Finney vs. Justification by Faith Specifically, what were Finneys most serious errors? At the top of the list stands his rejection of the doctrine of justification by faith. Finney denied that the righteousness of Christ is the sole ground of our justification, teaching instead that sinners must reform their own hearts in order to be acceptable to God. (His emphasis on self-reformation apart from divine enablement is again a strong echo of Pelagianism.) Finney spends a considerable amount of time in several of his works arguing against that theological fiction of imputationMemoirs, 58]. [ Those who have any grasp of Protestant doctrine will see immediately that his attack at this point is a blatant rejection of the doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide). It places him outside the pale of true evangelical Protestantism. The doctrine of imputed righteousness is the very heart of the historic difference between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. The whole doctrine of justification by faith hinges on this concept. But Finney flatly rejected it. Since the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, the virtually unanimous Protestant consensus has been that justification is in no sense grounded in or conditioned on our sanctification. Catholicism, on the other hand, mingles justification and sanctification, making sanctification a prerequisite to final justification. Finney sided with Rome on this point. His rejection of the doctrine of imputation left him with no alternative: Gospel justification is not to be regarded as a forensic or judicial proceeding [Systematic Theology, 360]. Of course, Finney denied that Christ obeyed for us, claiming that since Christ was Himself obligated to render full obedience to the law, His obedience could justify Himself alone. It can never be imputed to us, Finney intoned [Systematic Theology, 362]. The clear implication of Finneys view is that justification ultimately hinges on the believers own obedience, and God will not truly and finally pardon the repentant sinner until after that penitent one completes a lifetime of faithful obedience. As the final paragraph of that excerpt makes clear, Finney himself clearly understood that what he proclaimed was a different gospel from that of historic Protestantism. By denying the forensic nature of justification, Finney was left with no option but to regard justification as a subjective thing grounded not in Christs redemptive work but in the believers own obedience — and therefore a matter of works, not faith alone.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 14:01:18 +0000
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