More grave problems arise when we begin to follow the path Calvin lays for us with his first principle. Scripture couldn’t be clearer that the faithful are made truly just in their being and in their actions through the grace of Christ. We must stress again that it is because of the justice of Christ communicated to the faithful that their actions and, indeed, they themselves are truly made just. These and other passages from Romans tell us that Christ came to make us just, not that there are absolutely none who are just. The Psalmist clearly refers to both evildoers and the righteous. Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon the Lord? There they shall be in great terror, for God is with the generation of the righteous. The next two verses of this Psalm explain who these “evil ones” are: Paul paints his picture of the wicked who have “turned aside” and “done wrong,” we find he actually quotes Psalm 14:3. Moreover, if we examine the verses where St. It cannot when the context is understood. Thus, Romans 3:10ff simply does not teach total depravity in a Calvinist sense. Notice the emphasis on the fact that man is made truly just so much so that he can fulfill “the just requirement of the law.” It doesn’t get any more just, or righteous, than that! in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Rom.
5:1-2).įor the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. Through Him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God (Rom. Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is solely because of God’s grace that we become truly just: Romans 2:4), to be justified (Romans 5:1-2), and persevere in the faith (cf. Paul’s letter to the Romans is the fact that it is through “the goodness of God” that we are led to repent (cf. While we Catholics agree that God’s grace or “favor” was essential for Noah to be truly “just” before God, nevertheless Noah was truly just, according to the text.Īs far as the quote from Romans is concerned, the greater context of the entire epistle must be understood. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation” (Gen. For example, if we read forward just four verses in Genesis 6, we find: “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. The context of the texts Calvin used actually demonstrates the opposite of his claim. All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong no one does good, not even one ”-to prove that man is utterly depraved through the fall of Adam and Eve.Ĭalvin’s conclusion from these texts and others was to say, “The will is so utterly vitiated and corrupted in every part as to produce nothing but evil” (Institutes, bk. Calvin used texts such as Genesis 6:5-“The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually”-and Romans 3:10ff-“None is righteous, no not one no one understands, no one seeks for God. “In John Calvin’s magnum opus, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, he presents a view of man that is very much like Luther’s but contrary to what we find in the pages of Sacred Scripture. Although he fell away from the faith of his childhood, Tim came back to faith in Christ during his late teen years through the witness of Christian televangelists. by Tim Staples, Tim was raised a Southern Baptist.