Reformed Christians have been perennially engaged
in defending the doctrine of justification by faith alone against
its detractors in other theological traditions. At times, however,
debates over the doctrine have raged even within Reformed circles.
Norman Shepherd, former Associate Professor of Systematic Theology
at Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia) and pastor in
the Christian Reformed Church, has been at the center of such debates
recently in the American Reformed world. This article seeks to define
the issues at stake in these debates and to evaluate Shepherd's
doctrine of justification from a Reformed standpoint.
The Shepherd Controversies
Norman Shepherd began teaching systematic
theology at Westminster Seminary (Philadelphia) in 1963. In the
mid-1970s, controversy over Shepherd's teaching broke out in the
Westminster community and in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, in
which Shepherd was serving as a minister at the time. Though Shepherd's
teaching on a number of related theological issues was called into
question, the key point of debate was whether he held to the Reformation's doctrine of
justification by faith alone, as expressed
in the Westminster Standards, or had, in one way or another, lapsed
into teaching that justification was by faith and works together.
Shepherd had both defenders and detractors in
the institutions
in which he served, and only after a protracted series of events
was he finally dismissed from his teaching post in 1981. At this
time, he also left his presbytery, where disciplinary charges had
been filed against him, and joined the Christian Reformed Church.
He served pastorates in the CRC in Minnesota and Illinois before
retiring in 1998.
Given the contours of this history, the Shepherd controversy
may seem to be moot and of little current interest. However, the
recent appearance of Shepherd's short book, The Call of Grace, has
brought many of these old questions back to the surface and has
stirred up considerable debate among American Reformed people. One
of the difficulties in evaluating Shepherd's teaching on the doctrine
of justiflcation has been the lack of a writing trail. Though his
1979 unpublished paper, "The Grace of Justification," has survived,
there was little hard evidence of what Shepherd actually believed.
The Call of Grace, then, has provided what was long missing: an
extended discussion by Shepherd himself on the biblical teaching
on salvation.
The question for this article, therefore, concerns Shepherd's
views on justification and their consistency with the historic Reformed
teaching.1 Although Shepherd makes use of much orthodox terminology,
I argue that he has articulated a doctrine ofjustiflcation that
is persistently ambiguous and that redefines the relationship of
faith and works in a way at odds with the traditional, biblical
doctrine.
The Doctrines of Faith & Justification
It must be acknowledged from the outset that Shepherd's writings
on justification do make use of terms and particular articulations
of doctrines that are common to Reformed theology. For example,
he states: "Faith lays hold of Jesus Christ and His righteousness
and the righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed to the one who
believes. This is the distinctive function of faith in justification
which it shares with no other grace or virtue."2 Similarly, in another
place he sets forth a very standard Reformed distinction between
justification and sanctification: "Justification is an act of God's
free grace with respect to His people whereby He pardons their sin and accepts
them as righteous on the ground of the righteousness of Jesus Christ
imputed to them and received by faith alone. Sanctification is a
work of God's free grace in them whereby He transforms them progressively
into the image of His Son."3
Nevertheless, there are many things in Shepherd's writings that
call into question what he really means in his use of such language.
Perhaps the most striking example is his continual claim (in "The
Grace of Justification" and especially in The Call of Grace) that
faith must be "living," "obedient," and "active."
The definition of faith is critical for the doctrine ofjustiflcation,
for the Reformed doctrine of justification "by faith alone" presumes
a particular understanding of faith, one in which faith is sharply
distinguished from works or obedience. In the Reformed view, faith
is extraspective, a trust that looks outside of oneself and rests
upon the good works of Christ that earned our salvation. In contrast,
obedience consists of the good works that a person himself produces,
works that flow from faith and only by God's grace. By faith we
are justified; by obedience we are not.
Seen in this light, Shepherd's use of phrases such as "obedient
faith" is inherently ambiguous. Such a phrase could refer simply
to a faith that is always accompanied by obedience, and this would
be wholly consistent with Reformed theology. However, it could also
refer to a faith that is itself obedience, or, to put it another
way, to a faith that is conceived in such broad terms that it consists not only of a humble resting upon Christ and his
work for salvation, but also of our obedience and good works that
God demands of those who are in covenant with Him. In such a case,
it is not by believing alone that we are justified, but by believing
and obeying together.
In contrast to the clear precision of traditional Reformed theology
in distinguishing the roles of faith and obedience, Shepherd never
carefully defines what his terminology means. Though the very presence of ambiguity is problematic for
such an important subject, a fair evaluation of Shepherd's theology
must try to probe beneath the ambiguity and clarify what Shepherd
is attempting to communicate.
Unfortunately, despite some indications to the contrary,4 the
evidence points to the conclusion that Shepherd indeed prefers an
understanding of faith that makes good works not merely the fruit
of faith, but an element of faith itself. This idea emerges quite
prominently in the second half of "The Grace of Justification."
Here he writes that faith "entails obedience" (13) and is "invariably
intertwined with repentance" (19). While such expressions might possibly be given an orthodox spin, a number of other
statements in this document are far less susceptible to it. For
example, he writes that saving faith is a faith that "yields obedience
to the commands of Christ" (16) and that "forsakes sin and ungodliness"
(17). Along the same lines, he calls the forsaking of sin and rebellion
"an act of faith" (20).
Faith has been turned from the extraspective trust in the obedience
of another into an act in which the believer himself offers obedience.
This confusion of the faith that justifies with the obedience of
sanctification is also manifest when Shepherd explains that "a living
and active faith is the fruit of the regenerating and sanctifying
work of the Holy Spirit." (15) This turns the Reformed doctrine
on its head: faith is not the fruit of sanctification, but sanctification
is the fruit of faith!
In his more recent work, Shepherd continues to speak of obedience
and good works as part of faith itself. For example, he writes:
"Faith is required, but faith looks away from personal merit to
the promises of God. Repentance and obedience flow from faith as
the fullness of faith. This is faithfulness, and faithfulness is
perseverance in faith. A living, active, and abiding faith is the
way in which the believer enters into eternal life."5 Following
the train of thought here is not easy, but the logic seems to be
something like this: "repentance and obedience" constitute the "fullness
of faith;" the "fullness of faith" is "faithfulness;" "faithfulness"
is "perseverance in faith"--all four of these terms or phrases are
evidently identical. What then is the significance that Shepherd, in the very next sentence and without a hitch,
again refers somewhat climactically to the saving necessity of a
"living, active, and abiding faith?" The obvious implication is
that this "living, active, and abiding faith" is what is meant by
the "fullness of faith," which in turn implies that faithfulness,
perseverance, and repentance and obedience are themselves part of
this "living, active, and abiding faith." Repentance and obedience,
then, the very things that Reformed theology has so carefully distinguished
from faith, become aspects of faith in the end.
There is stronger and perhaps even more problematic evidence
that when Shepherd says that we are saved by a living and obedient
faith he means a different kind of faith from that of the Reformed
tradition. Shepherd says that Christ himself has "living and active
faith."6 Christ's faith, then, becomes the model: Christ had obedient
faith and thus we are to have obedient faith like His. What could
be objectionable about this? Consider a standard Reformed definition
of faith found in the Westminster Confession of Faith (xiv.2): "the
principal acts of saving faith are, accepting, receiving, and resting
upon Christ alone forjustiflcation, sanctification, and eternal
life." Of course, it is nonsense to say that Christ accepted, received,
and rested upon Christ for justification, sanctification, and eternal
life. Christ did not need a mediator in whom to put His faith--He
is the mediator.
Christ, unlike us, did not need saving faith because He, unlike
us, really was obedient! The unavoidable conclusion is that when
Shepherd refers to Christ Himself as exhibiting the living and obedient
faith that we are to emulate and by which we are saved, he obviously
has in mind a kind of "faith" that is different from the "faith"
of the Reformed confessional statements. What are the implications?
If we are saved by a living faith that is like Christ's living faith,
then we are saved by a faith whose principal acts are not accepting,
receiving, and resting upon Christ. Traditionally (and biblically),
we affirm salvation to be by Christ's works (as the ground of justification) and through our
faith
(as the instrument or means of justification). In Shepherd's treatment,
works and faith come bundled together, displayed first in Christ
and then imitated by us.
Shepherd & The Reformed Tradition
There are certainly many other issues in Shepherd's theology
of justification that would be of relevant consideration here. Given
the constraints of space, however, one final matter that deserves
brief attention concerns Shepherd's motivations in writing. Is he
simply trying to restate the standard Reformed doctrine of faith and justification, however unsuccessfully? Or is he really
attempting to revise the doctrine? On the one hand, if he is simply
trying to be a faithful Reformed theologian, then it is certainly
puzzling that he forsakes the clear distinctions of the Reformed
tradition for the ambiguous lingo of "obedient faith" and the like,
even retaining the use of such language in The Call of Grace despite
the decades of complaints about such terminology. On the other hand,
if he is actually attempting to restate the traditional doctrine,
then it does not seem too little to expect him--in his office of
Reformed minister and seminary professor--to be forthright about
his intentions. Yet, Shepherd sends his readers conflicting signals.7
Shepherd is also unclear about the relationship of his own Reformed
tradition to the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification. Given
the historical battles of the last half-millennium, his perspective
on the Roman Catholic understanding of salvation is certainly of
pressing interest. In the opening pages of The Call of Grace, Shepherd
makes reference to the important debates of the past decade engendered
by Evangelicals and Catholics Together. However, immediately after
calling attention to this important movement, he declines further
comment on it (though he returns to it very briefly, and no more
clearly, later in the book). He states abruptly that he declines
to discuss the "nuances" of the arguments that have been made in
its wake.8 What could be more important, however, than the nuances?
Grace, faith, Christ, good works--all of the parties, Roman Catholic
as well as Protestant, affirm them. The differences are in the details. Questions such as the precise
nature of saving faith and its relationship with good works may
indeed be nuances, but they are nuances upon which people have staked
their eternal destinies.
Conclusion
That Norman Shepherd's theology ofjustiflcation has attracted
interest within Reformed circles in the past is indisputable, and
that it is again a matter of great curiosity seems increasingly
true. Whatever the importance of the variety of matters hotly debated
among Reformed Christians, the present issue is undoubtedly of the
highest urgency, for the nature of the Gospel is directly at stake.
In light of this, our churches ought to be vigilant in keeping the
clear distinctions of the Reformed doctrine of justification from
falling into flaccid ambiguity, and persistent in refusing to revise
the life-giving message that our faith, and not our obedience, justifies.
Notes
1. The author recently reviewed
Norman Shepherd's book, The Call of Grace: How the Covenant Illuminates
Salvation and Evangelism (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2000), in Modern
Reformation, vol.11, no.2 (March/April, 2002): 38-40. Some of the present material originally appeared
in this review.
2. Norman Shepherd, "The Grace of
Justification" (unpublished paper, Westminster Theological Seminary,
Philadelphia, PA, 1979), 3.
3. Ibid., 14.
4. For example, Shepherd seems
to distinguish faith from obedience and good works when he speaks
of faith's "distinctive function" and "distinctive
office," in the accomplishment of justification; see ibid., 3-4.
5. The Call of Grace, 50.
6. See, for example, the particularly troubling statements in
The Call of Grace, 19: "All of this is made possible through the
covenantal righteousness of Jesus Christ. His was a living, active,
and obedient faith that took him all the way to the cross. This
faith was credited to him as righteousness."
7. In "The Grace of Justification," Shepherd does call a number
of stalwart Reformed theologians to his defense. Among the theologians
he cites on various points are John Calvin, Francis Turretin, and
J. Gresham Machen, in addition to a number of citations of the Westminster
Confession of Faith. At the same time, he also gives hints of a
lingering dissatisfaction with the sufficiency of the traditional
doctrine of faith and obedience. For example, it sounds very much
like traditional Reformed reasoning when he states that "those who
truly believe in Jesus Christ will inevitably manifest this faith
in obedience" ("The Grace of Justification," 13). However, though
he admits that this is true, he adds that "it does not yet explain
why Jesus and the Apostles go on to exhort men in the way of obedience
that leads to eternal life and to warn them against disobedience
which leads to destruction." What needs to be added to the usual
Reformed answer? For Shepherd, it is the recognition that God deals
"covenantally" with his people (14). How Shepherd's covenant theology
compares with that of the broader Reformed tradition is certainly
a critical issue, though constraints of space permit only a few
brief comments. It may be noted that Shepherd's definition of "covenant"
(on p.12 of The Call of Grace) makes a covenant simply a relationship
of friendship instead of also a legal, forensic relationship, and
his definition also fails to allow for the important distinctions
that Reformed covenant theology has made between the covenant of works with
Adam and the covenant of grace with redeemed sinners (as described,
for example, in Westminster Confession of Faith, vii.23). Shepherd
also opines that there is a "glimmer of hope" of reconciling evangelical
and Roman Catholic views on justification if both would adopt a
"covenantal" understanding of salvation (The Call of Grace, 59).
This also suggests that Shepherd is trying to add something new
to standard Protestant articulations of the doctrine and thus also
to transcend older (and somewhat passé?) Roman Catholic-Protestant
debates.
8. The Call of Grace, 4.
This article is a reprint from Katekomen, a publication of
Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Volume 14, No.1, Summer, 2002, pp. 23-26.
Dr. David Van Drunen is the Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology & Christian Ethics
at Westminster Theological Seminary in California.
