----- Original Message ----- 
From: <jldrick@...>
> Chad,
>> Righteousness/eternal life only comes through keeping the law to
>> perfection,
>> a point that Christ emphatically impresses on the lawyer who
>> challenged him:
>
> False.
>
> It is clear that, "To those who by persistence in doing good seek
> glory, honor, and immortality, He will give eternal life," (Romans
> 2: 7).  At the same time, it is clear that, "There is no one righteous,
> not even one." (Romans 3: 10, Psalm 14: 1-3).  If your statement
> here were reflective of the totality of Christ's teaching on the
> subject, we would all be damned without hope.

Precisely.  Both are true at the same time, which is what I have been 
arguing since the beginning of this thread.  I have overemphasized, by 
intent, salvation by works in order to show that salvation by works has 
already been a reality and was never set aside merely because man fell.  The 
fact that since Genesis 3:15 salvation for man has only been through faith 
did nothing to negate the reality that salvation is by works.  Salvation by 
works is just as much a reality as salvation by faith... the original 
standard was never set aside.

 > However, Christ also taught, "For God so loved the world that He
> gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should
> not perish but have everlasting life."  (John 3: 16)  Thus, Christ also
> taught that eternal life comes through faith.  This shows your
> statement above to be false.  Eternal life comes through faith as
> well as through perfect obedience to the law.

It doesn't prove that my statement is false.  It merely proves that my 
statement is only half-true.  I think somewhere along the way you missed my 
endpoint.

> Of course, it can be argued that faith is just as impossible as
> perfect obedience.  That is true.  But although the Bible never
> states that there is a God-arranged means by which a man can
> be changed so that he perfectly obeys the law, it does teach
> that there is a God-arranged way by which righteousness is
> reckoned to him.

True.  This is why both the New Perspective and Theonomy/Post-millenialism 
are false.  They hold out the hope that it is possible for man to perfectly 
obey the law... in the NPP's instance by dumbing down the word "perfect" and 
in theonomy's instance by over-realizing the new creation.

>The apostle
> writes that this is a righteousness without the law, yet it is
> witnessed by the law and the prophets.  This is a righteousness
> of God that is by faith in Jesus Christ.  Both here and in the
> verse quoted above, this righteousness is described as being
> "righteousness of God."  Since it is "of God," a simple
> genitive case in Greek, it is in no whit less righteous than the
> righteousness that is an attribute of God.  At the same time
> it is a righteousness by faith, from faith, to faith.

Again, this has been my argument from the beginning.

>It is equal in righteousness to God's own,
> but it is an imputed righteousness and not an actual one.

This is where I hop off the train.  The righteousness is very real because 
Christ "learned" obedience.  As you've shown, God didn't merely set aside 
the "obedience for life".  Christ fulfilled that requirement even as much as 
He fulfilled any other stipulation in the Old Covenant.  The "obedience for 
life" no longer hangs over my head as an impossible demand of the law 
because Christ fulfilled that demand in meeting the demand.  Christ didn't 
simply set it aside.  Christ didn't simply declare it to be invalid.  Christ 
both met that demand and took the punishment due those who broke the demand 
as if He had broken it himself.  Because Christ met that demand, the 
righteousness imputed to us is very real... it must be real for the Father 
to look on Christ and pardon us as if the righteousness were our own.  Paul, 
in Romans 3 and 5, does not treat the righteousness imputed to us by faith 
in Christ's justification as if it were anything other than real.

I think we're in agreement on whether or not "obedience for life" is a 
continuing reality even as "faith alone in Christ alone" is a continuing 
reality.

Chad Bresson
Xenia, OH