Revisiting John Gill's Doctrine of Eternal Justification

Richard Muller situated the English Baptist minister, John Gill (1697-1771), among the Reformed orthodox theologians. However, the Baptist tradition has often looked askance at Gill because of his debated association with hyper-Calvinism and one of its key pillars: eternal justification. Most historical scholarship has taken for granted that Gill affirmed eternal justification in such a way that renders him out of step with both the Reformed and evangelical traditions. In this essay, I revisit Gill's doctrine of justification and explain key distinctions which are often overlooked, but which are necessary to the coherence of his articulation of the doctrine - the distinctions between justification as an immanent act in God and as a transient act in the Christian, and justification qua esse actu and qua esse representativum. I argue that understanding these distinctions is needed for a more precise articulation of the doctrine of justification and that John Gill is an important interlocutor who passed forward an often-misunderstood perspective from his Reformed and Puritan forebears.