Leithhart on McCormack on Justification

Bruce McCormack’s article on justification, alluded to in an earlier post, is quite good. He rightly points out that “the term ‘justification’ has its home in the judicial sphere,” but equally rightly points out that God’s judgments are different from human judgments: “God’s verdict differs in that it creates the reality it declares. God’s declaration, in other words, is itself constitutive of that which is declared. God’s word is always effective. When it goes forth, it never returns to Him void. So a judicial act for God is never merely judicial; it is itself transformative.” Faith thus does not “receive the divine verdict” but “is itself produced by that verdict. Imputation is itself regenerative.” He cites Calvin’s statement that “whomever . . . God receives into his grace, on them he at the same time bestows the gift of the spirit of adoption. . . , by whose power he remakes them in his own image,” and concludes that Calvin teaches that justification is here “logically prior to regeneration.” It is through the verdict of the divine Judge that the sinner is enabled to believe and through that verdict that the sinner is constituted as righteous.

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