There is no evidence presented here that the New Testament represents sanctification as received immediately by faith. In point of fact there is no direct statement to that effect in the New Testament. It is to Jellinghaus’* credit that he does not adduce for it either Acts xv.9 or xxvi.18, which are often made to do duty in this sense. His strong conviction that sanctification is obtained directly and immediately by faith is a product not of his Scriptural studies, but of his “mediating theology.†According to that theology, when we receive Christ by faith we receive in Him all that He is to us at once; all the benefits which we receive in Him are conceived as received immediately and directly by the faith through which we are united with Him and become sharers in all that He is. Justification and sanctification, for example, are thought of as parallel products of faith. This is not, however, the New Testament representation. According to its teaching, sanctification is not related to faith directly and immediately, so that in believing in Jesus we receive both justification and sanctification as parallel products of our faith; or either the one or the other, according as our faith is directed to the one or the other. Sanctification is related directly not to faith but to justification; and as faith is the instrumental cause of justification, so is justification the instrumental cause of sanctification. The vinculum which binds justification and sanctification together is not that they are both effects of faith – so that he who believes must have both – because faith is the prius of both alike. Nor is it even that both are obtained in Christ, so that he who has Christ, who is made to us both righteousness and sanctification, must have both because Christ is the common source of both. It is true that he who has faith has and must have both; and it is true that he who has Christ has and must have both. But they do not come out of faith or from Christ in the same way. Justification comes through faith; sanctification through justification, and only mediately, through justification, through faith. So that the order is invariable, faith, justification, sanctification; not arbitrarily, but in the nature of the case. (B. B. Warfield, “The German Higher Life Movement,†in Perfectionism, vol. 1, pp. 362-363)
As one friend said after reading this, “Wow”!
*Theodore Jellinghaus was a German Lutheran missionary to India, and later a Lutheran pastor in the vicinity of Potsdam.
Old Life 
Hey, does this mean that Norman Shepherd and the Federal Vision crowd are in a state of obnubilation?
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obnubilate- to cloud over; becloud; obscure
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or from a medical dictionary- mental cloudiness and torpidity
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Wow!
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The distinction between justification and sanctification is the cause of the Reformation. Justification is perfect since it is grounded in Christ’s active and passive obedience. Sanctification can never be the ground or basis of salvation since the law of God demands absolute perfection in keeping the law.
How sanctified do you need to be to make it to heaven?
Charlie
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So, if Warfield is right, how do we make our sanctification progress? What type of work and effort must we put into it and how do we get the most out of our efforts? If I concentrate on obeying the law my sin acts up. The Gospel is where the power is at so do I concentrate on that? Sanctification is a mystery to me and it boggles my mind.
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Would one say that John Wooden progressed far in his sanctification? I have always wondered about his theology. Does anyone know the theology he functioned under?
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I have also always thought that a big part of the sanctification process involves the renewing of our minds and the mental effort it takes to do this. Am I off base here? So, this may include meditation on scripture, memorizing scripture, and learning a theological system. When does this turn into pietism and how do you prevent this from happening?
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I don’t think I can square Warfield’s comments with WCF 6.3
As I read it, we are justified, adopted, sanctified and kept by his power, each through faith. If you want “through faith” to modify “justified” you must have it modify “sanctified” in this construction. Here’s another from Calvin’s catechism.
– Calvin’s Catechism (1538)
Calvin seems pretty clear here. Moreover, we’re lacking any exegesis on the aforementioned Acts passages in Warfield’s quotation. I think those texts, especially Acts 26, demand careful treatment.
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As matter of clarification, to my knowledge, Jellinghaus is not referring to any definitive aspect of sanctification in his schema. We ought to keep that in mind before we begin to compare Jellinghaus to Calvin or contemporary theologians such as Gaffin or Ferguson.
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Camden, I don’t read BBW as saying we are not sanctified by faith. His point has to do with the relationship between justification and sanctification, both of which come through faith (or union if you prefer). Much of the debate surrounding priority is not about whether sanctification comes from faith. It is whether sanctification is dependent on justification. Unionists have denied that it is and say that to make just. depend on sanct. is Lutheran. That makes Warfield Lutheran.
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Are we comparing apples to apples here? Is the “sanctification” that Warfield speaks of co-extensive with the “sanctification” that “unionists” speak of? I’m thinking of course of Murray and DS.
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Is there a difference here between sanctification in an initial, definitive sense and ongoing, progressive sanctification? Presumably the latter is dependent on justification, while the former is not?
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DGH, what do you make of the fact that our regeneration or effectual calling includes a “renewing of our wills”?
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Jeff and Stephen, what if DS is what Murray taught, not the rest of the tradition. It does seem to me that once again we are experiencing the unionists own discomfort with their creativity. They want to say that they are not saying anything new. But they also don’t always follow the way others within the tradition of spoken of the matters? You can’t be both new and old at the same time.
Jeff, I believe that the Spirit needs to work on the depraved soul for a believer to have faith. That has been affirmed by Protestants since the beginning. I don’t regard that as DS, or that DS is a good way to describe it.
Anyway, I thought the point of union was for S and J to be simultaneous. When DS becomes part of the picture S precedes J (DS) and then follows J (PS). What happened to simultaneity?
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Dr Hart,
Please forgive this off topic question.
I am very much enjoying your Machen lectures.
Are the outlines available anywhere online?
Thank You.
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DGH: What if DS is what Murray taught, not the rest of the tradition.
Then we have three options:
(1) Murray was wrong, the tradition was right and complete as it stands.
(2) Murray was right, the tradition was incomplete.
(3) Murray is reshuffling the deck chairs and his version can be mapped to the tradition.
As this conversation goes on, I find myself torn.
On the one hand, I think Murray has a point: that sanctification in Scripture contains both progressive and once-for-all aspects. I also note that Calvin’s take on regeneration in Inst. 3.3 seems more in line with Murray.
On the other, I think that calling those once-for-all aspects by the term “sanctification” is confusing, as seen in figure A (our various discussions). It certainly puts Murray at odds with the treatments of “sanctification” (such as Warfield’s) — with the scare quotes serving notice that there is equivocation at work here.
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Jeff, I believe that the Spirit needs to work on the depraved soul for a believer to have faith. That has been affirmed by Protestants since the beginning. I don’t regard that as DS, or that DS is a good way to describe it.
OK, I can appreciate that. And I don’t disagree with your read of WLC. What do you make then of “repentance unto life”? Is it a grace that occurs after justification?
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DGH: Anyway, I thought the point of union was for S and J to be simultaneous.
I don’t view that as the point of union. I view the primary point of union to be that we are justified (and sanctified and adopted and c.) in Christ: He is ours and we are his.
A side-effect is a focus more on the temporal order of events rather than a logical ordering.
And there, as the OPC report on justification notes, J and S are in fact simultaneous, in their own ways: J in its entirety; S in its inception.
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DGH, to be honest I am unsure of Murray’s exact teaching on DS, I was referring to the ‘definitive’ moment of the believer’s indwelling by the Spirit: does this strictly follow our justification?
The Lutheran Formula of Concord seems to say so: “to those who, … out of pure grace, for the sake of the only Mediator, Christ, without any works and merit, are righteous before God, that is, are received into grace, the Holy Ghost is also given, who renews and sanctifies them, and works in them love to God and to their neighbor…” Would you say this is the majority Reformed view too?
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Stephen, First, it would be helpful to know from where you excerpt this quotation in the Formula. Second, I’m not sure that any of the creeds or confessions are trying to teach an exact order. Third, Belgic says: “We believe that this true faith, produced in man by the hearing of God’s Word and by the work of the Holy Spirit, regenerates him and makes him a “new man,” causing him to live the “new life” and freeing him from the slavery of sin.” Does this mean that faith precedes regeneration?
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Ah, this is what I was remembering. Not the Catechism, but the Confession:
WCoF 10.1: All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, He is pleased, in His appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by His word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature to grace and salvation, by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and, by His almighty power, determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ: yet so, as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace.
Obviously saving faith is in view here. But is that the limit of it? Is effectual calling coextensive with the creation of saving faith?
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DGH, the quote is from Solid Declaration III,23:
http://www.bookofconcord.com/sd-righteousness.php#para23
Thanks for the Belgic quote. Indeed it’s very similar to the FoC. Yes, you can say that faith precedes regeneration (understood as the Spirit actually indwelling and inwardly transforming), but this can be understood in a logical, not temporal, sense – just as with justification through faith. And is not the implied dependency that of sanctification to faith, rather than to justification?
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Jeff, this is what happens with the ordo. We lose sight of what saves. It’s not faith that saves, but faith that appropriates a savior. In which case, what is basic to the savior’s work? If it is his righteousness, and faith receives it (without works or merit), then justification has priority in understanding the righteousness that alone will count on judgment day.
Stephen, I guess you’ll have to ask Warfield. Warning: he may be in the Lutheran room in heaven.
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OK, no problem for me if he’s in the Lutheran room, sounds appealing… By the way despite the discussion re temporal order, agree 100% that justification has priority in importance.
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Justification precedes and is basic to sanctification in the covenant of grace. In the covenant of works the order of righteousness and holiness was just the reverse. Adam was created with a holy disposition and inclination to serve God, but on the basis of this holiness he had to work out the righteousness that would entitle him to eternal life. Justification is the judicial basis for sanctification. God has the right to demand of us holiness of life, but because we cannot work out this holiness for ourselves, He freely works it within us through the Holy Spirit on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is imputed to us in justification. The very fact that it is based on justification, in which the free grace of God stands out with the greatest prominence, excludes the idea that we can ever merit anything in sanctification.
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I found the above quote from Berkhoff. He sounds like a Lutheran too.
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DGH: It’s not faith that saves, but faith that appropriates a savior.
Amen.
DGH: In which case, what is basic to the savior’s work? If it is his righteousness, and faith receives it (without works or merit),…
Absolutely.
DGH: …then justification has priority in understanding the righteousness that alone will count on judgment day.
You lost me. Well, no, I understand the statement, but not its relevance.
There are forensic benefits and transformative benefits of salvation.
The question is whether God does any “transformative” stuff to us in our effectual calling. Is there a change of nature that takes place?
We all (Reformed folk) agree that the forensic and only the forensic is what counts on judgment day.
So yes: justification has priority in understanding the righteousness that alone will count on judgment day, because on judgment day only justification will matter. Done.
But now, how does this relate at all to the question of whether God also, independently, does “transformative” stuff in our effectual calling?
So back to the language of the Confession: when the WCoF says that God in our effectual calling gives us a “heart of flesh” and “determines unto us that which is good”, is it speaking of a change of nature? Is there transformation going on there?
<dramatic voice>What does it all mean?</dramatic voice>
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Jeff, sorry but who says you get to say what the question is. Forensic Friday is not about effectual calling and what it does or does not do. No one is on the JP side is debating whether transformation happens, either in EF or in sanct. The debate is whether justification and the forensic has priority over the transformative. Judgment day would appear to settle that.
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Jeff:
As a miracle of both Word and Spirit, the changes that the Spirit works in our effectual call are limited by the content of the external call. For instance, Chapter 10.1 of the Confession teaches that in our effectual call, our minds are enlightened “to understand the things of God.†This understanding is necessarily limited to the things of God that have been communicated to us through the external ministry of the Word. In our effectual call, we only came to understand those things of God that were being or previously had been taught to us.
The renewing of the will is similarly limited. In our effectual call, the Spirit renews the will and determines it to “that which is good.†This doesn’t mean that the will is determined to all good things. It’s determined to only those good things that had been offered by the external ministry of the Word. In our effectual calling, the Spirit enables the mind to understand and the will to embrace the offer of the gospel presented to us. The will is made “willing to answer the call.†In the same way that our mind wasn’t enlightened to all the truth concerning God, our wills were not determined to do every good thing. They were determined to do the one good thing presented to them–embrace the offer of the gospel!
If the standards speak of a radical change in the nature of a believer, they do so under the sections devoted to sanctification (or repentance unto life). It’s not until the chapter on sanctification that the Confession teaches that the “dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed†(WCF 13.1). It’s sanctification, not effectual calling, that is “throughout, in the whole man.†(WCF 13.2). The Larger Catechism says that sanctification is a renewal of the whole man after the image of God (Q 75).
Murray himself said that definitive sanctification was neither calling nor regeneration: “While regeneration is an all-important factor in definitive sanctification, it would not be proper to subsume the latter under the topic “regeneration.†The reason is that what is most characteristic in definitive sanctification, namely, death to sin by union with Christ in his death and newness of life by union with him in his resurrection, cannot properly be referred to regeneration by the Spirit. There is multiformity to that which occurs at the inception of the Christian life, and each facet must be accorded its own particularity. Calling, for example, as the action of the Father, must not be defined in terms of what is specifically the action of the Holy Spirit, namely, regeneration. Definitive sanctification, likewise, must be allowed its own individuality. We impoverish our conception of definitive grace when we fail to appreciate the distinctiveness of each aspect or indulge in over-simplification.†(footnote 4 of “Definitive Sanctification).
Murray didn’t want definitive sanctification classified under calling or regeneration. In fact, his way of speaking makes it fit quite nicely in the sanctification section of the Confession, which attributes sanctification to the “virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection.â€
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DGH: Jeff, sorry but who says you get to say what the question is.
Sorry, didn’t see the fine print about who gets to ask questions. How does one apply for a permit?
But in any case, you have raised this question, though not explictly.
For if transformative stuff happens in our effectual calling, it follows that justification and the forensic does not have entire or total priority over the transformative, since the effectual calling precedes justification. So by asserting that justification has priority over the transformative, you raise the question: Does the Confession support this view?
DGH: Judgment day would appear to settle that.
Sorry to be dense, but I still don’t see the logic of this argument. (not “disagree with”, but “can’t articulate.”) So far I read
(1) On judgment day, our verdict of not guilty will depend solely on our justification apart from any transformative things that happen to us.
(2) Therefore, justification has priority over the transformative aspects of our salvation.
But “priority” here seems to be used to mean “importance”, whereas the discussion of priority in the ordo has to do with “logical priority”, a completely different beast.
I just don’t get it. There seem to be some missing steps between (1) and (2) and I can’t fill them in.
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RL: Thanks for the thoughts. One more question: in “determining our wills to that which is good”, I see some kind of recognition of our sin and a repentance of it, coordinating it with “repentance unto life” — a necessary aspect of the work of the Spirit, but not in any event the ground of our justification (cf. WCoF 15.3).
In other words, part of our effectual calling includes the ability to say, “I am a sinner who needs forgiveness.”
Agree / disagree?
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Jeff, first, if transformation happens before justification, isn’t that Roman Catholic?
Second, if the righteousness we receive from Christ in justification is perfect, and if the righteousness we have in sanctification makes our good works only filthy rags, I think you can do the math. Then good works — for the umpteenth time I’ve stated along with the help of others !!! — depend on the perfect righteousness of Christ. I don’t know what you consider priority, but how does this not follow?
And yet, the more you resist, Jeff, the more I begin to see why some unionists deny the imputation of the active obedience of Christ. For if you get not only the passive obedience (punishment for sin) but also Christ’s perfect keeping of the law, you get a whole lot of antinomianism and for some unionists that is uncomfortable because union is supposed to solve the problem of antinomianism.
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DGH: Jeff, first, if transformation happens before justification, isn’t that Roman Catholic?
Well, that’s what I’m asking. You’ve presented it as a stark choice:
Reformed = “justification precedes all transformation”
Catholic = “justification and sanctification together.”
I’m wondering whether that’s a fair reading of the Confession. It is at least plausible that the Confession is saying that some kind of transformation happens from the get-go. Not what we would call “sanctification”; but enough so that we can repent as we believe.
[Aside: a crucial element in the Catholic position is that our progress in sanctification is our justification. Without that element, I don’t think you can have a merit theology]
DGH: I don’t know what you consider priority…
Actually, I think that’s the problem. We bandy about the term “logical priority” as if we all know what it means. But in fact, I suspect that each person is carrying around his own private definition. I’ve never — not once, actually — seen a clear, concise definition of what “logical priority” is supposed to mean, nor in ordo debates nor in lapsarian debates.
I know what I mean, but it honestly fudges a bit and borrows a temporal element. I can’t think of a way to define “logical priority” that is time-free.
So what do you mean by “logical priority”?
DGH: And yet, the more you resist, Jeff, the more I begin to see why some unionists deny the imputation of the active obedience of Christ. For if you get not only the passive obedience (punishment for sin) but also Christ’s perfect keeping of the law, you get a whole lot of antinomianism and for some unionists that is uncomfortable because union is supposed to solve the problem of antinomianism.
Hm. Since I affirm IAOX, I can’t speak to that. I was under the impression that the WTS faculty does also; I thought I saw some statement to that effect.
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Jeff, the Roman Catholic view is that transformation precedes justification, not that they happen together. You’re forgetting the forensic declaration here. You need to be righteous in order to be declared righteous for Rome. So when you put transformation before justification, you might understand the concern.
Of course, the irony here is that you (and other unionists) have asserted that to say that justification causes sanctification is Roman Catholic. Huh? It’s just the opposite.
BTW, I don’t say “logical priority.” I only say priority because of what I wrote about the differences between the righteousness of justification and the one of sanctification. You don’t seem to address that difference between Christ’s perfection — which is mine — and my good works which proceed from my transformation and are filthy rags. I don’t think filthy rags will cut it on judgment day. Do you?
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DGH: Of course, the irony here is that you (and other unionists) have asserted that to say that justification causes sanctification is Roman Catholic. Huh?
What I’ve said is that our sanctification is disjoint from our justification, in that the first is caused by infusion, while the latter is caused by imputation. And to place S in a causal relationship with J opens the door to combining those two separate graces (or “modes of grace” or whatever term you might wish).
So neither “S causes J” nor “J causes S” are preferred. The first is out of court; the second is problematic.
Since we’ve discussed this, RL and you have noted that several Reformed authors use the “J causes S” language, which gives me cause to reconsider. Still and all — I want imputation and infusion separated.
DGH: BTW, I don’t say “logical priority.†I only say priority because of what I wrote about the differences between the righteousness of justification and the one of sanctification.
OK. So what do you mean by “priority”? Importance? Temporal order? Something else?
DGH: You don’t seem to address that difference between Christ’s perfection — which is mine — and my good works which proceed from my transformation and are filthy rags. I don’t think filthy rags will cut it on judgment day. Do you?
Sorry, I didn’t think I needed to say it: our justification is in no way contingent on our sanctification, and is wholly dependent on Christ’s merit imputed to us.
I guess I don’t understand why you keep angling to get me to say that our sanctification contributes to our justification. I don’t think that, so I’m not going to say it.
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Jeff, I am trying to figure out why you do not want to say that the forensic controls our understanding of soteriology — for me, that would be the priority of justification, the basic realities of sin, guilt, perfection and righteousness are at the heart of man’s plight. But you and other unionists want to qualify and pick nits about that, when the Reformers did not, and when Trent anathematized the Reformers for making justification the material principle of the Reformation. I do not get this. And I especially don’t get it at a time when justification has been under siege.
I also don’t understand what errors accompany justification causes sanct. You say that it will confuse the two modes of righteousness. Okay, maybe, but I’m still not sure how that confusion is any worse than trying to introduce moral renovation (in the form of Def. Sanct.) before justification (which is akin to the Roman CAtholic error). But I still am baffled at the intellectual categories imposed by many unionists — to say caused means to confuse cause and effect. God causes salvation of men. Does that mean that God and man, creator and creature, redeemer and redeemed become blurred?
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“Justification in Galatians”, p 172, Moo’s essay in the Carson f (Understanding the Times)—Nor is there any need to set Paul’s “juridicial” and “participationist” categories in opposition to ibe another (see Gaffin, By Faith Not By Sight, p 35-41). The problem of positing a union with Christ that precedes the erasure of our legal condemnation before God ( eg, making justification the product of union with Christ; see Michael Horton, Covenant and Salvation: Union with Christ, Westminster John Knox, 2007, p 147) CAN BE ANSWERED IF WE POSIT, WITHIN THE SINGLE WORK OF CHRIST, TWO STAGES OF “JUSTIFICATION”, one involving Christ’s payment of our legal debt–the basis for our regeneration–and second our actual justification=stemming from our union with Christ.”
mark: No way! so they don’t deny election or legal atonement or legal imputation, but in the end they continue to make “actual justification” the result of “union” which is for them a “faith-union”. They still get faith first (and not God’s imputation of Christ’s righteousness) in the “real justification” . Calling Christ’s death (and resurrection?) not only “the legal payment” but the “first justification” doesn’t change the fact that they start by saying there is no order of application and then turn around and make the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith first in the order of application.
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