Amid all the clamor over sanctification (and perhaps the not so sanctified aims of improving one’s own standing by taking down a ministerial rock star), what seems to be missing are the very basic categories that animated the differences between Protestants (yes, that includes — ugh!! — Lutherans) and Roman Catholics. When you consider this debate among Mark Jones, Tullian Tchividjian (hereafter Double T), and Rick Phillips (for starters), it sure does seem that this is an internecine quarrel among experimental Calvinists who are still trying to sort out the ordo salutis, rather than a basic discussion of our right standing before God. Are we right with God by our works? Or are we right with God by faith alone and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us that comes by faith? Granted, those questions don’t reflect later theological developments. But when you read Rick Phillips’ statement of what’s at stake, a major category is missing:
The matter is not about legalists claiming that the law provides the power to obey God’s commands. Neither is this a fight between Tullian’s defense of the radical grace of the gospel versus those who are afraid of grace. Quite to the contrary, it is precisely the grace of God that is being denigrated, since it is by God’s amazing grace that Christians are not only justified through faith alone but are born again and given the power of Christ to lead new lives (Eph. 1:18-20).
So if the issue is grace and whether it is being denigrated, then what about Roman Catholics who insisted that their view of justification and virtue (what we call sanctification) was just as saturated with grace as the Protestant account? Everyone is claiming grace. What is much less clear is what people are saying about good works and human effort. Phillips and others can claim that the good works that believers do is all of grace. But any believer hearing that gracious account still has to decide what to do with her day, whether to wait for God’s grace (“let go, let God”), or simply get on with it and hope she doesn’t have too many sinful motives dirtying her otherwise useful activities of family worship, dissertation writing, and meal preparation for the pregnant woman in the congregation. That believer also needs to have some idea about whether not to prepare the meal in question is a sign of spiritual declension. Either way, the Phillips-Jones scenario seems to move the anxiety that Martin Luther faced from pre-justification blues to post-justification angst. Have I grown in holiness today? Am I becoming more sanctified and more sanctified? And if I am not, and if sanctification is necessary for salvation, then does my lack of growth in holiness mean I am not saved?
These nagging questions made my recent reading of Gilbert Meilaender’s (the smartest Christian ethicist on God’s green earth) essay, “Works and Righteousness” (paywall alert), particularly refreshing. For in recognizing similarities and differences between John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor and Helmut Thielicke’s Theological Ethics, Meilaender was able to cut through experimental Calvinist introspection and find the differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants while also recognizing the tension that lies at the heart of the Protestant account of the gospel, the good news of justification by faith alone.
For instance, Meilaender frames the essay around the question of whether character precedes actions (faith precedes works) or whether actions (holiness) determine character (standing before God). The challenge of Protestantism is to do away with ethics (i.e. antinomianism):
We can also frame the issue in something more like the language of the New Testament, and the encyclical does so. Faith opens us freely and entirely to call God good. “There is no doubt,” John Paul writes, “that Christian moral teaching, even in its Biblical roots, acknowledges the specific importance of a fundamental choice which qualifies the moral life and engages freedom on a radical level before God. It is a question of the decision of faith, of the obedience of faith (cf. Rom. 16:26) ‘by which man makes a total and free self-commitment to God.’” Of this commitment, St. Paul writes that “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” At least in that sense, the character of the person determines the quality of the work.
But what follows from that? Could we also say that any action that proceeds from faith”anything done by one who has made a fundamental choice for God” must be God-pleasing rather than sinful? That hardly seems to follow, but it does make clear the difficulty of relating person and work. For if we hold, as Thielicke does, that the character of a person depends on whether he is or is not in right relation with God, and if we also say that the character of the person determines the moral quality of his works, then we might seem committed to thinking that the actions of anyone whose basic determination is that of faith must be God-pleasing actions.
Thielicke raises this issue very early in his Ethics , and he does so, interestingly enough, when discussing the story”so central to the discussion in Veritatis Splendor ”of the rich young man who comes to Jesus inquiring about what is good. His reading of the exchange focuses on the “person” of the young man. While the encyclical characterizes the encounter as one in which Jesus directs the man toward “a moral and spiritual journey towards perfection,” Thielicke suggests that Jesus aims to free the man from bondage to himself in order that he may be bound to God. Jesus does this through a “movement of concentration” in which imperatives are forms of the command to love God wholly and entirely, not requirements of particular actions.
Particular acts seem to disappear, faith in God occupies the entire moral field, and Thielicke himself sees the difficulty. “We must therefore put the question quite pointedly,” he writes. “Does not all ethical reflection always involve an act whereby ethics really does away with itself by reducing the ethical question to a problem that is essentially dogmatic? . . . In short, does not the solution of the ethical problem lie in the dissolution of ethics?” How we respond to this question will depend on how we understand the claim that a Christian is simul justus et peccator , simultaneously saint and sinner.
One way to understand this assertion “often thought to be the Lutheran way but in reality only one of several ways Lutherans have understood it” is to take it to mean that the believer is wholly and entirely saint and (simultaneously) wholly and entirely sinner. Viewed as one who trusts in the divine goodness and mercy revealed in Jesus, the believer is wholly saint. But viewed apart from that divine goodness, the believer is entirely sinner. The state of the person seems unrelated to his particular actions, for everything depends on the person’s relation to God. The theological task is simply to announce (again and again) the mercy of God that elicits a person’s fundamental decision of faith”leaving us, in short, with what looks like the dissolution of ethics.
Meilaender argues that there is no easy way around the tension that surrounds a faith-centric account of righteousness because we are caught in a conflict that is eschatological (could we get a little help from the Vossians, please):
Ethics always exists in “the field of tension between the old and the new aeons, not in the old alone, nor in the new alone.” To try to say more specifically what the shape of the Christian life should be within this tension would, he argues, be a non-eschatological ethic, something Thielicke associates with Roman Catholicism’s attempt to establish “a hierarchy of moral values with a corresponding casuistry of moral action.” Hence, he does not move very far or for very long beyond an understanding of the simul that he himself has found inadequate. He will accept no static “formula for the unity of the Christian’s existence,” no rules that can ease the tension between the two ages.
So faith alone means the dissolution of ethics, and grace-filled growth in holiness raises the specter of perfectionism: “if we make the connection between person and work too tight, right action may seem to be a condition that must be met in order to attain God’s favor, a tendency not altogether absent from Veritatis Splendor.”
Does this mean that forensic-centric Protestants can make no distinctions between a more or less sanctified life? No. Even a Lutheran can see the problem with an account that recognizes no difference between an adulterer and a husband who is merely tempted by adultery:
a Christian who is faithful to his wife even when experiencing temptation and a Christian who is unfaithful to his wife have the same status before God: They are simply sinners in need of forgiveness. And if going forward is just beginning again, there is no reason to distinguish between them. Each is a sinner, each needs to repent and believe, and each may be right with God. What they do, their agency, seems to make no difference in their relation to God.
But recognizing the tension doesn’t fix it. And the reason may be that bit of eschatology that Meilaender already invoked. We live in between the fall and consummation, and acting like the Christian life is road to holiness may commit the same naivete that John Paul II did, at least, according to Meilaender:
The encyclical exudes a kind of serene confidence about the Christian life that may sometimes be difficult to reconcile with the experience of individual Christians. “Temptations can be overcome, sins can be avoided, because together with the commandments the Lord gives us the possibility of keeping them . . . . Keeping God’s law in particular situations can be difficult, extremely difficult, but it is never impossible.” Surely this is true. We would not want to say of baptized Christians that the power of Christ’s Spirit cannot enable obedience in any circumstance. “And if redeemed man still sins,” Veritatis Splendor continues, “this is not due to an imperfection of Christ’s redemptive act, but to man’s will not to avail himself of the grace which flows from that act.”
What we miss here, though, is some sense of our weakness, of the differences in strength and circumstances that mark individual Christian lives. In the famous refrain of Book 10 of his Confessions ”give what you command, and command what you will”St. Augustine also expresses confidence in the power of the Spirit to enable virtuous action. But in his repetition of that formula we sense something that is also present in Thielicke’s thought”the precariousness of our lives as Christians, the deep divisions that sometimes continue to mark the psyches of believers, our sense on occasion that the best we can do does not measure up to what we ought to do, our sense (so strong for Augustine) that God knows our character better than we know ourselves.
I for one don’t think that Double T (though I haven’t read much) captures the precariousness of our Christian lives. Simply to say everything is forgiven (if that is what Double T suggests) doesn’t wrestle with gravity of sin and its penalty, the idea that my sins sent Christ to the cross. But neither do the “obedience boys,” as Bill Smith calls them, capture this precariousness, that even the best of what we do is inferior to God’s righteous standard and comes mixed with a host of selfish and confused motives.
So perhaps the way forward is to read more Lutheran ethics — not the oxymoron that some experimental Calvinists think it is.
Old Life 
Thanks Darryl. That was a very helpful piece. Maybe it can help us all move beyond the impasse.
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Nick, thanks but I am not holding my breath (in a holy way, of course).
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Darryl,
Very helpful piece – I have read a good deal of Meilaender’s work and find him to be brilliant in his discussions of issues like the one above.
I think the real issue many have with Double T is how he uses “Law-Gospel” as a blunt instrument. The result is that he misses that precariousness of the Christian life as you state above. It seems Trueman (who is hardly an “obedience boy”) is incredibly frustrated by the way Double T uses (and abuses) the Luther quotes. I am sure this frustration is nothing new for trained historians like yourself who must routinely deal with overzealous lay historian / celebrity pastor / movement leaders.
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Meilaender , “Hearts Set to Obey”, in I Am the Lord Your God: Christian Reflections on the Ten Commandments, 258— It is in no way contrary to the life of discipleship that we should, again and again, experience ourselves as simply caught in the tension between the reality of our sin and the reality of God’s forgiveness. What is contrary to the path of discipleship is that we should rest content in the static condition, that we should not in prayer strain against it as we ask Christ’s Spirit to make the history of redemption an ever more effective reality….
http://spitnmud.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/how-we-struggle-or-dont-against-sin-part-3-of-3/
When a person gets their justification from the water of the church, and when that person is not justified only one time but every time they sin again, then that person ends up thinking they can lose their justification. For all their anti-Lutheran opposition to the law-gospel antithesis, federal visionists love Meilaender’s idea that there is always a not-yet aspect to justification.
Unlike the federal visionists, Rick Phillips thinks it’s only your “sanctification” that you can lose if you sin too much for too long. Since sin is unbelief, sinners are unbelievers, and unbelieving “federal children” will begin to “decrease in sanctification”.
The federal visionists love to quote Yeago against the solas, against the law-grace distinction. So also does Mielaender—-“the characteristically Lutheran distinction between law and gospel can be presented not as a corrective to abuses that had arisen within the church, but rather, as the basis for an entirely new system of theology. Rather than being a distinction important for pastoral care of believers who are ‘on the way’ in the midst of the history of redemption, it becomes, as David Yeago observes, ‘the prime structuring principle’ of all Christian theology.”
mark: I also am an enemy of puritan introspection and self-righteousness, but that does not mean that the enemy of my enemy is a friend of the gospel. Instead of trusting in Christ’s penal substitution, the Lutheran often thinks that God imputes our faith as our righteousness.. I agree with Mielaender that God has a standard of ethics for those with or without faith, but this in no way justifies the way Lutherans have faith in their faith to keep them justified.
Mielaender—“If we also say that the character of the person determines the moral quality of his works, then we might seem committed to thinking that the actions of anyone whose basic determination is that of faith must be God-pleasing actions.”
Mark—A good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit. A bad tree cannot tree cannot bring forth good fruit. This is not a “tension”. Nor is it a “dialectic”
To be “fundy” about it, since there are two binary legal states, and we are either in Adam or we are in Chris, and our experience of assurance/faith should not be confused with God’s imputation.. Mielaender is not talking about justification, not talking about the legal difference of “not under law but under grace”. He is talking about faith, he is talking about “character”.
As a pacifist who is sometimes accused of being a legalist about the Sermon on the Mount, I am not against ethics. But I am against the kind of ethics which wants to condition future justification on ethics. I am also against assuming that ethically “unhappy” people have already been justified once.
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I don’t know, Darryl, that leaves a lot of room for liberty and we have a culture to conquer and a difference to make, and a coalition to differentiate.
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Christ was never under the power of sin in the sense of being unable not to sin. Christ was always unable to sin. The only way Christ was ever under the power of sin is by being under the guilt of sin. The guilt of the elect’s sin was legally transferred by God to Christ. Christ’s death to sin was death to the guilt of sin, and since the elect are united with His death, the death of the elect is also a death to the guilt of sin. Romans 6:7: “For one who has died has been justified from sin.”
But those who oppose justification by the imputation of Christ’s death alone focus on the nature of faith. They say —-To live by faith is to do what Jesus says to do. Some of us are doing it. You are not doing it.
Since our duty is NOT based on our ability, talking about our new ability and new regeneration (infusion, impartation, disposition) says NOTHING about our obligation to obey the law. Yes, we are obligated to keep the law.
Neonomians taught that God justifies without strict obedience to the law. But Rick Phillips agree that the justification which got us started was by Christ’s satisfaction alone. http://www.reformation21.org/articles/five-arguments-against-future-justification-according-to-works-part-ii.php But when it comes to what he calls “sanctification”, it is Phillips (and not all of those he accuses) who think the strictness of the law has been relaxed, so that God is angry with us only when we get too immoral but not angry with us most of the time (when we are moral).
No Christian is yet keeping all of God’s law. It does not matter what we say or don’t say about our ability to keep the law. It is often the case that God does NOT give us to do what God commands. This is the truth, even if you are one of those who thinks that any mention of God’s foreordination leads to fatalism.
The law is not the gospel. It’s still too late for justified sinners to keep the law in order to sanctified. Those who are already saints are commanded to obey the law.
Let me conclude with some of those crazy blunt Luther quotations from the Heidelberg Disputations
The law of God, the most salutary doctrine of life, cannot advance man on his way to righteousness, but rather hinders him.
Although the works of man always appear attractive and good, they are nevertheless likely to be mortal sins.
Although the works of God always seem unattractive and appear evil, they are nevertheless really for good and God’s glory.
The works of the righteous would be mortal sins if they are not be feared as mortal sins by the righteous themselves out of pious fear of God.
To say that works without Christ are dead, but not mortal, appears to constitute a perilous surrender of the fear of God. Indeed, it is very difficult to see how a work can be dead and at the same time not a harmful and mortal sin.
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Maybe this (third) post is the one where I take it all back, so nobody mistakes me for an antinomian. I will only say this–as above I conceded that those with accusations of antinomianism are not all neonomians in the matter of justification, I will say now that some who are accused actually are antinomians
There are many Arminian antinomians with us today who teach that the Holy Spirit takes over the agency from Christians so that Christians have no duty to obey the law of Christ. Those who teach the “exchanged life” fall into this category, people like Steve McVey, Malcolm Smith, Andrew Farley and Paul Ellis.
J I Packer is correct to warn against this—- “With regard to sanctification, there have been mystical antinomians who have affirmed that the indwelling Christ is the personal subject who obeys the law in our identity once we invoke his help in obedience situations, and there have been pneumatic antinomians who have affirmed that the Holy Spirit within us directly prompts us to discern and do the will of God, without our needing to look to the law to either prescribe or monitor our performance.”
Packer: “The common ground is that those who live in Christ are wholly separated from every aspect of the pedagogy of the law. The freedom with which Christ has set us free, and the entire source of our ongoing peace and assurance, are based upon our knowledge that what Christ, as we say, enables us to do he actually does in us for himself. So now we live, not by being forgiven our constant shortcomings, but by being out of the law’s bailiwick altogether; not by imitating Christ, the archetypal practitioner of holy obedience to God’s law, but by … our knowledge that Christ himself actually does in us all that his and our Father wants us to do.”
Packer is certainly right to criticize the “hyper-grace” movement which either denies or is ignorant of Christ’s satisfaction of the law for the elect. But in a day when those who teach penal satisfaction by Christ’s death for the elect alone are known not as Reformed but as “scholastics” living in the past, we do NOT need to join either of the two sides. We don’t need to join with the mystic antinomians (let go and let God) But neither do we need to join with Lutherans who hate the idea of a definite atonement announcing to all sinners that the elect alone will persevere in the faith.
The distinction between law and gospel cannot be inherently antinomian because the Bible itself tells us that “law is not of faith”.
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I forgot two more(sinner that I am),…….people to control and a name to make for oneself.
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So true Darryl…great post. I think this quote by Wilfried Joest goes hand in hand with what you’re saying here:
“The end of the law for faith does not mean the denial of a Christian ethic…. Luther knows a commandment that gives concrete instruction and an obedience of faith that is consistent with the freedom of faith…. This commandment, however, is no longer the lex implenda [the law that must be fulfilled], but rather comes to us as the lex impleta [the law that is already fulfilled]. It does not speak to salvation-less people saying: ‘You must, in order that…’ It speaks to those who have been given the salvation-gift and say, “You may, because…”
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For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Rom. 7:14-15
For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Gal. 5:17-18
It seems pretty clear to me that there are two realities at play in the Christian life. Anything which is attributed to us is flesh and anything good is attributed to God/the Spirit. One would think that, given James teaching on failing to obey the law in one point (however small or close to the mark) relegates one as a law-breaker. Christians aren’t “kind-of lawbreakers” – we are still law breakers (having a totally depraved flesh) but we have God’s Spirit working in us, renewing us.
Isn’t that the whole point of forensic justification? That, I who am a sinner, now am considered entirely righteous, even though, considered apart from this grace I am an utterly helpless sinner? Apart from God (even as a Chrisitian) I can do nothing (Gal. 6:3), but by his grace I can do all things (Phil 4:3).
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EWR, truth be told, I’m sure I’ve abused the past (and I’m a licensed historian).
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mcmark, at the risk of ignoring you, I’m not sure what point you’re making. Bottom line — do you agree with ME! or not?
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Sean, well you have to start somewhere (what’s up with the Spurs?).
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mcmark, why can’t someone defend justification or sanctification by concluding, “wretched man (or woman, inclusivist that I am) that I am”!
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Thanks, Double T.
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Nate, that sounds about right to me. But it may not be sufficiently “uplifting.” We may want to think ourselves like Keillor’s consumers of Powder Milk Biscquits — Give shy persons the strength they need to get up and do what needs to be done.
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The Thunder are Kryptonite to the Spur’s Superman. Horry put Nash into the boards the last time the Spurs were up against it like this, it’s time for someone to target Ibaka’s ‘sore’ calf.
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Fantastic piece by Dr. Meilaender. Thanks for sharing.
Interesting – a good number of Dr. Meilaender’s family goes or has gone to my home church Zion Evangelical Lutheran in Marshall, MI, including his father and mother, both of whom have passed away. In fact, I went to both of their funerals! What a small Protes – *gag*.
Sorry, D. Hart, I just can’t.
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I don’t agree with you that Mielaender is a trustworthy source for thinking about the relationship of ethics and justification. Agreeing that we fail is not enough to get to the gospel about the good news (the meaning) of Christ’s death and resurrection.
I am not saying we should not read those with whom we disagree. I am saying that Mielaender (with Yeago) is on the side of those who oppose the law gospel antithesis. And we don’t have to find this out only by reading federal visionists quoting him.
Mielaender—-“the characteristically Lutheran distinction between law and gospel can be presented not as a corrective to abuses that had arisen within the church, but rather, as the basis for an entirely new system of theology. Rather than being a distinction important for pastoral care of believers who are ‘on the way’ in the midst of the history of redemption, it becomes, as David Yeago observes, ‘the prime structuring principle’ of all Christian theology.”
The distinction between the Lutherans saying that justification can be lost and the Reformed Confessional view will not go away, no matter how you want to use Lutheran soundbites against your neo-Calvinist (and puritan) enemies.
I will ask you the same question you ask Americans–why do you keep giving Lutherans a pass?
btw, are you communicating to us today from Italy?
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Being wretched is not enough. Christ was under the law, but Christ was never corrupt. We can agree or disagree (more or less) about the continuing depravity or ability of those who have been justified. But the good news is not heard until we find our daily safety in Christ’s death.
Let’s understand Romans 6 before we rush to chapter 7—- We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are NOT UNDER LAW but under grace.
David Gordon: Christ was not a sinner. Did Christ, in his role as Second Adam, die to and for sin? Yes, but in the course of his life prior to the cross he was never enslaved to sin; never under its mortifying influence on his moral nature. Only as the legal Substitute for sinners did he die to and for sin.
Mark–which is why we know that Christians being “dead to sin” in Romans 6 is not about our regeneration but about being justified from sins and not under the law. Many who say many correct things about corruption and the new birth do not yet know the gospel.
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DG, if you’re in It’ly look our for Birra Moretti La Rossa.
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And Tullian, gain about 20 pounds, ditch those cool Floridians, fire the band and join us in Old Schoolville.
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As long as we are asking people to take sides, whose side would Mielaender be on, that of Mark Jones or Barbara Duiguid?
We should remember that Jones took sides against “the failure” lady (Duiguid)
Jones—First, in the Preface, Duguid raises the question, “What if growing in grace is more about humility, dependence, and exalting Christ than it is about defeating sin?” (p. 18). This is a false dichotomy. Humility requires the mortification of our vicious pride. Dependence requires the mortification of our innate self-dependence. Just loving Christ is not enough; to love him we must mortify other loves (self, the world, etc.). When we love Christ we are able to mortify our sin; and as we do so we are better able to love Christ.
Second, Duguid critiques the idea that sanctification is 100% God and 100% us. She calls this “poor math” and “poor theology” (p. 124). Why? Because God always does his 100% perfectly, which means the reason we are failing is entirely our fault! She may be right about the poor math, but her critique of the theological truth is less than compelling…. Not only Gaffin but also many Reformed luminaries from the past, such as Jonathan Edwards note the “mysterious math” of sanctification.
Third, Duguid’s suggestion that God cannot be disappointed in you (p. 48) or your level of sanctification is not only unfaithful to the Bible and the Westminster Confession, but also Newton – the person who she is allegedly following
There is a sort of “hyper-decretalism” that runs throughout the book (e.g., pp. 125, 205). Duguid affirms that “spiritual growth is not up to us” (p. 48) – a statement that is open to potential misunderstanding. The New Testament is filled with imperatives commanding us to “grow spiritually” (2 Peter 1:5; 3:18; Eph. 4:15; 1 Peter 2:2)…
Her point that God cannot be angry with us (p. 210) is an idea gaining popularity in some Reformed circles. Duguid contends that the Father does not punish us for our sin, “nor is he angry with us” (211). True, God is not angry with us in the sense that he is always angry with us, or to the point of condemnation (Rom. 8:1); but that does not mean that he is never angry with his children or that he never punishes them for their sins.
Christ was displeased with the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3, just as he was with David (2 Sam. 11:27), and also certain Corinthians (1 Cor. 11:30-32). John Flavel distinguishes between “vindictive punishments” and “paternal castigations” – the latter, not the former, are true of Christians. John Calvin speaks of God being “wondrously angry” towards his children, not because he is disposed to hate them, but because by “frightening” them he humbles his people and brings them to repentance.
The idea running throughout the book that God is not disappointed in our sanctification rings hollow. This contention emanates from the “hyper-decretalism” mentioned above – a sort of fatalism. Indeed, God is not disappointed in our justification. And God is never frustrated in his purposes for us. But God may be disappointed in our holiness if we go through seasons whereby we presume upon his grace, neglect the ordinary means of grace, or sin willfully and grievously. When I repent I’m in a real sense disappointed in my lack of holiness – and rightly so! If God is never disappointed in his child’s lack of holiness, then he isn’t actually a very good Father (see Heb. 12), and we are not actually responsible agents in our Christian life.
Fourth, Duguid also presents a misguided view of the Holy Spirit’s goal in our sanctification. She contends that if the Holy Spirit’s “chief work” in sanctification is making us more and more sin-free, “then he isn’t doing a very good job”; after all, she claims there are unbelievers who are “morally superior” to Christians (p. 30). This view makes a mockery of the New Testament’s teaching on the moral difference between Christians and non-Christians (see Col. 1:21-22; Eph. 2:1-10; Rom. 6; 8:1-14), and it says things about the Spirit’s work that I certainly would not. She contrasts this (wrong) view of the Holy Spirit’s role in sanctification with her idea that if “the goal of sanctification is actually growing in humility and greater dependence upon Christ, then the Holy Spirit is doing an excellent job” (p. 61). So what if I am not living in great dependence upon Christ? Am I doing a bad job or is the Holy Spirit doing a bad job or is it both our fault (i.e., the “mysterious math”)? Her book is written because people do not seem to be depending on Christ or growing in humility. But why write a book on this topic if the Holy Spirit is doing an excellent job in this area? Again, the two views of sanctification she contrasts become false dichotomies. They are actually the same thing, viewed from different angles.
In connection with this, the book contains some rather strange statements, particularly page 29. Consider the following: “If the sovereign God’s primary goal in sanctifying believers is simply to make us more holy, it is hard to explain why most of us make only ‘small beginnings’ on the road to personal holiness in this life” (p. 29). What, then, is the point of sanctification if it is not being made more holy (i.e., like Jesus)? The Scriptures are clear on this matter (see Col. 1:22; Rom. 8:29; 1 Peter 2:24; Eph. 1:4; 2 Cor. 3:18).
http://www.reformation21.org/shelf-life/housewife-theologian-and-extravagant-grace.php
mark—I take sides against Jones and all who use the whip on Christians
Hitting us over the head is not the only thing shepherds can do with a rod.
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that leaves a lot of room for liberty and we have a culture to conquer and a difference to make, and a coalition to differentiate.
while desperately hanging on to being a groovy dude (or cat) well into our 40s.
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How to say this? It was true in a different way but in ways similar as well, as an RC, but I don’t know of another institution that tolerates as much dysfunction at the leadership level as the church. The clergy too often becomes the last bastion of those who can’t do anything else. We spend lifetimes tolerating, excusing and justifying con men and B.S. Not that these cats don’t exist in other institutions-legislatures for example, but it’s a level of incompetence and slime that continues to soprise and cause heartburn. We seems to lack a true floor. Nobody likes conflict and trials, you don’t go looking for it, but at some point there has to be a reckoning. We all need a swift kick in the ass every now and then, we seem to lack that mechanism in our polity.
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Meilaender is fantastic, and it’s great to see someone utilizing his work in these discussions. Are you aware of the recent work “A Case for Character: Towards a Lutheran Virtue Ethics,” by Joel Biermann? It’s a fantastic work, just released at the beginning of this month. He relies heavily on Mielaender and Yeago. What he proposes is a strong virtue ethic rooted in justification by faith using Luther’s distinction of the three kinds of righteousness. Another book (which I will be re-releasing later this year) that is helpful on this topic is Christian Ethics by Revere Franklin Weidner.
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Well, maybe the mechanism exists, it’s just rarely engaged. I don’t even think it needs to be formal, just ” hey, you’re being an ass, knock it off” or “hey, you ain’t all that, and you’re wrong and here come a shoe” Why all vetting out of right motives and let’s pray about your jackassery, that’s what experience and competency are supposed to shed from jump.” I don’t need to pray about how you’re a tool, just that you are one and we need to fix that.
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It’s a good day when Sean busts out a “here come a shoe.”
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Maybe you could do a series: “Edifying Discipline & Ecclesiology Moments with Sean” aka “Here come a shoe!”
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Sean, may that “mechanism” is a little Terry Tate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzToNo7A-94
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DGH, it’s hard to smoke when holding your breath.
On another note, if I do enough good works do you think at the eschaton I’ll get to look like Double T?
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Nate, gotta love Terry. No really, you need to recognize or they’ll be pain. But how long does it take to diagnose, Driscoll or Phillips or the SEC frat boys? Or what’s required to understand the faculty lounge gamesmanship and wink, winks since the Shepherd controversy? This isn’t a tough read.
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C-Dubs, can you imagine what it would be like if you were unable or not allowed to engage your faculties to navigate the nonsense that is the PCA? Talk about abusive. Just keep your head on a swivel and your hand on your pocketbook.
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But I’d be so happy. And your ” I don’t need to pray about how you’re a tool, just that you are one and we need to fix that.” is now very popular on Twitter.
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What’s that line about brevity being the soul of wit. I’ll make a deal with all of them, they work on sucking less and I’ll work on not telling them about how much they suck.
But, it’s true that if you’ve been unwilling to investigate or question or challenge a lot of what comes out of the Redeemer movement or CTS or just your own presbytery, you’d end up paying homage to Moscow or be a functioning RC or just simply swimming the Tiber. It’s not optional to just bend the knee, just cuz.
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Jordan Cooper and I disagree about many things, but let me commend his “Lutheran” reading of I John.
http://www.justandsinner.com/#!Are-Gods-Commandments-Burdensome/cxgw/55794237-B89D-4A3E-9405-96C6A4416C15
Jordan Cooper—Hyde’s argument fails on a couple levels. First, he falsely argues that obedience to the Law does indeed become easy for the believer apart from the reality of Christ’s fulfillment of it… the Law continues to accuse the Christian. If the Law requires perfect obedience, and the Christian remains a sinner, then the Law itself never becomes easy for the Christian to obey. Both the non-Christian and the Christian are unable to perfectly fulfill the Law of God. Only Christ has obeyed God perfectly. To argue otherwise is to pit this text against other Scriptural realities.
Jordan C—“while Hyde contends that there is no basis contextually to assume that the atonement and righteousness of Christ are in the background here, John begins his entire argument with precisely this in mind. Before John gets into his argument about the necessity of the love of God, the love of neighbor, and right doctrine, he states: “If we say we have no sin (present tense), we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (John 1:8-9).
Jordan C— “John makes it abundantly clear that perfectionism is an impossibility, and that continual forgiveness is an essential aspect of the Christian life. This forgiveness then is in the background of the rest of John’s argument…..God’s commandments are not burdensome—why? Because we have overcome the world. How have we overcome the world? Faith. Believing the Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The commandments of God are not burdensome because we have faith in the Gospel.
Jordan C—.”Through faith, one is forgiven. If one is then forgiven, the Law no longer becomes a burden. The commandments are not burdensome, because the penalty has been paid and our failures and shortcomings are forgiven. We now can follow God’s commandments without any fear of condemnation.
mark: Yes, Romans 6: 14 teaches that sin shall have dominion over us because we are not under the guilt of the law. Christ was under the imputed guilt of the law, but is now justified. It’s a mistake for us who are now justified by union with Christ’s death to promise that we will perform better than those who think they need to perform better in order to be happy in God or for God not to be angry with them.
Maybe we will perform better. Maybe not. But it’s like eating your cake and still having your cake to promote our theories about Christian obedience as guaranteed to deliver better performance. More obedience is not more sanctification, at least if we use biblical categories, but more obedience to God’s law is a good and pleasing thing. We do not “dissolve” the ethical imperative by our performance of by our lack of performance.
If we continually confess that we are not continual sinners, then we are continual liars
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Well and good. But would you suggest that we read and imbibe a Lutheran like Forde?
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Ian Clary,
Don’t imbibe Forde, and don’t call him Lutheran. Let the E”L”CA keep him.
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DG, I prefer a bowl of Life cereal – it’s a powder milk biscuit in essence though.
Calvin was about as pessimistic as you, so I think you’re probably in good company:
From his little treatise On the Christian Life
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Hi Seth,
I guess my point is that Rev. Tchividjian has positively cited statements of Forde in his work, including the idea that sanctification is merely getting used to your justification. Would this not be where the problem lies in reading certain Lutherans? From what I gather, and Pastor Cooper would be better aware of this than I (and you state the same), is that Forde is quite problematic in certain Lutheran circles.
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from Philip Cary, an Anglican who loves Luther but the Book of Concord not so much—-Good News For Anxious Christians:
As John Calvin himself put it, there is a difference between saving faith and temporary faith. This difference is the source of Calvinist anxieties about the assurance of salvation. The assumption is that these two sorts of faith are fundamentally different, and that there is some way of telling them apart, at least in your own case.
pc—To see the anxieties this generates, imagine asking yourself, “How do I know that my current posture is going to last? I am sitting now, but is there any decision I now make that will guarantee I keep sitting? I am resting the weight of my heart on Jesus now, but how can I be sure that I will keep doing this until the end of my life?”
pc—What makes Calvinism distinctive within Christianity is its conviction that this question can actually be answered. According to Calvinism each one of us, in our own case, can have assurance of eternal salvation because we can know whether we have true saving faith. This is, of course, tantamount to knowing we are predestined for salvation…
pc–. Here is where Calvin parts company with Augustine, his great predecessor: not in the doctrine of predestination itself, but in the conviction that we can know we are among the elect, eternally saved in this life because God has predestined us for salvation. And we can know this precisely by knowing that we have true saving faith, not the temporary kind.
Cary, Good News for Anxious Christians, p84–“There is nothing more self-centered than the project of being unselfish. Why would genuinely unselfish people bother trying to be unselfish? Love is not about itself. We need to love our neighbors, not our motivations. So it would be perverse to wonder whether you had the wrong motivation for seeking their good. If what you’re trying to accomplish really is good for your neighbor, then that’s good enough. For Christian love is about the good of your neighbor, not how good your heart is.
mark—and yet, how can we know it’s not dead fruit untill we know first that it’s not a dead tree? The irony is that Cary makes me think more (not less) about my motives
Hebrews 6:1–let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God
Hebrews 9:14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
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Ian and Seth, say what ye will, but when I read Forde’s contribution to “Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification,” it resonated more with this Calvinist than what the others put forth:
“But if we are saved and sanctified only by the unconditional grace of God, we ought to be able to become more truthful and lucid about the way things really are with us. Am I making progress? If I am really honest, it seems to me that the question is odd, even a little ridiculous. As I get older and death draws nearer, it doesn’t seem to get any easier. I get a little more impatient, a little more anxious about having perhaps missed what this life has to offer, a little slower, harder to move, a little more sedentary and set in my ways. It seems more and more unjust to me that now that I have spent a good part of my life ‘getting to the top,’ and I seem just about to have made it, I am already slowing down, already on the way out. A skiing injury from when I was sixteen years old acts up if I overexert myself. I am too heavy, the doctors tell me, but it is so hard to lose weight! Am I making progress? Well, maybe it seems as though I sin less, but that may only be because I’m getting tired! It’s just too hard to keep indulging the lusts of youth. Is that sanctification? I wouldn’t think so! One should not, I expect, mistake encroaching senility for sanctification!
But can it be, perhaps, that it is precisely the unconditional gift of grace that helps me to see and admit all that? I hope so. The grace of God should lead us to see the truth about ourselves, and to gain a certain lucidity, a certain humor, a certain down-to-earthness. When we come to realize that if we are going to be saved, it shall have to be absolutely by grace alone, then we shall be sanctified. God will have his way with us at last.”
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Is there really a substantive difference between Owen, in giving pastoral advice against besetting sin, to proclaim, in summary, “get a sense of the love of Jesus Christ for you” and the “Lutheran” idea of sanctification is getting used to justification”? Granted more can be said and is said, but this idea if not at least the sentiment of “getting used to your justification” has a pretty stout pedigree.
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Zrim, as much as I oppose Forde’s opposition to the penal atonement (which he has in common with many who disagree with Forde about the Christian life), I also very much like Forde’s reeponses in Spirituality Views book. He detects the “puritan fog” coming in and direct us back to the good news of Romans 6. All Ferguson can do is ask about sacraments.
Sean, my hope is that if indeed the Thunder do beat the Spurs, at least they will be able to take out the Heat….I meant to say, the problem with John Owen is his reading of “mortification” in Romans 8. Instead of contrasting minding the flesh and minding the Spirit in terms of “what love accomplished in Christ’s death for the elect”, John Owen does the Puritan thing of contrasting morality with immorality. I don’t think that gets to the gospel truth of Romans 8. If you want that, look at Haldane’s commentary.
There is much I love about Owen’s doctrine of the atonement, but in his doctrine of the Christian life there is an odd mixture of claims about our ability but also about our need for the whip. That is why so many Banner of Truth folks only read the parts of Owen that Wesley would endorse.
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McMark, my complaint with Owen after reading through Mortification, is that he takes so long to get to the payoff. After charting out the labyrinth of true and false piety and true and false starts and true and false ways, he FINALLY gets to; “get a sense of the love of Christ for you”. It’s like they couldn’t help themselves. That, and he writes worser than I do.
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With some of these disputes I sometimes think that the root problem is pastors having too much time on their hands. Perhaps our model should be 20-25 hours a week of manual labor and 20-25 hours of pastoral work. When someone has all day to read, think, and screw around online it is no surprise that conflict ensues.
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Even The Dude has to knock off to go teach Freshman U.S. History.
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This is the beauty of Reformed polity. The farmer/elder who has been shoveling pig poop all week gets to go to Classis or Synod and have the same vote as the ivory tower theologian.
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Sorry — this is much worse than Kellers cross-denominational hijinks: Tullian’s network
http://liberate.org/church-directory/
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McMark & Sean, it took me 5 years and 30 counseling sessions to recover from Owen’s Mortification. And a good dose of confessionalism…
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Gerhard O. Forde and his school of “Radical Lutheranism” are not good sources. I concur with this comment from several weeks ago, and I offer this for your consideration.
Great piece by Meilander. I am always entertained by McMark’s headlong long-form rush to defend hyper-Calvinism, i.e., “the Gospel”, against the “false religion” of Lutheranism.
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Chortles,
Kill it. Kill it with fire.
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I read Owen’s book on Mortification in the midst of some of my worst addictive acting’s out and it made matters worse. I was also imbibing a lot on Sproul, Gerstner, some other Edwardsian leaning puritans and some popular neo-Cal writers. The theonomists and reconstructionists set the foundation for me and it has been a struggle to sort through the good and bad of it all. The Lutherans helped some but then I met McMark and began seeing some problems in their theology of the gospel too.
The more I fight my sin the worse it seems to get. So there is truth in the statement that the power of sin is the guilt it produces and the law makes the situation worse. And then there is the constant advice you can get about the myriad views of sanctification. I found this short interview of Barbara Duguid to be honest and helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNuf-RH6Mqc
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Chortles,
Regarding the Liberate “Church” Directory: Three letters are missing under the Denom column: WTF…
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MT, that made be chortle bitterly.
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That Network seems to revolve around distinct Law/Gospel preaching, which is not a bad thing. Mostly Presbyterian, Reformed, & Lutheran churches — which is not surprising. One Episcopal church in NYC, which seems a bit odd, no?
http://www.calvarystgeorges.org/
I am not familiar with law/gospel preaching in Episcopal circles, but I don’t know too much about Episcopal churches other that the theological liberalism I’ve heard about in the press (John Shelby Spong).
This of course sets aside the whole discussion of the validity of the “Network” model, which tends to want to overlook existing denominational structures.
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I suppose within our denominations we do some “networking” (NAPARC, sending representatives to each others Presbyteries, Classis meetings, synods, GA’s, etc.) but this is a more formal arrangement than a “Network”. If anything, the concept of a “Network” makes me think that people need to slow down and do things through existing channels rather than trying to go outside them.
Maybe some of these problems that we are seeing with Driscoll & now the Gospel Coalition will give the Networkers pause.
Every generation thinks it needs to reinvent the wheel, though.
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“That Network seems to revolve around distinct Law/Gospel preaching, which is not a bad thing.”
Right. Does anyone think that all of the churches in that directory substantively agree on what “distinct Law/Gospel preaching” really is? Put me down for a “no” vote. As Luther said, it’s not enough to preach the Gospel.
In matters of ecumenism, if it seems to good to be true, it’s because…
…nevermind. I don’t want to ruin the surprise.
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mcMark, I don’t read GM as a systematician But as an ethicist, I see a pronounced attention to justification by faith alone. Not odd for a Lutheran, I suppose, but certain refreshing where most ethicists view people indiscriminately (what’s salvation got to do with it?).
And I still believe this while I write from Belfast.
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cw, ding ding on sean. (let’s just hope the Spurs win or it could get really ugly.)
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Nick, maybe his wife.
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Nate, I think I’d need three bowls of Life to match Calvin’s earnestness, but at least it’s not flowery or sissy.
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Erik, in the PCA it could be that pastors aren’t having to prepare two sermons a week.
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D. G. Hart
Posted May 28, 2014 at 5:15 pm | Permalink
mcMark, I don’t read GM as a systematician But as an ethicist, I see a pronounced attention to justification by faith alone. Not odd for a Lutheran, I suppose, but certain refreshing where most ethicists view people indiscriminately (what’s salvation got to do with it?).
And I still believe this while I write from Belfast.
They probably know the Dave Allen joke: We Irish have trouble deciding who God is, but once we do we’re willing to fight for Him!
http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2013/11/11/dave-allen-gods-own-comedian/
Cheers, D.
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Here’s a church directory anecdote: My wife and I lived in NJ for 3 months for a job training I had. Ashamedly, I searched the SGM, TGC (or TGIC, whichever floats your boat) and finally the PCA (I know I know… could be worse) directories IN that order.
In God’s good providence, SGM and TGC churches were both > 45mins away. PCA church? 15 minutes away. Bingo. Found one here in Esco, and am very thankful. All that to say, church directories don’t work =]
Apologies to those of you who think I should be at an OPC… at least I regularly read OldLife, right?
ERIK: The Episcopal church TT lists on the directory is solid, from what I have read/heard. Granted, they aren’t “reformed” in the same sense, but what comes out of that little church is pretty incredible in terms of “gospel-centerdness,” and at least they aren’t coalitionizing (great supplemental reading if you’re a 2ker: see http://www.mbird.com). But ultimately, I’d agree; PCA promoting an Epicopal church is definitely odd…
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*church “networking” directories don’t work…
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“…great supplemental reading if you’re a 2ker: see http://www.mbird.com”
Miles – If by “2ker” you mean someone predisposed to finding the law/gospel motif in every Whit Stillman film, Christ in every Evelyn Waugh novel, and “brokeness/authenticity” in every program of This American Life – then yes, I agree.
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Michael: Lol! Well I enjoy them, anyhow.
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Additionally, Michael, my comment was more geared toward “Enjoying culture for culture’s sake… Oh! And here’s some good law/gospel, brokenness/authenticity, analysis!” Does that clear my comment up?
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DGH, is this some kind of sweeps week on the interweb, thus the need to go Lutheran? When I left this morning, this post had two comments. I predicted to myself that by the time I got back it would have 50 comments. It has 69 as I write.
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Preparing two sermons a week, plus Wednesday night Bible study, plus Sunday school catechism for the youth is a healthy regimen for a Reformed minister. Little time left for the internet or for getting in other kinds of trouble.
I do think it is a serious problem that we have created an elite class of “senior pastor” that has time for blogging, writing, conference speaking, and being a general gadfly, detached from the day-to-day pastoral work that may have made the former possible. If a man is ready to “move on” I would rather they consider seminary work as opposed to this new model that seems to have emerged. Celebrity has no place in the Christian religion.
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And if a pastor is going to write, write something serious, thoughtful, and scholarly that will stand the test of time.
If you’re going to be a rocker, be Bob Seger. He has a handful of songs on a handful of albums that are great and will stand the test of time. All the while he’s lived in Michigan, out of the limelight.
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What do you all think of this portion of the Liberate Church Directory Confession:
“Second, we proclaim God’s Gospel: that his son Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). In Christ, God’s love for us is one-way: from him to us. It does not require any pre-existing conditions, nor does it expect anything in return. It gives, gives, and gives again.”
Is that Biblical and Confessionally Reformed? I think this is a useful question, because this is not just another blog post or interview but the actual summary they put on their website.
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And if you’re going to be an actor, be Michigander Jeff Daniels:
“In 1986, Jeff and his wife Kathleen moved back to their hometown of Chelsea, MI where they would raise three children. ‘It was home. Kathleen and I had both been raised here; good enough for us, good enough for them. I knew we would get a heavy dose of LA and New York. I knew we would see the world a little bit. It was a great home base, and I honestly didn’t think the career would last. They just don’t. Now it’s Tuesday and you call your agent, ‘I hate to tell you, but your career is over.’ You keep waiting for that call. When it’s over, why don’t we just be home?”
And religious celebrities think they have something to teach secular entertainers…
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Zrim,
I thought of Daniels, too.
The point is that greatness comes from being great, not from publicity, attention, or where you are located. If you want to be great at something, do the work and pay a price — pastoring included.
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Please say hi to CG for me, if you’re still in Belfast.
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Dan, just trying to show that we narrow and vinegary Presbyterians perhaps read a little more widely (and are better for it) than the broad, inclusive experimental Calvinists.
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Chris, it’s one way of reading the Bible. It’s not confessional because if you have a confession you quote it. “Justification is an act of God’s free grace wherein he pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us by faith alone.”
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Zrim, and when in Chelsea, check out the restaurant Daniels co-owns — The Common Grill.
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Chris, hi back to you!
I’m coming late to this discussion, but I wonder whether the various parties involved in the debate have drawn on the definitive-progressive character of sanctification as much as they might have done.
Heb 10:14: “he has perfected for all time [definitive] those who are being sanctified [progressive]”
This is a really helpful distinction to make. The NT tells us that “without holiness it is impossible to see the Lord” (Heb 12) and tells us that the standard of our holiness is absolute: “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5).
If we were to go down the route of attaching the required holiness to our progressive sanctification, we would have to consider how far short of absolute holiness we can fall while still being allowed to see the Lord. Not sure there is much wriggle room there.
If we attach the required holiness to our definitive sanctification, we know that we are accepted in our sanctification because of what Christ has done for us and given to us. Granted, the definitive-progressive distinction is not reflected in the WCF, and seems to have developed later (my theory: from origins in the Plymouth Brethren), but it has come to be a staple component of modern Reformed theology, not least thanks to John Murray.
The other way of rescuing ourselves from the confusion and ambiguity of depending on our progressive sanctification might be to remember that it is completed at death and brought to full realisation in glorification. Spurgeon has an odd passage in which he speculates how believers of various degrees of (progressive – but I don’t think he uses the distinction) sanctification are made immediately perfect at death. This might not be as helpful a solution as the definitive-progressive distinction.
This might be another evidence that this debate is being conducted in c17th terms, and is missing helpful distinctions contributed in the later stages of Reformed theological development.
Sorry if I’m missing something – as I say I’m coming late to the party.
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cg, but that would mean that the 16th c. understanding of sanctification was inadequate and if that’s true my world collapses. Seriously, might we be better off returning to the theological modesty of the sixteenth c., which was not at all modest about alien righteousness of Christ?
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The c16th was great, from what I remember: ruffs, outdoor plumbing, etc. But isn’t part of the problem that the questions change as new exegetical habits arise, and that we need sharper answers for them?
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cg, but what if the exegetical habits arise — get this — from faulty w-w’s? Since the human mind is a factory of idols, what if the new exegetical habits are idolatrous, or to put it less acerbically, what if we are hard wired by the categories of the covenant of works and want to justify our acceptability before God by who we are inherently — hence the need to show that we are good either by our actions or by ourselves (infusion). What if we can only stand on that great day in the perfection of Christ?
That strikes me as a fairly perennial question — from 4400 BC to 1859.
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I don’t know much about worldviews and suspect I don’t have one myself; but am clear I won’t be pointing to anyone’s merits or righteousness but that of Christ when the great day comes. Meantime – coffee!
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Darryl,
I’m all for theological modesty, but I’m not for preaching that refuses to differentiate between those who are dead in sins and those who have been made alive in Christ. That’s not modesty, but a way of communicating to believers that is foreign to the examples of the New Testament epistles. Preaching informed by nothing but the “wholly and entirely sinners” need for Justification–one way to characterize TT’s mission–doesn’t leave much room for a pastor to ever say “and such were some of you” or “we are those who died to sin” to his congregation? A lame-o Biblicist like myself wants to make sure that our pastors can still say the kind of things that Paul said.
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i took some time away from the matrix, but want to interact with Sven. He calls me “hyper” where I am simply confessional in regard to election and atonement, and he does not attend to the specifics of which I complained–a justification gained by instrumental water and a justification you can lose. These are not unimportant matters we should let pass.
Lutherans teach that those once justified still have an opportunity to be condemned. I think this has something to do with Sven’s (and Trent’s) approach to the Christian life. For their entertainment, let me quote from Sven’s blog—
Sven—I’ve also seen it explicitly stated that the Christian is not a New Man, not a new creation, but that the New Man is simply Christ in us . This flatly contradicts Scripture and our Lutheran Symbols. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,” St. Paul writes, “old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Co v, 17). The Formula of Concord speaks of the regenerate having a freed will:
mark: First, to show a little more nuance than ‘”hyper” or even “Lutheran”, I want to say that I agree that the new creation is not something inside us, and is certainly not a denial of human agency. But having said that, I would also say that the “new creation” is not the individual, but the legal new man consisting of all “those in Christ”, those in legal solidarity with Christ’s death.
In other words, the text reads—if anyone is IN CHRIST, new creation. Not that this person alone is new creation, but “old things have passed away” in regard to being under the guilt of the law. We are not yet immortal or glorified, even though these things are legally guaranteed for those “in Christ”. But this new reality is not something Lutherans can appreciate, since they teach that those in Christ can get out of Christ by certain kinds of sinning (which result from certain kinds of unbelief). This is one of the main points of Mielaender’s two essays referenced earlier.
Back to quoting Sven: Therefore there is a great difference between baptized and unbaptized men. For since, according to the doctrine of St. Paul, (Gal iii, 27), all who have been baptized have put on Christ, and thus are truly regenerate, they have now arbitrium liberatum (a liberated will), that is, as Christ says, they have been made free again, (John viii, 36); whence they are able not only to hear the Word, but also to assent to it and accept it, although in great weakness (FC SD II, 67).
mark: I am not going to say a word about water or even about “baptism”. I am simply going to repeat my previous point. Any debate we have or can have about the ability “to go either way now” is not relevant to the attacks of Yeago, Mark Jones, Gaffin or other unionists on the law-gospel antithesis. Are we now somewhat like the original Adam, so that we can now believe and obey enough to keep ourselves in Christ but also possibly lose our justification by sin and unbelief? We could discuss that question for a long time, but it’s beside the point. Because we must agree that a. we are obligated to keep the law. and b. None of us do.
The covenantal nomists (sanctification deists) sing, yes we are able! By God’s grace of regeneration, we have the potential and we are going to prove that we believe. But the new covenant says—‘they will keep my laws’ – it does not say ‘they will be able to..’ and yet equally able not to if they decide to defect from justification. We do not become holy or sanctified by our habits or our doing or our obeying.
Sven: The Scriptures and the Confessions clearly attest that there are two workers, two operators, in sanctification: the Holy Spirit and the regenerate Christian. For this reason St. Paul says to the Church in Corinth (vi, 1): “We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain”
mark: If I insist that the word ‘sanctification” is not in the Bible texts cited, I will be dismissed as a biblicist, but I still think one of the first tasks is to define the words we are using. It is not helpful to agree that the Bible uses the word ‘saint” in one way, but then to continue to use the word in our own traditional way. Those who have become saints continue to be saints. We do not become saints by obeying the law. We do not continue to be saints by obeying the law.
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Hart—but that would mean that the 16th c. understanding of sanctification was inadequate and if that’s true my world collapses. Seriously, might we be better off returning to the theological modesty of the sixteenth c., which was not at all modest about alien righteousness of Christ?
mark—In order to keep your world intact, you are going to have to selectively quote the confession, cherry-pick I think you call it, ie, you are going to have to quote “the only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us” justification section but not come to terms with the Confession not getting the balance right on “sanctification”.
Crawford is correct. The Confession skips over what Hebrews 10 teaches about absolute (either-or) saints. (I am not talking about John Murray’s notion of a “definitive sanctification” which dismisses the “justified from sins” of Romans 6 for the sake of a resurrection power in our new disposition which keeps us from sinning too much). Sanctification by the blood means that “sanctification” does not increase or decrease. But the Westminster Confession does not agree with Hebrews 10 .
In the Larger Catechism of the Westminster Assembly the question is asked, “What is sanctification?” To which the following answer is returned: “Sanctification is a work of God’s grace, whereby, they whom God hath before the foundation of the world chosen to be holy, are in time through the powerful operation of His Spirit, applying the death and resurrection of Christ unto them, renewed in their whole man after the image of God; having the seeds of repentance unto life and all other saving graces, put into their hearts, and those graces so stirred up, increased, and strengthened, as that they MORE AND MORE die unto sin and rise unto newness of life.”
Romans 6 says “have died”. I peter 2 .24 says He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we having died to sin, live to righteousness
A W Pink—Now far be it from us to sit in judgment upon such an excellent and helpful production as this Catechism, which God has richly blessed to thousands of His people, or that we should make any harsh criticisms against men whose shoes we are certainly not worthy to unloose. Nevertheless, the best of men are but men at the best, and therefore we must call no man “Father.”
First, the definition or description of sanctification of the Westminster divines is altogether inadequate, for it entirely omits the most important aspect and fundamental element in the believer’s sanctification: it says nothing about our sanctification by Christ (Heb. 10:10; 13:12), but confines itself to the work of the Spirit, which is founded upon that of the Son.
This is truly a serious loss, and affords another illustration that God has not granted light on all His Word to any one man or body of men. A fuller and better answer to the question of, “What is sanctification?” would be, “Sanctification is, first, that act of God whereby He set the elect apart in Christ before the foundation of the world that they should be holy. Second, it is that perfect holiness which the Church has in Christ and that excellent purity which she has before God by virtue of Christ’s cleansing blood. Third, it is that work of God’s Spirit which, by His quickening operation, sets them apart from those who are dead in sins, conveying to them a holy life or nature, etc.”
Thus we cannot but regard this particular definition of the Larger Catechism as being defective, for it commences at the middle, instead of starting at the beginning. Instead of placing before the believer that complete and perfect sanctification which God has made Christ to be unto him, it occupies him with the incomplete and progressive work of the Spirit.
Instead of moving the Christian to look away from himself with all his sinful failures, unto Christ in whom he is “complete” (Col. 2:10), it encouraged him to look within, where he will often search in vain for the fine gold of the new creation amid all the dross and mire of the old creation. This is to leave him without the joyous assurance of knowing that he has been “perfected forever” by the one offering of Christ (Heb. 10:14).
Our second observation upon this definition is, that its wording is faulty and misleading. Let the young believer be credibly assured that he will “more and more die unto sin and rise unto newness of life,” and what will be the inevitable outcome? As he proceeds on his way, the Devil assaulting him more and more fiercely, the inward conflict between the flesh and the Spirit becoming more and more distressing, increasing light from God’s Word more and more exposing his sinful failures, until the cry is forced from him, “I am vile; 0 wretched man that I am,” what conclusion must he draw?
Why this: if the Catechism-definition be correct then I was sadly mistaken, I have never been sanctified at all. So far from the “more and more die unto sin” agreeing with his experience, he discovers that sin is more active within and that he is more alive to sin now, than he was ten years ago!
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Pink continued—That we may not be charged with partiality, we quote from the “Confession of Faith” adopted by the Baptist Association, which met in Philadelphia 1742, giving the first two sections of their brief chapter on sanctification: 1. “They who are united to Christ, effectually called, and regenerated, having a new heart and a new spirit in them through the virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection, are also (a) farther sanctified, really and personally, through the same virtue, (b) by His Word and Spirit dwelling in them; (c) the dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, (d) and the several lusts thereof more and more weakened and mortified, and they more and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to the practice of all true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. 2. This sanctification is throughout in the whole man, yet imperfect in this life; there abides still some remnants of corruption in every part, whence arises a continual and irreconcilable war.”—
This description of sanctification by the Baptists leaves something to be desired, for it makes no clear and direct statement upon the all-important and flawless holiness which every believer has in Christ, and that spotless and impeccable purity which is upon him by God’s imputation of the cleansing efficacy of His Son’s sacrifice.
In the second place, the words convey a misleading conception of the present condition of the Christian. To speak of “some remnants of corruption” still remaining in the believer, necessarily implies that by far the greater part of his original corruption has been removed, and that only a trifling portion of the same now remains. But something vastly different from that is what every true Christian discovers to his daily grief and humiliation.
All the Reformation “standards” (creeds, confessions, and catechisms) will be searched in vain for any clear statement upon the perfect holiness which the Church has in Christ or of God’s making Him to be sanctification unto His people. Most theological systems have taught that while justification is accomplished the moment the sinner truly believes in Christ, yet is his sanctification only then begun, and is a protracted process to be carried on throughout the remainder of this life by means of the Word and ordinances, seconded by the discipline of trial and affliction.
But if this be the case, then there must be a time in the history of every believer when he is “justified from all things” and yet unfit to appear in the presence of God. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves; and yet, according to the doctrine of “progressive sanctification,” until we can say it we are not meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.
Not only are those who have no complete sanctification unfit for eternal glory, but it would be daring presumption for them to boldly enter the Holiest now—the “new and living way” is not yet available for them, they cannot draw near “with a true heart in full assurance of faith.” What wonder, then, that those who believe this doctrine are plunged into perplexity, that such a cloud rests over their acceptance with God.
mark: What way too many Reformed (and baptist) people don’t get is that regeneration is not the only way to differentiate between those who are dead in sins and those who have been made alive in Christ. Before we get to a debate about what “union” means, and how did we get faith before “union” if “regeneration” is before faith, we should (I keep saying) go back to justification and sanctification by God’s legal imputation of Christ’s blood/righteousness.
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DGH- vinegary? After reading this blog for several months now, and having read Calvinism and being 2/3’s of the way through A Secular Faith, I would not use that adjective to describe you. If you are one of Machen’s warrior children, you are a distinctly happy warrior child. To bring forward our conversation about Enns from the other thread, he betrays a distinct bitterness, particularly in his polemics, that I find totally lacking in your writings.
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Since I was asked about Forde and his usefulness as a Lutheran theologian by Ian Clarey, I thought I should give my two cents. I am a big critic of Forde for his overly-existential, anti-Confessional, and exegetically weak theology. Traditional Lutheran dogmaticians have never defined sanctification as simply “getting used to justification.” We view sanctification and justification as connected acts, in that justification is both the cause and motivation for sanctification, but Forde’s approach is extremely reductionistic. I affirm all of my good friend Sven St. Claire’s comments regarding Forde and the “Radical Lutheran” school of thought. They are about as Lutheran as Barth is Reformed.
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Thank you Pastor Cooper for sharing your thoughts on Forde. From what I gather, yours is not an uncommon Lutheran concern. This also underscores my basic point, and the point that Dr. Jones makes. Rev. Tchividjian’s theology is largely indebted to Forde. Dr. Jones’ problems are not so much that Rev. Tchividjian has Lutheran tendencies when it comes to the law/gospel distinction, but that his theology is antinomian. If it is—which, incidentally is the point that Dr. Jones wants to have a public debate about—is it due to the influence of Forde? This is not about whether to be Reformed or Lutheran, but about whether Rev. Tchividjian’s theology has commonalities with the seventeenth century Antinomians. While it may be beneficial to read Luther and the Lutherans, as Dr. Hart is advising, it is not necessarily antinomian to do so. But that is beside the point.
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Keith, it’s complicated. O wretched man that I am. Not biblical? Should preachers aim for that? (Will they keep their job?) Don’t part of our ears itch with wanting to hear that we do something?
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mcmark, what can I say? Synods and councils err. But I’d need to see how the confession should be revised.
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Dan, don’t talk to my wife (who does love me but also sees all of me — yowza).
I can sort of understand Pete’s bitterness. I can’t understand his thinking that what he wrote would have no repercussions. Not smart.
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DGH,
“Chris, it’s one way of reading the Bible. It’s not confessional because if you have a confession you quote it. “Justification is an act of God’s free grace wherein he pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us by faith alone.”
~~~
That is true. I am obviously using Confession tongue and cheek. The point is that is an official summary of what they are trying to promote. And my point would be that the Gospel brings more than justification. WCF 13-15. It does “expect” (or produce) a response, just not one that merits anything from God.
It’s the problem with all movements that move outside of the Confession, if you will, or promotes just one part of it. Maybe I will start a movement reminding everyone of the chapter on Lawful Oaths and Vows or The State of Men after Death. That would be a real winner. Let me get my Twitter account up. I thought that was why we had denominations which confessed Confessions as a whole.
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dgh:
Sure they do. But itching ears also wish to be told that no one in the church is more holy than anyone else. Preaching “Everybody Sucks” is nearly as inoffensive of a message as “I’m OK, You’re OK.” In a way, “Celebratory Failurism” is nothing but a newfangled version of seeker sensitivism.
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Keith, or it could be that when the HC asks in 114 whether those converted to God can perfectly keep his commandments and answers in the negative saying that only the holiest men have but the smallest beginnings of obedience in this life, some are slower than others to imagine they are even in that holier class. Maybe it’s not so much a new-fangled celebratory failurism as it is old-fashioned humility.
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Zrim,
Your comment brings to mind one of my favorite passages of Chesterton’s Heretics:
There is nothing in the preaching that there are two kinds of people–those dead in sins and those alive in Christ–that undermines humility, but it is the active humility of those now seated with Christ in heavenly places.
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So I just listened to Pastor Cooper’s interaction with Jones’ book on Antinomianism (while working, Eric, thank you very much!).
It confirmed to me that *confessional* Lutherans and *confessional* Reformed are not far apart on sanctification at all (much less justification, contra some critics). It is the extremists on both sides that make us seem farther apart than we are — and people using these extremists as somehow representative of the whole tradition, rather than going to the Confessions. (On that issue, I know we still have serious differences on sacraments and apostasy, not to mention the RPW). Ad fontes.
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Keith, my point wasn’t that the preaching of the antithesis undermines humility. It’s that preaching “Everybody Sucks” may be the flip side of “I’m OK, You’re OK,” but “Everybody Sucks” isn’t the same as there is none righteous (no not one). And HC 114 seems like good tonic to pour on the “Some of Us Are More Sanctified Than Others” tendency that inevitably arises from the idea that sanctification is a cooperative project.
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Chris, if you start the movement on oaths and vows, be sure to let the Covenanters know.
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Keith, okay, you can still have Mothers’ Day.
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Keith, you seem to be saying two things: 1) preach the difference between those spiritually alive vs. dead; 2) some Christians are holier than others. Those are not the same thing and if confused, could be seriously damaging.
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Chris, I wish a few people would get as twisted up about worship and order as they are about the s-word. How ’bout a Worship Regulated Network?
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C-dubs, da ding. How does the one tradition with something like the RPW not have doxology as a fourth mark?
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DGH: “Keith, you seem to be saying two things: 1) preach the difference between those spiritually alive vs. dead; 2) some Christians are holier than others. Those are not the same thing and if confused, could be seriously damaging.”
That right there is a GREAT comment, and worth the price of admission. When admonishing our folks to greater personal holiness, we must NEVER allow the struggling Christian to doubt their justification, as if they don’t have enough good works to grant them assurance, cf. Romans 4:5, 8:1. Justifying faith is ALWAYS passive, receiving, resting, cf. WLC 72.
I need to develop and study this further, but I might even make the further contention that ALL the warning passages in the NT have to do with one has a heart of mercy towards fellow sinners or not; that’s it, not how many works one has, or how holy one has become.
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oops…. from above….. ALL the warning passages in the NT have to do with *whether* one has a heart of mercy towards fellow sinners or not;….
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Zrim: And HC 114 seems like good tonic to pour on the “Some of Us Are More Sanctified Than Others” tendency that inevitably arises from the idea that sanctification is a cooperative project.
The Westminster and the Heidelberg are not quite the same. And not even the “confessional Lutherans” are agreed on the nature of “sanctification”. David Scaer is confessional Lutheran— “Other Protestant denominations see sanctification, the working of the Holy Spirit in Christian lives, in synergistic terms, which means that a thing has two or more causes. Believers are required to play a part in developing their personal holiness by living lives disciplined by the Law. Christians can and must cooperate with God’s grace to increase the level of personal sanctification. Cooperation is a synonym of synergism, and also means two or more things or persons working together.
Scaer: “These confessions think that God alone justifies, but that sanctification is a combined divine-human activity, which even though God begins, each believer is obligated to complete. In this system, the Gospel, which alone creates faith, is replaced by the Law which instructs in moral requirements and warns against immorality. Justification by grace is seen as a past event and the present focus is on man cooperating with God to reach a complete sanctification.
Scaer: “Lutherans recognize that Christians as sinners are never immune to the Law’s moral demands and its threats against sin, but in the strictest sense these warnings do not belong to Christian sanctification, the life believers live in Christ and in which Christ lives in them.
http://www.soundwitness.org/living_faith/sanctification.htm
Chris, I think the only way the ‘confessional Reformed” can come close to agreeing with “confessional Lutherans” is if those who have subscribed to the WCF not talk about Christ having made atonement for the elect alone. To arrive at pan-confessional consensus, it will also be necessary for the Reformed to agree with (all) the Lutherans that there is a non-yet aspect to justification.
Hey, that’s what Gaffin says! We are already justified now by faith alone, but that only happens because God knows that God will enable us to do the works of faith necessary to continue to be justified.
p 73, Gaffin, By Faith Not by Sight—”Here is what may be fairly called a synergy but it is not a 50/50 undertaking .. Sanctification is 100% the work of God, and for that reason, is to engage the full 100% activity of the believer.”
Jonathan Edwards: What is REAL in the union between Christ and his people is the foundation of what is legal; that is, it is something that is REALLY IN THEM, and between them, uniting them, that is the ground of the suitableness of their being accounted as one by the Judge …We are really saved by perseverance…the perseverance which belongs to faith is one thing that is really a fundamental ground of the congruity that faith gives to salvation…For, though a sinner is justified in his first act of faith, yet even then, in that act of justification, God has respect to perseverance as being implied in the first act.”
Even the word “covenant” won’t make the word “election” disappear as it needs to in any coalition of confessional Reformed and confessional Lutheran. What about this—since you are a partner in the perseverance part of God’s preservation, then synergism is the only non-fatalistic approach to becoming “more sanctified”????
Since the Reformed confession teaches that we become “more sanctified” than we were (not ever less?), then it seems to logically follow that some of us are a bit “more sanctified” than others of us.
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Gaffin— It is not possible that any could be a brother to Jesus Christ and enjoy with Christ, the presence of God the Father except that one be fully conformed to the image of Christ in true and personal righteousness and holiness…. The imputation of the righteousness of Christ, which all Christians receive at justification…is not sufficient for that purpose. Christ does not have an imputed righteousness; His righteousness is real and personal.
This sounds like Mark Jones’ argument that, because Christ earned the righteousness which justifies “on conditions”, that therefore we ourselves should achieve “sanctification” on conditions.
Pink—Most theological systems have taught that while justification is accomplished the moment the sinner truly believes in Christ, yet is his sanctification only then begun, and is a protracted process to be carried on throughout the remainder of this life by means of the Word and ordinances, seconded by the discipline of trial and affliction.
Pink–But if this be the case, then there must be a time in the history of every believer when he is “justified from all things” and YET UNFIT TO APPEAR IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves; and yet, according to the doctrine of “progressive sanctification,” until we can say it we are not meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.
Pink–Not only are those who have no complete sanctification unfit for eternal glory, but it would be daring presumption for them to boldly enter the Holiest now—the “new and living way” is not yet available for them, they cannot draw near “with a true heart in full assurance of faith.” What wonder, then, that those who believe this doctrine are plunged into perplexity, that such a cloud rests over their acceptance with God.
The Christian life is not “Sanctification”
Petersen, Possessed by God, p 44 -In I Corinthians 1:30, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption describe the same reality,namely our status with God through Jesus Christ. It is sometimes argued that “sanctification” emphasizes the moral element. But the sanctification here is not a process of moral change. the context is about belonging to God and being given a holy status.”
The Christian life is not passive.
The Christian life is about obedience to Christ’s law, but you cannot obey Christ’s law until after you become a Saint
You are Either a Saint or Not Yet a Saint, and Being a Saint depends on if God has placed you into Christ’s Death or Not
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From Lutheran Pastor David Scaer:
As magnificently monergistic as our sanctification is, that is, God works in us to create and confirm faith and to do good to others, we Christians are plagued by sin. In actual practice our sanctification is only a weak reflection of Christ’s life. Good motives often turn into evil desires. Good works come to be valued as our own ethical accomplishments. Moral self-admiration and ethical self-absorption soon replace total reliance on God. The sanctified life constantly needs to be fully and only informed by Christ’s life and death or our personal holiness will soon deteriorate into a degenerate legalism and barren moralism. God allows us Christians to be plagued by sin and a sense of moral inadequacy to force us to see the impossibility of a self-generated holiness. Our only hope is to look to Christ in whom alone we have a perfect and complete sanctification. “He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).
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Hart’s always reminded me of the Malt Vinegar at Captain Hook’s Fish & Chips.
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Erik- emoticon
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The Lutheran confessions are clear that the believer does indeed cooperate in sanctification. If Scaer said that it’s a purely monergistic act, he is wrong. “As soon as the Holy Spirit has begun his work of rebirth and renewal in us through the Word and the holy sacraments, it is certain that on the basis of his power we can and should be cooperating with him, though still in great weakness.” SD II.65
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A not yet-aspect to “sanctification” (synergism required) correlates quite well with a not yet-aspect to justification.
http://justandsinner.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-review-of-baptized-body-by-peter.html
Jordan c—The second argument of Leithart is that the “body of Christ” is the body of Christ. In this chapter, Leithart proposes that the internal/external approach to the New Covenant and the visible/invisible church distinction are not valid Biblical categories. The phrase “body of Christ” is a reference to all who are in the corporate social community of the church. Thus, Leithart proposes that a better distinction would be between the historical and eschatological church. Though all in the visible community partake of Christ in some manner, not all of these people will share in the eschatological kingdom due to lack of faith.
Jordan c— “Leithart argues that apostasy happens. In contradiction to the commonly understood definition of the Perseverance of the Saints, Leithart argues that one can have a true relationship with Christ and subsequently be cut off. He convincingly demonstrates that typical Calvinistic interpretations of falling away passages are unconvincing… Being a Lutheran myself, I had minor disagreements with Leithart’s presentation; namely his insistence on double predestination and adoption of certain New Perspective on Paul views that I find unpersuasive.”
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There was a surprisingly good article on all this in Christianity Today:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/may-web-only/real-transformation-happens-when.html
It makes the point that we are mostly waiting for glory for real transformation, and would thus come closer to TT’s emphasis than that of the obedience side. But it says it better and more charitably than TT, without all the over-statement, self-justification and divisiveness.
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Gospel Reformation Network Affirmations and Denials
Article IV – Union with Christ and Sanctification
• We affirm that both justification and sanctification are distinct, necessary, inseparable and simultaneous graces of union with Christ though faith.
• We deny that sanctification flows DIRECTLY from justification, or that the transformative elements of salvation are MERE consequences of the forensic elements.
my questions
1. Who is the Gospel Reformation Network? Is it a conference of friends who think alike, or does it agree to certain confessions, and does it have ecclesiastical and sacramental authority?
2. Why is it a problem to deny that “sanctification” flows from justification, as long as “sanctification” result (flows)?
3. Is the problem that “justification” is defined, but that “sanctification” and “union” are not?
4. What does “sanctification” mean in Hebrews 10:10-14?
5. What does “union” mean? Is “union” non-forensic? Is “union” both forensic and non-forensic?
6. Once you have defined “union”, will you consistently use the word “union” in the way you defined it? Will you be thinking of “union” only as a result “flowing from” faith?
7. If “faith-union” is a result of faith, and if faith is a result of regeneration, where do faith and regeneration come from?
8. Is the problem with saying that “sanctification” results from “justification” the fact that we are either justified or we are not? Are we not also either “united to Christ” or not? (Please define “union”. Do you mean “in Christ”? Or do you mean “Christ in us”? Is there a difference in those two phrases? Why do you say “union” when you could be saying “in Christ” and “Christ in us”?)
9.When you deny that “sanctification” is a “mere consequence” of the forensic, did you mean to deny that “sanctification” is a consequence of the “merely forensic”? What do you have against “merely” or any “sola” which points to Christ’s earned outside righteousness imputed to the elect?
10. Is the point of the Gospel Reformation Network denial that “union” is not forensic or is the point that it is not “merely forensic”? Is this a question-begging point?
11. If “sanctification” is “more than” than a “mere consequence”, does that mean that “sanctification” is also more than a result of “union”, so that “sanctification” is in someway identical to “union”, or at least a necessary “condition” for “union”?
12. Does “union” flow from merely the transformative elements? If union is transformation, and union must come before justification, how is it that God is still justifying the ungodly?
13. If becoming children of God only means being born again so that we are freed from the power of corruption, what is the need for those who are no longer ungodly to be justified or adopted?
14. Is “union” a cause or a result of sacramental efficacy? It’s too late now to tell us that the order of application does not matter so much, since you insisted on denying that “justification” was a result of “sanctification”.
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Berkhof, p 452 “It is sometimes said that the merits of Christ cannot be imputed to us as long as we are not in Christ, since it is only on the basis of our oneness with Him that such an imputation could be reasonable. But this view fails to distinguish between our legal unity with Christ and our spiritual oneness with Him, and is a falsification of the fundamental element in the doctrine of redemption, namely, of the doctrine of justification. “
“Justification is always a declaration of God, not on the basis of an existing (or future) condition, but on that of a gracious imputation–a declaration which is not in harmony with the existing condition of the sinner. The judicial ground for all the grace which we receive lies in the fact that the righteousness of Christ is freely imputed to us.”
Romans 6: 8 Now if we have died WITH CHRIST, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death NO LONGER HAS dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves DEAD TO SIN and alive to God IN CHRIST JESUS.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, SINCE YOU ARE NOT UNDER LAW but under grace.
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Mark, the GRN is apparently a group of PCA types who are on the warpath against TT.
http://gospelreformation.net/who-we-are/members-and-contributors
I would gather that there sacramental authority would be limited to whether or not you would be allowed to break bread with them at their forthcoming conference in Houston.
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mcmark, wehhhhhllll, Berkhof is only — Berkhof.
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Dan, that may explain why Double T is aligning himself with TKNY. Keller is the third rail of the PCA/TGC.
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TK will hug TT, squint, purr, wax redemptive and all will be well.
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DGH, I am getting whiplash, but I can’t resist watching. Kind of like the NHL.
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Mark Galli—-after half a century of transformation, my thoughts and motives are a cauldron of evil. : When a friend fails to show up on time, I’m outwardly patient and kind, but inwardly I battle judgment and condemnation. Earlier in life, I would have lashed out at him for being tardy. Now I have some self-control as I smile and say, “Not a problem.”…. the more I get to know myself, the more I see layers and layers of mixed motives. I’m gracious in part because I have received grace. And in part because I don’t want to stir up an argument. And in part I need my friend to do me a favor. And in part, I’m fearful that if I don’t act graciously, God will not be pleased. And in part, I want people to think of me as gracious.
On it goes, one selfish motive after another, all mixed up together with the righteous motive. The outward behavior has certainly improved, but my heart is still desperately wicked and it remains a dark mystery to me (Jeremiah. 17:9).
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/may-web-only/real-transformation-happens-when.html?paging=off
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Dan, the GRN is made up of (mostly traditionalist) PCA men with moderate to big reputations but not much real power. If it’s a flanking move against the Kellerites it will fail. Keller (as DGH suggested) may rehabilitate TT and then he will be strictly hands-off. .
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Jordan Cooper says this: “If Scaer said that it’s a purely monergistic act, he is wrong.”
John Y: he did in fact say that in the last paragraph of this article- I should have reposted the link but McMark had already posted it in an earlier comment: http://www.soundwitness.org/living_faith/sanctification.htm
Is cooperate with mixed motives and remaining sin acceptable to a Holy God? If so, what makes it acceptable? How do we know how much cooperation is needed? Is cooperation a gift, like faith, or something we can generate ourselves? Why does God see fit to not eradicate our sin when he justifies us? How do you know there is synergy involved in sanctification?
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hey, john, i am asking the questions here! lol
i have been told that even asking such “how much” questions reveals that the question is already a lawless rebel. In other words, don’t ask, because those who know agree with each other.
since they think they evidence their justification by their “sanctification”, can we also evidence our “sanctification” by our knowledge and faith in “justification”? or can you be “sanctified” without being a Christian or knowing anything about Christ’s satisfaction of the law and justification?
When they claim that their “good works” are a secondary ground for assurance, is that like claiming circumcision as a secondary ground for assurance?
Is assurance that we believe the gospel necessary before knowing if our works are good or bad?
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John Y, an excerpt from another Scaer piece, this one longer and grounded in the Confessions:
Luther a t times hardly appears to be the sanctified saint, a t least not in a refined sense which some would like. His off-the- cuff remarks in his Table Talks are not infrequently outrage- ous. But if anyone feels like this, then the problem is not with the Reformer, but with his or her own views of sanctification, which here in America have been contaminated through exposure to the virus to Reformed and Arminian thought. Protestantism-and here reference is to Reformed and Arminian-unlike Lutheran theology does not see Christology and with it justification as not only the center but the substance and goal of theology. Protestantism sees sanctifica- tion or Christian living, if not as central, then at least as the goal of theology. Melvin E. Dieter, provost of Asbury Theolog- ical Seminary, said of Wesley that he “declared that the supreme and overruling purpose of God’s plan of salvation is to renew men’s and women’s hearts in his own image.”‘ For the Reformed the Arminian scheme is reversed so that the goal of theology is no longer the perfection of man but the glorification of God. Sanctification becomes the means through which the goal is reached. Anthony A. Hoekema, professor emeritus a t Calvin Theological Seminary, h a s said, “The final goal of sanctification can be nothing other than the glory of God.”” Defining sanctification a p a r t from Christology as goal and content will inevitably lead to a moralizing understanding of justification. As soon as sanctification becomes either the goal or the means to attain the goal, it can be qualitatively or quantitatively measured. This can be nothing other than the reintroduction of the doctrine of works which the Lutheran Confessions found so objectionable in their Roman Catholic opponents from the very beginning.
Click to access scaersanctification.pdf
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they tell us that covenant partners
must kill or be killed,
if i don’t kill my sins first, my sins will kill me
but if this is my hope
then I am cooked
live by the sword die by the sword
it’s not— kill or be killed
it’s–kill and then be killed
If and when you are dead in Christ, why do you then need to kill yourself?
Don’t we need to have God put us in Christ BEFORE we can mortify salvation conditioned on ourselves?
Don’t we need God to join us to Christ before we will ever mortify the flesh of self-righteousness?
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Thanks for bringing this guy to my attention. I’m going to check out some of his stuff
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Mark McCulley,
How many times do you have to be told that Lutherans (Fordeans) do not hold that our faith is imputed as righteousness? It is NOT our faith but the being and presence of Christ — His word and work that is imputed to us …imputation is NOT a legal pronouncement (as per penal substitution) but the effective forensic (to be sure) word that re-creates ex nihilo. Salvation or justification is simply the re-creativity of God out of nothing. Faith is not a mental assent or confidence that comes from us albeit as a divine gift but IS the union of the New Adam (the entire person) with Jesus Christ. Faith, IOW, is not an organ (instrumental) but the New Adam clinging to the Saviour
How does this relate to the atonement? Christus victor leitmotif. What took place at the Cross is “repeated” or recapitulated in, on and through us. Justification is not a courtroom scenario for Luther but CONFLICT with the devil (this is where Luther developed the patristic ransom theory which by the way is simply the doctrinal counterpart of the bondage of the will as the implication of the proclamation of the gospel), sin and death.
Precisely because Luther took total depravity seriously that he insisted that we crucified Our Saviour (deicide) as the ONLY way He could get THROUGH to us because if we had not been destroyed on the Cross and were just mere spectators (as in penal substitution) we would still be in our sins and the WRATH of God.
Substitution here is NOT instead of but in the place of. Christ comes to us and takes our place there and then and thus so He gives us His place in exchange — the joyous exchange so that HIS death is OUR death, HIS resurrection is OUR resurrection. (Penal substitution cannot claim continuity with the patristics, not at least as a consensus patrum).
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I gather there is lack of clarity and thought as well as expression on whether repentance is integral or part and parcel of the Gospel as per the Reformation21 website — not surprising since the confusion has always been embedded in Reformed theology. To be sure, as Mark Jones has pointed out, there was the intra-Lutheran debate between the Gnesios and the Philippists.
Is justification by faith ALONE?
If justification is by faith alone then repentance is excluded. Justification is not by faith and repentance or repentance alone.
Repentance is not of the essence of the gospel although the former overlaps with the latter as the law overlaps with the gospel.
The gospel creates or causes repentance not as a terror or threat but by its very unconditional nature … the unconditional forgiveness of sins …
Repentance either comes before or after but never “in” the Gospel … it either precedes the gospel or is a consequence of the gospel is never the gospel itself.
This means law is essential in the proclamation of the gospel as that which precedes the delivery or the giving of the forgiveness of sins …
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So faith is always extra nos both in the sense of coming from the outside and always remaining external to us …
Faith clings to Jesus Christ as He is present in the proclamation of word and sacraments. Faith is being baptized with water; hearing the words of absolution; eating the body and drinking the blood of Our Saviour …
Faith is not in propositions that is mental but in something tangible, that is material … just as we are created out of the goodness of God, thus so we are re-created out of the goodness of God … faith therefore is not the first step towards divinisation but is our very creatureliness or humanisation … as we descend into this world as creatures made for good work for the sake of our neighbor …
The antidote to the legalism of Puritanism is to make the distinction between justification and sanctification on the one hand and our vocation or calling in this world on the other world in the external world of the estates of life — in including the temporal nature of the church … progress in spiritual life if at all should be reserved for the left-hand kingdom … a very human progress on this side of the world … whilst the eschaton is already here in so far as the right-hand kingdom is concerned …
TT’s concern was not to denigrate, overlook, neglect, jettison, marginalise, sideline, etc. the precariousness of the Christian life but because of his concern to counter legalism in the Reformed churches (which legalism is also found in the Lutheran churches — conservative or liberal).
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Jason, TT is learning the effects of talking way too much and trying to (in the vernacular) keep it real.
A pity.
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Attended an LCMS “summer service” this morning in a nearby University town. 36 minutes compared to 90 minutes in our URC. Some family members liking that way too much.
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Jason Loh says this: Mark McCulley,
How many times do you have to be told that Lutherans (Fordeans) do not hold that our faith is imputed as righteousness? It is NOT our faith but the being and presence of Christ — His word and work that is imputed to us …imputation is NOT a legal pronouncement (as per penal substitution) but the effective forensic (to be sure) word that re-creates ex nihilo. Salvation or justification is simply the re-creativity of God out of nothing. Faith is not a mental assent or confidence that comes from us albeit as a divine gift but IS the union of the New Adam (the entire person) with Jesus Christ. Faith, IOW, is not an organ (instrumental) but the New Adam clinging to the Savior.
John Y: How is what you say here different than what Osiander or those who advocate what the New Finnish interpretors of Luther are saying? Does an ontological change occur in the person who gets imputed with this “being and presence of Christ, ie. “his word and work?” What exactly gets created out of nothing? If it is not merely legal what is it? Is there something more real than the legal? I cannot make any sense out of what you are saying. I find the categories that Lutherans use very confusing. Who is this new Adam that you talk of? You jump from legal to ontological and then back and forth again.
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And when does this imputation of the being and presence of Christ take place? During the regeneration of water baptism? Or, do you refrain from explaining to schmucks who do not have the proper credentials to get what you are saying? I have found that some Lutherans take on that attitude when dealing with others on the internet.
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Mark Galli on “protestants” use of the Christus victor theory:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/aprilweb-only/christusvicarious.html?paging=off
Scripture, even when it momentarily uses Christus Victor language, grounds it in substitution. For example, in the classic Christus Victor passage quoted above—”He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him”—note how Paul sets the context of that victory with substitution: “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (vv. 13-14).
Or note again what is said immediately after that passage quoted above —” … through death Christ would destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” A verse later we read: “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:14-17).
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John Y– I cannot make any sense out of what you are saying. I find the categories that Lutherans use very confusing. Who is this new Adam that you talk of? You jump from legal to ontological and then back and forth again.
You have studied this far more than I have, but it seems that the EO Magical Mystery Tour started by the Finns has taken over a lot of current Lutheran dialogue. I (all about) used to think that I had a fair handle on what I thought was classic Lutheran theology, which with its dependence on a robust belief in the efficacy of the Means of Grace, made a lot of sense on its own terms. Not that I agreed with it, but I thought I understood it. Now, I don’t, and I’m not sure Luther would, either.
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The Lutherans, the good ones, are our direct cousins (more so than baptists who dabble in reformed games) and we are just never going to agree on certain theological issues.
Through internet friendships I have come to embrace that both of our sides have views that are indefensible, but are not going to be changed by arguing, against the sharpest attacks of each side.
Peace and love, yo….
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Kent,
How can a view be indefensible? That is a copout. If a view is indefensible than any view is just as good as any other view.
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Maybe i could better define “indefensible” as seeing that the other view is perfectly justified through Scripture, and that mine is also, so we would be deadlocked on advancement.
I can recall 8 topics like this that my Pentecostal, Lutheran, Evangelical, and Baptist friends have a standstill with me, we agree to disagree and move on.
What we hear from the pulpit tends to seal in our minds what the absolute truth is. I’ve had to ditch “absolute truth” systems about 4 times in my life, none of them heretical or horrible.
I’m prepared to do it all over again with the current one if it has to happen.
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Dan,
It seems to me that the Lutherans have the same debates going on in their midst as the Reformed do. They just use differing defining categories to frame their debates. And a lot of their arguments are aimed at the caricatures they have of the Reformed, and vice versa. The only thing one can do, if you can keep the attention of those arguing, is to go through the long process of trying to come to terms with the terms each other uses and try to come to some kind of clarity. It can seem like you are repeating yourself over and over again. Some long standing and ingrained beliefs do not lose their grip on our minds that easily. And it is hard to see another point of view that does not cling to those long standing and ingrained beliefs that each other are fighting for and against. We have to believe that it can be done though. How else do you explain Paul’s life as written about in the Scriptures- or, Luther and Calvin’s too.
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One other thing Dan,
Horton addresses the issue of Osiander and the Finnish school of interpreting Luther quite convincingly in his book COVENANT AND SALVATION UNION WITH CHRIST. Carl Trueman also has made convincing arguments against the Finnish school. And likewise has the Barthian Bruce McCormack- and Horton is sympathetic towards his arguments. Of course, McMark has been making his arguments at oldlife for at least 3 or 4 years now.
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Something else that Jason Loh’s post made me think of- Gordon Clark, in his book, WHAT IS SAVING FAITH? addresses this commonly held belief that trusting in the person of Christ rather than what he and Paul and the New Testament writers taught about the Gospel is a needed element in saving faith. He gives examples of many Reformed theologians who held to this belief and taught it in their systematic theologies.
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John Y– thanks for the pointers. I think I have read something by Trueman on the subject somewhere along the way.
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Paragraph 31 of Article IV , Formula of Concord—We must begin by diligently condemning and rejecting this false Epicurean delusion that some dream up, that faith and the righteousness and salvation we have received CANNOT BE LOST through any arrogant and intentional sin or evil work but rather that when Christians follow evil lusts without any fear and shame, resist the Holy Spirit, and intentionally proceed to sin against their consciences, they nonetheless at the same time retain faith, God’s grace, righteousness, and salvation.
Melanchthon—“Peter teaches why people should do good works: namely, to confirm our calling, that is, that we may not fall away from our calling by lapsing again into sin. Do good works, he says, so that you may remain in your heavenly calling, so that you do not fall back into sin and lose the Spirit and his gifts, which you have received, not because of the works which follow from faith, but because of faith itself through Christ. These works are preserved through faith. However, faith does not remain in those who lead a sinful life, lose the Holy Spirit, and reject repentance.”
Leipzig Interim —“Just as the true knowledge must enlighten us, so it is certainly true that these virtues, faith, love, hope, and others, must be IN US and are necessary for salvation…Because the virtues and good works please God, as has been said, so they merit reward in this life, both spiritual and temporal, according to God’s plan, and more reward in eternal life on the basis of the divine promise.”
George Major. “Since no one was ever saved without good works, thus good works are necessary for salvation….“Thus by faith and the Holy Ghost we, indeed, BEGIN TO BE justified, sanctified, and saved, but we are not yet perfectly justified….
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Smith— Roman Catholics believe that salvation is by grace that is infused at baptism and must be maintained by faith, obedience, and sacramental participation in Christ. Roman Catholics conflate and confuse the grace that justifies and the grace that sanctifies. Lutherans believe salvation is by grace that puts a sinner right before God on the basis of Christ’s merits. Lutherans clearly distinguish justification and sanctification, some think to the denigration of sanctification… But R P contends that TT teaching on grace does not magnify but diminishes saving grace: “… it is precisely the grace of God that is being denigrated, since it is by God’s amazing grace that Christians are not only justified through faith alone but are born again and given the power of Christ to lead new lives.”
Smith—” Saving grace includes not just the grace of putting a sinner right with God but also an infusion of grace into the sinner. But when? If I understand Phillips, it is before and perhaps also after justifying faith. According to the Reformed ordo salutis the new birth (“are born again”) precedes faith and justification. But then there is the “power of Christ to lead new lives” which seems to refer to sanctification which in the Reformed ordo follows justification. We still are left with the question: (Is final acceptance) because of what Christ did for me outside of me? Or is it that plus what Christ does to me inside of me?
http://thechristiancurmudgeonmo.blogspot.com/2014/05/six-things-you-need-to-know-about-grace.html
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