Geoffrey Bromiley, Ph.D.: "Thomas Cranmer: Theologian," Ch. 3--Justifica...

1.     Justification, 28-41. Justification: (1) is at the “heart of all Cranmer’s thinking” (28); (2) is a doctrine Cranmer appears to have come by slowly by Scripture, the fathers and reason; (3) is summarized in “Notes on Justification;” (4) is supported by Paul, Irenaeus, Origen, Basil, Ambrose, Jerome, Theodoret, Augustine and Chrysostom; (5) is cited from Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, Anselm and Bernard; (6) does not exalt faith or accompanying virtues such as love, hope or charity; (7) excludes all works—moral, judicial and ceremonial—man cannot “by his own acts, words and deeds (seem they never so good) be justified and made righteous before God” (PS 2.128); (8) emphasizes and exalts Christ’s Person and objective work—“to our Saviour Christ which was offered upon the cross for our sins, and rose for our justification” (PS 2.209); gains gradual clarifications from the Ten Articles, Bishops’ Book and, more notably, the Homily on Salvation, Of the True, Lively and Christian Faith, Of Good Works, and the Forty-Two Articles, (9) is an efficaceous satisfaction, substitution, ransom, atonement and penal achievement for the guilty, dead and disabled by God’s free mercy and Christ the Redeemer—“our justification doth come freely by the mere mercy of God, and of so great and free mercy, that whereas all the world was not able themselves to pay any part towards their ransom, it pleased our heavy Father, of his infinite mercy, without any our desert or deserving, to prepare for us the most precious jewels of Christ’s body and blood, whereby our ransom might be fully paid, the law fulfilled, and his justice satisfied. So that Christ is now the righteousness of all them that truly do believe in him. He fore them paid their ransom by his death: he for them fulfilled the law in his life: so that now in him, every true Christian man may be called a fulfiller of the law; forasmuch as that which their infirmity lacketh, Christ’s justice hath supplied” (PS 2.130); is God’s office (PS 2.131); (11) as noted above already, faith itself is not regarded as a justifying virtue or ground of justification, since faith itself disclaims merit, virtue, hope, charity and the like and confesses with confidence Christ’s Person and work—faith alone is not about self-justifying apprehension of Christ, but self-denying receiving and resting in Christ’s Person and Work—it’s Theocentric and Christocentric. (12) faith is personal, intellectual, emotional and volitional embracing the all-sufficient Redeemer’s Person and Work; (13) produces good works of gratitude and confidence—Cranmer excludes the “exaggerated subjectivism which is one of the legacies of German Romanticism” (36).