Eschatological Vindication

In his book on the work of Christ, Robert Letham has this neat summary of the relation of present to future justification: “faith has an eschatological side to it. Paul can say we are justified by faith (Rom. 5:1) but he can equally talk of our being saved in hope (Rom. 8:24-25). Hope is oriented to the future, to the return of Christ, to the redemption of our bodies. Consequently, in faith we look ahead to the time when all God’s promises will reach their ultimate fruition. We wait with eager expectation for his final verdict, given at the last judgment, when we will receive open, public and universal acquittal, vindication and justification. That absolutely definitive judgment will be entirely gracious for, again, it will be grounded unequivocally on the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. So here and now, in faith, we are enabled to anticipate that verdict. At the same time, since that verdict will be christologically based, from God’s side it is anticipated at the present moment, since the self-abandonment of saving faith matches the christological basis of justification. Put another way, justification by faith in the present mirrors the gracious vindication of the last day.” Both justification and sanctification “have present, past and future dimensions to them.”

In related endnotes, Letham says that sanctification is a “spatial concept, referring to our being God’s possession and so separated from the rule of sin and Satan. In this sense, it consists of a definitive breach with the power of sin effected by Christ, a change which has already taken place when, in baptism, we died to sin.” Further, he connected justification with union with Christ: Citing Nevin’s Mystical Presence , he writes, “we are united to Christ in a real, personal, organic manner. His humanity is communicated to us in the Eucharist by the Holy Spirit in a real, spiritual sense. Thus, Christ’s righteousness is ours, actually and really, not only legally, since he is one with us and we are one with him. Reformed theology of the sixteenth century (Calvin, for instance) held to this, while later exponents such as Jonathan Edwards and Charles Hodge conceived of such union in purely legal, contractual terms.”

Citing 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Romans 5:19, he suggests that the NT conveys “the idea that not only is righteousness imputed to us but that we are also constituted righteous. We do not become personally righteous any more than Christ became personally a sinner . . . . Just as the sinless Christ took our sins and our guilt, however, becoming legally liable to receive God’s wrath in our place, really and actually suffering such wrath, so we are accounted righteous and become legally just, and consequently we are also actually just in Christ , due to the reality of this exchange.”