Calvin vs Osiander: Reconciliation is Not Infusion or Regeneration
Calvin, 3/11/4—But the most satisfactory passage on this subject is that in which he declares the sum of the Gospel message to be reconciliation to God, who is pleased, through Christ, to receive us into favor by not imputing our sins, (2 Cor. 5: 18-21.)
Let my readers carefully weigh the whole context. For Paul shortly after adding, by way of explanation, in order to designate the mode of RECONCILIATION, that Christ who knew no sin was made sin for us, undoubtedly understands by reconciliation nothing else than justification. Nor, indeed, could it be said, as he elsewhere does, that we are made righteous “by the obedience” of Christ, (Rom. 5: 19,) were it not that we are deemed righteous in the sight of God in him and not in ourselves.
Osiander holds in regard to the mode of receiving Christ,that by the ministry of the external word the internal word is received; that he may thus lead us away from the priesthood of Christ, and his office of Mediator, to his eternal divinity.
It would be incongruous to say that that which existed naturally from eternity was made ours. But granting that God was made unto us righteousness, what are we to make of Paul’s interposed statement, that he was so made by God? This certainly is peculiar to the office of mediator, for although he contains in himself the divine nature, yet he receives his own proper title, that he may be distinguished from the Father and the Spirit.
Jehovah, when made of the seed of David, was indeed to be the righteousness of believers, but in what sense Isaiah declares, “By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many,” (Isaiah 53: 11.) Let us observe that it is the Father who speaks. He attributes the office of justifying to the Son, and adds the reason, – because he is “righteous.” Christ justified us by his obedience to the
Father; and, accordingly that he does not perform this for us in respect of his divine nature, but according to the nature of the dispensation laid upon him.
Tags: Calvin, Osiander, reconcilation
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For the Elect Alone 
September 4, 2013 at 11:22 pm
I am still waiting for any Bible verses which prove “infused righteousness”.
Objection: God imputes this thing Christ purchased for the elect to the elect. I don’t deny that but If that’s the case, then I have to ask, where does Christ fit into that? Why don’t you talk more about Christ in your heart?
mark:. Christ, besides being the earner who obtained all the blessings of salvation for the elect by His obedience, now does these two things. Christ both indwells (lives in) the justified and also intercedes (in heaven) for the elect.
The indwelling—- Where faith is, Christ is. Luther was certainly correct about that truth, but it’s a mistake to locate the righteousness in the faith, or identify the righteousness with Christ’s life inside us (as Osiander did.)
The work to earn righteousness for the elect was done outside of the elect. The righteousness which resulted and which is imputed is always outside of the elect. Bunyan explained: the righteousness is in heaven. The righteousness belongs not to us alone in our insides but to all the elect. The righteousness also belongs still to Christ.
objection: Because if that is indeed the case, then to be blunt about it, we don’t even need Christ Himself anymore. He bought what we need, so now He can step back, go do whatever while God hands out what He purchased. Why would we have faith in Him? Our faith would be in what He purchased instead. How does that glorify Christ?
mark: Of course Socinians who deny forensic justification often ask this, but I understand that you are not denying any forensic thing. You are only denying the only. You are merely deny the mere imputation. You want the forensic plus more, also Christ Himself the person living in you, but not only that, but let’s say it, Christ in us our righteousness.
I agree that Christ the person is not a something to be imputed. I agree that the true Christ is given to live in the justified elect. We don’t need false alternatives, such as “HIM vs His work”. But we also need true antithesis. The “life of God inside the of the man” IS NOT THE RIGHTEOUSNESS.
In By Faith Not By Sight, Richard Gaffin : “Typically in the Reformation tradition the hope of salvation is expressed in terms of Christ’s righteousness, especially as imputed to the believer…however, I have to wonder if ‘Christ in you’ is not more prominent as an expression of evangelical hope…” p110
Gaffin wants to say that both the “in us” and the “outside us” combined are our hope. His hope “as well” is Christ’s life in us defined as the power to avoid sin despite our “incomplete progress, flawed by our continued sinning”.
Instead of making a distinction between dead works (Hebrews 6:1,9:14) and “fruit for God” (Romans 7:4), Gaffin bases assurance partly on Christ’s life in us evidenced by our imperfect but habitual obedience.
Gaffin takes Romans 2:13 to be describing Christians. The hope for future justification is not Christ’s death, resurrection, and intercession outside us ALONE. Gaffin cautions us to remember that the obedience (works, avoidance of sin) which he thinks factor into assurance come from God living in us. He gives grace the credit for our “breach with sin”.
I agree that the gospel is not only about what Christ did outside of the elect for the elect. The gospel is also about the effectual call which results from election in Christ. One evidence of this effectual call is that the justified elect do not put their assurance in Christ’s life in us or even in what they call God’s effectual call.
January 13, 2015 at 2:54 am
p 110, “What’s At Stake in Current Debates Over Justification?”, Bruce McCormack, Princeton Seminary
“Nowadays, we are suffering from ‘creeping perichoresis’, that is, the overly expansive use of terms which have their homes in purely spiritual relations between humans who do NOT participate in a common ‘substance’ and who therefore remain distinct individuals This surely has to be the relation of the human believer to the human Jesus as well.
McCormack—“The early church thought of an ontological union of a ‘person” in whom being is mixed with non-being (that’s us) with a ‘person’ in whom being is pure from non-being (Jesus). Where that occurs, the life communicated from the vine to the branches flows organically…But the difference between the relation between a vine and a branch and the relation between Christ and the believer is that the first relation is impersonal and the second is personal. The flow of nutrients from the vine to the branches take place automatically.But in the case of Christ and the individual believer,the ‘bearing of fruit’ takes place on the foundation of justification.”
That Paul in Romans 11 would preface his use of the horticultural image with the affirmation that the adoption belonged to the Israelites before the Gentiles suggests that the image of ‘ingrafting’ is used as a synonym for adoption. The horticultural image is subordinated to the legal.”
March 12, 2015 at 12:38 am
Osiander was opposed principally by Francesco Stancaro, who ran into the opposite extreme of excluding entirely Christ’s divine nature from all concern in the redemption procured for sinners. Philip Melanchthon’s letter to Osiander was generally positive, he criticized Osiander, especially to his contemporaries for “not including a discussion of Christ’s meritorious death when mentioning Christ’s essential righteousness”.[ On 27 May 1551, Joachim Mörlin publicly attacked Osiander from the pulpit, which Osiander defended at the pulpit four days later. The controversy continued until around 1566 but continued to be discussed for centuries, notably by Eduard Böhl in the late 19th century who declared it to have had an impact upon reformed theology. In 1555 there were outbreaks of violence in Prussia over the Osiandrian controversy
October 8, 2015 at 1:27 am
Click to access 2003-Fall-FinnishLine.pdf
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/12/turning-inward
July 30, 2016 at 11:28 pm
The ministry of reconciliation is NOT the ministry of regeneration. I am not denying regeneration, but I am denying that our reconciliation to God is by regeneration. Our reconciliation to God is our justification before God. Reconciliation happens in history. Justification happens in history.
Reconciliation is becoming the righteousness of God in him. Regeneration is not our righteousness. Regeneration is not our Reconciliation. Reconciliation is received by God’s imputation in history, not by our regeneration and not by our faith.
II Corinthians 5: 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, new creation ! Old things have passed away, and look, new has come. 18 Everything is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed the message of reconciliation to us. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, certain that God is appealing through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.” 21 He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that become the righteousness of God in Him.
January 4, 2017 at 4:48 am
Calvin, Institutes 3:11: —Osiander introduces a substantial mixture, by which God, transfusing himself into us, makes us as it were a part of himself. Osiander regards Christ’s indwelling us as almost nothing unless his essence is mingled with us. Osainder taches hat we are not justified by the mere grace of the Mediator, and that righteousness is not simply or entirely given to us in his person, but that we are made partakers of divine righteousness when God is essentially united to us.
Osainder might indulge his dreams with less harm, and, perhaps, it were less necessary to contest the matter with him; but since his principle would rob us of that righteousness which alone gives us full assurance of our salvation, we must strenuously resist. For, in the whole of this discussion, the noun righteousness and the verb to justify, are extended by Osiander to two parts; to be justified being not only to be reconciled to God, but ALSO to be made just; and righteousness being NOT a free imputation, but the holiness and integrity which the divine essence dwelling in us inspires.
Osiander vehemently asserts that Christ is himself our righteousness, not in so far as he, by expiating sins, appeased the Father, but because he is the eternal God and life. To prove the first point—viz. that God justifies not only by pardoning but by regenerating, Osainder asks, whether he leaves those whom he justifies as they were by nature, making no change upon their vices?
The answer is very easy: as Christ cannot be divided into parts, so the two things, justification and sanctification, which we perceive to be united together in him, are inseparable. Whomsoever, therefore, God receives into his favor, he presents with the Spirit of adoption, whose agency forms them anew into his image.
Osiander confounds that free acceptance with this gift of regeneration, and contends that they are one and the same. But Scriptures while combining both, classes them separately …Whenever Paul argues from the salvation procured for us, from the paternal love of God and the grace of Christ, that we are called to purity and holiness, he plainly intimates, that to be justified is something else than to be made new creatures.
March 4, 2018 at 8:25 pm
Christ earned righteousness by His death that Christ did not have before he was incarnate
Romans 4:25 raised because of our justification
Romans 6 :7 “For one who has died has been justified from sin. 8 Now since we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death NO LONGER rules over Christ. 10 For the death Christ died Christ died to sin once for all time
March 17, 2018 at 11:51 pm
The reason why Tuomo Mannermaa’s article is controversial is less theological than political and cultural, though there may be a theological component to it. Part of Mannermaa’s thesis is that Luther’s very realistic understanding of the atonement was forgotten and therefore not present in the Formula of Concord, and that therefore there exists a chasm between Luther and the Formula, as well as Luther and Chemnitz, on the nature of deification. He finds this chasm to be spelled out particularly in the Formula’s condemnation of Osiandrianism.
What Mannermaa fails to see, according to my opinion, is that the Formula does not condemn Osiander’s soteriological realism, but rather it condemns Osiander on two points: firstly, that Osiander taught that Christ’s presence in us is only according to the divine nature, and not according to both, as Lutheran Christology would demand (this topic would be dealt with at length in Chemnitz’s “The Two Natures In Christ”), and secondly, that Osiander found that logical “reason” for our justification to be found not in the judgment upon Christ as mankind on the cross, but upon our inner renewal through the indwelling of Christ. The problem of Osiandrianism is that of “who is God looking at when he declares ‘not guilty’”? Is he looking at you with the divine nature renewing you from within (an idea which seems almost a Lutheranized form of Catholicism’s “infused grace”) or is he looking at Christ as the first and fullness of a new humanity?
The second reason for the controversy over Mannermaa is that since his entire theology was developed in the crucible of the dialogue with the Eastern Orthodox, there is suspicion that when Mannermaa speaks of Luther’s doctrine of deification, he is actively trying to make it sound just a little more Orthodox so as to make it appealing to them, as opposed to allowing it to sit in its full Lutheran glory. The main way he does this is in (seemingly) repeating Osiander’s mistake (and the mistake of the Orthodox) and finding the locus of justification in the presently-living Christian who has Christ within him by faith, and not in Christ on the cross, who has Mankind in Him.
The primary question of the Lutheran doctrine of the Forensic Atonement is this: where does God find you righteous?
If the answer is, “On the cross, where Christ was declared both guilty and righteous, Him becoming one with our guilt, us becoming one with His righteousness,” then you are a Lutheran.
If the answer is, “Within the sinner who possess Christ by faith and is renewed by Christ’s divinity,” then you are an Osiandrian.
If the answer is, “Within the sinner who has Christ within him, both as a renewal, and as a pledge of God’s good will,” then you are a follower of the Finnish Interpretation.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/justandsinner/what-exactly-is-the-problem-with-gerhard-forde-and-the-radical-lutherans/#PDATIUmJ2bK35QSS.99
April 26, 2018 at 2:38 am
I Corinthians 2: 14 But the unbeliever does not welcome what comes from God’s Spirit, because what comes from God’s Spirit is foolishness to them
Ephesians 1: 13 When you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed in Him, you were also sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 2 is NOT about “spiritual death” (corruption) and regeneration
in the flesh, and under the wrath, are not the same thing–two different categories
if you are in the flesh and do not believe the gospel, then you are also under God’s wrath
if you are still under God’s wrath, then you are also still in the flesh and do not believe the gospel
Ephesians 2: And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our flesh, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, 5 made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses.
Romans 8: 7 For the mind-set of the flesh is hostile to God because the flesh does not submit itself to God’s law, for the flesh is unable to do so. 8 Those who are in the flesh CANNOT please God.
John 3 : Unless someone is born of the Spirit, they cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.
justification is not regeneration John 5: 24 “I assure you: Anyone who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has lasting life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.
regeneration is not justification John 5: 25 “I assure you: An hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
no faith in the true gospel, no sign or evidence of regeneration—faith in the true gospel is not a condition but a result of the new birth
Don’t confuse regeneration and adoption.
becoming “Children of God” does not mean “becoming regenerate”
In order to “receive Christ”, sinners first have to become regenerate, and only when they “receive Christ” do they become “children of God
John 1: 12
But to all who did receive Him,
He gave them the right to be[children of God,
to those who believe in His name,
13 who were born,
not of blood,
or of the will of the flesh,
or of the will of man,
but of God.
Galatians 3: 26 for you are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus
August 1, 2019 at 5:39 pm
the new man is not like the new implants in my eyes after cataract surgery
what is called “experimental vital union” is not something that
happens before God imputes Christ’s death to the elect
whatever you think “vital unon” is, we do not belong personally to
Christ before or without having been placed into Christ’s death and
justification
the lasting life of the age to come is not the new birth
the new brith is not a new nature
I agree with Ed Boehl (The Reformed Doctrine of Justification, notice the critical preface by Berkhof to the last edition, in which Berkhof claims Boehl is too Lutheran). If conforming into the image of Christ is truly the work of the Holy Spirit alone, then it is difficult to claim ar a new ability, in the regenerate man. Tthe regenerate man is not given an improved ability from the Holy Spirit to obey God. This position does not deny that the regenerate man bears fruit. Nor does it deny that the Holy Spirit sometimes enables the believer to
overcome sin. However, it not the case that this is an ability found within justified sinners.
Mike Horton—Even if it is granted that justification is an exclusively
forensic declaration, the rest of the order of salvation has usually
been treated in Reformed theology as the consequence of an entirely different event the implantation of new life in regeneration.”
(Covenant and Salvation p 216
Participation in Christ is not of the Holy Spirit but by God’s imputation of Christ’s death and resurrection.
Bruce McCormack—-“The work of the Holy Spirit does not complete a work of Jesus Christ which was incomplete without it. The work of the Holy Spirit does not make effective a work of Jesus Christ which is ineffective without it.”, p 229, “The Actuality of God, Engaging the Doctrine of God“
Berkouwer—Faith and Sanctification, 79—-terms found in Kuyper–infusion of life, a new capacity, irradiation, to plant a germ of life, new habits of will, imperishable seed in the soil of our heart, to implant in our innermost a new attitude. These terms do belong to the Reformed heritage, provided that we avoid a substantialist view of grace. Infused or imparted grace guards against “as if” grace. Bavinck—‘Rome made this infused grace the ground of forgiveness and hence built worship on the foundation of morality. Believers, however, do become partakers of the righteousness of Christ through infusion.”
Horton’s Covenant and Salvation, p 201–“John Murray’s notion of regeneration (as a new habit infused or implanted) before effectual calling s what keeps justification (for John Murray) from being constitutive across the entire order of application.
Osiander argued that justification cannot occur unless Christ unites us to, infuses us with His divine nature (similar to theosis [Calvin rargues that justification is forensic, and that Osiander’s version of union robs Christ’s human nature of its significance by attributing justification to the divine.
–The “placed into his death” of Romans 6 cannot be confused with the “Christ in you” and “the Spirit in you” by use of the word “union”. But Jeff you have done this very thing. It is one thing to say that every justified person is a regenerate person. We agree about that (although I do not use “sanctified” as a synonym for “regenerate” and it looks like you (sometimes) do. But it another thing to say that regeneration has legal or temporal priority to God’s placing the elect into Christ’s death.
Gaffin—”Despite the exegesis of some Reformed commentators, this death to sin is almost certainly not to the guilt that sin incurs and justification. In view, rather, is a definitive deliverance from sin’s over-mastering power to being enslaved instead to God and righteousness. That Spirit-worked (7:6) deliverance, NOT JUSTIFICATION, grounds and provides the dynamic for the believer’s beginning to “walk in newness of life” (6:4), their being enslaved in their conduct to God and righteousness….This is the crucial soteriological truth that in the inception of the application of redemption, at the moment sinners are united to Christ by faith, they are delivered from sin’s enslaving power, from bondage to sin as master http://www.opc.org/os.html?article_id=140
David Garner—“ The vital and intimate union between the sons and the Son remains unyieldingly robust….In Christ the forensic and the transformative are ONE. Justification, sanctification, and glorification are ONE. Declaratory, transformatory and consummatory COALESCE in this resurrection.”