At some point during the Middle Ages, the church began to conceive of justification for the believer as a process instead of as a once for all act, and to confound it with sanctification. As a result of this declension in understanding, justification was made dependent on good works and could never be fully settled in this life. In fact, according to the theological system of the church just prior to the Protestant Reformation, justification was not even fully settled for the believer at death, since the faithful were still required to suffer for a requisite period of time, which could to some degree be mitigated through various rites and offerings to the church by the deceased person's loved ones, in a (fictitious) place called purgatory. The Protestant reformers, through the lead of Martin Luther, recovered the Biblical truth that justification is the judicial declaration of God that the believer is not only "not guilty" but also "righteous", solely based on the vicarious atoning death and perfect life of obedience of another, Jesus Christ, by faith alone.
That is why the apostle Paul repeatedly refers to justification as a completed event for the believer, received solely through faith, apart from all works. For example, after expounding the doctrine of justification in chapters one through four of Romans, Paul says at the beginning of Romans chapter five, "Therefore, having been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand."
Perhaps no better or more concise definition of justification can be found than that provided by Question 33 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, which reads, "Justification is an act of God's free grace, wherein he pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us, and received by faith alone."
Today, regrettably, a number of the very men who purport to follow in the footsteps of the Protestant reformers, and especially in the footsteps of John Calvin, are either directly or indirectly undermining the biblical doctrine of justification, recovered during the Protestant Reformation, by calling into question its completeness for the believer.
To provide just one recent example, David Briones, professor of New Testament at Westminster Seminary California, in the abstract of a 2020 article entitled "Already, Not Yet," writes, "For now, Christians live in great theological tension: we already possess every spiritual blessing in Christ, but we do not experience the fullness of these blessings yet. In one sense, we are already adopted, redeemed, sanctified, and saved; in another, these experiences are not yet fully ours." Anyone who is aware of the source of Briones's statement, the theology of Dr. Richard B. Gaffin Jr., former professor of biblical and systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, will know that although Briones omits justification here, justification is certainly, in his view, one of the spiritual blessings that is not yet fully experienced by the believer. This is made explicit in the article itself. Briones, following Gaffin, teaches that justification, for the believer, is "already, not yet."
What is wrong with this?
To begin with, the whole notion of "already, not yet," as construed by today's reformed Presbyterian theologians, is a construct foreign to Scripture, that has been appropriated from 20th-century European neo-reformed theologians. If the meaning of "already, not yet" were merely that believers already experience God's blessings in this life, but will not experience the fullness of God's blessings, such as, for example, being completely freed from all inclination and even the ability to sin, or having resurrected, glorified bodies, until a future time, there would be nothing novel about it. Certainly, believers in every age of the world have understood the basic and obvious truth that there are blessings which await a future world. However, despite qualifications to the contrary, today's reformed Presbyterian theologians effectively take "already, not yet" as something that is true of the same thing, in the same sense, at the same time: a notion which even Aristotle, who unfortunately was not a believer, would call them out on. Such a construct seems to have more affinity with Hegel than Aristotle. It also leads Briones to mischaracterize the Christian life as one of "great theological tension" between the "already" and the "not yet."
Beyond the fact that "already, not yet" is a construct foreign to Scripture, affirming that a believer's justification is in the mode of the "already" and the "not yet" radically departs from the doctrine of justification revealed in Scripture, and recovered by the Protestant reformers, in which justification is, for the believer, exclusively (if we have to use the term) "already." If the believer's justification were a grammatical tense, it would be the perfect tense. Foisting the "already, not yet" construct on justification turns it back into a process. Though many spiritual benefits that flow from justification are either ongoing or to be enjoyed in the future, and though the open manifestation of the believer's justification to the eyes of the universe awaits the last day, justification itself is a completed past act for the believer. This is because the meritorious basis for the believer's justification is the perfect, all sufficient righteousness of Jesus Christ, comprising his sacrificial, atoning death on the cross, which completely washes away the guilt of all the believer's sins, past, present, and future, and his perfect life of obedience under the law, which secures for the believer a title to eternal life. That is the basis for the believer's right standing before God in this world, and that will remain the basis for the believer's right standing before God through all eternity. Applying the newfangled "already, not yet" construct to the believer's justification undermines this truth and is, therefore, dangerous.
Hand in hand with making justification a process that will not be completed until the final day of judgment, this neo-reformed teaching attributes to the believer's good works a non-meritorious causality in the believer's supposed final justification. It is easy to miss the legalism in this view, because adherents to this teaching always make the point that works are in no way the ground or basis of the believer's justification. That is, they say that works are not meritorious. However, making works in any way causal in justification, or, to put it another way, making justification in any way or sense causally dependent on the believer's good works, is essentially to make them meritorious.
The men who created the Westminster Standards were certainly aware of this principle, as they guarded against the notion that works could be construed to be in some way co-instrumental with faith for justification, by affirming that "faith is the alone instrument of justification." As has become customary for followers of the new teaching, Briones says, "we must remember that Christian judgment [meaning the time when the Christian stands before God on judgment day] is in accordance with our good works and never on the basis of our good works," but does not explain what is meant by "in accordance with." The reader is thrown off from suspecting any legalism in this statement because of the denial that good works could ever be the basis of justification. Briones does not tell his readers that in accordance with means something beyond the Biblical truth that good works are evidential of a believer's justification. That is, this neo-reformed teaching makes the believer's good works in some sense co-instrumental with faith in justification.
Since this new teaching is being inculcated in many presbyterian seminaries, it is rapidly becoming the predominant view in presbyterian and other reformed churches. As a practical recommendation, I would encourage believers to spend more time reading, with Bible in hand, the theological and expository works of Reformed teachers and preachers from past ages-----especially the Protestant reformers themselves, such as Luther, Heinrich Bullinger, and Calvin, and men like Charles Hodge, J.C. Ryle, Charles Spurgeon, and Louis Berkhof-----than reading contemporary authors. If you find a book with favorable references to the work of Herman Ridderbos or G.C. Berkouwer, or which touts "already, not yet" as a sort of central or foundational Christian doctrine to be reflected on with wonder, you are reading an author who has come under the influence of the neo-reformed teaching on justification.
Far better to reflect on the Biblical truth expressed in the following words by Bullinger:
Vitae enim & salutis nostrae firmamentum & basis stabilissima est iustificatio [For justification is the most stable ground and foundation of our life and salvation].
Beware, beloved.
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