Are Christians really new creatures? It certainly does not seem so. They are subject to the same old conditions of life to which they were subject before; if you look upon them you cannot notice any very obvious change. They have the same weaknesses, and, unfortunately, they have sometimes the same sins. The new creation, if it be really new, does not seem to be very perfect; God can hardly look upon it and say, as of the first creation, that it is all very good.
This is a very real objection. But Paul meets it gloriously in the very same vers, already considered, in which the doctrine of the new creation is so boldly proclaimed. “It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me†– that is the doctrine of the new creation. But immediately the objection is taken up; “The life which I now live in the flesh,†Paul continues, “I live by the faith which is in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.†“The life which I now live in the flesh†– there is the admission. Paul admits that the Christian does live a life in the flesh, subject to the same old earthly conditions and with a continued battle against sin. “But,†says Paul (and here the objection is answered), “the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith which is in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.†The Christian life is lived by faith and not by sight; the great change has not yet come to full fruition; sin has not yet been fully conquered; the beginning of the Christian life is a new birth, not an immediate creation of the full-grown man. But although the new life has not yet come to full fruition, the Christian knows that the fruition will not fail; he is confident that the God who has begun a good work in him will complete it unto the day of Christ . . . . That is what Paul means by living the Christian life by faith.
Thus the Christian life, though it begins by a momentary act of God, is continued by a process. In other words – to use theological language – justification and regeneration are followed by sanctification. In principle the Christian is already free from the present evil world, but in practice freedom must still be attained. Thus the Christian life is not a life of idleness, but a battle.
That is what Paul means when he speaks of faith working through love (Gal. v. 6). . . . True faith does not do anything. When it is said to do something (as when our Lord said that it can remove mountains), that is only by a very natural shortness of expression. Faith is the exact opposite of works; faith does not give, it receives. So when Paul says that we do something by faith, that is just another way of saying that of ourselves we do nothing, when it is said that faith works through love that means that through faith the necessary basis of all Christian work has been obtained in the removal of guilt and the birth of the new man, and that the Spirit of God has been received – the Spirit who works with and through the Christian man for holy living. The force which enters the Christian life through faith and works itself out through love is the power of the Spirit of God. (J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, pp. 146-47)
Old Life 
Dr. Hart,
I get it. The forensic is important. The forensic is essential. Without the forensic we are undone. I have been following your “forensic friday” posts for awhile now. I find myself enjoying the clips you put up and being encouraged and edified by them. I am asking honestly: how does this *disprove* union? What about understanding the forensic nature of justification means that it cannot be given simultaneously with sanctification in union? Where does union fit in your understanding of the ordo salutis?
Finally, would you think that seeing union as that which is done in our effectual calling with all the benefits flowing from that union as an acceptable position? I guess, what I am trying to figure out is whether it is the priority of justification to union you are concerned about or simply the temporal and logical priority of justification to sanctification.
I don’t know if these questions are clear and if I need to ask them a different way, please let me know. I am somewhat caught in the middle of this debate and am still weighing the arguments.
Thank you.
AH
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Darryl
Is it your understanding that Machen is arguing for a priority of justification over regeneration in this quotation?
Blessings
Matt
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AH, as I have said before, I don’t care about the ordo beyond the priority of justification to sanctification. That seems to me to be crucial — and it affirmed in the OPC’s report on justification — to avoid any form of works righteousness. Where you put union is another matter. It seems like folks are still trying to figure that one out. I’m not holding my breath, but I’ll glad to read the committee report. But until then, I’m not going to reject any Protestant view of salvation as defective simply because they don’t put union where (insert your favorite union theologian name here) does.
Matt, technically, you could read Machen that way, but I don’t think that was his point. My sense is that he was trying to assert the priority of the new birth and justification to sanctification. That’s all. He wasn’t doing systematics. But even then the priority of the forensic was second nature to him.
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Dr. Hart,
Thank you. That is helpful. What do you mean when you say priority? Are you speaking of logical priority, temporal priority or something other than those? Personally (as though that matters), I want to agree with what you are saying – I just see the union with Christ being put out first by many, historically, such as Beza, Perkins and the Divines.
AH
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Agreed.
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Dr. Hart,
I apologize for posting again before you responding to what I have written but I was reading Bavinck tonight and wondered if, when you comment on what you see as different between the Reformed and Lutheran, you would please specify where you see their understanding of the Ordo Salutis differing. I am sure you are aware of how Bavinck builds on Calvin to sound very ‘union-centered’ when it comes to the Ordo Salutis and, based on this, draws a distinction between Reformed and Lutheran.
He says, “The basic idea underlying Calvin’s approach is a very different one [from Lutherans]: election is an eternal decree, even if humans only become conscious of it by faith; and the forgiveness of sins rests in Christ alone even though it is granted to us only in faith. For what keeps coming back in Calvin is the idea that there is no participation in the benefits of Christ other than by communion with his person…Indeed, if it is true that the very first benefit of grace already presupposes communion with the person of Christ, then the imputation and granting of Christ to the church precedes everything else.” (Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 3, p. 523)
I have read somewhere that you speak of the differences between union – in eternity past, in present and in the future…or something like that. Bavinck seems to be arguing that the only way we receive any of Christ’s benefits is to receive them all based on union, which is in eternity past, but that itself grounds the application of salvation. He doesn’t then go on to give some sort of temporal priority regarding the application of salvation.
How do you understand this line of thinking in Bavinck?
AH
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Albert, in answer to your two posts, what I am concerned about is union decentering justification such that some union advocates I have heard would not put soteriology the way that Murray does in his piece, “The Crux of the Reformation.” https://oldlife.org/2010/01/29/john-murray-on-the-priority-of-the-forensic/
As I have asked someone else off line, is union more basic to the gospel than justification? I don’t think a single Reformer would have said that. If they did it escaped their creeds. (And here I recommend Articles 23 and 24 of the Belgic Confession which put justification prior to sanctification — I think both logically and ordo salutisally.) In other words, if someone doesn’t get union right, are they in danger of getting the gospel wrong? It seems to me that this is the way the question is being framed by some.
This does not mean that union is insignificant. Neither is the Trinity. I mean, if you deny the Trinity you don’t have much of a gospel either. But on the basic question of how am I right with God, the answer for Protestants has been not union but justification, with union unpacking justification in the long answer perhaps.
On the Bavinck quotes, I need to read them and I don’t have vol. 3 yet.
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Darryl,
It seems that the way you frame the question has already led to your conclusion. By identifying the gospel with the answer to the specific question “How am I right with God” you’ve set up the answer as “justification.” But how would you answer the question “What is the answer to my problem of sin?” Surely the gospel (specifically justification) answers your question, but isn’t there a deeper and bigger question the gospel answers as well?
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Camden,
I don’t see how the problem of my sin is really different from how am I right with God. I also don’t see how justification doesn’t answer the “deeper and bigger” problem of my sin since in justification Christ gets my sin and I get his righteousness. What is deeper or bigger than that? Again, I feel like union advocates miss the significance of justification.
Also, I don’t see how mystical union answers the problem of my sin. How am I, a miserable sinner, united to a holy and righteous God? Doesn’t that inevitably go to a “deeper and bigger” question of how am I right with God?
Either way, the account of the Protestant Reformation is pretty clear. The Crux was, according to Murray, how am I right with God? Are unionists really prepared to say the Reformation was inadequate?
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Because there are two problems with my sin: the legal guilt, and the ongoing presence of sin. If justification were the whole story, Romans would have stopped at 5.21. Or do you think Paul is not particularly bothered by indwelling sin, since he’s already justified? 🙂
Instead, our salvation consists of both the verdict (justification) and the deliverance (glorification), and everything in between (adoption, sanctification).
Notice that *both* imputation and infusion are needed here; and that justification is brought about by imputation; sanctification by infusion.
The fact that justification and sanctification occur by different methods (imputation/infusion) makes an “ordo-only” explanation of salvation to be (slightly) deficient. The ordo by itself appears to make sanctification an outcome of justification, which is impossible — or dangerous, if we start making justification include infusion.
So the doctrine of union rounds out the picture and explains why justification and sanctification always occur together, even though they occur by different mechanisms: They always occur together because they are the result of being united to Christ.
That question is sometimes posed by Lutherans (not that there’s anything WRONG with that…) as a slam-dunk for their view of justification/union.
The argument goes,
(1) How can a sinner be united to a holy God?
(2) He can’t.
(3) So justification must happen before union.
The problem with that argument is that it proves too much. The Catholics turn it around like this:
(1) How can God say that someone is righteous when he isn’t?
(2) He can’t.
(3) So justification must happen after grace is infused.
And of course, the answer is that neither argument is sound. In justifying us, God clothes us with Christ’s righteousness — that’s union. “In him, we have redemption through his blood…” The union begins all the way back at the beginning, when God chooses to love objects of wrath and predestine them to be sons. It is prepared, so to speak, and waiting for us — and appropriated at the moment of faith.
(1) How can God love objects of wrath?
(2) He can’t.
(3) Except, He does. Welcome to the mystery.
JRC
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Darryl, Jeff has addressed the essence of my response. Sin is a two-fold problem and justification addresses half of it.
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Dr. Hart,
I certainly sympathize with your view regarding the importance of justification. I am still waiting, though, to understand what you mean by ‘priority’. The OPC report rules out priority of importance as well as temporal priority, strictly speaking. It does say that justification is the necessary prerequisite to sanctification but that both are part of our union with Christ.
Do you agree with the language of the report or would you rather it were along the lines of Murray’s “steps” in the application of salvation?
AH
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Dr. Hart,
Forensics Fridays seems awfully close to celebrating the church calendar to me. Am I only to rest in my justification on Fridays? What about the rest of the week? Is Sunday through Thursday a time of extreme focus on sanctification? What am I to do with Saturday? (Just having a little fun; I hope all can see the light-hearted sarcasm).
Jason
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Maybe one could do “Sanctification Saturdays.â€
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Jeff and Camden, so you are dividing up sin so that justification takes care of a part, but we need sanctification to make up for the rest of our problem of sin? This is what Kinnaird argued. I’d be curious to know how your view avoids this problem, as if justification and sanctification take on different percentages of sin.
Jeff, Camden, and Albert, here is why I think justification by faith is important: “For it must necessarily follow that either all that is required for our salvation is not in Christ or, if all is in him, then he who has Christ by faith, has his salvation entirely.” Belgic, Art. 22.
Need I underscore “entirely” by faith.
It goes on:
“we do not mean, properly speaking, that it is faith itself that justifies us — for faith is only the instrument by which we embrace Christ, our righteousness. But Jesus Christ is our righteousness in making available to us all his merits and all the holy works he has done for us and in our place. And faith is the instrument that keeps us in communion with him and with all his benefits.”
So it sure looks to me like by faith alone we get everything we need, that is, we get Christ’s righteousness, which even makes up for the imperfections of sanctification.
One more thing, it really does sound to me like this breaking up of sin into parts that fit either the forensic or the rennovative you are trucking down a path parallel to Wesleyanism, in which justification and sanctification become a two-part stage of righteousness.
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Well, please exclude me in the group that is trying to divide salvation up between justification and sanctification – I don’t agree with that at all. Maybe they don’t either, I don’t know.
A follow up question, though, on the BC you quoted. When it speaks of having salvation “entirely”, yes, I understand that it is entirely by faith but could it also not be referring to it the way that Calvin does such that one cannot have a piece of Christ – you either have it all or you have none? In this way, being united to Christ in our effectual calling means that we have all the benefits that flow from that: justification, adoption, sanctification and glorification.
Would you agree or disagree with my approach here?
Also, how does the difference between definitive and progressive sanctification fit into your understanding of the ordo salutis?
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Sorry, that should have read “exclude me FROM the group that is trying to divide salvation up between justification and sanctification…”
darn prepositions…
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AH: No, there’s one salvation, received by faith. That salvation has different aspects, but you can’t receive “part” of salvation.
DGH: Jeff and Camden, so you are dividing up sin so that justification takes care of a part, but we need sanctification to make up for the rest of our problem of sin? This is what Kinnaird argued.
I’m arguing what the Confession teaches, that sin conveys both guilt and corruption (6.3); and that even after one has been justified, the corruption continues (6.5), and that sanctification is needed to “destroy the dominion of the whole body of sin” (13.1).
Why is this difficult? It seems pretty boilerplate to me… who cares whether Kinnaird argued something similar-sounding. I’ll bet he argued for the Trinity, too.
DGH: So it sure looks to me like by faith alone we get everything we need, that is, we get Christ’s righteousness, which even makes up for the imperfections of sanctification.
EXACTLY. Somehow, you’ve argued as if the term “sanctification” meant “not by faith.” But that’s not so. By faith, we are united to Christ — and therein we receive everything we need. And that includes sanctification.
DGH: One more thing, it really does sound to me like this breaking up of sin into parts that fit either the forensic or the rennovative you are trucking down a path parallel to Wesleyanism.
Not sure what to say. It sure sounds to me like the writers of the Confession thought that “corruption” and “guilt” were different aspects of sin addressed by the rennovative and forensic, respectively. Were they trucking towards Wesleyanism?
Could you be over-reacting here? So far, every single Reformed writer who has addressed union that we’ve discussed has formulated it exactly as I’ve advertised: our justification takes place in union with Christ, and is based on imputation; our sanctification takes place in union with Christ, and is based on infusion. You have some objection to this … but why? Aren’t you just objecting to the Confession?!?! Show your cards here.
JRC
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Jeff,
I am still learning here, but isn’t the difference between the ‘union’ position and the ‘ordo’ position one of simultaneity versus application by steps, respectively?
I don’t think that these two positions, particularly as expressed by WTS and WSC are reconcilable…they are not merely different sides of the same coin. Either justification is the prerequisite of sanctification (both flowing from union) or both are received simultaneously via union with Christ.
What I want to know here is if I am misunderstanding the debate. Your view of union might be different than that which is taught at WTS, I don’t know, but I at least want to understand what is the underlying difference.
Correct me if I am wrong, please.
AH
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You should not think of justification and sanctification as dealing with different quantities or percentages of sin. Think “aspects.” As Jeff said, the confession faithfully teaches that sin is both guilt and corruption. Justification addresses all the guilt of all my sin, yet I still sin. But thankfully that’s a problem the gospel addresses. If justification took care of every single aspect of sin, why would sanctification needed at all?
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Camden,
I am trying to understand the issue of the debate. It seems clear to me, via the confession and other documents, that union precedes justification and sanctification. That is understood. Why the push that they must be received simultaneously? How does this fit with the idea of ‘progressive sanctification’ where, as the shorter catechism states, we are “enabled more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness”? It seems that it would be arguing for a growth of sanctification rather than an “all at once” in connection with union. Now, I understand that definitive sanctification can be seen that way (all at once) but how do you understand progressive sanctification?
Please understand that I ask this question in all sincerity and as someone who has benefited from your work on CTC.
Thank you.
Cheers,
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The simultaneity refers to the beginning of the sanctification, which, in my view, is specifically union with Christ in his death (Rom 6:6, cf 1 Cor 1:3). As such, there is never a point in which you are justified without also having died to sin.
To clarify, I make a distinction between definitive and progressive sanctification. Clearly, progressive sanctification is not only logically, but also temporally subordinate to justification. But in my understanding, since we are sanctified by faith in Christ (Acts 26:18) and sanctification begins with being united to Christ in his death, sanctification is therefore rooted immediately in union (1 Cor 1:30) – not justification. I fear that rooting sanctification in justification, whether definitive or progressive, compromises the forensic nature of justification.
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Camden,
Would you say that justification is the necessary prerequisite of sanctification?
AH
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There are some aspects of the debate I don’t understand either. But my understanding is that ordo focuses on a ‘logical order’ of events: this event is the ground of that.
Union, meanwhile, focuses on the cause of events: regeneration causes faith causes union, which encompasses salvation.
Within the union framework, time is not specified. In point of fact, justification occurs once-for-all at the moment of faith, while sanctification continues and grows throughout life. Glorification, of course, awaits the 2nd coming. But all of these are said to be “benefits of union.”
So the union view is NOT that all benefits are received at the same time; rather, that they are received by the same mechanism: being united with Christ.
We could, and I think it’s useful to, split this further and distinguish our forensic union with Christ from our experiential union with Christ. This distinction is a later development, not found in Calvin but definitely found in, say, Hodge. I’ll bet Turretin is responsible for that distinction, but I don’t have a copy.
If you would like an accessible overview of union that does not participate in the WTS / WSCal debate, I recommend Anthony Hoekema, Saved by Grace. The Berkhof section on Union With Christ is also very good. Here is the whole work, and the relative section is here and runs on for several pages. Note that Berkhof treats both ordo and union.
IMO, both ordo and union concepts are needed as complementary approaches.
Ordo, at minimum, reminds us that the forensic precedes sanctification in the sense that Paul says it: “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”
Union reminds us that the entire package is (a) complete, and (b) in Christ. That is, Jesus is the true ground of the whole thing.
JRC
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JRC: “So the union view is NOT that all benefits are received at the same time; rather, that they are received by the same mechanism: being united with Christ…IMO, both ordo and union concepts are needed as complementary approaches.”
See, I don’t know if this is the case…I mean, if it is aren’t those involved getting way too worked up? The WTS/WSC divide seems almost silly if this is the case. I thought that they were able to be reconciled but, from what I have been told by those who are profs on both sides, they are not.
My understanding is that the union view sees them as all received at the same time. I don’t know if a middle road can be found. I thought I held to one but I don’t know.
I will be interested to hear opinions from both sides – are they reconcilable this way?
I am still learning.
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…aren’t those involved getting way too worked up?
Ding, ding, ding!
But I’m a lowly RE, so take it with a grain of salt. Read Berkhof and Hoekema and judge for yourself.
These profs who told you that the views are irreconcilable … what grounds did they give for this opinion? AND, were they referring to older, more classic views of justification and union, or something more recent?
As you continue to process, I encourage you to keep in mind that
(a) The Westminster Confession and Catechisms both imply ordo (by arrangement of topics) and also directly speak of justification et al as “manifestations of our union”, and
(b) They do not pit ordo against union, as if the two were in conflict; and
(c) We should beware of “lumpers”: those who dump all people into one basket.
Those who say, “all ordo folk are crypto-Lutherans” OR “all union folk are crypto-Shepherdites”, are creating the raised bed in which factions take root. While it is beneficial to see where views come from and where they can lead, still and all — slippery slope and genetic arguments are logical fallacies.
JRC
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The false teachers on this subject want to drive wedges and use lawyer rhetoric. Many are addled by them. Some play their game pretending to be neutral in various ways.
In justification we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ. The false teachers will tell you that you are still in bondage to the devil’s kingdom because you are merely a whited sepulchre at that point. Justified legally but a stinking corpse of sin on the inside and hence nothing God can or ever will accept. *This is why they deny regeneration.* This is why they *have to* deny regeneration. They *deny* that God has given you a new heart. They don’t want to talk about God having giving you a new heart in regeneration. They want you to think you are still in bondage to the Beast and the Beast system and only your works – if good enough – can ultimately save you. This also is why the Roman Catholic Church in its worst era satanic perverseness kept the Word of God away from people on penalty of torture and death. The devil know what regenerates. It is the Word and the Spirit. The RCC in its worst eras would call people to come and be baptized all day and all night because it – the devil – knew baptism didn’t regenerate. But it kept the Word of God away from people because it knew, the devil knew, it made the call and effected regeneration in God’s elect.
While still in the flesh your flesh will always war with the Spirit, yet as a regenerated – born again – given a new heart, justified, adopted child of God you are a new man. Sanctification for a new man culminates in glorification at death come hell or high water. You don’t have to meet some mark. It is your new nature to be sanctified. Any degree involved (and Paul does speak of degree on this subject) is degree*beyond the finishing mark of glorification.*
It always comes down to the same thing with the false teachers. They exalt ritual and man over the Word and the Spirit. And they do this to keep you in the bondage and darkness of the Beast system of works righteousness. They can’t defeat God’s plan, but they can annoy God’s plan. Playing for time is all the devil has, but his time has an end and the victory of God and God’s people is already achieved.
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JRC: “So the union view is NOT that all benefits are received at the same time; rather, that they are received by the same mechanism: being united with Christ.”
I was reading Gaffin’s “By Faith, Not By Sight” this morning and came across the passage on sanctification and it seems to me that he is arguing for all the benefits being received at the same time. This makes sense since Gaffin also recently published an article on the twofold grace of God, or, the Duplex Gratia Dei, where he sees Calvin arguing for the simultaneity in reception of these benefits.
on p. 75 he wrote, “But we may ask, has the Reformation grasped as clearly the “resurrection,” eschatological “already” of our sanctification?”
He is saying, it seems to me, that there is a sense in which we have already been sanctified (and also glorified) in our union with Christ.
What I cannot find just yet is if Gaffin draws a distinction between the mystical union and the experiential union such that one is seen as completed and the other as being applied over time in our lives. I would be interested to see if he does this.
Maybe Camden could comment this last point.
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Jeff, yes WCF 6 talks about guilt and corruption. But in 6.5 it talks about corruption being pardoned: “and although it [corruption] be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.”
Now if justification and sanctification were so neat and tidy as to refer to guilt and corruption respectively, why does the confession talk about corruption being pardoned? (Could it again be the priority of the forensic?) Either way, I’m not sure that the divvying up of sin into forensic and renovative categories is warranted so that the benefits can be dished out so neatly as well.
Camden, I am troubled by the language of need with regard to sanctification? Are not justification and sanctification both benefits, rather than obligations? But to talk about sanctification as a need suggests that works become necessary for salvation, as if to make up for what justification fails to do. I don’t think you’re saying that or wanting to. But this is one of my great concerns in these debates and much of it goes back to Shepherd’s neo-nomian efforts to purge Reformed Protestantism of anti-nomianism.
I know, it is necessary to say that one “needs” to be justified to be saved. But here the instrument of receiving justification is clearly different from sanctification, where sometimes even folks like Gaffin talk about God and us working in doing good works.
On the other hand, if you want to say that sanctification is also by faith, and that it is all of God, then haven’t you simply raised the stakes of anti-nomianism. I am justified and sanctified by faith, not by works. So I still face the the charge that I am antinomian. And union was supposed to clear that up.
Jeff and Camden, you may say that sanctification is necessary for salvation, but it is imperfect in this life, as all the Reformed confessions teach. That means it is possible to be saved with sin still in our lives. And the only thing that allows me to stand before God on judgment day, despite the corruption that still clings to me, is the righteousness of Christ, imputed to me by faith alone. That seems to me to be the greatest reason for justification’s priority to sanctification. Otherwise, we would be wondering throughtout our justified lives if we had been good enough to cross the threshold of God’s judgment. That also means that the thief on the cross could go immediately into paradise, even though he didn’t have my five decades (and counting) to be sanctified.
Seriously, if you’re going to say that sanctification is necessary without some important qualifications, what do you do with deathbed conversions?
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AH, my knowledge of Gaffin is limited, so I hope others more knowledgeable will also chime in.
Here’s what I do know:
(1) Gaffin is enamored of what we call in physics, “supersymmetry.” Specifically, he wants the “now/not yet” paradigm to apply to each aspect of salvation. This has caused some concern when he speaks of the “not yet” of justification — but in his view, the “not yet” is the final publicly pronounced “vindication” of believers at the eschaton.
OK. But it’s a bit of a confusing stretch.
(2) It has become common since Murray to speak of “definitive sanctification” — an “already” aspect of sanctification. Murray speaks of this in more forensic terms: we have (legally speaking) “died with Christ.”
So Gaffin might be speaking of this.
OR
He might be speaking of the sealing of the believer with the Holy Spirit, the deposit guaranteeing our inheritance, and Who is the source of all of our sanctification.
It would certainly be legitimate to speak of our sanctification as “already” in that sense — with the caveat that what is “already” is not the full-blown sanctification itself, but the verdict or guarantee that it certainly will occur (cf Eph 2.10).
But again, I would encourage you to begin with older sources that do not have a dog in the current fight. I’m a little leery, and concerned, that ordo and union are being pitted against one another. (whether this is occurring on one side, or the other, or both, I don’t know). This was not so in the older Reformed treatments.
JRC
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Here’s the argument, with Romans 6 as the overarching Scriptural control:
(1) Justification does not remove the corruption of sin (Rom 6.19; WCoF 6.5); it pardons it.
(2) Therefore, God has provided an additional benefit of salvation that combats this corruption (Rom 6 – 8; WCoF 13.2) called sanctification.
(3) That sanctification is an aspect of our union with Christ (Rom 6.5-10; WLC 69 again)
You want the forensic to have priority? Absolutely. The forensic is once-for-all, done at the moment of faith. This has got to be the bazillionth time I’ve said this … can we agree that we agree on this?
I think you’ve over-read the language of “need” without considering (1) who has the need, and (2) who supplies the need.
What we’ve been saying is that *we*, because of the corruption of sin, have a need to be sanctified. And *God*, because that’s how He is, meets that need through the Spirit (13.3).
So the notion that “need” means “we need to do something additional to be justified” is a leap off the map.
I’m genuinely, heart-feltly sorry that you face the charge of antinomianism. It’s an unfair charge, and I’ve seen some of the trash-talk that’s gone on on the ‘Net towards you.
You’re not hearing it from me; and I strongly doubt that you’re hearing it from Camden.
I affirm (1) – (4) without reservation.
Why (4)? Because union is accomplished by faith. So anyone who says that “union means justification by something other than faith” simply doesn’t understand the doctrine.
It’s unfortunate in our day and age that logic is not taught as a formal subject much, unless one has an old-school geometry teacher (I did) or takes it in college (ditto) or goes to a Classical school (not so much).
The reason that’s unfortunate is that the word “necessary”, which is a technical term in logic and is used in it’s technical sense in older writings like the Confession, has become synonymous with “a pre-condition for” in modern English.
Kind of like the word “consequence” has come to mean “punishment.”
Or my favorite: My wife called “time-out!” the other day, and the girls thought they were in trouble.
“A is necessary for B” means nothing more nor less than “anytime B is true, A will be true also.” Equivalently, “All B are also A.”
So to say, “sanctification is necessary for salvation” means nothing more nor less than WCoF 13.3: All who are saved will grow in their sanctification.
Union actually explains this nicely. Why do all who are saved grow in their sanctification? Because part of their union with Christ, received by faith, is the indwelling Spirit — and He makes certain that our sanctification occurs (WLC 77, 79; WCoF 17.2, and again 13.3), albeit imperfectly in this life.
So it’s not a question of “how much sanctification is enough to be justified”, as if sanctification caused, or were a precondition for, justification.
Instead, it’s a direct affirmation that all who are justified also receive the Spirit, who does what He does (Gal 5).
So the “qualification” I would put on “sanctification is necessary for justification” is that we have to understand the word “necessary” for what it literally means, not the connotations that modern usage have imported into the word.
Nope, same instrument: faith. Gaffin? Try the Confession:
There it is: sanctification is all of God, but we cooperate by stirring up the grace of God in us. I don’t fully understand that, but I can affirm
(1) It’s all of God;
(2) It’s by faith; and
(3) I don’t sit around waiting for lightning to strike.
JRC
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I understand.
At the same time, I’ve been reading a bit of Clark and am concerned that his “don’t give the moralists an inch” slogan, as applied to WTS-Philly folk, means that all who speak of union are automatically suspected of being moralists.
And certainly in this conversation, I’ve felt as if I’ve had to defend myself against charges of moralism, simply because I’ve articulated boilerplate Reformed theology on union.
I’m concerned about that. Quite concerned, in fact. It seems like factionalism is a live option here.
—
The robust response to Shepherd is not to begin pushing back against union. That was the strongest, not weakest portion of his position (as I’ve read it, which is limited to his online stuff).
Rather, the robust response to Shepherd is to challenge directly his notion of faith. He says that faith is active, not receptive, but this is simply wrong.
It is a receptive, not active faith, that receives union. The works are then wrought by the Spirit thereafter; so that works are … wait for it … “necessary” for faith. All who have faith will produce works.
JRC
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Jeff, I agree with most of what you say. I would prefer the language of inevitability to necessity. As in, good works are the inevitable fruit and evidence of the faith that receives and rests on Christ. That way of putting it seems to me to be in accord with 16.2 of the Confession.
I’ll say it again, though, I find it highly ironic that the historia salutis point, with which I am in great sympathy as an amillennialist (and generally speaking it is post-mills who are the most rabid 2k critics) — the historia salutis perspective has wound up micromanaging the ordo, as in you must insert union ______ (fill in the blank in the ordo) or else you’re Lutheran and antinomian.
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My challenge to you as a historian: what is the history of this divide between the two?
And as a churchman: how can that divide be bridged?
Thanks for your time and engagement.
JRC
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