“Here is my servant whom I have chosen,
the one I love, in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will proclaim justice to the nations.
19 He will not quarrel or cry out;
no one will hear his voice in the streets.
20 A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out,
till he has brought justice through to victory.
21 In his name the nations will put their hope.” –Mathew 12.18-21
If, ten years ago, you had told me that I would live to see literate evangelicals, some with doctorates and a seminary teaching record, arguing for the reality of an eternal salvation, divinely guaranteed, that may have in it no repentance, no discipleship, no behavioral change, no practical acknowledgment of Christ as Lord of one’s life, and no perseverance in faith, I would have told you that you were out of your mind. –J. I. Packer
I just came across the above quote of J.I. Packer from someone on X/Twitter. It seems that some are not aware that Packer was a proponent of what has been called experimental predestinarianism; even to the more idiosyncratic version of that as propounded in John MacArthur’s book, The Gospel According to Jesus (i.e., JMac’s Lordship Salvation book). We could identify these things, more simply, as a nomist or juridical/law-based theory of salvation. Without getting into the depths of its socio-economic background and development within the late mediaeval and early reformational milieu in Western Europe, suffice it to say that this theory of salvation is largely framed by an appeal to a quid pro quo mercantilist framework of thinking. As this theory further developed it later became known as Federal or Covenantal theology, again funded by a contractual-transactional notion of salvation. Packer would be much more closely aligned with this historic development, while MacArthur simply abstracts the themes he prefers from it, and pastes them into his own stylized version of a Baptistic theology (so, a mere 5-point Calvinism). But functionally, and thematically, as noted, Packer could agree with the type of requirements that MacArthur delineates in his Lordship salvation. They both agree that there must be some type of moral transformation and ongoing action in the purportedly elect’s life, if in fact we should think that said professor of salvation is actually a possessor.
And yet, Jesus came for the Bruised Reeds, the Smoldering Wicks among us. He came for the sick, not the healthy. He came for the people who are in fact failures, and know it. He places all of the expectations of salvation on Himself—He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him—as such the broken can give up; they can quit striving; they can look away from their own performances, and instead look at God’s performance for them in the acts and facts of Jesus Christ. If Jesus was walking the streets today, He’d literally be hanging out with the tweakers, the crackheads, and bums who inhabit the streets and tunnels in our various cities. These types of people are the elect of God in the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of God in Christ turns the system of this world upside down; it takes what would appear weak and foolish and makes it the wisdom of God. In Christ, who is indeed, the elect of God for us, the bums among us find repose and hope to live one more day; a day for and up to eternity in and from the everlasting life of the triune God for them in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. It is His resurrection power, His re-created humanity that has “checked all the boxes” of God’s holiness requirements. He knows that we will continue to be simul justus et peccator (simultaneously justified and sinner) as we inhabit these bodies of death; He knows that we will continue to sin, even to the point that even if we say we have no sin we make Him a liar and His truth is not in us. This is why Christ is the Advocate for us before the Father; not just for now, but for all eternity. The scars in his hands, feet, and side will remain forever unto all the ages to come as a reminder that we are only standing in God’s presence, in His glorified body in Christ, because He first loved us in Christ, that we might secondly love Him from Christ’s love for us in Him.
The nomist theory of salvation is balderdash! It heaps loads and burdens on the peoples that the peoples were never designed to bear. God’s salvation is His Grace for us ‘all-the-way-down.’ God’s Grace for us starts at the bottom of Christ’s feet and ascends all the way up through His ascended body into the heavenlies, at the Right Hand of the Father, where He always lives to make intercession for us. If you are striving under these balderdash theories of salvation—the ones that press you further into your navels, into your performance and ‘pact-keeping’—reckon such thoughts as dead, and understand that you are now alive in Christ’s new creation for you, His resurrected and ascended body for you/us. The Gospel is either all of God for us, or it is none of us for God. The “proof of salvation,” God’s salvation for us, is the Christ seated next to the Father from moment to moment. It is through union with Christ, unio cum Christo, wherein we find the anchor of our souls. We don’t reflexively look at our lives prior to looking to Christ’s life for us (the nomist way of salvation). We look immediately to the Father through the eyes of the Son, through the body of the Son, as we in participation with Christ (participatio Christi) dwell in the bosom of the Father; wherein, Christ forevermore exegetes the Father, the shared coinhering life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for us. ‘This is eternal life that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.’