False "Gospels" - Fesko on Machen

My question is: How many different ways... how many paths... how many spiritual exercises and legal obediences have been added to Christ's finished work throughout the ages that falsely point Christians in the supposed "sure" way of securing their salvation? In a word, one... that of works. John Fesko elaborates by unpacking J. Gresham Machen's thought on the matter:

 "Machen was aware of the different ways by which ancient and modern humanity proposed to extricate themselves from the pit of sin and death. Machen rejected mysticism as an approach to God and redemption because mystics believe that communion with God is based in “ineffable experience,” whereas the Bible teaches that a premium is placed upon understanding and knowing the truth...

"Certainly, then, a person must believe in God, but should he also not contribute to his salvation in some way? Machen identified this combination of faith and works as a false gospel. In his lecture notes on Galatians, Machen writes, “The enemy against which Paul is fighting in the Epistle can be reconstructed fairly well from the Epistle itself. Paul was fighting against the doctrine that a man can earn a part, at least, of his salvation by his own obedience to God’s law; he was fighting against the doctrine that a man is justified not by faith alone, but by faith and works.” Machen knew that Paul’s opponents, the Judaizers, though an ancient foe of the gospel, had descendants in his own day: So the error of the Judaizers is a very modern error indeed, as well as a very ancient error. It is found in the modern Church wherever men seek salvation by “surrender” instead of by faith, or by their own character instead of by the imputed righteousness of Christ, or by “making Christ master in the life” instead of by trusting in His redeeming blood. In particular, it is found wherever men say that “the real essentials” of Christianity are love, justice, mercy and other virtues, as contrasted with the great doctrines of God’s Word. These are all just different ways of exalting the merit of man over against the Cross of Christ; they are all of them attacks upon the very heart and core of the Christian religion. Machen rejected all other approaches to salvation —mysticism, pantheism, moralism, and legalism— and recognized that there was only one way to be saved—by faith alone, in the person and work of Christ alone, by God’s grace alone." 

-- John V. Fesko, Machen and The Gospel

From the Conclusion of John Fesko’s book, Justification:

Dr. Fesko drives the nail home in Justification: Understanding the Classic Reformed Doctrine by John Fesko:

If Christ is the last Adam, and he is the fountainhead of the age to come, of the eschaton, then the justification pronounced over those who place their faith in him is eschatological, final, and irreversible. This means that the verdict from the final judgment on the last day has been declared in the present. Justification does not merely restore the sinner to the potentially defectible state of the first Adam only to face probation once again. Or, in simpler terms, justification does not merely return us to the garden. Rather, noting the inherently eschatological nature of justification tells us that Christ has performed the work for us and that we enter the eternal state by faith alone in him; by faith, we are propelled into the indefectible state of the last Adam. (p. 409)

Lastly, it is the nature of Adam's probation in the garden that causes many to see the importance of the law-gospel hermeneutic in Scripture. The law is not, contrary to popular opinion, an evangelical aid given to man after his sins are forgiven to assist him in his journey of moral transformation that culminates in his declaration righteousness at the final judgment. Rather, the law represents the requirement of perfect obedience, the requirement that God demanded of Adam, and later of Israel at Sinai. It was the requirement that all failed to meet, save the last Adam. Therefore, the law brings those same demands that God placed upon Adam, his disobedient son, in the garden-temple; upon Israel his stiff-necked firstborn son at the foot of Sinai; and upon Jesus, the Son of man, God’s only begotten Son in whom he was well pleased, who was born under the law to redeem us from its curse. The demands of the law therefore drive sinners to look outside of themselves to the perfect obedience of another, to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Our faith is extraspective, not introspective. It is the covenant of works that enables us to see that if Adam could not be justified by his works though he was sinless and righteous, we cannot be justified by our works in any sense. Only the perfect obedience of the last Adam justifies us. (p. 411)

[emphasis added]

Jesus and Justification

Is the doctrine of forensic justification an innovation of the Reformation?  Something that was formulated by Martin Luther as a result of his struggles with sin and an overly active guilty conscience?  A lot of digital ink has been used up at various blogs over the last several months on this question.  Those of Roman Catholic persuasion believe that Reformed Christians are overly forensic in their interpretation of this doctrine and thus are not being consistent with Jesus' teaching in the Gospels, not to mention that of the entire New Testament.  I'm not going to rehash the arguments here.  Rather, I want to offer up some relevant thoughts from John Fesko's book Justification - Understanding the Classic Reformed Doctrine.

Dr. Fesko shows that Scripture teaches justification is indeed forensic and a concept not foreign to Jesus.  Even though the doctrine is not fully explained in the Gospels, this shouldn't cause one to dismiss the apostle Paul's more extensive teaching. One can prematurely draw a wrong conclusion by requiring a fully developed doctrine from the mouth of Christ.  As J. Gresham Machen wrote in The Origin of Paul's Religion, Jesus for Paul was primarily not a Revealer, but a Savior.  So then, what one finds in chapter eight of the book is a section having to do with the law-court aspect of justification in which Dr. Fesko highlights Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector to show Christ's own use of the term.  Fesko writes that justification

is about the verdict that God passes upon the person who stands in his presence, the verdict of guilty or innocent.  This theme of standing before the tribunal of God is found in the OT:  "Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked" (Ex. 23:7; Deut. 25:1; Prov. 17:15).  God will not acquit the wicked, which is why Paul explains that Abraham receives his righteous status by faith alone.  Moreover, God imputes the obedience, or righteousness, of Christ to Abraham.  This interpretation is also confirmed by Christ's use of the term "justification."

Christ explains in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector the nature of justification and how it relates to righteousness:

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. (Luke 18:9-14)

Notice that Christ uses the parable against those who trusted in themselves, who thought they were righteous or innocent before God and loyal to the Torah.  In this parable Christ describes the Pharisee... in terms of the general commands of Torah: thievery, injustice, adultery, fasting, and tithing.  It is in these term of Torah observance that some of the Jews thought they were righteous.

Fitzmyer observes that this parable shows that Christ - recognized that righteousness in God's sight was not to be achieved by boasting or even by self-confident activity (either the avoidance of evil or the striving for good in the observance of Mosaic and Pharisaic regulations).  This saying about justification is important for it may reveal that the NT teaching about the matter is somehow rooted in Jesus' own attitude and teaching: One achieves uprightness before God not by one's own activity but by a contrite recognition of one's own sinfulness before him.  Hence, "the Pauline doctrine of justification has its roots in the teaching of Jesus."

For these reasons Paul makes statements like "a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ: (Gal. 2:16), to counter the idea that a person is righteous by being obedient to the Torah.  By contrast, the tax collector who sought the mercy of God and the forgiveness of sins was justified before the tribunal of God... (pp. 237-240)

Active Obedience - Imputed Righteousness

Tullian Tchividjian's recent post, Cheap Law, at Gospel Coalition sparked quite a debate regarding the relationship of Jesus' perfect obedience and suffering and the righteousness that is imputed to believers through faith.  Not a few think that Christ's forgiveness of sins is alone the basis for the righteousness counted toward his people.  And that that righteousness isn't Christ's imputed but that which comes to us based on forgiveness and being united to Christ.  I chimed in to the vigorous debate and, as is the often the case, I don't think any minds were changed one way or the other.  But to carry on the argument I was making, here is an excerpt from an article, A More Perfect Union - Justification and Union with Christ,  by John Fesko.  It can be read in its entirety at Modern Reformation:

The Reformed tradition bases the doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ, even his active obedience, on such passages as Romans 5:12-21 (WCF 6.3, 11.1; cf. Heidelberg Catechism, Q/A 60). Why, for example, does Paul contrast the disobedience of Adam with the obedience of Christ? Paul writes, "For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous" (Rom. 5:19). As John Murray explains, "The parallel to the imputation of Adam's sin is the imputation of Christ's righteousness. Or to use Paul's own terms, being 'constituted sinners' through the disobedience of Adam is parallel to being 'constituted righteous' through the obedience of Christ." Clearly, Romans 5:19 restates what Paul has stated in the previous verse: "Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all" (Rom. 5:18).

There is no mistaking the parallel between Christ's obedience, which is righteousness, and the imputation of this righteousness to the believer. Commenting on the abiding significance of Genesis 15:6 and the imputation of righteousness, Paul writes: "That is why his faith was 'counted to him as righteousness.' But the words 'it was counted to him' were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 4:22-24). Note here the English Standard Version translates the Greek word logizomai as "counted," which the King James Version translates as "imputed." Here Paul taps into the ancient stream of the special revelation of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, to argue for the imputed righteousness of Christ, and arguably also has other passages such as Isaiah 53 in mind when writing these things: "Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities" (Isa. 53:11; cf. 2 Cor. 5:19-21).

And Charles Spurgeon eloquently makes the case for the indispensable connection between Jesus Christ's perfect obedience and his righteousness imputed to us:

The promises in the Word of God are not made to suffering; they are made to obedience. Consequently, Christ’s sufferings, though they may remove the penalty of sin, do not alone make me the inheritor of the promise. “If You will enter into life,” said Christ, “keep the commandments” (Matthew 19:17). It is only Christ’s keeping the commandments that entitles me to enter life. “The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness’ sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honorable” (Isaiah 42:21). I do not enter into life by virtue of His sufferings – those deliver me from death, those purge me from filthiness; but entering the enjoyments of the life eternal must be the result of obedience. As it cannot be the result of mine, it is the result of His, which is imputed to me….See what Christ has done in His living and His dying, His acts becoming our acts and His righteousness being imputed to us, so that we are rewarded as if we are righteous, while He was punished as though He had been guilty.
Justification then comes to sinners as an act of pure grace, the foundation of it being Christ’s righteousness. The practical way of its application is by faith. The sinner believes God and believeth that Christ is sent of God. [He] takes Christ Jesus to be his only confidence and trust; and by that act, he becomes a justified soul. It is not by repenting that we are justified, but by believing; it is not by deep experience of the guilt of sin; it is not by bitter pangs and throes under the temptations of Satan; it is not by mortification of the body, nor by the renunciation of self; all these are good, but the act that justifieth is a look at Christ. We, having nothing, being nothing, boasting of nothing, but being utterly emptied, do look to Him Whose wounds stream with the life-giving blood. As we look to Him, we live and are justified by His life. There is life in a look at the crucified One—life in the sense of justification.