NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY

178 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
done, once for all, in his finished work. In that sense, to speak of "alien righteousness"
is surely defensible.
At the same time, we should recognize, a definite liability attaches to this
expression. "Alien" suggests what is remote, at a distance; it can easily leave the
impression of an isolated imputative act, without a clear relationship to Christ
and the other aspects of salvation. In this regard, I have the impression that
some Reformed thinking on justification centers on a line, focused on the individual
sinner, that moves from my eternal election to its realization and documentation
in history by my faith, produced by regeneration, that receives
justification. On this view Christ and his work are surely essential but recede
into the background, along with other aspects of salvation.
A different tone is heard in Calvin. In expressing himself on justification,
including imputation, he always, explicitly or implicitly, relates it to union with
Christ. Perhaps his most pointed statement on imputation in this regard is the
following:
Therefore, that joining together of Head and members, that indwelling of Christ in
our heart—in short, that mystical union—are accorded by us the highest degree of
importance, so that Christ, having been made ours, makes us sharers with him in the
gifts with which he has been endowed. We do not, therefore, contemplate him outside ourselves
from afar in order that his righteousness may be imputed to us but because we put on Christ and are
engrafted into his body—in short, because he deigns to mah us one with him. For this reason, we
glory that we have fellowship of righteousness with him. 27
Here there is no mingling of Christ's righteousness with some presumed righteousness
of our own. But, at the same time, that righteousness, as imputed, is,
in an absolutely crucial sense, anything but "alien."
Such remarkable and compelling words, I dare say, could only be written by
someone with the ordo salutis intimated in Institutes, 3.1.1, and who has also incisively
anticipated subsequent insights into the redemptive-historical substance of
Scripture and the gospel, particularly the soteriology of the apostle Paul. These
words are no less timely today, when, perhaps as never before, the notion of
imputed righteousness is either misunderstood or rejected. 28 Only as we maintain
imputation as a facet of what Calvin calls our "fellowship of righteousness"
(iustitiae societatem) with Christ, as an integral aspect of our union with Christ
crucified and exalted, will we do so in a fashion that is more compelling and fully
cogent biblically.
27 Institutes, 1:737 (3.11.10), emphasis added. Note that this statement occurs in a context where
he is intent on refuting Osiander's view that justifying righteousness consists of the believer's
"essential righteousness." In other words, the root of that serious error, a false understanding of
union, does not lead Calvin to tone down on his own understanding of union in relation to justification
but rather to assert that union most emphatically.
28 E.g., the recent sweeping rejection of R. H. Gundry, "Why I Didn't Endorse 'The Gospel of
Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration' ... even though I wasn't asked to," Books & Culture,
(January/February 2001): 6-9; see the helpful response of J. Piper, Counted Righteous in Christ: Should
We Abandon the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness? (Wheaton, 111.: Crossway, 2002).