Are you justified because Christ is in you, or is Christ in you because you are justified?

Calvin (Institutes 3.11) said: "But, as I have said, in the case of the Father and the Spirit, he more clearly betrays his views, namely, that we are not justified by the mere grace of the Mediator, and that righteousness is not simply or entirely offered to us in his person, but that we are made partakers of divine righteousness when God is essentially united to us."

Calvin was here refuting the heresy of Osiander, a heresy that Nevin, an influential Presbyterian, taught in The Mystical Presence. The Lutheran confessions (especially FC Solid Declaration, Article 3, paragraph 54 of the 2000 edition of the Book of Concord from Augsburg Fortress) provide an even clearer refutation.

The book The Fire and the Staff puts it simply by noting that we do not have Christ’s righteousness imputed to us because he indwells us, but that he indwells us because we have his righteousness imputed to us.

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