Theology Is for Reading the Bible
A primary purpose of classical theology is to help you read the Bible
A primary purpose of classical theology is to help you read the Bible with categories and distinctions that correspond to the meaning the biblical authors intend by their words.
The argument that classical theology and the Bible are at odds, or use contradictory idioms, is false.
Nicene Creed
Nowhere is this more obvious than in the Nicene Creed. The structure of the Creed follows the structure of passages like 1 Corinthians 8:4–6, sequences biblical phrases according to the pattern of sound words (2 Tim 1:13; Rom 6:17) in Holy Scripture (akolouthia), and importantly uses a non-biblical word to stand as a symbol of this apostolic pattern of sound words (homoousia).
That word, homoousia, is the orthodox conclusion to the biblical teaching that the Son of God is the eternal Son of the Father by a relation of being begotten from the Father. What else does it mean for God the Son to be begotten of the Father if God is one (1 Cor 8:4)? The answer: both share in the oneness of God yet are distinguishable by their names: God the Father and the one Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 8:6). To communicate this precise meaning without having to recount dozens of biblical texts in the akolouthia of the apostolic pattern of sound words, the Fathers used a shibboleth: homoousia.
But do note that the term means nothing other than what the apostles say when they speak of God the Son being the eternal Son of the Father, begotten before all times, yet made manifest in the flesh in these last days for us and for our salvation.
Disagree all you want with that specific interpretation, but that is, in fact, what the Fathers were doing. They used theological jargon to name what is true in the Bible.
Justification and Works
The same happens when it comes to Reformational authors who recognize that Paul speaks of justification by faith (Rom 4:3, 5) and that Abraham was justified by works (James 2:21, 24). How do these two fit together? Well, not by ignoring them or preferring one over the other, as if Paul is right and James is embarrassing.
The Bible teaches both justification by faith alone and that a “person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24). If you do not regularly teach both, you might as well stop pretending to preach the whole counsel of God. But of course it is not as though Paul and James are at odds.
Paul speaks about the obedience of faith (Rom 1:5; 16:26), claims God “will repay each person according to what they have done,” and even notes that by doing so one will possess eternal life (Rom 2:6, 7). And at judgment, Paul claims, we will “receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Cor 5:10). Paul sure sounds like James here!
So perhaps we have missed something important. Reformed theologians embraced both idioms by pointing out that the word justification means a declaration. Jesus said that wisdom is justified by her children (Matt 11:19). Christ himself was justified at his resurrection by the Spirit (1 Tim 3:16). Justification can mean vindication, demonstration, or something along those lines.
We must ask what Paul meant by justification by faith. If we do not have righteousness in us, but Christ has righteousness in him, as the Bible says everywhere, then we need the righteousness that is in Christ to be justified. Hence, we must “be found in [Christ], not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ” (Phil 3:9). Or “in [Christ] we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21).
The word the Reformed used was imputation to describe this reality, since we have no meritorious righteousness in ourselves, but Christ does in himself. The only way we can be justified before God is to have a righteousness that is not our own: Christ’s. That must come by something like imputation, by God reckoning our righteousness to be Christ’s.
James on Justification by Words
Okay, fair enough. So what is James talking about? And why does Paul speak about judgment according to works? The answer is already in the word justification. It demonstrates, vindicates, or shows something. James demonstrates that Abraham’s faith was alive because it was joined with good works that necessarily follow upon our justification by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. We receive the Holy Spirit and receive the gift of sanctification through the Spirit.
Hence Paul can say immediately after affirming our salvation by grace: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10). Jesus likewise speaks about walking in the narrow way to life (Matt 7:14). The Psalms tell us about two ways as well (Ps 1). The Didache, an early Christian handbook, likewise lays out two ways to live, or rather a way of life and a way of death.
So God has prepared works on a narrow way for us to walk in. That is why God saved us, Paul says in Ephesians 2:10. So the Reformed would speak about the right to life given to us in Christ Jesus by imputation, and the way to life granted to us in our pursuit of a holy life. The latter is important because we must “strive … for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb 12:14).
Conclusion
More could be said, and I have elsewhere, but my point remains: classical theology helps us read the Bible since the concepts and distinctions we use flow from the text’s own meaning, giving us ways to read Scripture more accurately.
I am trained as a biblical scholar (my PhD). Yet I find theological exegesis both necessary and vital for a living faith, since what we call theology today often meant Christians reading the Bible to determine the meaning of the text. This is why, by the way, some of the great Reformed theologians of the past were professors of the Bible.
So I repeat: A primary purpose of classical theology is to help you read the Bible with categories and distinctions that correspond to the meaning the biblical authors intend by their words.
Further Resources
Wyatt Graham on whether the Reformed taught justification by works.
Wyatt Graham on imputed and inherent righteousness in early Reformed thought.
Wyatt Graham on the distinction between the right to life and way to life in Petrus van Mastricht.
Wyatt Graham on biblical patterns in the Nicene Creed.
Mark Jones on Works and the Continuation of Justification.
I like the classical definition of the purpose of theology as you present here.
Despite Luther’s critical view of the Epistle of James because it seemed to contradict the doctrine of "faith alone" (sola fide), I have found that what James says is not inherently hard to understand if read and understood in it’s context as your article points out.
James is addressing believers first off, “Count it all joy, my brothers”.(James 1:2, ESV) He is then speaking of the aspect of faith that you noted, “created in Christ Jesus for good works (Ephesians 2:10, ESV). Not ‘saved by works’, but the working out our salvation (Phil. 2:12-13) and the way of life.
More to what Paul writes, “beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.” (2 Corinthians 7:1, ESV)