Steve Fernandez on The Race Set Before Us: Fifth Installment

This is the fifth installment of what was originally intended to be three parts. Find the first installment here, the second here, and the third here. This series concerns Steve Fernandez's book, Free Justification: The Glorification of Christ in the Justification of a Sinner.

Now that I have received my copy of his book it seems right and honorable to indicate that Fernandez modified one of his notes in which he misrepresents things Tom Schreiner and I published in The Race Set Before Us by sloppy elliptical quotations. Originally, Fernandez published the first chapter of his book as a PDF copy of Free Justification: A Hill to Die On, available on the internet.

In this entry I will show first the PDF version endnote 12 on page 15 followed by Steve Fernandez's modified note in his book, Free Justification: The Glorification of Christ in the Justification of a Sinner. As I will show, his sloppy ellipstical quotations still mask what Tom Schreiner and I actually wrote in The Race Set Before Us. First, here is endnote 12 on page 15 of the PDF version.

Schreiner and Caneday insist that perseverance is an actual means of attaining justification. They say, "Perseverance is a means that God has appointed by which one will be saved . . . we will use the words condition and means interchangeably. When we use the words [sic] means, we use it in the sense that perseverance is a necessary means that God has appointed for attaining final salvation." Schreiner and Caneday, p. 151. My problem is the word "attaining." Persevering is not a necessary evidence of justification, but it actually attains justification. It would follow that our justification is held in suspense until the final judgment. Schreiner and Caneday acknowledge this for they also say, "Conditional warnings and admonitions suspend God’s judgment in the last day on perseverance in this age . . . since the Reformation, many Protestant Christians have tended to overstate Paul’s doctrine of justification . . . with the effect that Paul’s orientation on salvation as not yet fully realized has virtually collapsed . . . for Paul, justification remains fundamentally the eschatological verdict. . ." (Ibid., p. 154, 160-161). The ‘overstatement’ of justification, it would seem, is clearly their disagreement with the Reformed teaching that justification is a completed and final declaration made at the point of first believing.

Below is the modified note as footnote 12 on page 19 of Free Justification: The Glorification of Christ in the Justification of a Sinner. I highlight the modified or added portion for your easier detection.

Schreiner and Caneday insist that perseverance is an actual means of attaining justification. They say, "Perseverance is a means that God has appointed by which one will be saved . . . we will use the words condition and means interchangeably. When we use the word means, we use it in the sense that perseverance is a necessary means that God has appointed for attaining final salvation." Schreiner and Caneday, p. 151. My problem is the word "attaining." Persevering is not a necessary evidence of justification, but it actually attains justification. It would follow that our justification is held in suspense until the final judgment. Schreiner and Caneday acknowledge this for they also say, "Conditional warnings and admonitions suspend God’s judgment in the last day on perseverance in this age . . . since the Reformation, many Protestant Christians have tended to overstate Paul’s doctrine of justification . . . with the effect that Paul’s orientation on salvation as not yet fully realized has virtually collapsed . . . for Paul, justification remains fundamentally the eschatological verdict. . ." (Ibid., p. 154, 160-161). This is clearly an interchangeable use of salvation and justification. In their system God's judgment on the last day [which is justification], is held in suspense. First, conditions must be met. The believer will then attain final salvation and the verdict of justification. For, in their words, "justification remains fundamentally the eschatological verdict." The problem they are correcting, is that "many overstate Paul's doctrine of justification." This "overstatement" it seems, is the historic teaching that justification is a complete and final declaration with no future element contingent on works.

Could Fernandez's mistake be more obvious? After skipping, jumping, and leaping from page 154 ("Conditional warnings and admonitions suspend God’s judgment in the last day on perseverance in this age. . . .) to page 160 (". . . since the Reformation, many Protestant Christians have tended to overstate Paul’s doctrine of justification . . . with the effect that Paul’s orientation on salvation as not yet fully realized has virtually collapsed. . . .) and then to page 161 (" . . . for Paul, justification remains fundamentally the eschatological verdict. . . ." ) Fernandez indiscriminately merges what Tom Schreiner and I discuss with proper biblical distinctions throughout those eight pages and then he attributes to us his own misguided and merged inferences as certain and true, when it is clearly neither certain nor truthful. Only Fernandez's sloppy and elliptical quotation could bring him to his conclusion that "This is clearly an interchangeable use of salvation and justification" in his own mind, not in actuality.

In a later blog entry I will return to this sloppy elliptical quotation because Steve Fernandez returns to it on pages 90-92 of Free Justification: The Glorification of Christ in the Justification of a Sinner.