Negociar para vender: la postura de los ejidatarios para la conformación de la ZMRE

For Calvin, Christians are liberated from the reign of sin but not the presence of sin.40 Although the Spirit renews believers and creates virtues within them, leading them into experiential righteousness, the good works performed by believers are tainted by sin. Calvin illustrates, “If a wine is the best in the world and it is put in a foul-smelling cask or in a dirty bottle, the wine is ruined. That is the way it is with all our works. For to the extent God guides and directs us in them by his Holy Spirit, they are good and holy and praiseworthy. But let us consider the kind of vessels we are, filled with infection and stench. Consequently, our works are corrupt.”41 Calvin carefully explains that it is not the Spirit’s work within us but our participation in his activity that is imperfect. Thus, our works judged in se merit neither God’s acceptance nor reward since he requires absolute righteousness.42 This is why Calvin says that partial righteousness is a fiction.

Yet he also teaches that God graciously accepts our imperfect works as if they were perfect. Like Luther, who teaches that “works are acceptable not for their own sake but because of faith,”43

Calvin teaches that our works are acceptable on account of faith.44 Yet Calvin also uses iustifico in explaining that our works are acceptable coram

Deo. Because we are grafted into Christ, “we can deservedly say that by faith alone not

only we ourselves but our works as well are justified.”45 Scholars have branded this Calvin’s concept of “double justification,”46

though Calvin himself never uses the

40

See Inst. 3.3.10-11 (mainly 1543), OS 4:65-67; Serm. Gen. 15:6 (2:359-360), SC XI/2:772; Comm. Rom. 7:15, COR II/XIII:145; Lane, “Anthropology,” 285.

41

Serm. Gen. 15:6 (2:360), SC XI/2:772. 42

On the value of good works, see Lane, “The Role of Scripture,” 373-375; Raith, After Merit, 137-141.

43

Treatise on Good Works in LW 44:26, WA 6:206. Zwingli, Fidei Expositio in RC 1:201, Niemeyer 56-57; and Melanchthon, CTT 181-182, CR 21:771-773; Romans 43, CR 15:529, also teach that works are acceptable to God when faith is present and precedes.

44

See Comm. Acts 10:4, COR II/XII.1:297; W.H. Neuser (ed.), Die Vorbereitung der Religionsgespräche von Worms und Regensburg 1540/41 (Neukirchener Verlag, 1974), 129, wherein Calvin is recorded to have suggested at the Worms Colloquy that an inchoate and incomplete righteousness pleases God, though only on account of faith, which brings about participation in Christ’s perfect righteousness.

45

Inst. 3.17.10 (1543), OS 4:263. Cf. Inst. 3.17.3 (1539), OS 4:255; Comm. Rom. 3:22, COR II/XIII:71.

46

E.g., Horton, Justification, 1:216; Lane, Justification by Faith, 33-36; idem., “The Role of Scripture,” 375-377; Niesel, Theology of Calvin, 135-136; Parker, “Calvin’s Doctrine of Justification,” EQ 24 (1952): 105; Raith, After Merit, 141-144 (Raith does not use the

terminology of “double justification” and instead speaks of “God’s acceptatio of human works”); Venema, Accepted and Renewed, 163-170; Wright, Calvin’s Salvation, 300-302. Cf. Eberhard Busch, “Glaube und gute Werke: Calvins Verständnis der Rechtfertigungslehre,” Zwingliana 28 (2001): 42. Garcia calls the classification “double justification” an “ambiguous

terminology, which is different from Bucer’s so-called “double” or “twofold

justification.” Bucer affirms both justification of the ungodly and justification of the godly.47 Or as Horst-Martin Barnikol explains, “Therefore, Bucer, teaches a double

justification [iustificatio duplex], a justification which, as the first justification, happens

initially by faith alone, but then as the second justification which, happening through works, occurs immediately in the space of sanctification.”48 Both Bucer’s and Calvin’s respective concepts differ from double justification in the strict sense, which espouses two separate groundings for justification—faith and works.49 Further, according to Calvin, just as justification of persons consists in non-imputation of sins and imputation of Christ’s righteousness, so does justification of works.50

Our works in se “only arouse God’s vengeance unless they be sustained by his merciful pardon.”51

Whatever is imperfect in our works “is covered by Christ’s perfection.”52

Consequently, our works “are accounted righteous, or . . . reckoned as righteousness.”53

In this sense, therefore, our good works are distinguished “by the name of righteousness,”54

even if they are only partially righteous.

sobriquet” (Life in Christ, 146), because it could imply that justification has a dual grounding—

partly in Christ’s righteousness and partly in human works (141n.133). Garcia argues that his “replication principle,” which we discussed in chapter 1, better captures the framework of Calvin’s understanding of the necessity of good works in the lives of those justified (141n.133;146).

47

E.g., B.Rom. 231-232; Lugioyo, Bucer’s Doctrine of Justification, 229-230. 48

Horst-Martin Barnikol, Bucers Lehre von der Rechtfertigung: Dargestellt an seinem Römerbriefkommentar (Kamen: Hartmut Spenner, 2014), 118: “So lehrt Bucer eine doppelte Rechtfertigung (iustificatio duplex), eine Rechtfertigung, die als erste Rechtfertigung zunächst allein aus Glauben geschieht, die sich aber dann als zweite, durch die Werke geschehende Rechtfertigung im Raume der Heiligung unmittelbar fortsetzt.” (cf. 108-21). Cf. McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 252-253; Stephens, The Holy Spirit, 53-55.

49

See Garcia, Life in Christ, 141; Lugioyo, Bucer’s Doctrine of Justification, 46; McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 252.

50

Parker, “Calvin’s Doctrine of Justification,” 105. 51

Inst. 3.14.16 (1539), OS 4:234. 52

Inst. 3.17.8 (1539), OS 4:261. Cf. Inst. 3.17.5 (1539), OS 4:258, wherein Calvin states that God accepts believers’ works “in Christ rather than in themselves.” Cf. Zwingli, Sixty-Seven Articles, Article 22 in RC 1:5, Niemeyer 6-7: “Christ is our righteousness. From this we

conclude that our works are good insofar as they are Christ’s; but insofar as they are ours, they are neither right nor good”; and Melanchthon, Romans 149, CR 15:640, who states that God accepts our imperfect obedience on account of Christ (cf. Romans 105,115, CR 15:594,605; CTT 181, CR 21:771-772).

53

Inst. 3.17.8 (1539), OS 4:262. 54

72 The reason God adjudges our works righteous is that he examines them

“according to his tenderness, not his supreme right.”55

Moreover, “Of his own fatherly generosity and loving-kindness, and without considering their worth, [God] raises works to this place of honor, so that he attributes some values to them.”56 Thus, God acts toward our works as he acts toward us: as a gracious and benevolent Father, not a strict Judge. Calvin emphasizes that God is not obligated to accept our works, since they are tainted and thus damnworthy in se.57 But in his mercy, God accepts the gifts he has placed in believers.58 God, therefore, is acting faithfully toward himself and not just graciously toward believers.

In accepting or justifying our works, God is not arbitrarily or fictitiously calling evil works good, or vice virtue.59 Calvin indeed calls our imperfect good works good.60 As Lane explains, “It is not that the works of Christians are indistinguishable from those of non-Christians, God deciding to accept the former but not that latter. These are genuinely good works in that they are done in faith from a genuine love for God and neighbor.”61

Although believers’ good works are imperfect, they may still be called righteous because they flow from the Spirit, who is renewing believers and causing them to love God and neighbor in sincerity of heart. Thus, justification of works differs slightly from justification of persons. As Raith explains,

In terms of the doctrine of justification, there is nothing of worth in the sinner that in any way influences God’s decision to grant the sinner the ability to have faith in Christ and consequently have her sins forgiven and Christ’s justice imputed; the sinner is totally void of any “good” pertinent to godliness and righteousness before God’s gift of justification. In terms of works justified by faith, however, there is some good in the believer’s works prior (logically,

55

Inst 3.15.4 (1539), OS 4:243. 56

Inst. 3.17.3 (1539), OS 4:256. Cf. Inst. 3.17.15 (1539), OS 4:269; Reform in Tracts 1:164-165, CO 6:487.

57

On the damnworthiness of believers’ imperfect good works, see Raith, After Merit, 125-130,137-144.

58

Calvin approvingly quotes Augustine stating that God “crowns his own gifts.” E.g., Comm. Gen. 7:1, CO 23:129; Inst. 3.25.10 (1559), OS 4:454.

59

Lane, “The Role of Scripture,” 375. 60

See Inst. 3.17.1 (1539), OS 4:253. 61

Lane, “The Role of Scripture,” 375; cf. idem., Justification by Faith, 33-34. Raith, After Merit, 143, critiques Lane’s description of believers’ works as “genuinely good,” arguing that it is better to describe them as possessing “a level of goodness that God accepts” since in reality they are “genuinely damnable.” It is clear from the contexts of Raith’s and Lane’s studies that both see believers’ good works as imperfect and not good to the fullest degree.

though not necessary chronologically) to their being “justified” due to the regenerating work of the Spirit giving rise to these works.62

Again, this does not mean good works merit divine acceptance. Calvin stresses that perfect righteousness alone pleases God and that our imperfect works only rouse his anger. Yet God graciously accepts our imperfect good works “because he wills to value them so much . . . even though they do not deserve it.”63

Another reason God accepts believers’ works is he has already accepted their persons and adopted them as children, who are being renewed after Christ’s image. Justification of the sinner, then, is logically requisite to justification of works. Preaching on Genesis 15:6, Calvin states,

When [God] receives us initially, he can justify none of the works which are in us. Why not? They are all bad. For, as we have said, what can a corrupt tree bear? (Cf. Matt. 7:17.) So God, when drawing to himself poor sinners who are rejected and banished from his kingdom and his church, does not justify their works but, seeing their wretchedness and having pity on them as being lost, justifies them. Now after receiving them, he justifies them in their persons, that is, they are acceptable to him as his children, and then he justifies their works.64 Regeneration must also precede justification of works: “Purification of heart must precede, in order that those works which come forth from us may be favorably received by God.”65

The reason Calvin says believers possess a partial righteousness is that God has graciously willed to accept their imperfect works as wholly righteous, though they are not so in reality.66