Romans 2:13 and Future Justification

Abstract

Abstract Given that Paul’s letter to the Romans is a touchstone for the distinctively Protestant confessional teaching concerning justification by faith alone, Romans 2:13 poses a challenge. Following the pattern of Philip Melanchthon, Protestant expositors have typically met this challenge by interpreting it as a ‘legal’ justification that no sinner can attain. This article illustrates the dominant ‘Melanchthonian’ trajectory in early modern Protestant exegesis, while also drawing attention to a minority alternative that reads it as a future justification of Christians according to works (the ‘Bucerian’ alternative). Many modern Protestant exegetes now prefer something like the Bucerian alternative, begging the question as to how this squares coherently with any confessional commitment to a once-for-all justification that is by faith alone. Noting this, this article sets forth an early modern Protestant model of cogent dogmatic harmonization on this score. The chosen case study is Petrus van Mastricht and his magisterial Theoretico-Practica Theologia.