Friday, April 26, 2024

Francis Turretin on David as an Example of Justification in Romans 4 (cf. Psalm 32)

 


Fourth, the examples of Abraham and David conveyed by Paul in Romans 4 are not about them before conversion and faith, but abut them already converted. If he had spoke about Abraham when he was first called out of Ur of the Chaldees, he could have restricted it with an exclusive true species to work that had preceded his calling. But he speaks about him already converted and established amid the course of godliness, in which, undoubtedly, he had already performed many good works, and yet when he asks the method of his justification, he declares that faith was imputed for righteousness not to the one who works but to the one who believes. In this day, David, when he proclaims the blessed (μακαρισμον) of man in the forgiveness of sins and begs for God’s judgment (Pss. 32:1; 143:2), he does not speak about himself as an unbeliever and unregenerate person, but already a believer and converted. (Francis Turretin, “A Textual Theological Exercise concerning the Harmony of Pual and James on the Articles of Justification” (1687), in Justification by Faith Alone: Selected Writings from Theodore Beza (1519-1605), Amandus Polanus (1561-1610), and Francis Turretin (1623-1687) [trans. Casey Carmichael; Classic Reformed Theology 6; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Reformation Heritage Press, 2023], 190)