Justification, baptism, and faith

(Below is another comment of mine for Green Bagginses. This is #111 on the same thread as before...under David Gadbois's post Berkhof and Baptismal Efficacy. The bold text is quoted from Jeff Cagle's comment.)

To Jeff Cagle (#89):

(1) What does "objective justification" mean?

It means that Christ is righteous; and if we are included in His Church through baptism, then we are in Him; and if we are in Him, we are both counted righteous for His sake ("justified") and called to live righteously, lest we be cut off.

(2) It seems really clear that baptism is, for the FV position, an instrumental means of securing objective justification. That is to say, all who receive baptism receive OJ, and receive it at the moment of baptism, and receive it *because* they have been baptized.

Not quite. FV people seem to enjoy quoting WCF 28.1 in support of their own position: "Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible Church; but also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ..." That is to say, baptism is an instrumental means of solemn admission into the visible Church. As the next logical step, membership in the Church (which is Christ's body) means that the baptized person is incorporated into all that Christ is, including His righteousness. This is what I (somewhat clumsily) described as "objective justification."

This justification is in and through Christ, not in and through baptism. Maybe you think this is a distinction without a difference, but I think it makes all the difference in the world. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ" (Eph. 1:3). Not "in baptism," but "in Christ." "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal. 3:27).

Baptism is only the door to the house where Christ is the Host. It would be very odd, to say the least, to call a door "the instrumental means of hospitality."

(3) So then, since faith is the instrumental means of receiving the kind of justification that the decretally elect receive, but baptism is the instrumental means of receiving objective justification, it follows that we have two separate kinds of justification going on here. Not one type of justification, which might or might not last, but two types: one, received upon faith; the other, received upon baptism.

Since I've already argued that baptism is NOT the "instrumental means" of receiving justification, even on what I think is a standard FV view, let me answer the rest of this fairly quickly. There are not two kinds of justification, but there are different angles on, and differences of status with regard to, this one reality. What is the difference between baptism and faith, relative to justification? The connection between baptism and justification is indirect: baptism joins us to Christ, and in Him we are righteous. The connection between faith and justification, however, is direct: "For with the heart one believes unto righteousness" (Rom. 10:9). Righteousness--complete and lasting justification that transforms first a man's standing before God, and finally his entire spirit, soul, and body--is made available to us through our union with Christ in baptism; but it is truly claimed and owned by our believing response to what God has already done in our baptism. Baptism is God's doing, faith is ours, but both are equally a gift of His grace, so that no man may boast in His presence. To Him be all glory forever and ever! Amen.