REFORMED WITNESS
February 1991
Of Sanctification
by Herman Hoeksema
From Reformed Dogmatics, pp. 520-522See more articles by this author
Also in this issue: "...Go and Sin No More"- by Prof. David J. Engelsma
Sanctification is that act of God whereby He delivers the justified and regenerated sinner from the defilement and dominion of sin as a spiritual, ethical power, renews him according to the image of Christ, and enables him to walk in all good works, which God has prepared for him.
Sanctification is inseparably connected with justification. Although these two must certainly be distinguished, they can never be separated. The distinction is indeed very necessary. The separation is very precarious for faith and life. Justification is a forensic idea, and consists in a judicial act of God which is realized objectively in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, by which the elect are righteous before God through faith. Sanctification, however, is a spiritual, ethical act, also proceeding from sovereign grace, operating within us out of Christ, Who not only is raised from the dead, but Who also is at the right hand of God, and Who also has received the Spirit and has become the quickening Spirit and through that Spirit has returned to His own, to abide in them forever. Justification is the ground for sanctification. For by nature we not only lie in the midst of death, but we are also legally bound in the power of sin and corruption. We have no right to be delivered from the power of sin. The judicial ground for such deliverance must first of all be established in the death and perfect obedience of Christ. And only on the basis of that judicial ground can the Spirit of Christ deliver us from the law of sin and death. It is of the greatest significance that this order be not reversed, or that justification be not replaced by sanctification. We are not justified because we are holy, but we are sanctified because we are justified. Besides, justification is not a process, but a complete act of God, a perfect change of our state. Sanctification, however, although it is complete in Christ and is also given us in principle in regeneration, yet does not dominate the believer completely in this present life. It follows a process, a continued mortification of the old man and quickening of the new.
...Thus, then, God works continuously in us to will and to do of His good pleasure. He regenerates us not only in principle, but He sanctifies us through the Spirit of Christ continuously. But nevertheless, that work of God in us is of such a nature that we now consciously and willingly bear fruit unto righteousness. It is not thus, that God works our sanctification, and that we work also, and that these two aspects of the work of salvation stand independently from each other or must be conceived as an irreconcilable contradiction. Nor is it thus, that God must do it, and that we are being dragged along as stocks and blocks on the way of sanctification, as is the presentation of the antinomians. Still less is the relation between the work of God and our work such, that we must work, and that if we work, God will help us, as is the view of the Pelagians. All these wrong conceptions are repudiated by Scripture. But the relation is always thus, that we work out of the power of the work of God in us. God is first, and we follow. God is the Fountain out of which we live. God works our salvation to will and to do of His good pleasure; and we work out our own salvation as the fruit of the work of God. God is the Light; we are always the light-bearers. God energizes us through Christ, and we manifest His energy as rational, moral creatures. He gives, preserves, and strengthens our life; and we live. He works and continues to work in us the true faith; and we believe. He works in us continued conversion; and we turn. He gives us and preserves in us the love of God; and we taste His love and love Him. He works within us the sorrow after God, and we call upon Him in penitence for the forgiveness of sins. He gives us true humility, and we walk in meekness of heart and life. He enlightens us, and we know. He leads us by His Spirit, and we walk. He makes us hungry and thirsty for the bread and water of life, and we hunger and thirst after righteousness. He calls efficaciously, and we come. He gives us the power to persevere, and we persevere. The power and the operation of the power, faith and believing, love and loving, hope and hoping, the eye and the seeing, the ear and the hearing, the understanding and the knowledge, the will and the willing, the power to fight and the fighting, and all this in connection with gift and talent, with means, circumstances, and time -- it is all from God alone. He sanctifies us, and we walk in sanctification. But exactly because of this arises the possibility and the high calling of the people of God to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling, because all this does not violate the moral, rational nature of the sanctified people of God, but preserves it. We must not say therefore: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, but God must do it. Still less must we say: Work out your own salvation, then God will do it. But according to Philippians 2:12, 13: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for God works in you to will and to do of his good pleasure." Of Him, and through Him, and unto Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever.
Sanctification is a constant, progressive renewing of the whole man, whereby the new creature doth daily more and more die unto sin and live unto God. Regeneration is the birth, sanctification is the growth of this babe of grace. In regeneration, the sun of holiness rises; in sanctification it keepeth its course, and shineth brighter and brighter unto the perfect day (Prov. 4:18). The former is a specifical change from nature to grace (Eph. 5:8); the latter is a gradual change from one degree of grace to another (Psa. 84:7), whereby the Christian goeth from strength to strength till he appear before God in Zion.
Geo. Swinnock, 1660
In the sanctification of believers the Holy Spirit doth work in them, in their whole souls -- their minds, wills, and affections -- a gracious, supernatural habit, principle, and disposition of living unto God, wherein the substance or essence, the life and being, of holiness doth consist
John Owen
Holiness is a constellation of graces. - Thomas Boston
Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy.
This Scripture plan consists chiefly in these two things -- the first, that a love of righteousness, to which we have otherwise no natural inclination, be instilled and introduced into our hearts; the second, that a rule be prescribed to us, to prevent our taking any devious steps in the race of righteousness. Now in the recommendation of righteousness, it uses a great number of very excellent arguments.
With what better foundation can it begin than when it admonishes us that we ought to be holy because our God is holy? For when we were dispersed like scattered sheep, and lost in the labyrinth of the world, he gathered us together again, that he might associate us to himself. When we hear any mention of our union with God, we should remember that holiness must be the bond of it; not that we attain communion with him by the merit of holiness (since it is rather necessary for us, in the first place, to adhere to him in order that, being endued with his holiness, we may follow whither he calls), but because it is a peculiar property of his glory not to have any intercourse with iniquity and uncleanness. Wherefore also it teaches, that this is the end of our vocation, which it is requisite for us always to keep in view, if we desire to correspond to the design of God in calling us. For to what purpose was it that we were delivered from the iniquity and pollution of the world, in which we had been immersed, if we permit ourselves to wallow in them as long as we live?
John Calvin, Institutes, III, vi, ii
To be sanctified is just as requisite as to be justified. He that thinks to come to enjoyment of God without holiness, makes Him an unholy God, and puts the highest indignity imaginable upon Him. There is no other alternative: We must either leave our sins, or our God. We may as easily reconcile Heaven and Hell, as easily take away all difference between light and darkness, good and evil, as procure acceptance for unholy persons with God. While it be true that our interest in God is not built upon our holiness, it is equally true that we have none without it. Many have greatly erred in concluding that, because piety and obedience are not meritorious, they can get to heaven without them. The free grace of God towards sinners by Jesus Christ by no means renders holiness needless and useless. Christ is not the minister of sin, but the Maintainer of God's glory. He has not purchased for His people security in sin, but salvation from sin.
Arthur W. Pink
But I suppose it needs no great confirmation unto any who know what it is to serve and obey God in temptations, that the life of faith and race of holiness will not be persevered in without a severe striving, labouring, contending, with diligence and persistence; so that I shall take it as a principle (notionally at last) agreed upon by the generality of Christians. If we like not to be holy on these terms, we must let it alone, for on any other we shall never be so. If we faint in this course, if we give it over, if we think what we aim at herein, not to be worth the obtaining or persevering by such a severe contention all our days, we must be content to be without it. Nothing doth so promote the interest of Hell and destruction in the world, as a presumption that a lazy slothful performance of some duties and an abstinence from some sins, is that which God will accept of as our obedience. Crucifying of sin, mortifying our inordinate affections, contesting against the whole interest of the flesh, Satan, and the world, and that in inward actings of grace, and all instances of outward duties, and that always while we live in this world, are required of us hereunto.
John Owen, 1660
"...Go, and Sin No More"
by Prof. David J. Engelsma
From The Standard Bearer, Volume 64, pp. 270-272See more articles by this author
In Jesus' Word to the woman taken in adultery are perfectly set forth the salvation-realities of justification and sanctification; their relationship; and their difference. "Neither do I condemn thee" -- this is justification; "go, and sin no more" -- this is
sanctification. The former is the Lord's Word that frees from the deserved punishment of sin; the latter is, His Word that liberates from the enslaving power of sin. The Word of pardon is first; the Word of purifying follows. But never has the Savior spoken the Word of forgiveness to a sinner without adding, immediately, the
Word of holiness. Declared to be uncondemned, the woman goes from Jesus in peace; commanded no more to sin, she goes in the power of a holy life.Together, justification and sanctification make up the one, great work of the salvation of the elect sinner from his sin. Justification rescues from sin as guilt; sanctification delivers from sin as power. Both are mighty acts of Jesus by His Holy Spirit...
Just as these two great saving works of Christ must be carefully distinguished, so must their relationship be noted with exactness. Sanctification invariably accompanies justification. The woman taken in adultery is not an exception, but the rule to which there is no exception. Whom the Savior forgives, He also makes holy. Whenever He says, "I do not condemn thee," He always adds, "go, and sin no more"; and He does so at once. The unholy church member is only deceiving himself, if he supposes that the Word of justification has come to him. The sinner who goes out from the preaching of the gospel of the forgiveness of sins by the sheer mercy of the Great King only to seize his brother by the throat on the church parking lot, demanding, "Pay me that thou owest," shows by that unholiness that he never was forgiven (Matt. 18:21ff.). The man professing to have faith who does not clothe the naked, and feed the hungry brother or sister, not only exposes himself as unholy, but also as lacking justification, his faith being a dead faith (James 2:14ff.). Salvation from sin for every sinner is one complete washing; concerning all living members of the congregation, therefore, the apostle is confident that "ye are sanctified, ...ye are justified" (I Cor. 6:11).
The teaching that one can have pardon without purification, or, as some put it, that one can have Jesus as Savior without having Him as Lord, is false doctrine. It puts asunder what God has joined together: divides Christ; cheapens salvation; and sends sinners down the broad way that leads to destruction, assuring them all the while that they are bound for heaven. Nevertheless, this teaching is one of the most pervasive and pernicious errors in Protestantism today. It appears wherever churches offer the grace of forgiveness, while denying the necessity of the forgiven sinner's walking henceforth on the narrow way of obedience to God's Law. The heresy is boldly and shamelessly defended when, in response to the objection of some who still have some concern for holiness, that the church is tolerating public transgression of God's law among her membership, the church exclaims, "But we proclaim the Word of grace here." What is the church really saying? "It is possible, indeed by this time it is the rule, to enjoy forgiveness without holiness; you can have Jesus as Savior without having Him as Lord." To many adulteresses and adulterers, the churches are saying, in our time, "Neither do we condemn you: go." Nothing more. Indeed, by virtue of the fact that they say nothing more, they are saying, go, and keep right on sinning your sin of adultery."
The Reformed faith abhors and denounces this blasphemy of the Savior, as The Scotch Confession of Faith (A.D. 1560) expresses:
For this wee maist boldelie affirme, that blasphemy it is to say, that Christ abydes in the heartes of sik, as in whome there is no spirite of sanctification. And therefore we feir not to affirme, that murtherers, oppressers, cruell persecuters, adulterers, huremongers, filthy persons, idolaters, drunkards, thieves, and al workers of iniquite, have nether trew faith, nether ony portion of the Spirit of the Lord JESUS, so long as obstinatlie they continew in their wickednes. For how soone that ever the Spirit of the Lord JESUS, quhilk (which) Gods elect children receive be trew faith, taks possession in the heart of ony man, so soone dois he regenerate and renew the same man. (Art. XIII)
Concerning "justifying faith," the Belgic Confession states that "it is impossible that this holy faith can be unfruitful in man," i.e., that it should not "excite man to the practice of those works, which God has commanded in His Word" (Art. XXIV). Francis Turretin is typical of all Reformed theologians, regarding the relationship of justification and sanctification, when he says,
Although we may be of opinion that these two benefits must be distinguished and never confused, yet they are connected by the ordinance of God and the nature of the thing, so that they are never to be torn asunder (cf. H. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 1950, p. 566).
Sanctification follows justification (I refer to Christ's work as the believer experiences it). "Go, and sin no more" is based squarely upon the preceding "neither do I condemn thee." There is no fear, therefore, in the woman's heart, as she obeys the command to resist sin, that her pardon is conditioned by her obedience. Nor is her motive in not sinning a slave's dread of punishment, which would spoil all her apparent good works. But she goes from Jesus as one freely, graciously, and unconditionally forgiven and, therefore, as one who out of thankfulness will obey His lordly command to sin no more. She cannot but practice good works in the love that she has for the Judge Who has not condemned her.
This practice of good works is the goal of justification. Sanctification does not merely follow justification, as "b" follows "a"; but it is the end, or goal, at which justification aims. Sanctification, therefore, may not be disparaged in comparison with justification, whether in the church's preaching or in the thinking of believers. Ultimately, this is because the purpose of the Savior with His saving work is not simply the peace of the elect sinner, but the glory of God in him. "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples" (John 15:8).
Holiness is the visible side of salvation. - C.H. Spurgeon
There is no imagination wherewith man is besotted, more foolish, none so pernicious, as this -- that persons not purified, not sanctified, not made holy in their life, should afterwards be taken into that state of blessedness which consists in the enjoyment of God. Neither can such persons enjoy God, nor would God be a reward to them. Holiness indeed is perfected in heaven: but the beginning of it is invariably confined to this world.
John Owen
Among the rest of that kind, it shines like the moon among the lesser stars -- as the very chief subordinate end of the Covenant of Grace, standing therein next to the glory of God, which is the chief and ultimate end thereof. The promise of preservation, of the Spirit, of quickening the dead soul, of faith, of justification, of reconciliation, of adoption, and of the enjoyment of God as our God, do tend unto it as their common centre, and stand related to it as means to their end. They are all accomplished to sinners on design to make them holy.
Thomas Boston
The secret of Christian holiness is heart occupation with Christ himself.
H.A. Ironside
A holy person looks upon his sins as the crucifiers of his Saviour. - Thomas Brooks
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