Pelagius (early 5th century)
“The Lord of Justice wished man to be free to act and not under compulsion; it was for this reason that ‘he left him free to make his own decisions’ (Sirach 15:14) and set before him life and death, good and evil, and he shall be given whatever pleases him. Hence we read in the Book Deuteronomy also: ‘I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you may live’ (Deut 30:19)” (Letter to Demetrias [413] https://epistolae.ctl.columbia.edu/letter/1296.html).
“It is on this choice between two ways, on this freedom to choose either alternative, that the glory of the rational mind is based, it is in this that the whole honour of our nature consists, it is from this that its dignity is derived and all good men win others’ praise and their own reward.”
“When [human nature] had now become buried beneath an excess of vices and as if tainted with the rust of ignorance, the Lord applied the file of the law to it, and so, thoroughly polished by its frequent admonishments, it was enabled to recover its former brilliance.”
Aquinas:
“The Law of the Gospel which is called the New Law” (Summa Theologica I-II, Q106)
Justification is a movement or change from the state of ungodliness to the state of justice (Rom 4:5), which is a certain rectitude or order in the interior disposition of man (I-II, Q113, A1).
“This movement of faith is not perfect unless it is quickened by charity” (I-II, Q113, A4). “Faith formed by charity” (II-II, Q4, A3) “The merit of eternal life rests chiefly with charity” (I-II, Q114, A4).
The Council of Trent, Sixth Session (1547)
Justification is not the imputation of righteousness but an infusion of righteousness (a new habit of virtue) by the Spirit. As a result of this infusion of a new habit of virtue, we do good works. These works are so pleasing to God that we can be said “to have truly merited eternal life” (Article 16).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992)
Par. 1965: “The New Law or the Law of the Gospel is the perfection here on earth of the divine law.”
Par. 1966: “The New Law is the grace of the Holy Spirit given to the faithful through faith in Christ. It works through charity; it uses the Sermon on the Mount to teach us what must be done and makes use of the sacraments to give us the grace to do it.”
Par. 1970: “The entire Law of the Gospel is contained in the ‘new commandment’ of Jesus, to love one another as he has loved us.”
The Remonstrants (1610)
“That God, by an eternal and unchangeable purpose in Jesus Christ his Son, before the foundation of the world, has determined, out of the fallen, sinful race of men, to save in Christ, for Christ’s sake, and through Christ, those who, through the grace of the Holy Ghost, shall believe on this his son Jesus, and shall persevere in this faith and obedience of faith, through this grace, even to the end.”
Richard Baxter
Aphorisms of Justification (1649) https://heidelblog.net/2018/02/richard-baxter-on-initial-and-final-justification-through-faith-and-works/
Thesis 70: “Faith in the largest sense, as it comprehends all the condition of the new covenant,” which includes faith, repentance, and obedience.
Thesis 71: “The sincere performance of the summary, great command of the Law is still naturally implied in the conditions of the Gospel, as of absolute indispensible necessity … But it is not commanded in the sense, and upon the terms, as under the first Covenant.”
Thesis 72: “As the Accepting of Christ for Lord, (which is the hearts subjection) is as essential a part of justifying faith, as the accepting of him for our Saviour: So consequently, sincere obedience, (which is the effect of the former,) has as much to do in justifying us before God, as affiance, (which is the fruit of the later.)”
Thesis 73: “Faith only justifies as it implies and includes all other parts of the condition of the new covenant … Those works [of the Gospel] do also justify as the secondary, less principal parts of the condition of the Covenant.”
Thesis 78: “Sincere obedience is without all doubt, a condition of our salvation: therefore also of our justification.”
“The Day of Judgement is not to try and judge Jesus Christ and his merits, but us: He will judge us himself by his new Law or Covenant” (Dictionary of Scottish Church History, pp. 449f).
Norman Shepherd
34 Theses on Justification (1978) http://hornes.org/theologia/norman-shepherd/the-34-theses
Thesis 11: “Justifying faith is obedient faith, that is, ‘faith working through love’ (Gal. 5:6), and therefore faith that yields obedience to the commands of Scripture.”
Thesis 18: “Faith, repentance, and new obedience are not the cause or ground of salvation or justification, but are as covenantal response to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, the way (Acts 24:14; 2 Peter 2:2, 21) in which the Lord of the Covenant brings his people into the full possession of eternal life.”
Thesis 19: “Those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and are his disciples, who walk in the Spirit and keep covenant with God, are in a state of justification and will be justified on the day of judgment.”
Thesis 20: “The Pauline affirmation in Romans 2:13, ‘the doers of the Law will be justified,’ is not to be understood hypothetically in the sense that there are no persons who fall into that class, but in the sense that faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ will be justified.”
Thesis 22: “The righteousness of Jesus Christ ever remains the exclusive ground of the believer’s justification, but the personal godliness of the believer is also necessary for his justification in the judgment of the last day.”
Thesis 23: “Because faith which is not obedient faith is dead faith, and because repentance is necessary for the pardon of sin included in justification, and because abiding in Christ by keeping his commandments (John 15:5; 10; 1 John 3:13; 24) are all necessary for continuing in the state of justification, good works, works done from true faith, according to the law of God, and for his glory, being the new obedience wrought by the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer united to Christ, though not the ground of his justification, are nevertheless necessary for salvation from eternal condemnation and therefore for justification (Rom. 6:16, 22; Gal. 6:7-9).”
Shepherd, The Call of Grace: How the Covenant Illuminates Salvation and Evangelism (P&R, 2000)
“The obedience that leads to the fulfillment of the promise … is the expression of faith and trust in the Lord, not the expression of confidence in human effort” (p. 21).
The Mosaic covenant has been viewed by some theologians, like Charles Hodge, as a republication of the covenant of works (p. 25). But that is not correct according to Shepherd. The Mosaic covenant was not a covenant of works but an administration of the covenant of grace (p. 27).
“Israel had to persevere in faith in order to inherit what was promised” (p. 33).
“The Mosaic covenant is not a covenant of works, but a ‘covenant of love’” (p. 39).
“Like the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant has two parts, promise and obligation” (p. 39).
“The obedience required of Israel is not the obedience of merit, but the obedience of faith” (p. 39).
“Eternal life is an undeserved gift of grace; we enter into it by way of a living, active, and obedient faith ... The covenantal demand for faith, repentance, and obedience is simply the way in which the Lord leads us into the possession of these blessings” (pp. 51, 63).
Shepherd, “Justification by Faith in Pauline Theology,” in Backbone of the Bible, edited by P. Andrew Sandlin (Covenant Media Press, 2004)
“Justifying faith is not only a penitent faith but also an obedient faith. As faith and repentance are inseparably joined, so also repentance and obedience are inseparably joined” (p. 91).
“Justification comes by a penitent and obedient faith … Gospel proclamation calls us to living faith, that is, to a penitent and obedient faith …. Those who by God’s electing grace respond to the gospel call with penitent and obedient faith are the righteous who will enter into eternal life” (pp. 100-1).
“Those who are forgiven and who are transformed into covenant keepers are the righteous who will inherit eternal life” (p. 110).
John F. MacArthur Jr.
The Gospel According to Jesus (Zondervan, 1988):
“A believing heart surrenders to the Master with great joy … He is glad to give it all up for the kingdom. That is the nature of saving faith … Saving faith retains no privileges. It clings to no cherished sins, no treasured possessions, no secret self-indulgences. It is an unconditional surrender, a willingness to do anything the Lord demands … It denotes implicit obedience, full surrender to the lordship of Christ. Nothing less can qualify as saving faith … True faith is humble, submissive obedience” (pp. 139f).
“The biblical concept of faith is inseparable from obedience. ‘Believe’ is synonymous with ‘obey’ … ‘To believe’ is ‘to obey’” (pp. 174-75).
“Grace is the power of God to fulfill our New Covenant duties” (p. 31).
The Federal Vision
The Auburn Avenue Pastors’ Conference titled “The Federal Vision” held at Auburn Avenue PCA in Monroe, Louisiana (2002): Douglas Wilson; John Barach; Steve Wilkins; Rich Lusk; Steve Schlissel
James Jordan: “Nothing in the Bible says that Adam was supposed to earn glory. He was, rather, called to remain faithful and mature ... My thesis is that what Adam was supposed to provide, and what Jesus has provided for us, is maturity. That is to say, the new status that Jesus provides for us does not come about because He earned something Adam failed to earn, but because He persevered in faith toward the Father until he was mature ... Far from earning His exaltation, Jesus received it as a free grace or gift from the Father ... There is no ‘merit’ theology in the Bible. There is no covenant of works” (“Merit Versus Maturity,” in The Federal Vision, ed. Steve Wilkins [Athanasius Press, 2004], pp. 153, 155, 193, 195).
Rich Lusk: “In the covenant construction advocated by Dr. Smith ... [t]he covenant of grace is simply the covenant of works fulfilled by a sinless substitute provided by God himself. While there is much to appreciate about the symmetry of such a covenantal scheme, it seems fraught with biblical difficulties ... It ends up looking something like this: In Genesis 1-2, God constructed Pelagian machinery for man to earn his way to blessing ... Jesus is the successful Pelagian, the One Guy in the history of the world who succeeded in pulling off the works righteousness plan” (The Auburn Avenue Theology, Pros and Cons: Debating the Federal Vision, ed. E. Calvin Beisner [Knox Theological Seminary, 2004], pp. 136-37).
Steve Schlissel: “‘For not the hearers of the Law [unbelieving Jews] are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the Law [believing Gentiles and Jews] will be justified.’ This statement is not a theoretical proposition concerning some meritorious method of being righteous before God. The presuppositions undergirding Paul’s statement include the facts that the Law is ‘obeyable,’ that truly responding to the Law (the Word) in faith does justify” (The Federal Vision, p. 260). “Obedience and faith are the same thing, biblically speaking” (The Auburn Avenue Theology, p. 26).
Joint Federal Vision Statement (2007):
“We affirm that Adam was in a covenant of life with the triune God in the Garden of Eden, in which arrangement Adam was required to obey God completely, from the heart. We hold further that all such obedience, had it occurred, would have been rendered from a heart of faith alone, in a spirit of loving trust. Adam was created to progress from immature glory to mature glory, but that glorification too would have been a gift of grace, received by faith alone.”
“We affirm that those in rebellion against God are condemned both by His law, which they disobey, and His gospel, which they also disobey … We deny that law and gospel should be considered as hermeneutics, or treated as such. We believe that any passage, whether indicative or imperative, can be heard by the faithful as good news, and that any passage, whether containing gospel promises or not, will be heard by the rebellious as intolerable demand. The fundamental division is not in the text, but rather in the human heart.”
“We deny that the faith which is the sole instrument of justification can be understood as anything other than the only kind of faith which God gives, which is to say, a living, active, and personally loyal faith.”
Doug Wilson, “Living Faith” (2008) https://dougwils.com/the-church/s16-theology/living-faith.html - “I am treating obedient faith and living faith as synonymous … it is obedient in its life, and in that living condition it is the instrument of our justification.”
Progressive Covenantalism
Ardel Caneday, “Covenantal Life with God from Eden to Holy City,” ch. 4 in Progressive Covenantalism: Charting a Course Between Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology, ed. Stephen Wellum and Brent Parker (B&H, 2016).
Caneday: “Gentry and Wellum affirm that the blending of God’s sovereign promise making and covenant keeping with the conditional stipulations of obedience is integral to the biblical story line beginning in Eden and reaching consummation in the Holy City” (p. 102).
“This chapter disavows the notion that all of Scripture consists of two isolatable messages: law, consisting of God’s demands, and gospel, composed of God’s gracious giving. Instead, it argues that the formulation of covenant stipulations remains the same across the covenants while the content of stipulations changes … True, God unconditionally establishes his various covenants with humans, but each covenant entails provisions with stipulations that both promise blessings to all who obey (remaining in saving covenant relationship with God) and announce curses upon the disobedient” (p. 103).
“Inheriting God’s promises is always conditional, for he grants his covenant blessing to those who, by his own grace, observe stipulations that require persevering, obedient belief. From Adam’s habitation of the Edenic garden with access to the tree of life to inheritance of our eternal habitation, God’s holy city, with free access to the tree of life, covenantal life with God always entails stipulations expressed as commands or conditionals” (p. 105).
“God’s word, entailing promise and threat, required Adam to believe, to trust the Lord, in order that he might obey God and receive his covenant blessing” (p. 108).
Caneday agrees with John Murray in setting aside the term “covenant of works,” in order to uphold the notion that the “covenant of creation” was gracious and did not entail merit (pp. 109-10).
He further rejects the notion that the Mosaic law was a republication of the covenant of works, again so as to uphold the notion that the old covenant was gracious. “The Mosaic covenant is not to be construed as entailing merit in any sense” (p. 109-10).
“Concerning their content, new covenant stipulations of repentance, faith, obedience, or doing good are distinctively different from old covenant stipulations. The new, with the law engraved on the heart, stipulates obeying Christ Jesus as Lord; the old, etched on stone tablets, stipulates obeying God’s covenant commandments that feature a panoply of heavenly shadows and copies. Though the content of stipulations differs, their form does not, for both new and old covenants employ variously formatted stipulations including imperatives and conditionals. ‘If you obey, then I will bless you’ or ‘Do this, and you will live.’ Thus, to claim that the stipulations of the new covenant are different formulations structurally—‘Do this because you are blessed’ versus ‘Do this in order to be blessed’—is not accurate” (p. 111).
“Grammatically, how the old and new covenants express stipulations as well as blessings or curses does not differ. Consider Leviticus 18:5: ‘Keep my decrees and laws [covenant stipulation], for the person who obeys them will live by them [covenant blessing]. I am the Lord.’ Now ponder Paul’s stipulation to Timothy: ‘Watch you life and doctrine closely [covenant stipulation]. Persevere in them, because if you do [covenant stipulation], you will save both yourself and your hearers [covenant blessing]’ (1 Tim 4:16)” (p. 116).
“The difference between the old and new covenants is not how the stipulations are grammatically structured or formed or that the former stipulates obedience and the new does not. Nor is the difference that the law covenant threatens divine curses and promises divine blessing with conditional stipulations but that the grace covenant in Christ issues no stipulations. Clearly the New Testament is filled with gospel threats and promises addressed to believers, which if heeded inviolably lead to eternal life but if ignored will end in condemnation” (p. 117).
“If we obey God’s stipulations proclaimed in and through his new covenant in Christ Jesus, God’s Word assures us that we shall have access to the tree of life in God’s Holy City. But if we do not heed God’s threatening stipulations, we will be cast outside, and our share in the tree of life and in the Holy City will be taken from us” (p. 126).
In sum, “Gospel as New Law” is the view that:
The grace of God is primary, even before the fall.
Even before the fall, God established his covenant with Adam as a gracious covenant relationship that involves promises but also involves certain conditions if we are to enjoy the fulfillment of those promises.
After the fall, God continues to the same pattern. The details of the specific requirements differ, but same covenant relationship is continued with Abraham and with Israel under the Law.
The Old Law is summarized in the demand: “The one who does these things [Mosaic commandments] will live by them” (Lev 18:5). God did not require perfect obedience but loyalty and covenant faithfulness.
The Gospel is a New Law that, like the Old Law, demands obedient faith and threatens a curse for those who are unfaithful.
What makes the New Law “new” is that the burden of the ceremonies and shadows of the Old Law are no longer required.
The sentence “we are justified by faith” is affirmed, but faith is defined as living, active, and obedient, so in the end it actually means “we are justified by works.”
At each point, God raised up a theologian to answer the “Gospel as New Law” error:
Against the Judaizers – Paul
Against Pelagius – Augustine
Against Rome – Martin Luther
Against Baxter – John Owen
Against Shepherd – Meredith Kline