)

So when we take all those statements in Romans 4 together, we find that God isn't justifying us in the sense that He is evaluating what He sees, but He's justifying us in the sense that He sets out to make true what isn't true already.

This, to me, is a hill we must be willing to die on. We have to stand firm on Romans 4:5 and Acts 13:39 and Galatians 2:16 and Romans 5:1. We can't compromise on this one. But it's still only one line of truth: there is another.

There is a shift in the direction the epistle takes in Romans 5:9–10. "[H]aving been now justified in [the power of] his blood, we shall be saved by him from wrath" (Romans 5:9). "[H]aving been reconciled, we shall be saved in [the power of] his life" (Romans 5:10). The subject in the first four-and-a-bit chapters of Romans is human guilt. God's answer to the problem of human guilt is justification. We are justified freely without works when we believe on Him. But that's not our only problem: we need not only to be justified, but also to be saved. We need not only justification, but also salvation.

In a sense, Romans 5:9ff imitates Romans 1:18ff. The former begins a long discussion (Romans 1:18 – 3:19) of our guilt before God. The latter begins a discussion not of guilt, but of our lostness. We are not merely guilty, we are also lost. And this is what occupies the remainder of Romans 5. 

Just as God's solution to the problem of our guilt is justification freely without works, His solution to the problem of our lostness is salvation. We have been justified by faith (Romans 5:1), we are saved by grace, through faith (Ephesians 2:8–9). 

Salvation – and this brings us back to what Darby wrote – is accomplished by God's taking us out of one place and putting us into another. So Romans 6:1–11 develops this idea that just as we are justified because Christ died for us, bearing our sins (see 1 Peter 2:24); so also we're saved because Christ died for us, and we died with Him (Romans 6:5–9). Christ has died for me as my Substitute, and He has died for me as my Representative. These are very closely related in one sense, and they are opposites in another.

If we don't keep these two distinct truths as distinct truths in our minds, we'll tend to compromise the one or the other. If we see Christ as bearing our sins but not our dying with Him, then we'll think of ourselves as no longer guilty, but still essentially lost. We'll pour all our effort into improving the flesh that God has already condemned (Romans 8:3–4). We'll live like men and women under law, not under grace (Romans 6:14). We'll try to be made perfect in flesh (Galatians 3:3). We'll try to serve God in the flesh (Romans 7:5–6).

On the other hand, if we neglect Romans 3:20 – 5:1 in our zeal for Romans 6:1ff, then we'll find ourselves having no peace with God (Romans 5:1). We'll find ourselves quite certain that we cannot be made perfect in flesh, but we'll be entirely uncertain whether God is saving me. We'll find ourselves thinking that God doesn't accept me, because I simply am not living up to His standards. We'll be looking for evidence that God has justified us in our own actions, instead of taking Him at His word.

In my very limited experience, people who baptize babies are more likely to fall into the latter trap, people who don't are more likely to fall into the former.

What we need to understand is this: we don't get to choose between these two truths. We have to stand firm on the truth that God is the One who justifies the ungodly, counting their faith as righteousness. We have to stand firm on the truth that peace with God is a result of our believing that Christ has died for us, bearing our sins. At exactly the same time, we need to stand firm on the truth that salvation is a result of our dying with Christ. We are to think of ourselves as people who have died with Him so that we will one day be risen with Him (Romans 6:8). We don't look for a middle ground between these two truths: we are to embrace them each fully.