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.