Calvinism Defended:

Of Dunghills and Justification

By

John Orlando

This is the 26th section of the e-mail exchange I had with Bill, an individual who objected to Calvinism.  Click here to go back to the table of contents, or here to go to the full 88 page exchange. 

Bill Writes:  Luther said that our justification is like a dunghill covered with snow.  Well maybe his was, but my righteousness is Christ and Christ is no dunghill. 

My Response:  Again, not quite accurate and a misrepresentation of his view.  You know Bill, I seem to remember something in the Scriptures about bearing false witness…I would encourage you to really be precise with your statements of what you say other’s teach.  Anyway, I found this from a Lutheran website that might be of interest t you:

I was reading the writings of Martin Luther and one time I came across a passage that read basically that our sins would be ‘covered over ‘like snow over a dunghill. ... I have never been able to find this piece since I first read it. Can you tell me where the passage can be located and what writings this could be taken from?  

The Answer:  With regard to the Luther quotation, a check in the indexes of four major editions of Luther’s works does not reveal whether or where Luther might have said or written that. It is certainly in keeping with his understanding of the gospel, although he did have many ways of saying it better.

http://www.wels.net/sab/qa/luther-02.html

The point would be, Bill, that our sin is totally covered by the perfect purity of Christ.  Justification is like a dunghill covered in snow in that we are the dunghill, and Christ’s righteousness is the snow that covers us.  In a winter snow storm, what do you see?  All you see is snow…you do not see what the snow has covered.  This is precisely our estate now before God.  Though we are still sinners (dunghills), God by His grace does not “see” the dunghill (so to speak).  All He “sees” is the “snow” (i.e., the perfect righteousness of Christ that has been imputed to us, which you, of course, deny).  What you fail to grasp, Bill, is that your righteousness, which you are banking on to get you to heaven, is, in the words of Isaiah, filthy rags.  It isn’t just our sin that is a dunghill, it is even our righteousness that is putrid in the sight of God.  This is why we the need the righteousness of another to be credited to us, and this is precisely what Christ does for us.  It’s not that He merely died for us.  It’s that He also lived for us! 

Bill Writes:  And that brings up the issue of justification (a Latin forensic or law term) v. righteousness.  My righteousness in Christ is not law term justification (not of the law), but is  “ righteous” fellowship with God in Christ Jesus through the Holy Ghost.  My righteousness is faith from beginning to end…faith in Jesus Christ. 

My Response:  The difference between your view and mine is simple:  you and what you do are your own righteousness “in Christ,” and for me, Jesus Christ is my righteousness, and I appropriate that righteousness by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in, by, and because of Jesus Christ alone, all to God’s glory alone.  These are things that, based on your own words, you steadfastly deny. 

 Christ alone is the sole sufficient cause of my salvation, whereas the individual and his righteousness is ultimately the cause of the salvation of all those who would deny the doctrines of grace.  You make yourself and what do your righteousness (the dunghill, if you will), and thus you turn your faith and works into a meritorious works; you are your own savior, Bill.  What need do you have of Jesus?  None.  If you remove the legal issue involved in justification, then you have completely robbed the cross of all of its purpose, for at the cross Jesus is said to have paid the penalty for sinners.  We broke God’s Law, and now Jesus takes our place and bears the penalty that we due to our lawbreaking in our place, and He made a real propitiation for us.  God’s wrath toward those sinners for whom Christ died has been satisfied.  If you deny that, then you deny the penal substitutionary view of the atonement, and are forced in that case to adopt either the moral influence, governmental, ransom to Satan, or some other heretical view.  Talk about a “cheap” view of grace!  Talk about making the work of Christ in vain!  If you want to stand before God and appeal to your works as the cause of your salvation, that’s on you…just please don’t call that the gospel.  I am going to appeal to Christ, and His perfect righteousness which was imputed to me, which I laid hold of by faith, which faith was itself a gracious gift given to me by God, so that it can truly be said that salvation (all of my salvation) is of the Lord.  

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