The Text Says So

“Gundry’s antithesis is perplexing: the wisdom is God’s, he says, not Christ’s, even though the text says ‘Christ has become for us wisdom’ and ‘Christ has become for us … righteousness,’ [1 Cor. 1:30] and so forth. Again, this is bound up with the language of union in Christ: ‘you are in Christ Jesus.’ Nevertheless, the next word is a relative pronoun whose referent is Christ, who is explicitly said to have become our righteousness. Why, then, the complete antithesis (‘God’s, not Christ’s’)? This is not far removed from the ideas found in 2 Corinthians 5:19–21: God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. So yes, this righteousness is God’s; and yes, this righteousness is Christ’s. The text says so.”

[D. A. Carson, “The Vindication of Imputation,” in Husbands & Treier, Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debate]

He Obtains a Double Blessing

“Such is the arrangement of the Institutes which may be thus summed up: Man being at first created upright, but afterwards being not partially but totally ruined, finds his entire salvation out of himself in Christ, to whom being united by the Holy Spirit freely given without any foresight of future works, he thereby obtains a double blessing, viz., full imputation of righteousness, which goes along with us even to the grave, and the commencement of sanctification, which daily advances till at length it is perfected in the day of regeneration or resurrection of the body, and this, in order that the great mercy of God may be celebrated in the heavenly mansions, throughout eternity.”

[John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Introduction]

Work Confidently and Joyfully

“If we enjoy union with Christ, not only we ourselves but even our works too are just in God’s sight. This doctrine of the justification of works (which was developed in the Reformed Church) is of the greatest consequence for ethics. It makes clear that the man who belongs to Christ need not be the prey of continual remorse. On the contrary he can go about his daily work confidently and joyfully.”

[Wilhelm Niesel, Reformed Symbolics, quoted in Horton, Covenant and Justification, 135]

Foreign to Paul’s Arguments

“While I would agree that the law, far from being set aside, exercises its full judicial role in these proceedings (both in condemnation and justification), it would seem foreign to Paul’s arguments to suggest with Wright that the Torah itself, when helped by the Spirit, becomes the source of life and ‘the required δικαιωμα to God’s people.’ To be sure, the ‘circumcision not made with hands’ is part of the promise of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31. yet as in other rival accounts, justification itself takes on the character of moral transformation, according to Wright. Is Paul’s good news really that now that we have the Spirit, we can have life by the law?”

[Michael Horton, Covenant and Justification: Union with Christ, 121]

Always Outside Us

“Therefore, those who prate that we are justified by faith because, being reborn, we are righteous by living spiritually have never tasted the sweetness of grace, so as to consider that God will be favorable to them. … This surely does not take place through the gift of regeneration, which, as it is always imperfect in this flesh, so contains in itself manifold grounds for doubt. Therefore, we must come to this remedy: that believers should be convinced that their only ground of hope for the inheritance of a Heavenly Kingdom lies in the fact that, being engrafted in the body of Christ, they are freely accounted righteous. For, as regards justification, faith is something merely passive, brining nothing of ours to the recovering of God’s favor but receiving from Christ that which we lack.”

[John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, III.13.5]

Lean Upon It Wholly

“The foundation of your trust before God, must be either your won righteousness out and out, or the righteousness of Christ out and out…If you are to lean upon your own merit, lean upon it wholly—if you are to lean upon Christ, lean upon him wholly. The two will not amalgamate together; and it is the attempt to do so, which keeps many a weary and heavy-laden inquirer at a distance from rest, and at a distance from the truth of the gospel. Maintain a clear and consistent posture. Stand not before God with one foot upon a rock and the other upon a treacherous quicksand… We call upon you not to lean so much as the weight of one grain or scruple of your confidence upon your own doings—to leave this ground entirely, and to come over entirely to the ground of a Redeemer’s blood and a Redeemer’s righteousness.”

[Thomas Chalmers, quoted by the editor of John Calvin’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 3:21, p. 135]

The Righteousness of God

“In this is his righteousness: that he, the righteous one, sharing in the inner-divine righteousness and administering the divine law and its just commands, takes upon himself the guilt and alienation of the unrighteous creature. His divine righteousness is not in opposition to this assumption of the creature’s burden; he does not have to lay aside or negate the iusititia Dei interna to come to our aid. Quite the opposite: his taking the part of the unrighteous is the enactment of his righteousness, precisely because in so doing he recreates righteous fellowship. As with God’s holiness, so with his righteousness: God’s holiness in se is made known ad extra not in the destruction of creatures but in the fulfillment of his purpose in election by purging the creature of sin and so perfecting a people for himself. God’s righteousness in se is made known ad extra  not in delivering the creature over to the penalty of the law but in the supreme act of fellowship, in which he takes the creature’s penalty upon himself.”

[John Webster in What is Justification About?, 53]