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.

Theological Term of the Week

 

free agency
The ability to make one’s own decisions as to what one will do, choosing as one pleases in light of one’s own sense of right and wrong and the inclination one feels;1 the ability to make willing choices that have real effects.2 Sometimes called free will.

• From scripture:

  But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. (James 1:14 ESV)

  But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man will certainly suffer at their hands.  (Matthew 17:12 ESV)

• From The Second Helvetic Confession, Chapter 9:

  Of Free Will, and Thus of Human Powers

  [N]o one denies that in external things both the regenerate and the unregenerate enjoy free will. For man has in common with other living creatures (to which he is not inferior) this nature to will some things and not to will others. Thus he is able to speak or to keep silent, to go out of his house or to remain at home, etc. However, even here God’s power is always to be observed, for it was the cause that Balaam could not go as far as he wanted (Num., ch. 24), and Zacharias upon returning from the temple could not speak as he wanted (Luke, ch.1).

• From Concise Theology by J. I. Packer:

  Free agency is a mark of human beings as such. All humans are free agents in the sense that they make their own decisions as to what they will do, choosing as they please in the light of their sense of right and wrong and the inclinations they feel. Thus they are moral agents, answerable to God and each other for their voluntary choices. So was Adam, both before and after he sinned; so are we now, and so are the glorified saints who are confirmed in grace in such a sense that they no longer have it in them to sin. Inability to sin will be one of the delights and glories of heaven, but it will not terminate anyone’s humanness; glorified saints will still make choices in accordance with their nature, and those choices will not be any the less the product of human free agency just because they will always be good and right.

Learn more:

1. Ernest Reisenger: Free Will and Free Agency
2. GotQuestions.org: Do human beings truly have free will? (mp3)
3. Walter J. Chantry: Man’s Will - Free Yet Bound

Related terms:

• sovereignty of God

1Paraphrased from Concise Theology by J. I. Packer, page 85.
2From Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem, page 1242.

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.

Theological Term of the Week

preceptive will
God’s revealed law or commandments; what God has declared that we should do. Also called revealed will, moral will, will of command, expressed will, or signified will.

• From scripture:

  Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 7:21 ESV)

  Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.(1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 ESV)

• From The Westminster Shorter Catechism:

  Q. 39. What is the duty which God requireth of man?
  A. The duty which God requireth of man, is obedience to his revealed will.

• From Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof:

  [God’s] decretive will includes many things which He forbids in His preceptive will,  and excludes many things which he commands in His preceptive will, cf. Gen 22; Ex. 4:21-23; II kings 20:1-7; Acts 2:23. Yet it is of great importance to maintain both the decretive and the preceptive will, but with the definite understanding that, while they appear to us as distinct, they are yet fundamentally one in God. Though a perfectly satisfactory solution of the difficulty is out of the question for the present, it is possible to make some approaches to a solution. When we speak of the decretive and the preceptive will of God, we use the word “will” in two different senses. By the former God has determined what He will do or what shall come to pass; in the latter He reveals to us what we are in duty bound to do. At the same time, we should remember that the moral law, the rule of our life, is also in a sense the embodiment of the will of God. Is is an expression of His holy nature and of what this naturally requires of all moral creatures. 

Learn more:

1. R. C. Sproul: Examining the Preceptive Will of God
2. Kevin DeYoung: The Whole Duty of Man
3. Curt Daniel: The Will of God (mp3)
   
4. Tim Keller: God’s Secret and Revealed Will (mp3)

Related terms:

• decretive will

Filed under Reformed Theology

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.