Sam Waldron has been blogging a response to Lee Irons, in which Waldron defends the idea of a future justification according to works. You can find it here http://www.mctsowensboro.org/mcts-blog/author/sam-waldron/
The focus of the essay is to articulate John Murray’s view of Romans 2:13, which Waldron shares. In one of his posts, he mentioned that Robert Reymond shares Murray’s view – which got me curious. I took a look at Reymond’s Paul: Missionary Theologian and found some inconsistency:
Dr. Waldron, I hope to have time to study your posts in this series. I have to say they still raise a number of questions.
One question comes from the Reymond reference you gave here. On p. 535 Reymond says:
“Paul teaches that not only unbelievers but believers as well will be judged in the judgment of the Eschataon (Rom 14:10, 12; 1 Cor 3:12-15; 2 Cor 5:10). To those who, by persistence in doing good, seek glory, honor, and immortality, that is, to those who do good, God will grant eternal life, glory, honor, and peace (Rom 2:7, 10). The criteria of this judgment will be their works.”but later on p. 537 he quotes Murray saying:
“We must maintain therefore, justification complete and irrevocable by grace through faith and apart from works, and at the same time, future reward according to works. In reference to these two doctrines it is important to observe the following:
(i) This future reward is not justification and contributes nothing to that which constitutes justification. (ii) This future reward is not salvation. Salvation is by grace and it is not as a reward for works that we are saved.”Those two statements appear quite contradictory to me. It seems the only way to avoid contradiction would be to argue that justification and salvation do not include or consist of eternal life.
Dr. Waldron took the time to look into it and said the following:
Brandon responded by indicating that there is a contradiction between what John Murray affirms in his Collected Writings 2:221 and what he affirms in his Romans commentary on Romans 2:6 at 1:62-63. Having investigated the matter, I discover that Brandon seems to be correct. That is, Murray’s lecture on justification contained in the Collected Writings affirms that works only have to do with the degree of reward in glory, while in his Romans commentary he affirms that the judgment by works which has the twin consequences of eternal life and wrath is not hypothetical. I see no way to evade the fact of some contradiction between the two statements.
Regretfully he concludes that he thinks Murray’s commentary on Romans should take precedent, meaning Murray would not affirm the second quote. I would be very curious to hear Reymond’s thoughts on this. If pointed out, would he see these things as contradictory, or did he include both of them in his book because he thought they were not contradictory?
Contrast 