“As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities” (Isaiah 53:11).
Federal Visionists love this verse because they think that we are justified because Christ bore our iniquities. They delight to say that we are justified by the death of Christ. However, such a statement betrays the carelessness of our opponents.
It is not that this statement is completely wrong, it is just deficient. We are justified in part by the death of Christ, but this is only half of the story. The Reformed faith has always insisted that we are justified by the death and the merit of Christ.
Federal Visionists see the insertion of merit as an unnecessary addition to the Biblical language of justification. On the contrary, the Reformation was all about recovering the Biblical usage of merit. If merit is so unnecessary, why did Paul spend so much time defending merit?
Thus, we must always take pains to speak of justification as the result of the death and merit of Jesus Christ. If we leave out merit, then we are preaching a different gospel, which is no gospel at all.
