Commenting on Peter’s speech in Acts 4, Protestant E.M.B. Green wrote
the following where he is forced to recognize that justification is not a mere
declaration:
The uniqueness of Jesus's salvation is nowhere
more clearly emphasized than in Acts 4.12. It is, as the context shows, a
salvation which concerns the whole man (sōzein
is ambivalent in 4.9, 12, as it is so often in the Gospels). It is made
possible through Jesus of Nazareth, crucified, risen and active in his
disciples. He was “the stone set at nought by your builders”, says Peter
courageously (as he uses the text from Ps. 118.22 which his Master had used
before him, Mk. 12.10), and through God’s action he “is become the head of the
corner”. This verse became an important one among the early Christians. It
comes from a psalm sung at all the festivals, and Jewish Christians would never
be able to forget its words, and the striking light they shed on the fate of
Jesus. There are, in fact, many verbal links between this psalm and the whole
incident of the healing of the lame man to which this speech is the sequel. “The
gate of the Lord” which “the righteous enter” (Ps. 118.20) corresponds with “the
gate of the temple” (Acts 3.2) which the restored cripple (now made “righteous”?) “enters” (3.8). “This
is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes” f the psalmist (118.23)
is matched by Peter’s insistence that the healing is God’s doing (Acts 3.12,
16), and by the repeated statements that the crowd “marvelled” (3.10, 11, 12). (E.M.B.
Green, The Meaning of Salvation [London:
Hodder and Stoughton, 1965], 144, emphasis in bold added)
Elsewhere in
his book, to try to salvage belief in the Protestant understand of justification, he follows Leon Morris’ misinformed comments about δικαιοω and –οω verbs:
Nowhere in Greek literature does δικαιοω means “to make righteous”. In
common with other verbs in –οω denoting
moral qualities, the causative element (often to be found in –οω verbs) is absent. Thus αξιοω means “to account worthy” not “to
make worthy”; δικαιοω means “to
account righteous” not “to make righteous”. (Ibid., 163 n. 3)
To see why
Green (and Morris who he is getting this from) is dead-wrong, see:
