Thankful Thursday

I’m thankful for today. I’m thankful that things went well with the difficult task I mentioned yesterday.

I’m thankful for the rain. While I was concentrating on other things, I didn’t have to worry about keeping the ground moist where I’ve planted or keeping the transplants watered.

I’m thankful for good health. I’m thankful a quiet evening at home after a busy day.

I’m thankful that sometimes God gives us what we need before we know we need it.

On Thursdays throughout this year, I plan to post a few thoughts of thanksgiving along with Kim at the Upward Call and others. Why don’t you participate by posting your thanksgiving each week, too? It’ll be an encouragement to you and to others, I promise.

This Week in Housekeeping

The Theological Term of the Week posts continue to be the most popular on this blog. Every week, the terms in alphabetical order page gets more hits than any other single page here. That makes me very happy, but it also means that I need to keep all those posts up-to-date—you know, get rid of dead links and add  links to good content that has come online since the original post was first posted.

This week I’ve updated these:

analogy of faith 

• added three related terms: inerrancy of scripture, inspiration of scripture, and perspicuity of scripture.

anthropomorphism

• added a link to Neotheism and anthropomorphism by Steve Hays.
• added related term: anthropopathism.

Theological Term of the Week

 

forensic
Having to do with legal proceedings or a court of law; used in regards to justification in order to designate it  as a judicial act of God.

• From scripture:

  Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? (Romans 8:33-34 ESV)

  He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous
  are both alike an abomination to the Lord. (Proverbs 17:15 ESV)

• From The Second Helvetic Confession, Chapter 9:

  Of the True Justification of the Faithful

  WHAT IS JUSTIFICATION? According to the apostle in his treatment of justification, to justify means to remit sins, to absolve from guilt and punishment, to receive into favor, and to pronounce a man just. For in his epistle to the Romans the apostle says: “It is God who justifies; who is to condemn?” (Rom. 8:33). To justify and to condemn are opposed. And in The Acts of the Apostles the apostle states: “Through Christ forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone that believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38 f.). For in the Law and also in the Prophets we read: “If there is a dispute between men, and they come into court…the judges decide between them, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty” (Deut. 25:1). And in Isa., ch. 5: “Woe to those…who acquit the guilty for a bribe.”

• From Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem:

  The idea that justification is a legal declaration is quite evident … when justification is contrasted with condemnation. Paul says, “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn?” (Rom. 8:33-34). To “condemn” someone is to declare that person guilty. The opposite of condemnation is justification, which, in this context, must mean “to declare someone not guilty.” This is also evident from the fact that God’s act of justifying is given as Paul’s answer to the possibility of someone bringing an accusation or “charge” against God’s people: such a declaration of guilt cannot stand in the face of God’s declaration of righteousness.

• From Sole Fide: The Reformed Doctrine of Justification by J. I. Packer:

  2. The meaning of justification. What justification is, said the Reformers, must be learned from Paul, its great New Testament expositor, who sees it clearly and precisely as a judicial act of God pardoning and forgiving our sins, accepting us as righteous, and instating us as his sons. Following Augustine, who studied the Bible in Latin and was partly misled by the fact that justificare, the Latin for Paul’s dikaiou’n, naturally means “make righteous,” the Mediaevals had defined justification as pardon plus inner renewal, as the Council of Trent was also to do; but the Reformers saw that the Pauline meaning of dikaioun is strictly forensic. So Calvin defines justification as acceptance, whereby God receives us into his favour and regards us as righteous; and we say that it consists in the remission of sins and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.” Justification is decisive for eternity, being in effect the judgment of the last day brought forward. Its source is God’s grace, his initiative in free and sovereign love, and its ground is the merit and satisfaction—that is, the obedient sin-bearing death—of Jesus Christ, God’s incarnate Son.

Learn more:

1. Charles Hodge: Forensic Justification
2. Francis Turretin: Justification: Forensic or Moral?
3. S. Lewis Johnson: Justification (mp3 and more)

Related terms:

• imputation
• justification

Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it.

I’m also interested in any suggestions you have for tweaking my definitions or for additional (or better) articles or sermons/lectures for linking. I’ll give you credit and a link back to your blog if I use your suggestion.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms organized in alphabetical order or by topic.