Justifying a Non-Repeatable Justification (Nick Batzig)

As there has been no small debate in recent decades over the doctrine of justification, I was delighted to come across a treatment of the once-for-all nature of justification in Geerhardus Vos' Reformed Dogmatics. Having introduced the subject by explaining that the Roman Catholic church conflates justification and sanctification with it's doctrine of a first and second justification, Vos explained that even within the Reformed tradition there have been those who have denied that justification was a once-for-all, non-repeatable act. Some within the Reformed tradition, he acknowledged, "think that justification repeatedly follows each confession of sin." With these aberrant views in the background of his treatment, Vos went on to defend the majority Reformed view that "justification is an actus individuus et simul totus, that is, an indivisible act that occurs only once" by setting out six (typically brilliant) reasons why we must hold this view. Vos' reasons for the belief that justification is non-repeatable are as follows:"1. Scripture itself nowhere says that the judicial act of God, which it calls justification, would be capable of repetition. Rather, it always presents justification as occurring at one point in time. As there is one predestination, one calling, one glorification, so there is also only one justification, and this stands between the other acts of the order of salvation (Rom 8:30), of which it is certain and generally agreed that they occur but once. 2. The idea of sonship implies that we cannot lose the state of justification once we have obtained it. A son can certainly sin and transgress against his father, but he does not therefore cease to be a son. By adoption as children, the legal position of believers in relation to God is loosed once for all from their own doing and working. Note: not their moral position but their legal position. A believer remains under the moral law, and for him every transgression of it is sin, which m...

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