Herman Bavinck on Active and Passive Justification
The following quotes are from the English translation of Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics (ed. John Bolt; trans. John Vriend), vols. 3-4 (Baker, 2006, 2008).
“If it is true that the very first benefit of grace already presupposes communion with the person of Christ, then the imputation and granting of Christ to the church precedes everything else …. A bond was already forged between the mediator and those who were given him by the Father in eternity, in election, and more precisely in the pact of salvation (pactum salutis). Then, in the divine decree, a mystical union was concluded between them, and substitution occurred …. The whole church, comprehended in him as its head, has objectively been crucified, has died, been resurrected, and glorified with him. All the benefits of grace therefore lie prepared and ready for the church in the person of Christ. All is finished: God has been reconciled; nothing remains to be added from the side of humans. Atonement, forgiveness, justification, the mystical union, sanctification, glorification, and so on—they do not come into being after and as a result of faith but are objectively, actively present in Christ. They are the fruits solely of his suffering and dying, and they are appropriated on our part by faith. God grants them and imputes them to the church in the decree of election, in the resurrection of Christ, in his calling by the gospel. In God’s own time they will also become the subjective possession of believers.” (3.523, emphasis added)
“Regeneration, faith, and conversion are not preparations that occur apart from Christ and the covenant of grace nor conditions that a person has to meet in toto or in part in his or her own strength to be incorporated into that covenant. Rather, they are benefits that already flow from the covenant of grace, the mystical union, the granting of Christ’s person. The Holy Spirit, who is the author of these benefits, was acquired by Christ for his own. Hence the imputation of Christ precedes the gift of the Spirit, and regeneration, faith, and conversion do not first lead us to Christ but are taken from Christ by the Holy Spirit and imparted to his own.” (3.525, emphasis added)
“The imputation of the person of Christ along with all his benefits, therefore, preceded the gift of the benefits. Justification, in other words, did not occur as a result of or by faith, but with a view to faith. Before the elect receive faith, they have already been justified. Indeed, they receive this faith precisely because they have already been justified beforehand. This objective and active justification was made known in the gospel from Genesis 3:15 on and in the resurrection of Christ (Rom 4:25), but had actually already occurred in the decree of election when they were given to Christ and Christ was given to them, when their sin was imputed to Christ and his righteousness was imputed to them …. [Maccovius] treats the benefits in the following order: active justification, regeneration, faith, passive justification, good works; but he nevertheless continues to distinguish justification from its decree in eternity.” (3.583, emphasis added)
“A covenant of grace, a mystical union between Christ and his church, existed long before believers were personally incorporated into it—or else Christ could not have made satisfaction for them either. The imputation and donation of Christ and all his benefits by God takes place before the particular persons come to believe. Specifically, that imputation and donation takes place in the internal calling, and regeneration is the passive acceptance of this gift of grace. God also had to give that gift in order for us to be able to receive it. The very first gift of grace given us already presupposes the imputation of Christ, for Christ is the only source of grace, the acquisitor and distributor of the Spirit, who is his Spirit, the Spirit of Christ.” (4.214, emphasis added)
“Now to maintain this perfect righteousness of Christ and the full riches of the gospel, Reformed theologians, in speaking of actual justification, made a distinction between active and passive justification …. The acquisition and the application [of redemption] are so tightly connected that the former cannot be conceived or exist apart from the latter and vice versa. The acquisition necessarily entails the application. Christ, by his suffering and death, also acquired the astonishing blessing that all his benefits, hence also the forgiveness of sins, would be applied personally and individually to all his own. As Savior, Christ not only aims at objective satisfaction but also at the subjective redemption of his own from sin. Now this redemption is fully achieved, not by an objective justification in the divine decree or in the resurrection of Christ, but only when, both in terms of reality and of the consciousness of that reality, human beings are freed from sin and hence regenerated and justified. It is of this justification that Scripture continually speaks, and it is this justification, as Comrie acknowledges, that is ‘the communication and actual impartation.’
“However, under the influence of Remonstrantism and Saumurian theology, of Pietism and rationalism, there gradually arose a conception of this ‘actual justification’ such that people first had to believe and repent, that in the court of heaven God subsequently sat in judgment and—on the basis of the believer’s faith in Christ, one’s unity with Christ, and one’s ‘faithful’ activities or good works—acquitted the believer; and that on earth, in the court of the individual self, God by his Spirit announced this verdict in the hearts of believers.
“Now the distinction between active and passive justification served to escape this nomistic pattern. Active justification already in a sense occurred in the proclamation of the gospel, in the external calling, but it occurs especially in the internal calling when God by his word and Spirit effectually calls sinners, convicts them of sin, drives them out toward Christ, and prompts them to find forgiveness and life in him. Logically this active justification precedes faith. It is, as it were, the effectual proclamation of God’s Spirit that one’s sins are forgiven, so that persons are persuaded in their hearts, believingly accept … that word of God and receive Christ along with all his benefits. And when these persons, after first, as it were, going out to Christ (the direct act of faith), then (by a reflex act of faith) return to themselves and acknowledge with childlike gratitude that their sins too have been personally forgiven, then, in that moment, the passive justification occurs by which God acquits believers in their conscience …. While there is here a priority of order, it is coupled with simultaneity of time …. Active and passive justification, accordingly, cannot be separated even for a second.” (4.218-19, emphasis added)
“The logical distinction between active and passive justification therefore offers an assortment of advantages ….
“In the first place, it enables us, against all forms of nomism, to maintain the rich and joyful content of the gospel that God is gracious and abounding in steadfast love and that in Christ he has brought about a complete righteousness in which we can rest both in this life and in death and that in no way needs to be augmented or increased by us ….
“In the second place, this distinction explains that from which the believer derives the freedom and boldness to appropriate this benefit …. In later times, when the religious vitality of the Reformation declined, many people in fact chose the path of self-examination in order thus to be assured of the genuineness of their faith and salvation. In this way the focus of the believer shifted from the promise of God to the believer’s own inner experience. But if we rightly understand the meaning of active justification, the whole subject appears to us in a different light …. The basis of faith exists outside of us in the promise of God.
“In the third place, the above distinction makes it possible for us to regard faith as simultaneously a receptive organ and an active power. If in every respect justification comes after faith, faith becomes a condition, an activity that has to be performed in advance and cannot be purely receptive.” (4.220-21, emphasis added)