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John Piper Does Not Understand Justification
Justification is a declaration coming from the throne of God regarding our judicial, legal standing before God and His Law. It is God declaring us righteous! That is, it is a declaration from God declaring that we are in perfect conformity to His Law. It is not progressive as the Roman Catholic cult teaches. Justification occurs one time, is instantaneous, and is never again repeated. Never.
That has been understood for centuries. The word justify does and has always meant the same in both the biblical and secular realms throughout history, yet apparently, there is still some confusion – or should I say fusion?
John Piper:
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. – 2 Corinthians 5:21
Thus justification has these two sides: the removal of sin because Christ bears our curse, and the imputation of righteousness because we are in Christ and His righteousness is counted as ours. (John Piper, God is the Gospel, p. 43)
No. The verse Piper quotes speaks of reconciliation, not sanctification, which has to to with the removal of sin. Justification does no such thing, being a declaration. It is good news for the sinner who needs to be reconciled unto God, and has nothing to do with the removal of sin from the saint.
Nowhere in Scripture does justification have two sides. It only has one. It means to declare righteous. It removes nothing. To declare something removes nothing. When a person is saved, he or she is declared righteous – that’s justification – but sin is not removed from the believer in the declaration.
The tyranny of sin as a master is broken, absolutely, yet the believer still sins, thus the need for constant renewing of the mind by the reading of the Word of God; thus the need for the continuing work of the Holy Spirit in the conscience and spirit of men to convict of sin.
The work of removing sin is the work of the Holy Spirit in our sanctification, a process in which, the Christian is not passive, but active in the mortification of sin by the enabling of the Spirit of God.
“Well, all Piper is saying is that our sin is removed from our account.”
Well, that is not justification, because in justification there is no sin to be removed. If we say that our sin is removed, we are saying that it existed in the first place. In the justifying declaration of God, there is no sin to be removed!
Brethren, when God declares you justified, God is declaring that you have never sinned – a declaration of total, complete obedience to His Law – a declaration of perfect sinlessness. It is a declaration of your perfect obedience to the Law of God – in Christ.
Yet even after justification, sin remains, it is not removed as Piper says.
What John Piper is doing here, as in most of his writings and preaching and teaching, is fusing justification with sanctification. In other words, Christ obedience for your justification also applies to your sanctification – which is not true, not biblical.
While the majority of Christians would confess that the Holy Spirit works in us to help us remove sin, John Piper goes so far as to say that the Holy Spirit does not do that apart from the preaching of the Gospel – to Christians.
In a section of the book titled: The Spirit Flies in Formation Behind the Christ-Exalting Gospel he writes:
This is crucial to understand. It shows how Christ-exalting the Holy Spirit is. He will not do His sanctifying work by the use of His direct divine power. He will only do it by making the glory of Christ the immediate cause of it. This is the way He works in evangelism, and this is the way he works in sanctification. – (John Piper, God is the Gospel, p. 91).
That statement flies in the face of all New Testament teaching. Apparently, not only does John Piper not understand Justification by faith, neither does he understand fully the work of the Spirit of God in the life of the believer.
5 Pt. Salt 
Amen and amen! When I was a combat engineer in the U.S. Army, I was taught a field method of testing soil to see if it could hold up the structure we needed to build. Organics in the soil (including clay) shift and destroy – but they are not always easy to detect. I was taught to put a small bit of the soil in my mouth and push it between my tongue and teeth. If it was rough like salt, it was good soil; if it was smooth like powered sugar, it was bad.
This detailed level of discernment is oft needed to identify good teaching from bad. It has been my experience with Piper’s writings that one needs a very careful reading in order not to be led astray. Our eye tends to go the last part of his statement that you quoted without properly comprehending the predicate. And it is there, as you rightly pointed out, that Piper embraces Rome. All in line with his horrible “Christian hedonism” – which is for the glory of man, at God’s expense.
I will tell you what baffles the tar out of me. Piper does not just err lightly but gravely. Yet, you have Piper sycophants like Pyromaniacs who simply will not do much more with these serious doctrinal errors of Piper while piling on easy targets like Driscoll, their favorite punching bag.
I am certain that at least Phil Johnson knows better, the other two I am not so sure, one suffers from depression which makes him hyper-sensitive subject to mood swings so you don’t know where he is going half the time and the other just came around to admitting that Rick Warren is a problem, so he suffers from severe myopia. But yet, nothing, zero, nadda. This kind of teaching by Guru Piper is damaging the body is far greater ways that approaching the nonsense of Driscoll, repeatedly, which by now everyone who is going to get it about Driscoll, gets it.
But it is just those puffs of air but far more broadly, many of what at least want to be considered thoughtful and classic Reformed Teachers such as Carl Trueman give refuge to this doctrinally and exegetically derelict Teacher. What in the world gives? I believe there is a high degree of ego investment going on in which many who, in their formative spiritual years invested in Piper and did so with a great degree of ego investment, are now unable to bring themselves to admit what is obvious seeing they will have to agree with those who all along saw the great deficiencies and problems of Piper.
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. – 2 Corinthians 5:21
Thus justification has these two sides: the removal of sin because Christ bears our curse, and the imputation of righteousness because we are in Christ and His righteousness is counted as ours. (John Piper, God is the Gospel, p. 43)
Joel, you said:
“No. The verse Piper quotes speaks of reconciliation, not sanctification. It is good news for the sinner who needs to be reconciled unto God, and has nothing to do with the removal of sin from the saint.”
Who said that Piper is is speaking of sanctification? Unless you didn’t include the rest of his quote, I don’t see the word anywhere. It just seems to me that it is a healthy view of -true- justification, not our perceived justification of ourselves in light of our own sanctification. If you are justified, then your sins are judicially not counted against you, period. He never said that you “would not sin in this life” or that we aren’t radically depraved. I simply believe that he is saying, “if you are truly justified, then you are seen by God as righteous. You have not sinned. You have a clean slate.”
Now, on the flip side, is he implying among other things, that your daily sin (in light of sanctification) doesn’t matter in light of justification? Not at all. I believe he is only speaking of the judicial process, not the practical/personal holiness implications of sanctification that is birthed by justification.
A.J.
A.J., I said that due to Pipers inference that justification removes sin. It does not, thus, my reference to sanctification. Justification is a declaration, and the Spirits work in sanctification is the process whereby sin is removed, not justification.
Joel,
If justification does not remove sin (expiate), then you are logically saying that Jesus’ death on the cross accomplished nothing, essentially denying the nature of the atonement or substitutionary death (propitiation) which is the crux of the entire historical and biblical (reformed) christian faith. You are also logically inferring that you have no assurance of salvation, nor are you historically reformed.
To attempt to discuss either justification or sanctification without the presuppostion of the God’s divine decrees acknowleding the absolute sovereignty of God over all things (throughout eternity) is to discuss two separate pieces of the soteriology pie without defining what kind of pie it actually is (i.e. ordo salutis). This is especially problematic if you are using no biblical exposition of your own (rather than copying and pasting isolated quotes from other theologians, rather than entire sermons by them, e.g.). So, you don’t really have a problem with John Piper, but it appears that you contest (or question?) scripture itself and the doctrine of assurance.
Especially in light of Hebrews 10:
“11 And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, 13 from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. 14 For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
15 But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before,
16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,”[c] 17 then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”[d] 18 Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.”
As you may know, much of Piper’s understanding of reformed theology is heavily influenced by Jonathan Edwards and hence the quote:
““This is crucial to understand. It shows how Christ-exalting the Holy Spirit is. He will not do His sanctifying work by the use of His direct divine power. He will only do it by making the glory of Christ the immediate cause of it. This is the way He works in evangelism, and this is the way he works in sanctification. – (John Piper, God is the Gospel, p. 91).”
With the finite knowledge that sinners have of all biblical doctrines, your sanctification is one that is utterly limited, saturated in sin and wholly dependent on the sovereign grace of God at every moment to sustain your faith. That why Jesus Christ is not only your “justifier” and “sanctifier”, that even in the midst of your sanctification, he must still intercede and mediate on your behalf at every blink of your eye to remind you of your justification (Romans 8:34, present tense) or else Satan would strip the practical power of the cross and resurrection in your faith and immediately kill you without remorse. You have no power on your own to be sanctified or have faith in Christ. Therefore, those who are truly justified are ones who see the glory of God in Christ as infinitely supreme and omnipotent over sin, unbelief, death and triumphant over Satan, because of the bloody cross, purchasing forgiveness of sins, once and for all time (Colossians 2:13-15, Hebrews 10:12).
AJ, you have a bigger problem brother than I:
You said…
“If justification does not remove sin (expiate), then you are logically saying that Jesus’ death on the cross accomplished nothing, essentially denying the nature of the atonement or substitutionary death (propitiation) which is the crux of the entire historical and biblical (reformed) christian faith. You are also logically inferring that you have no assurance of salvation, nor are you historically reformed.”
Now, you insist that justifications itself removes sin. There’s you’re problem, because in Scripture, man is said to be able to justify God. Do you insist that God has sin to be removed? Just sayin… 🙂
In the moment of our born-again salvation in this the New Testament age, we are born of the Spirit of God. Something “factual” occurs within us in us being given a new spirit born of God:
John 3:5Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
We become a new creation inwardly:
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Galatians 6:15
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.
Ephesians 4:24
And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Colossians 3:10
And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
I can understand viewing the cross as penal prior to the time of conversion – that it is a legal declaration towards the elect all wrought in one moment on the cross. Yet, at the moment of conversion in which we are sealed in the Holy Spirit and born from above, we become a new creation.
My understanding is that the spirit born of God we both receive and become at the moment of conversion in becoming the sons of God is holy, perfect, and blameless. This spirit, in and with the Holy Spirit in Christ, battles the flesh, this world and the devil. The battle then for sanctification is a battle between our spirits (perfect, holy, and blameless) and the flesh (nothing good dwells in the flesh), this world, and the devil.
So, then we are truly holy, perfect, and blameless in our spiritual state of being at the moment of regeneration — and in our souls we are being made holy in the process of sanctification — and at the Lord’s return we will gain new bodies in full glorification wherein sanctification will be entire bodily.
I see myself not as the sin that “I do” in my body (which I do not do but is sin dwelling in my members — that is the body of death – Romans 7); I see myself as the spirit born of God perfect holy and blameless right now. In other words, I truly believe I really am the righteousness of God in Christ upon regeneration and being born again… not merely in legal terms but rather in actual true state of being before God in Christ.
What are your thoughts in response??
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