Mark,
Your post greatly encouraged me because you finally seemed to understand the import of justification compared to sanctification (if we need make such comparisons). I thought you got it right when you wrote:
I am so thankful for my right standing with God because, after all, my sanctification is more imagined than real. But my justification is more real than imagined.
I know you don’t think quoting Machen solves much (even though whether quoting M’Cheyne resolves anything), but after your admission about the centrality of justification you might appreciate this by Machen:
Regeneration means a new life; but there is also a new relation in which the believer stands toward God. That new relation is instituted by “justification” − the act of God by which a sinner is pronounced righteous in His sight because of the atoning death of Christ. It is not necessary to ask whether justification comes before regeneration or vice versa; in reality they are two aspects of one salvation. And they both stand at the very beginning of the Christian life. The Christian has not merely the promise of a new life, but he has already a new life. And he has not merely the promise of being pronounced righteous in God’s sight (though the blessed pronouncement will be confirmed on the judgment day), but he is already pronounced righteous here and now. At the beginning of every Christian life there stands, not a process, but a definite act of God. (Christianity and Liberalism, 141)
You might also like the way that Machen describes “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6):
It is a significant thing that in that last “practical” section of Galatians Paul does not say that faith produces the life of love; he says that the Spirit of I God produces it. The Spirit, then, in that section is represented as doing exactly what in the pregnant words, “faith working through love,” is attributed to faith. The apparent contradiction simply leads to the true conception of faith. True faith does not do anything. When it is said to do something (for example, when we say that it can remove mountains), that is only by a very natural shortness of expression. Faith is the exact opposite of works; faith does not give, it receives. So when Paul says that we do something by faith, that is just another way of saying that of ourselves we do nothing; when it is said that faith works through love that means that through faith the necessary basis of all Christian work has been obtained in the removal of guilt and the birth of the new man, and that the Spirit of God has been received − the Spirit who works with and through the Christian man for holy living. The force which enters the Christian life through faith and works itself out through love is the power of the Spirit of God. (146-47)
This understanding of the Spirit, I’m sure you’ll agree, puts the idea of the imitation of Christ in a different perspective. And after reading Todd Pruitt’s post about Christlikeness, I must admit that I’m not sure I have understood your series of posts that recommend Christ as “the greatest Christian ever.” Todd, after all, thinks you’re merely talking about foot-washing (I wonder if Pastor Pruitt has dipped any feet in a basin lately), humility, and suffering. But as I read you, you are talking about Christ being sanctified by the Spirit the way we are, or his living by faith the way we do, or his being tempted by Satan being similar to the temptations that confront sinners who are not the Second Adam.
Maybe you and Todd could clear this confusion up by devoting a podcast to how Jesus would discuss the contemporary church scene with co-hosts like Carl and Aimee.
Old Life 
Mark Jones quoted two puritans: Robert Murray M’Cheyne – a particularly godly person – made the comment that sanctification is “the better half of salvation.” Rutherford asks the question, whether Christ should be more loved for justification or sanctification? Rutherford claimed to love Christ more for the latter, because “it is greater love in him to sanctify than to justify.”
MJ—“Rutherford asserts—Let a sinner, if possible, lie in hell for ever. If God makes him truly holy, and lets him stay there burning in love to God, rejoicing in the Holy Spirit, hanging on to Christ by faith and hope, then that is Heaven to that saint in the bottom of hell.”
There is good reason why the request for justification precedes that for sanctification in the model prayer: “Forgive us our debts.” Jesus had the tax-collector returning home joyful over justification. But some of the puritans are elder brothers, not only claiming to be willing to be damned for the glory of God in preference to being as “unsanctified” as other sinners (for which they give God thanks), but also waiting with suspicion to see what the tax collector ends up doing next week.
With its emphasis on degrees of sanctification, increases of sanctification, and assurance by sanctification Puritanism opened itself to serious errors, like making good works the “efficacy” of our salvation and one basis for assurance. Puritanism has a hard time finding itself in the Heidelberg Catechism’s conclusion that all “saints” have only a “very small beginning” of the new obedience.
http://www.meetthepuritans.com/2014/05/28/good-works-necessary-for-salvation/
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Machen—It is not necessary to ask whether justification comes before regeneration or vice versa; in reality they are two aspects of one salvation.
mark: Well yes, justification and sanctification are two aspects of one salvation. So also is our future glorification (freedom from the presence of sin and putting on immortality) one aspect of one salvation. But to say this does not answer either the priority or the order of application questions. If we are truly “federalists”, then legal imputation (of righteousness or guilt) comes before regeneration or corruption.
The imputation of Adam’s guilt to us is not based on anything that is in us, but is something legally applied to us by God from the outside and not based on any sinful thought or action on our part. Not all Reformed are agreed on this, but I would argue that “original sin” is defined confessionally in terms of legal representation. (even though there are many “ ontological realists” who are more in the tradition of Jonathan Edwards and Shedd)
This imputation from Adam to humans, is about God’s legal transfer of the guilt of Adam’s one action, his first sin. The guilt of Adam is “external” to Adam–it’s the value, the demerit of his action, as judged by God, and that guilt is transferred to every human (Christ, the God human, the second Adam, excepted). This guilt is not simply the liability or punishment for sin, but is the sin itself. Christ had to die because Christ bore the sins of the elect.
1. When Christ “bears sins” or is “made sin”, this does NOT mean that Christ himself ever became corrupt. Christ had no need of regeneration, which is why Romans 6 is not about regeneration, but about legal placing into the death of Christ.
2. The death of Christ was necessary legally—because the guilt of the elect was imputed by God to Christ, this guilt demanded his death, and his death demanded the remission of this guilt. Justice has been done, and those in Christ legally must in time come to have their guilt forgiven. This is historical good news !
3. The guilt of the elect imputed by God to Christ is not the same as the guilt of Adam imputed by God to all humans, but the nature of the imputation of guilt is the same in both cases. We must teach an external (judicial) imputation. The most basic solution to all our problems is not a regeneration of our insides (though that is necessary for other reasons, for example, so that we hear and believe the gospel), because the most basic problem we have is that apart from the the death of Christ, God counts everyone’s sins against them.
4. Emphasis on the external and forensic must have priority when we consider II Corinthians 5:21. “Become the righteousness of God in Christ” is about having an external righteousness imputed to us. Because that is so, the “made sin” of the first part of the verse must be seen as about external guilt being imputed to Christ.
In other words, if the first part (made sin) is about some “inner corruption”, then 1. that says that Christ needed to be born again. God forbid! but 2. it would say that our righteousness is something found in us, or something in our faith, or something in Christ indwelling us.. The gospel is first of all about LOOKING to Christ outside us..
This is not denying that regeneration is important, but it’s saying that the miracle of the new birth a result of God’s legal imputation. Romans 8: 3 For God HAS DONE what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
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The quote above by Rutherford is cringeworthy. I’m not quite sure how to think of it
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The Rutherford quote is indeed cringeworthy. It is very Edwards, Piper like in it’s flowery experiential “deep” sounding spiritual hedonism. No matter how good it sounds, it’s all wet. Give me a break! It is good and proper for the Christians desire to go to heaven, to focus primarily on eternal things. In neo-reformed circles one is often pounced on for declaring with joy their salvation and pleasure in grace & justification (which by the way is totally connected with union in Christ, I love the way it’s only when you talk about sanctification a lot that you “really get Union”), pounced on with phrases like this …..”Ya know let’s not forget (usually with a I’m more mature than thou tone) Christianity isn’t just about dying and going to heaven it’s about how you live and what you do and being the gospel here and now, don’t ya know.”” You see what is done there? In that context, Emphasis is often subtly put on what we do and one is thought to be less mature ( or Lutheran) if they put great stock and trade in eternal Salvation of the soul. Call me crazy, but what good is it if a man gains the world but……
Yeah, I get it, we are to grow in sanctification and good works, dying to self & living unto Christ. Amen!!! I agree!
But since when is it wrong to express the joy grace. What about death bed conversions? Do we sit around with the 50 minutes of breath that the person has left coming up with ideas on how they should start a missional soup kitchen saying ….”you know the important thing and I really want to emphasize this , hear me, now that you are saved focus on transforming the world here & now, living & being the gospel, I know you’re about ready to go and be with your Lord and Savior, God Almighty but I want you to keep your focus the many good works you can do here”” ? Of course not!
I understand it is a different story for those of us with a life to live here unto God’s glory, we will grow in grace and good works, but Biblically speaking I do not see a fundamental difference in the good and proper emphasis.
Of course for thinking this way I am an antinomian with a large hole in my holiness and no doubt many have just the program or right nuance on Union with Christ to get me back on track. Ya know , so my volume can go to level 11 Christianity just like theirs. 🙂
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…..the joy in grace?
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The simplest reason for desiring Heaven and ultimately the New Heaven and Earth is this sinful world really sucks. I hate sin, but I love it! I can’t get rid of it! It’s always around. If I’m not suffering from my own sins, I’m suffering from someone else’s! Wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death?
For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
(Hebrews 12:18-24 ESV)
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How do you and and a Reformed Baptist, Katy, reconcile your differences theologically?
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Katy,
That was so well put that if it were in my power to give out the OL comment of the day, I’d e-mail that blue ribbon and ship a nice cigar out to you post-haste.
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Jed,
Katy,
That was so well put that if it were in my power to give out the OL comment of the day, I’d e-mail that blue ribbon and ship a nice cigar out to you post-haste.
Ditto!
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Jed, thanks, but I’m in the throws of morning sickness, so I’d have to put that cigar in storage for later.
John, the mister is also Lutheran. We had to agree theologically before we married (and several times came close to breaking up before engagement). His parents and brother and sister-in-law are RB, though.
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Katy,
The reason I asked that is because I have been going through a post at Gene Veith’s site from 4 years ago and noticed that you mentioned that you married into a RB family. Actually none of my business but my curiosity got the best of me. There are some interesting comments at the post that I am trying to understand better:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2011/03/the-calvinist-case-against-lutheranism/
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