A joint statement on the gospel appeared in the June 14, 1999 issue of Christianity Today Magazine (click this link to read the original document) which was quickly endorsed by many respected leaders in the evangelical community. It is highly significant in that it purports to enunciate what is "primary and essential" to the gospel, attempting to summarize "the central beliefs which all evangelical Christians share," according to one of its co-authors, Reformed theologian, Dr. R. C. Sproul. Stated in those terms, it could easily become the standard by which evangelical Christians are defined in the future.

Apparently, the main-stream evangelical community sees it as a clear and accurate definition of justification—and the bulk of it is. But it is far from being entirely accurate, and as I write this, I have yet to see a single word of "official" criticism in print. I was surprised to see a number of names on the list of endorsements that I never would have expected to see there, and I was actually shocked to see it praised by some whom I believed had a better understanding of God's work of redemption.

Almost anyone with any significant working knowledge of the theological world will immediately detect a "Reformed" bias throughout the document. That, in itself, ought to trigger a sense of caution among dispensationalists who are aware of the "package" of mutually-exclusive issues that divide the two systems. That caution will prove well-founded after reading Dr. Sproul's book, Getting the Gospel Right—The Tie That Binds Evangelicals Together (Baker Books, 1999), in which Dr. Sproul reveals his personal understanding of the language used in the evangelical document.

"Ultimately the only way one can be justified is by works. We are indeed justified by works, but the works that justify us are the works of the second Adam. To be justified by faith means to be justified by faith in the works of Christ" (p. 160).

Lest anyone assume that he means the "works" of Christ on the cross, here are a few other quotations found in his book:

"For the positive sanction of the [Abrahamic] blessing, the law must be obeyed. This is a vitally important element of Christ's vicarious work. He is our substitute not only in death, but in life... [He] merits the blessing for us by his perfect obedience for us" (p. 146).

"So throughout his life Jesus was busy living under the terms of the Old Testament... It has a two-fold effect: satisfactory and meritorious" (p. 147).

"Article 13 [of the evangelical document] begins by affirming that we are justified by the righteousness of Christ... The righteousness of Christ was performed, not through us, but in his own life of perfect obedience" (pp. 158-9).

The implications Sproul has in mind by defining the evangelical gospel in the "primary and essential" terms of this document becomes terrifyingly clear in the following statement:

"If a person is trusting not in the imputed righteousness of Christ but in his own inherent righteousness, he will not be saved... By rejecting an essential element of the gospel , he is under the biblical and thus the divine anathema" (p. 170).

Where does the Bible tell anyone to "trust" in the imputed "righteousness of Christ" for justification? The biblical object of true faith is the substitutionary death of Christ, which alone satisfies God's righteous demands for sin. The concept of the meritorious righteousness of Christ somehow being achieved by living a perfect life is an invention of Reformed theology, not a concept found in scripture. It is always the righteousness of God, which is an eternal quality of His own nature which existed throughout the Old Testament, and was, therefore, manifested, not "merited," by Christ in His incarnation. The sacrificial Lamb, unblemished, achieved nothing—it was merely the evidence that He was qualified to die as the sinner's substitute.

On that basis it appears that Sproul has finally succeeded in defining me and other knowledgeable dispensationalists as non-Christians, with the full, but ignorant (we hope), cooperation of the leadership of the evangelical community. The alliance of Reformed/covenantal theology and its "Lordship salvation" along with non-doctrinal "give-your-heart-to-Jesus" neo-evangelicalism is only a step away from Rome, as Scott Hahn and Rosalind Moss confirm. We believe this is the greatest threat to biblical Christianity in our day.

Here are some excerpts from William R. Newell's book, Romans: Verse by Verse (Kregel Publications), pages 93-103, in which he addresses what he calls the heresy of vicarious law-keeping, now apparently officially accepted by many of today's leading evangelicals as "primary and essential" to the Gospel:

"Men who do not see or believe that the whole history of those in Christ ended at the cross... must hold that God is still demanding righteousness... The 'teachers of the Law' (1 Tim. 1.7) say: 'Behind God, as He talks with you in 'grace' is His eternal Law... But, because you are not able to perform it, He has 'graciously' given Christ, to perform all its requirements for you... So that now... you have Christ's legal 'merits' as your actual righteousness before God...' 

This seemingly beautiful talk is both unscriptural and anti-scriptural...

You must thus, if you are 'under law,' be joined to a Christ belonging to Israel... But alas! You find that such a Christ is not here!... And so your vain hope of having Moses and Christ is wholly gone. Therefore you must be united with a Risen Christ, or with none at all!... And you, if you are Christ's, are now wholly, as Christ is, on resurrection ground...

God is able to come forth to us now in absolute GRACE... having raised up Christ from the dead, He says, 'I will now place you in my Son. I will give you a standing fully and only in Him risen from the dead! Not only did He bear your sins, putting away your guilt, but in His death I released you from your standing and responsibility in Adam...'

And because this is so, it is announced further: '... that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.' These astonishing words state the present fact... of all those in Christ: they are the righteousness of God in Him!...

Either Christ, in His own present perfectness, risen from the dead, is my righteousness... and I myself absolutely dead and gone as regards the old man; or I am making Christ a completer of my standing, as alive in the old man... 

God can, therefore, not only forgive the sinner, but also proceed to declare the believing sinner righteous, not at all meaning that he has any righteousness of his own, or that the 'merits' of Christ are imputed to him (a fiction of theology); but that God, acting in righteousness, reckons righteous the ungodly man who believes in Him: because He places him in the full value of the infinite work of Christ on the cross, and transfers him into Christ Risen, who becomes his righteousness...

The expression 'God's righteousness' then signifies:... God Himself acting in righteousness (a) toward Christ in raising Him from the dead and seating Him as a man in the place of absolute honor and glory; (b) in giving those who believe on Christ the same acceptance before God as Christ now has...

Thus Christ, now risen and glorified, is Himself the righteousness of believers. It is not that He acted righteously while on earth, and that that is reckoned to us. This is, we repeat, the heresy of "vicarious law-keeping." He was indeed the spotless Lamb of God; but He had no connection with sinners until His death... It is the Risen Christ who is our righteousness...

Thus Christians find themselves spoken of as the righteousness of God in Christ. Not as righteous before God, for that would be to think of a personal standing given to us... rather than a federal standing, as in Him, united to Him—which we are!

Now to be or become 'righteous before God;' to have or obtain a standing that will 'bear God's scrutiny,' is the fond dream of very many earnest Christians. But however stated, and by whomsoever stated, that idea of our obtaining a 'standing before God' falls short, and that vitally, of Paul's gospel... It denies that we died with Christ; and that we have been made dead to the whole legal principle in Christ's death... Christ Risen is Himself now our standing!...

Earnest and godly men... have brought out, as did the Reformers, that we are justified by faith, not works: without, however, going on to show... our complete deliverance, in Christ, from our former place in Adam, and from the whole principle of law...

Calvin: 'By the righteousness of God I understand that righteousness which is approved before the tribunal seat of God.' Here again is a quality, not Christ Himself... Believers are not seen by Calvin [or Sproul, etc.—ed.] as having died with Christ, and having no connection at all with Adam's responsibility to furnish a righteousness and holiness before God's 'tribunal.'... Calvin and all the Reformers and Puritans... placed believers under the Law of Moses as a 'rule of life' because they did not see that a believer's history in Adam ended at the cross...

We find hardly any writers except indeed certain devoted saints among the 'Friends of God' of the 14th century; and, later, certain among the mystics like... Ter Steegen... and in the 19th century, certain of those remarkable men whose followers were later called 'Plymouth Brethren,' who have seen or dared believe our complete deliverance before God from Adam... The last, the Brethren, indeed speak with more Pauline accuracy..." 

"And now I am in Christ, risen and ascended; and have no righteousness to make out, but to glorify God as His child, being the righteousness of God in Christ already. My defects have nothing to do with my righteousness. They have with respect to my living to God and enjoying communion with Him." 

J. N. Darby

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