How well do you understand the historic reformed position on the doctrine of justification?

Rebecca has written a short quiz (y’all know how I love quizzes) so we can all test our knowledge of the “historic reformed protestant position on the subject” of justification. I am going to post what I think are the answers. She will post the correct answers with a short justification for each one on Saturday. I am so terribly tempted to check what I think with a catechism or my Reymond Systematic, but she didn’t say it was an open book quiz. So, here are my answers (no peeking):

1. Justification is a legal or judicial act of God. (b)
The correct answer is d, justification is an act of God’s grace and a legal or judicial act of God.

Read Rebecca’s scriptural evidence for this answer.

2. Justification includes the forgiveness of our sin, the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us, and the declaration that we are righteous in God’s sight. (e)
Correct!

3. Justification changes our legal status. (c)
Correct!

Read Rebecca’s scriptural evidence for numbers 2 and 3.

4. Included in the grounds for our justification is/are our faith and Christ’s righteous life and obedient death. (d)
The correct answer is c, The grounds for our justification is Christ’s righteous life and obedient death.

I chose c as my answer at first, but then went back and changed it. I thought faith could be thrown in there since it is necessary AND because it is a gift from God. But I also remembered something wrong. I have been confused before regarding how our faith is credited as righteousness. In a BM Bible study, she mentions Abraham and how his faith was credited to his account, implying that we can “earn” credits, if you will, when we exercise our faith. Rebecca explains why this is error. She writes,

When it says that faith is counted as righteousness, we might think this means that our faith is credited to our account as a righteous or meritorious act, and in exchange, we receive justification. If that were the case, then the credited faith would be at least partial grounds for our justification. But notice that Paul emphasizes that justification is a gift and not wages, and not our due. Our faith cannot merit, even in part, our justification, or justification would not be a gift. Rather, it would be, at least partially, our due. So even though faith is necessary for justification, it cannot provide the grounds for it.

BM does not imply that we earn justification. She was saying something more along the lines of having something to “show” God, i.e. we show God we believe and He is impressed, but He doesn’t credit us when we don’t exercise our faith. I was confused about it at the time I heard it and it is confusing me now.

The answer to this question hinges on the word “grounds.” What are the grounds for our justification? Well, it certainly isn’t grounded in anything in me or anything I have done. I know that much. But I thought that since faith is necessary that it could be included in that. So, now I’m thinking that the rest of my answers are wrong, too. That’s ok, I have a lot to learn.

5. We are justified when we believe. (a)
Correct!

6. Which of the statements below describes faith’s role in our justification?

I say b, It receives the full satisfaction and righteousness of Christ upon which we can be justified.
Correct!

Read Rebecca’s scriptural explanations for 5 and 6.

I really hope I haven’t embarrassed myself. I suppose the worst that can happen is that I better understand the historic reformed position on the subject of justification.

Four correct out of six isn’t too bad.

Take her quiz!