'The Doers of the Law Will Be Justified': The Exegetical Origins of Martin Bucer's Triplex Iustificatio

Abstract

This essay seeks to sketch the profile of Martin Bucer's views on the doctrine of justification as developed in his 1536 commentary on Romans, focusing in particular on his idiosyncratic language of 'threefold justification' in his comments on Rom. 2:13. This text is taken as a ; vantage point from which to survey the history of interpretation of the Pauline concept of justification within the Augustinian tradition, giving extended consideration to exegesis by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Bucer's initial discussion of the Pauline usage of dikaioun in the praefata to his commentary is examined next, and it is concluded that his understanding of justification falls more or less within the trajectory charted by previous medieval interpreters. Turning then to Bucer's comments on Rom. 2:13, it is argued that the notion of 'threefold justification' arises as an attempt to integrate the early evangelical appropriation of the Scotist language of 'divine acceptation' within a traditional Augustinian account of justification as both event and process. The resulting formula collapses predestination into justification, making the latter the unifying concept in Bucer's soteriology. It is hoped that this essay will contribute to deepening our understanding of an oft-neglected reformer while at the same time broadening our understanding of early evangelical teaching on a central doctrinal locus.