The Importance of Biblical Realism

a guest post by Ryan Hedrich

(More from Ryan Hedrich may be found at Unapologetica).

Background

In Justification, J. V. Fesko wrote:

In the theology of Aquinas, and those committed to realism, the idea that universals have an existence separate from specific concrete entities, which drew upon the philosophy of Plato (c. 427-.c 348 B.C.) and is also known as the via antiqua (the “old way”), there was a greater emphasis upon seeing justification strictly in ontological terms. With the turn from ontology to discussions on the will of God in the theology of those committed to nominalism, the idea that universals do not have real existence but are merely names applied to qualities found within certain individual objects and that is also known as the via moderna (the “modern way”), for example, in the theology of Biel and William of Ockham (c. 1288 – c. 1348), we see the development of the intellectual framework in which the doctrine of justification could be considered in something other than in terms of ontology. In other words, it seems that nominalism opened the door to a consideration of the forensic nature of justification, and more specifically, the doctrine of imputation. This development, combined with the renaissance of Augustinianism in the fourteenth century, such as in the theology of Thomas Bradwardine (c. 1290 – 1349) and Gregory of Rimini (c. 1300 – 58), contributed to the intellectual development that made the Reformation possible.

McGrath notes six things that one finds in late medieval Augustinian theology that likely contributed to the theology of the Reformation:

1. A strict epistemological nominalism.
2. A voluntarist, as opposed to intellectualist, understanding of the ratio meriti (“reckoning of merit”). Voluntarism emphasizes the role of the will contrasted with that of reason or intellect.
3. The extensive use of the writings of Augustine, particularly his anti-Pelagian works.
4. A strongly pessimistic view of original sin, with the fall being identified as a watershed in the economy of salvation.
5. A strong emphasis upon the priority of God in justification, linked to a doctrine of special grace.
6. A radical doctrine of absolute double predestination.

With these intellectual developments in mind, we can move forward to consider the doctrine of justification in the Reformation and post-Reformation periods. It is against this backdrop that one sees the Reformation begin to give a more precise expression and definition of the doctrine of justification.

Some 10-15 years ago, I used to debate Roman Catholics on Facebook quite a bit. Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox apologists often argue Protestantism is voluntarist or nominalist (examples: link, link; link). This has led me to have a longstanding interest in how Protestant theologians have viewed realism and nominalism. The burden of this post will be to demonstrate that it would be a genetic fallacy to assert that Protestantism entails nominalism.

Nominalism and Biblical Realism: Defined and Distinguished

Consider a “nominal” Christian. These are people who say they are Christians but are Christians in name only (Mathew 7:21-22). They are not really Christians.

Or consider anthropology, the study of man. A nominalist regarding metaphysical universals may think or say that you and I are “human,” but in making such an ascription or predication, the nominalist would nevertheless deny that his or her concept of “human” corresponds to a reality such as human nature. Therefore, the ascription or predication the nominalist makes is nominal, or in name only.

W. G. T. Shedd concisely distinguishes nominalism from biblical realism – denying the former and affirming the latter (of which more shall be written below) – when he writes:

A species or specific nature then, though an invisible principle, is a real entity, not a mere idea. When God creates a primordial substance which is to be individualized by propagation, that which is created is not a mental abstraction or general term having no objective correspondent. A specific nature has a real existence, not a nominal.

(Dogmatic Theology, page 768, link)

Now, the very citation of theologians such as Shedd proves that not all Protestants are nominalists about metaphysical universals. Still less is it possible to contend that Protestant theologians have been unaware of the subject. As Richard Muller says, “there is certainly evidence that Protestant theologians and philosophers were aware of the trajectories of thought that flowed out of the later Middle Ages into the Renaissance and Reformation eras—whether the Thomistic, Scotistic, or the nominalistic lines of argument” (Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 3, page 107).

Shedd and fellow Protestants have traced out biblical realism in theological loci such as anthropology, Christology, hamartiology, and soteriology.

Protestant Anthropology and Christology

On pages 148-151 of The Elohim Revealed (link), Samuel Baird contrasts nominalism (the first theory outlined below) and Platonic realism (second theory) with scriptural realism (third theory), constructing a biblical argument for this third theory regarding the existence of metaphysical universals in the context of anthropology:

The word, nature, is that by which we designate the permanent forces, which were, at the beginning, incorporated in the constitution of Adam and the creatures; and which, by their severalty, determine and define the several species of the living things. The word is sometimes defined inaccurately, as the name of a mere abstraction, which has no real existence; — as the designation applied to our conception of the mere aggregate of characteristics belonging to a given substance. The opinion to be adopted on this point depends upon that which we accept respecting the reality of the existence of the objects of such general conceptions as those expressed by nature, genera, species, &c. On this, — the question agitated between the Nominalists and Realists of the mediæval schools,—there are three several theories embraced by different classes of philosophers. According to the first of these, such conceptions are the mere products of the imaginative faculty, — results of logical deduction from the observation of many like individuals. A second theory represents universal as being realities which have an actual objective subsistence of their own, distinct from and independent of that of the particulars and individuals. A third holds that universals are, in a certain sense, realities in nature, but that the general conceptions are merely logical, — the universals not having an existence of their own separate from the individuals through which they are manifested. The first of these is the theory of a certain class of skeptical naturalists, who reject the whole teachings of the Scriptures on the subject. The second would seem to involve the idea that each several species is endowed with a diffusive substance, out of which the individuals of the species derive existence and attributes, in which they live and move. The third is the scriptural doctrine; according to which the substances were at the beginning endowed with forces, which are distinctive and abiding; and which, in organic nature, flow distributively, in continuous order, to the successive generations of the creatures. Of these forces, the word, nature, is the expression. In its proper use, it conveys the distinct idea of permanent in-dwelling force. It expresses the sum of the essential qualities or efficient principles of a given thing, viewed in their relation to its substance, as that in which they reside and from whence they operate. Such is the sense in which the word is constantly employed in the Scriptures. Thus, — Rom. ii. 14, 15, — “When the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness.” Here, the apostle, by the word, nature, indicates a force within, which he otherwise calls “the law written in their hearts,” the minister of which is conscience, testifying against sin and in behalf of holiness and God. Again: “If thou wert cut out of the olive-tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive-tree, how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive-tree!” — Rom. xi, 24. Here the idea of propagated and continuous force is conspicuous. So in Eph. ii. 3: — “Ye were by nature children of wrath,” — “nature,” is the designation of a force which Paul elsewhere calls “the law of sin and death,” (Rom. viii. 2,) which, by its perverse energy, is the cause of transgression and the curse. The word is not, therefore, expressive of a mere abstraction, but designates an actual thing, an objective reality. Thus, the human nature consists in the whole sum of the forces, which, original in Adam, are perpetuated and flow in generation to his seed. And our oneness of nature, does not express the fact, merely, that we and Adam are alike; but that we are thus alike, because the forces which are in us and make us what we are, were in him, and are numerically the same which in him constituted his nature and gave him his likeness. The body which is impelled by two diverse forces, x and y, moves in the direction of neither of them; but in that of a different force, z, the resultant of the two. Yet is neither of the forces lost; but merely modified, each by contact with the other. The new force, z, is simply x, modified by y. So, in the successive generations of the human race, so far as their traits are the result of propagation, so far as they are the offspring of their parents, theirs are but the same identical forces which were in those parents, only appearing under new forms. The alternative is, that the generation of creatures is a creative act; that the relation between parents and children is a mere fantasy, the former sustaining no causative relation to the latter. The word, nature, is used in the sense here stated, by Augustine, by Calvin, and generally by the old standard writers.

In Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 4, pages 180ff, Muller mentions Moses Amyraut, Thomas Ridgley, Edward Leigh, and Marcus Wendelin as several theologians who would agree with Baird that a human person, such as John (an example of a particular or individual) is metaphysically distinct from his human nature or essence (an example of a metaphysical universal):

By individual, Wendelin comments, is meant a singular thing, res singularis, inasmuch as universals, such as indicate genus and species, cannot be persons. The term “subsistence” indicates, moreover, an independent individuum, inasmuch as it is distinct from an “accident,” which has no independent subsistence, but inheres in something else. In short, a person must be an individual “substance” or “subsistence” insofar as “accidents are not persons” but “inhere in another thing: … a person must subsist.” Even so, “living” must be added to the definition, inasmuch as “inanimate individual,” like a stone of a statue, is not a person – similarly, “intelligent,” since brute creatures are not persons.

This “lively and intelligent substance endued with reason and will,” must also be “determinate and singular, for mankind is not a person, but John and Peter.” The attribute of incommunicability, thus, indicates that “a person is not an essence, which is capable of being communicated to many individuals,” while the qualifier that a person is not part of another being sets persons apart from entities such as souls, which are part of a human being. Human nature, thus, is not a person insofar as it is “communicable to every particular man,“ while the individual or particular recipient of that nature is a person, incapable of communicating his nature as he has it in its particularized form to any other. A person is not directly or immediately sustained by another but is an independent subsistence – in scholastic terms, a suppositum: “The human nature of Christ is not a person, because it is sustained by his deity; nor is the soul in man a person, because it is a part of the whole.”

Indeed, this last sentence indicates that for one to maintain nominalism about metaphysical universals would carry serious Christological consequences. That is, if a person and his nature or essence are not metaphysically distinct, then in the context of Christology, either metaphysical monophysitism (Christ is one real person; therefore, Christ has/is one real nature) or metaphysical Nestorianism (Christ has/is two real natures; therefore, Christ is two real persons) would follow. For this reason, Ockham himself abandoned nominalism about metaphysical universals on this very point (cf. Richard Cross, “Nominalism and the Christology of William of Ockham,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, Vol. 58, pg. 155).

Protestant Hamartiology

One’s understanding of anthropology will affect one’s doctrine of original sin. On pages 25-26 of The Elohim Revealed, Baird connects the rise of nominalism to the rise of a false view of the doctrine of original sin:

About the beginning of the twelfth century, the Nominal philosophy, introduced by Rosceline and extensively adopted, combined with other causes to give a powerful impulse to Pelagian tendencies. According to the philosophy which prevailed prior to the rise of this sect, such universal conceptions as those of species, genera, and nature have, as their ground, some kind of objective realities. They are not the mere result of thought, but have, in some proper sense, a real existence, and lie, as essences, at the base of the existence of all individuals and particulars. From the Stoical philosophy, Rosceline introduced the opposite doctrine, — that only individuals have any real existence. General conceptions are the mere result of logical combinations of thought. They are but abstractions, which have no objective significance. They are mere names, and not things. Hence the designation of Nominalists, by which this sect of philosophers is distinguished. In Rosceline himself the skeptical tendency of the Nominal theory developed itself in questions and controversies respecting the personality of the Three who subsist in the divine Essence, and the nature of that Essence, — which do not fall within our present inquiry. His most eminent disciple, Abelard, who was also the great expositor of the new philosophy, illustrates, in his writings, its bearing upon the subject of original sin. Rejecting the Augustinian doctrine of a universal human nature which was in the first man, he was constrained to reject with it the whole doctrine of original sin peculiar to that system. Hence, he expounds Romans v. 12 as meaning no more than that the sin of Adam involves his children in the punishment, but not in the guilt; and by the word, sin, understands that, not the crime, but the penalty, is, by metonymy, designated.

Note the parts that are underlined. This is an extremely important point to which I will return to below when I bring up Charles Hodge, whom 18th century Presbyterian writers like Samuel Baird, W. G. T. Shedd, and Robert Landis took to task for accepting this exact, wrong position. Before I get into that, pages 344-345 of Robert Landis’ The Doctrine of Original Sin (link), which agrees with what Baird has said up to this point:

During the earlier period of the Reformation, the Protestant divines, though remarkably clear and accurate in the delineation of the doctrine of original sin and justification by faith alone, and of the other salient doctrines of Protestantism, made no attempt to refine upon the Scripture announcements respecting our union with the first and second Adam, or to trace out through the aid of philosophy the principle of our possible identification with either, or on any such ground to explain the relation which our sin and corrupt nature bear to the one, or our righteousness and sanctification to the other; but simply received and inculcated the whole revealed truth on these subjects, without assaying either to establish or defend it by philosophical speculation. The Nominalistic principle had been applied in its most offensive form to the doctrine of original sin by Pighius and Catharinus, and asserted even to the extent of representing Adam’s merely personal sin, through a forensic imputation, as causal of the moral corruption and misery of the race, and thus carrying forward the previously asserted notion of the Arminians, and then of Ocham (the founder of Nominalism), and others of the scholastics, that original sin is “reatus alieni peccati sine aliquo vitio hoerente in nobis” i. e., as the ground of its imputation to us. These persons did not deny, but on the contrary emphatically affirmed that moral corruption was the punishment or penal consequence of the imputation of this reatus alieni peccati; but by original sin they meant peccatum originaus simply, that is, the sin which thus, as its procuring cause, originated the moral corruption of the race; and they affirmed that that sin was Adam’s personal sin alone, in the sense that his posterity did not participate therein, but whose moral corruption and misery resulted from it alone as a peccatum alienum. This notion, as will appear in the sequel, the Protestant divines to a man opposed and rejected; not, however, by verging to the opposite standpoint of philosophical Realism, but by maintaining alike that Adam’s sin was imputed to his posterity on account of their participation therein, and that they were subjectively guilty on that account. In other words, they adopted not the Realistic philosophy, or rather I should say philosophical Realism, but the Realism of Augustine, whose views should never be regarded as identical with the speculations of the later schools of Realists. He was a Realist in the sense of maintaining that we really and actually sinned in Adam, and that his sin was imputed to us as participants; but not in the sense of adopting (as the later Realists did) the dicta of a mere human philosophy as sufficient to explain either the modus of this our sinning in Adam, or the principle of our asserted moral identity with the first and second Adam.

Of course, not all Protestant theologians have consistently accepted biblical realism. W. G. T. Shedd, in Dogmatic Theology on pages 738-739 (link), says that although Francis Turretin was not a nominalist, his acceptance of creationism and Adamic representation was a departure from biblical or Augustinian realism:

Turretin was not willing to adopt Augustine’s statement in full and that he departed in some degree from the Augustinian anthropology. He denies what Augustine affirms, namely, that all men were in Adam by both a specific and a numerical unity…

To impute Adam’s first sin to his posterity merely and only because Adam sinned as a representative in their room and place makes the imputation an arbitrary act of sovereignty, not a righteous judicial act which carries in it an intrinsic morality and justice. This, Turretin seems to have been unwilling to maintain; and therefore, in connection with representative union, he also asserted to some extent the old Augustinian doctrine of a union of nature and substance. Yet, adopting creationism as he did, this substantial union, in his system, could be only physical (“in a physical sense and in a seminal way”; 9.9.23), not psychical.

Turretin marks the transition from the elder to the later Calvinism, from the theory of the Adamic union to that of the Adamic representation. Both theories are found in his system and are found in conflict. He vibrates from one to the other in his discussion of the subject of imputation.

Perhaps Shedd somewhat overstates the case. For example, biblical realism is not, in my mind (nor in the mind of Baird), mutually exclusive with Adamic representation. Regardless, the primary point is that Shedd argues that the logical implication of Turretin’s emphasis on creationism is that the grounding of our union with the first Adam – that is, our natural relationship to Adam – becomes merely physical. This appears to be a contributing factor which leads later Reformed theologians to reject that we participated in Adam’s sin. For how could we really have participated in Adam’s sin if we are only physically related to him? Our sinfulness has nothing to do with our being physical creatures per se, contra gnosticism.

Charles Hodge, followed by fellow Princeton theologians, popularized a nominalistic trend, for which reason Landis numbers Hodge among nominalists (pg. 67 of The Doctrine of Original Sin). Like Abelard (see above), Hodge argues that “imputation does not imply a participation of the criminality of the sin imputed” (Theological Essays, pg. 181, link). For Hodge, Adam’s progeny can be called criminals only in name – not in reality – for they are punished for a crime in which they had no participation.

Even today, some Protestant theologians who follow Hodge on this point – such as Fesko – do not do justice in correctly representing Protestants who have held biblical realism (link). This perpetuates a problem. And for some Protestants, this problem indeed extends into soteriology.

Protestant Soteriology

Hodge’s nominalistic tendencies can be seen in the subsequent line of Princeton theologians such as Geerhardus Vos, who writes (link):

The legal basis for all grace lies in being reckoned in Christ by the judgment of God. This actual relationship in the justice of God is reflected in the consciousness of the sinner when he believes, for by faith he acknowledges that there is no righteousness in himself, and that the righteousness by which he stands righteous before God is transmitted to him by imputation. Now as far as what is judicial is concerned, it could have remained at this. Without effecting a life-union between Christ and believers, God still could have transmitted His righteousness to them.

To say that God could have reckoned us as righteous with or without a life-union between Christ and ourselves detaches the imputation from reality. As such, it is a fairly clear affirmation of nominalism, one which is likely due to Vos’s belief that “The mystical is based on the forensic, not the forensic on the mystical” (Vos, “The Alleged Legalism in Paul’s Doctrine of Justification,” The Princeton Theological Review 1:161-179). This expression is not only logically and biblically problematic but also stands in contrast to the Westminster Larger Catechism:

WLC Q. 66. What is that union which the elect have with Christ?

A. The union which the elect have with Christ is the work of God’s grace, whereby they are spiritually and mystically, yet really and inseparably, joined to Christ as their head and husband; which is done in their effectual calling.

Now, every Protestant realist believes in “forensic” categories. This just means that there is a divine court of law before which men are judged. God, the Judge, “justifies” believers. This means He declares them righteous. They are acquitted of the charge of sin. This declaration is based upon God’s imputing, charging, reckoning, regarding, assigning, attributing, or judging the believer as righteous. God considers us righteous and, therefore, declares us righteous. All Protestants accepts these truths. The question is how a just Judge can declare righteous those who are sinners.

A Protestant realist argues that these “forensic” categories have grounding in reality. God’s consideration and declaration that believers are righteous are true. More on this in a moment.

Now, in this lifetime, believers are not subjectively, intrinsically, or inherently righteous. Therefore, Protestants reject that divine imputation or justification of sinners could be on such grounds. Any Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox apologist who thinks God considers and declares believers subjectively, intrinsically, or inherently righteous is implicitly promoting nominalism; that is, we are subjectively, intrinsically, or inherently righteous in name only. This is ironic, since, as I mentioned above, such apologists often argue that Protestants are implicit nominalists.

Turning back to the Protestant view, there are indeed some Protestant theologians who are nominalists. There may be some Protestants who think God considers and declares believers righteous in name only. Indeed, like the nominalist about universals – or, perhaps, as people who are nominalists about universals – they may have well-intentioned reasons for doing so. One reason might be because they fear the only alternative to their position is Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. In the final quote of this post, Baird will put this fear to rest.

A Protestant realist argues that God’s consideration and declaration of believers as righteous is not a legal fiction (nominalism). God considers and declares believers as righteous in Christ. The answer to the question of how a just Judge can declare righteous those who are sinners is that the sinners who are also believers are really in union with Christ by His Spirit. On page 429 of The Elohim Revealed, Samuel Baird writes:

As there is condemnation to all who are in Adam; so, there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ. Here two things are to be observed. The first is, that, as must be admitted, the case of our condemnation in Adam is cited, with express design to illustrate how we are justified in Christ. ‘As by one man condemnation, so by one man justification.” Or, as the apostle elsewhere says, “As in Adam all die, even so in Jesus Christ shall all be made alive.” — 1 Cor. XV. 22. The second is, that, by being “in Christ,” is unquestionably meant, a substantial, and not a merely constructive, relation to him. “To be in Christ Jesus signifies to be intimately united to him in the way in which the Scriptures teach us this union is effected ; viz., by having his Spirit dwelling in us. — Rom. viii. 9. The phrase is never used for a merely external or nominal union. ‘If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.’* — 2 Cor. v. 17. See John xv. 4, &c.; 1 John ii. 6, iii. 6.”* In the new birth, “by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,” “the body of Christ.”— 1 Cor. xii. 13, 27. The conclusion is therefore inevitable, that, as inbeing in Christ is expressive of a real oneness, wrought by the communication of the Holy Spirit, the incorruptible seed, imparting a new life and nature; so, inbeing in Adam, by which the other is illustrated and set forth by Paul, expresses a real union with him, consequent upon the generative derivation of life and nature from him.

In contemporary literature, I am encouraged by Michael Horton’s recognition that Calvin affirmed, “as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us” (link). I am encouraged when I read G. K. Beale write (Union with the Resurrected Christ, pages 19-180, 189):

The text that I see as the strongest affirmation of the positive imputation of Christ’s righteousness to believers is 1 Corinthians 1:30: “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification [or “holiness”], and redemption.” Believers’ identification and union with Christ means that “in him” they are considered to have the same (perfect) wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption that Christ had. This does not mean that believers perfectly possess these attributes in their personal existence on earth; rather, they are represented by Christ as having perfectly become these things for them because of their positional identification of unity with him (i.e., they “are in Christ”). The “for us” (hemin) refers to their position “in Christ Jesus” and identification with his attributes being on their behalf or for their benefit. Believers are considered to have the same (perfect) wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption that Christ had… people come into union with Christ through regeneration.

Statements such as these suggest that God’s consideration and declaration of a believer’s righteousness has grounding in reality – indeed, in the very reality God foreordained and then brought to pass by the work of His Son being applied by His Spirit. Recent statements such as these from prominent, Protestant authors suggest the need for a reinvigorated interest in the role of realism in soteriology (and, I should add, anthropology, Christology, hamartiology, and apologetics). I hope this becomes more explicit as time goes on and that more people become aware that there is a tradition of Protestant thought on these points.

It turns out that even Protestants with nominalistic tendencies may also have realist ones, the latter of which should be encouraged. On pages 447-448, Baird contrasts Paul’s analogy between Adam and Christ to “our expositor,” “Dr. H.” (Charles Hodge)… and then shows that Hodge himself also had realist tendencies in soteriology!

The parallel which Paul draws between Adam and Christ, is irreconcilable with the doctrine set forth by our expositor. That parallel, as we have already seen, is stated distinctly, in its several elements, with the points of difference defined. Briefly, to our present purpose, it comprehends the following points. Through Adam, death flows to all his seed; through Christ, the gift, eternal life. (v. 12-15 ; ch. vi. 23.) This death, in Adam, results from a judicial sentence of condemnation; and the life in Christ, from one of justification. (v. 18.) The ground of these sentences, Paul states distinctly, introducing it by the particle “for,” expressive of the judicial reasons of the proceeding thus stated. ”For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” All this implies a real and substantial union between these several heads and their representative bodies, which, accordingly, the apostle asserts. “Adam, in whom all sinned.” — v. 12. “In Adam all die.” — 1 Cor. XV. 22. “There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” — Rom. viii. 1. Dr. H. denies any “mysterious oneness” between us and Adam, by which his sin is really and criminally ours. By parity of reasoning, a similar denial should be made in the case of Christ and his people. But, here, the professor takes the opposite position: — “To be in Christ Jesus signifies to be intimately united to him in the way in which the Scriptures teach us this union is effected, viz., by having his Spirit dwelling in us. The phrase is never expressive of a merely external or nominal union.“* Thus we are justified, not by Christ’s righteousness extrinsic to us and only nominally ours, but the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” — Rom. viii. 1, 2. The power of the Spirit of Christ was the law or principle of holiness in him, the cause of the righteousness of the Mediator; and that Spirit, given to us, and uniting us to him, conveys a title in that righteousness thus wrought in him. Thus are we made righteous, not only as we are created unto holiness, nor by a constructive process merely; but by a real property in the righteousness of our Head. But all this involves the conclusion that our inbeing in Adam, the type of Christ, is neither external nor nominal, any more than is the other. As, in Christ, we are really endowed with his righteousness and in it are justified; so, in Adam, we are truly sinners, and, therefore, justly condemned.

Hodge wrote a response to Baird’s The Elohim Revealed. While the two men never reconciled their theological disagreements in their lifetimes, it offered Baird the opportunity for a final rejoinder. On pages 33-34 of this rejoinder (link), I think Baird nicely summarizes the biblical realist position – clearly distinct and powerfully opposed to the “heresy of justification by virtue of infused righteousness” – as follows:

According to our understanding of the Scriptures, it was provided in the eternal covenant that the elect should be actually ingrafted into Christ by his Spirit, and their acceptance and justification is by virtue of this their actual union to him. “This principle is not to be so understood as though the character thus conveyed were the meritorious cause of the relations predicated; as if the believer were justified by the personal righteousness which he receives through the power of Christ’s Spirit given to him. On the contrary, the union, which is constituted by virtue of the transmission of the nature, itself conveys a proprietary title in the moral and legal relations of the head; whilst the efficient principle which thus unites, is also fruitful in effects appropriate to the nature whence it flows. Thus, the sin of Adam, and the righteousness of Christ are severally imputed to their seed, by virtue of the union, constituted in the one case by the principle of natural generation, and in the other, by ‘the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,’ the Holy Spirit, the principle of regeneration. At the same time, the power by which the union is in these cases severally wrought produces likeness to the head. This view is not only stated in specific terms, again and again, but is wrought into the whole texture of the book, to wit:—that “the matter of justification is that very, whole and entire righteousness which the Lord Jesus wrought by his obedience and suffering;” and that “the ground of the justification of the elect, the cause of the imputation to them of the righteousness of Christ, is their actual inbeing in Christ. They are ‘ accepted in the Beloved,’—Eph. i. 6, because they really are in Him.” This doctrine, our reviewer persists in representing as undistinguishable from the Romish heresy of justification by virtue of infused righteousness, the subjective holiness of the believer; and it is in opposition to it that he postulates the statement above cited, of a ”constituted” headship and ” federal union.” Whatever, therefore, is comprehended in the meaning of these terms, they do not embrace but exclude the mystical union in its relation to justification.

How important this point is to the questions involved between us is evident. If the imputation of Christ’s righteousness be founded in a real inbeing in him, wrought by the uniting power of his Spirit in regeneration,—if it is thus that we are brought within the provisions of the covenant of grace to our justification, it follows, (we will venture the word,) incontestably, that the imputation to us of Adam’s sin, is founded in a real inbeing in him, by natural generation, by virtue of which we come under the provisions of the covenant of works, to our condemnation. But this, according to our reviewer, is “simply a physiological theory,” involving ” a mysterious identity,” which he cannot admit. Hence the necessity of ignoring the doctrine, in its relation to justification.