Dikaioo means “to declare righteous” not “to make righteous.” This is accepted by two theologians on either side of the New Perspective discussion, N. T. Wright¹ and Robert L. Reymond.²

“Leon Morris points out that ‘verbs ending in [-oo] and referring to moral qualities have a declarative sense; they do not mean “to make __.”‘”³ Therefore Reymond willingly concedes that justification is “an objective forensic judgment.”⁴

Where’s Room for Imputation?

How then can definitions of justification contain “make” language as one finds in definitions that include imputation of Christ’s righteousness? Consider how Reymond characterizes justification (emphasis original; red text mine):

“[J]ustification refers to God’s wholly objective, wholly forensic judgment concerning the sinner’s standing before the law, by which forensic judgment God declares that the sinner is righteous in his sight because of the imputation of his sin to Christ, on which ground he is pardoned, and the imputation of Christ’s perfect obedience to him, on which ground he is constituted righteous before God.”⁵

“Constituted righteous”? Here constitutive, or “make” language as I’ll call it, creeps in, subsumed under declaration justification. Reymond’s next sentences are helpful for further elucidating this point (emphasis original; red text mine):

“In other words, ‘for the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly’ (Rom. 4:5), God pardons him of all his sins (Acts 10:43; Rom. 4:6-7) and constitutes him righteous by imputing or reckoning the righteousness of Christ to him (Rom. 5:1, 19; 2 Cor. 5:21). And on the basis of his constituting the ungodly man righteous by his act of imputation, God simultaneously declares the ungodly man to be righteous in his sight.”⁶

Here Reymond is clearly defining justification as containing a declarative action and a constitutive action when on the very next page he will approvingly cite Leon Morris’ conclusion that dikaioo and verbs like it “have a declarative sense [and] they do not mean ‘to make’.”

Where’s room for the constitutive language of imputation on this understanding of dikaioo?

Imputation in Rome

If when in Rome one is does as the Romans, imputation is in Rome because it is doing as the Romans.

Reymond repeatedly writes that “justification is an objective forensic judgment, as opposed to a subjective transformation” and backs it up with Deut. 25:1, Job 32:2, Proverbs 17:15, and Luke 7:29.⁷ He’s attempting to distance the Reformed position as far as possible from “Rome’s tragically defective representation.”⁸

But how is imputation not also “subjective” as Reymond classifies the Roman Catholic understanding of justification which holds to infused righteousness? Imputed and infused are both “subjective,” a understanding that goes against Morris’ definition of dikaioo.

Wright on Dikaioo

Augustine interpreted “justify” as “make righteous.” “That always meant, for Augustine and his followers, that God, in justification, was actually transforming the character of the person. . . .”⁹

Let me just let Wright continue in his own style and words with what he’s saying (emphasis original):

“The result was a subtle but crucial shifting of metaphors: the lawcourt scene is now replaced with a medical one, a kind of remedial spiritual surgery, involving a ‘righteousness implant’ which, like an artificial heart, begins to enable the patient to do things previously impossible.

“But part of Paul’s own language, rightly stressed by those who have analyzed the verb dikaioo, “to justify,” is that it does not denote an action which transforms someone so much as a declaration which grants them a status. It is the status of the person which is transformed by the action of ‘justification,’ not the character. It is in this sense that ‘justification’ ‘makes’ someone ‘righteous,’ just as the officiant at a wedding serve be said to ‘make’ the couple husband and wife . . . .”¹⁰

In other words, Wright is reiterating the point that justification with a right understanding of dikaioo describes a verdict rather surgery. Imputation like infusion both seem to be surgery.

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photo credit: lambdachialpha

Footnotes