Waldron's Dissertation: Faith, Obedience and Justification

The Journal, Reformed Baptist Theological Review, has finished its third year of publications. The Reformed Baptist Academic Press with Managing Editor Richard Barcellos is seeing a bigger future than just the journal. They are also starting a Dissertation Series. “RBAP is in the process of gathering relevant Ph.D. dissertations with the goal of publishing a series by contemporary Reformed Baptists.”

The first one out of the gate is Sam Waldron’s Faith, Obedience, and Justification. Since the RBTR has had several articles on the subject of New Perspectivism, I was expecting Waldron’s Dissertation to be one that must do a lot of refuting “NPism” by going to the Biblical text and explaining “Sola Fide”. This was not the case.

Instead Waldron’s Thesis was to demonstrate that three influential men today, who advocate some form of Covenantal Nomism, as being out of the Reformed Protestant Tradition. He does this in 7 chapters and a conclusion.

In chapter 1 he lays out his introduction, thesis and methodology. In the following 3 chapters he gives a positive presentation of the doctrine of Sola Fide as taught by Luther, Calvin and the Protestant Confessions. The doctrine’s main features, such as the difference in “resting on Christ” as compared with producing obedience, were explained from the writings of Luther and Calvin demonstrating what they clearly taught and believed. The Law and Gospel distinction was also explained throughout their works.

Chapter 4 was for me the most impressive. Waldron gives a brief survey of most of the major Confessions. He goes to the relevant texts and demonstrates that what Luther and Calvin believed was also believed by many generations to follow. This information gives the reader plenty of evidence that the doctrine of Sola Fide has been consistently taught and upheld.

Chapters 5-7 deal with Daniel Fuller, Norman Shepherd, and Don Garlington’s views of Sola Fide. Each of them are carefully analyzed to be sure that what they say is not misconstrued. Waldron contrasts their views with the Reformation’s history. Waldron carefully seeks to understand the meanings of terms that are usually reserved for Reformed Protestants. Imputation is often denied.

For instance Don Garlington is quoted as saying on page 221:

"In sum, the evidence educed from these passages by Piper [Counted Righteous In Christ] clearly confirms that the righteousness of God is none other than the righteousness of Christ. Nevertheless, it has not been established that imputation is the means by which Christ’s righteousness becomes our righteousness by virtue of union with Himself, plain and simple."

This may sound confusing, so Waldron explains:

“The righteousness of God is none other than the righteousness of Christ appears to be an impressive statement of the Traditional view of justification. That Garlington does not mean these words in that way should by this point be obvious. He means by the righteousness of Christ the righteousness that is imparted to us and infused into us by our participation in or union with Christ…. What Garlington means to say is, however, quite clear by now. He means that it is not possible to distinguish between the moral and forensic aspects of salvation. To become righteous means to become believingly obedient to the covenant as a consequence of which God declares you to be what you really and personally are—a faithful covenant keeper.”

Waldron demonstrates over and over again from the Creeds and Confessions that the Christian’s faith is not what makes him righteous but the object of that said faith…the imputed righteousness of Christ.

His concluding chapter is quite gracious but also factual. He shows that the three men are outside of the Reformed Protestant Tradition and should cease and desist from trying to remain Evangelicals. He rightly concludes that they have more in common with Trent than our Confessions.

I would never have thought of the approach this book has taken. The Reformed Baptist Academic Press is to be commended for producing a much-needed work such as this. The only criticism of these RB books is that the authors often quote the original Greek without bracketing the English equivalents for readers who can’t read Greek. Although I have become used to this, these books would be helpful to many who perhaps might otherwise ignore it for not making such provisions.

With the Auburn Avenue movement and New Perspectivism coming down the pike in a hurry, every pastor that shepherds the flock of God faithfully needs to have this in his library. Get it. Read it. Be equipped by it. Laymen too!

Soli Deo Gloria