Many Christians struggle to integrate the demands of discipleship with the gift of God’s grace. Some tend to make their justification dependent upon their progress in sanctification. Others make their sanctification a superfluous response to their justification. The former leads us into a dead end of performance-driven Christianity dominated by fear and uncertainty. The latter persuades us of our free acceptance before God, but struggles to convince us that holiness is a necessary pursuit. Frequently, these two errors galvanize into theological factions, dig trenches, and exchange fire about “law” and “gospel.”
Do the demands of discipleship and the gifts of grace comport with one another? Are we left to negotiate an uneasy truce between justification and sanctification, or does a more satisfying paradigm exist?
John Calvin, the sixteenth century Genevan reformer, provides an elegant solution to this diIemma. For Calvin, justification and sanctification are distinct, but inseparable benefits that belong to all who are united to Jesus. They hold together, not because one necessarily causes or motivates the other, but because the benefits cohere in a person, namely Jesus Christ.
In the third book of his Institutes, Calvin explores the question, “How do we receive those benefits which the Father
English: John Calvin Deutsch: Maße: 10,9 x 7,8 cm, Johannes Calvin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
bestowed on his only-begotten Son – not for Christ’s own private use, but that he might enrich poor and needy men?” (Institutes, 3.1.1)
He promptly answers:
First, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us. Therefore, to share with us what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and to dwell within us. For this reason, he is called “our Head” (Eph. 4.15), and “the first-born among many brethren” (Rom. 8.29). We also, in turn, are said to be “engrafted into him” (Rom. 11.17), and to “put on Christ” (Gal. 3.27); for, as I have said, all that he possesses is nothing to us until we grow into one body with him (Institutes, 3.1.1).
A few paragraphs later, Calvin elaborates:
We know, moreover, that he benefits only those whose “Head” he is (Eph. 4.15), for whom he is “the first-born among brethren” (Rom. 8.29), and who, finally, “have put on him” (Gal. 3.27). This union alone ensures that, as far as we are concerned, he has not unprofitably come with the name of Savior. The same purpose is served by that sacred wedlock through which we are made flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone (Eph. 5.30), and thus one with him. But he unites himself to us by the Spirit alone. By the grace and power of the same Spirit we are made his members, to keep us under himself and in turn to possess him (Institutes, 3.1.3).
For Calvin, salvation flows from our union with the living and exalted Jesus. Unless he dwells in us, and we in him, his death, resurrection, and exaltation are of no value to us. In other words, the Spirit unites us to Jesus, our Benefactor, who bestows on us the benefits won through his accomplishment.
Calvin applies these biblical and theological insights to the relation of justification and sanctification:
Although we may distinguish them, Christ contains both of them inseparably in himself. Do you wish, then, to attain righteousness in Christ? You must first possess Christ; but you cannot possess him without being made partaker in his sanctification, because he cannot be divided into pieces (1 Cor. 1:13). Since, therefore, it is solely by expending himself that the Lord gives us these benefits to enjoy, he bestows both of them at the same time, the one never without the other. Thus it is clear how true it is that we are justified not without works yet not through works, since in our sharing in Christ, which justifies us, sanctification is just as much included as righteousness (Institutes, 3.16.1).
Our justification and our sanctification are inseparable because Jesus “contains both of them.” They are gifts of grace that we receive because we are one with Christ. To separate these things is to tear Jesus into pieces. In other words, there is no salvation without justification, and there is no salvation without sanctification because Jesus – salvation’s source – gives both to those who are in Him. As we dwell in Christ, and he dwells in us, we are forgiven and free. Consequently, our new obedience to God is of grace just as much as our pardon. It is grace all the way.
Obviously, Calvin did not hesitate to attribute both legal and relational, or forensic and ontological, realities to our union with Christ. Jesus both imputes and imparts grace when he incorporates us into himself through the Spirit. These benefits belong to us because we are members of the Beloved, Jesus Christ.
Given the current ethos within evangelicalism, these observations invite one significant conclusion: grace changes everything, not simply because it gives us news of our forgiveness, but because it engrafts us into our living Head, Jesus Christ. In Christ, we get everything: he is our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption (1 Cor. 1.30). We possess the benefits of salvation only because we possess the Benefactor, Jesus Christ.
Most evangelical discussions about the benefits of salvation have been indebted to William Perkin’s metaphor of a “golden chain”, derived from Romans 8.28-30. In this paradigm, each of salvation’s benefits, like regeneration, justification, sanctification, adoption, and glorification, are seen as discrete links within a chain of cause and effect. While no agreement exists as to the ordering of the links, the chain model casts a long shadow on the entire theological discourse.
As Sinclair Ferguson points out, Perkin’s model possesses a certain “pastoral brilliance.” However, the metaphor also unwittingly obscures the relation of salvation’s benefits to Jesus Christ (The Holy Spirit, 98). By focusing on “the cause-and-effect sequence” of the benefits, we displace Jesus from his central place within salvation (99). Inevitably, certain benefits receive priority, leading to endless speculation about the causal relationship between the links of the chain.
This dynamic is especially apparent in recent Reformed discussions about justification’s role in motivating sanctification. In this system, the good news of our justification fuels our sanctification by bringing us back, over and over, to our undeserved acceptance before God through Christ. Liberated from the prison of attempting to gain God’s approval, we are set free to serve God because we have his approval already in Christ. Our pursuit of holiness derives its energy from this undeserved gift. Therefore, justification and sanctification are distinct, but yet indivisible. Sanctification is the fruit and consequence of justification while justification is the root and stimulant of sanctification. Here, the shadow of the chain model is readily discernible.
While God’s justification of the ungodly certainly compels our obedience (2 Cor. 5. 14-15), this paradigm obscures the relationship between our sanctification and the living Jesus. By prioritizing justification in the cause-and-effect chain and making sanctification a secondary link contingent upon justification, three things subtly happen: (1) grace becomes synonymous with justification, not all the benefits we receive in union with the resurrected Christ, (2) grace becomes a motivational resource that encourages sanctification, not the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit that enables it, and (3) sanctification looses its radically Christo-centric orientation, becoming a step in a formula distantly related to Christ. This unnecessarily shackles God’s grace to forensic categories, and fails to capture all that Jesus shares with his members (Rom. 6.1-14; 7.4-6; 8.9-14; 1 Cor. 1.30; Eph. 2.1-10; 4.17-25; Col. 2.9-19; 3.1-11; also see Westminster Larger Catechism Q. 66-69). Or, to put it another way, this pastoral practice unwittingly reduces the menu of salvation’s indicatives to justification, forcing a diet that the New Testament does not restrict us too. For example, consider these indicatives that also inform the Christian life: Rom. 6.6-7; 8.9; 1 Cor. 6.19-20; Gal. 5.25; Col. 2.11-13; 3.3. These verses in no way limit the indicatives of salvation to justification.
By orienting salvation’s benefits directly to the living Christ, not within a logical sequence of cause-and-effect, we avoid displacing Jesus from his central role within salvation. Following Calvin, Ferguson writes, “[T]he blessings of redemption ought not to be viewed as merely having Christ as their ultimate causal source but as being ours only by direct participation in Christ, in union with him through the Spirit” (102). In other words, grace is not a gift received in justification that trickles down creating the remainder of salvation’s benefits. Rather, one with Jesus through the Spirit, God’s grace floods our lives, granting us all of salvation’s benefits – justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. All that we have, and all that we are, belongs to us in union and communion with Christ.
As branches in the Vine (Jn. 15.5), we are incorporated into Jesus, and thus experience salvation’s benefits as his members. Like Calvin, let’s keep Jesus central to salvation’s benefits, exalting him as the fountain of all that we are before God. And, as flesh of our bridegroom’s flesh and bone of his bone, may we rejoice in all that he imputes and imparts to us, his beloved.
Chuck Colson is the rector of the Church of the Ascension, a congregation of PEARUSA, in Arlington, VA.
This is a simply excellent summary of the double-gift in Calvin. Have you read J. Todd Billings on this? He’s the one the introduced me to the language of the duplex-gratia even though I’d been aware of the importance of union with Christ for keeping all of salvation together.
Thanks for the kind words, Derek. Unfortunately, I’ve not had opportunity to read Billings yet. However, I was introduced to Calvin’s thought on union with Jesus and the duplex gratia through theologians out of Westminster-Philly, namely Dick Gaffin, Sinclair Fergueson, and a few others.
I find Calvin’s theology here incredibly insightful, deserving of thoughtful reflection (even if you are not a so-called ‘Calvinist’). I think it would re-work some of our pastoral rhetoric and practice that has grown a bit tired and sloppy.
That’s an interesting piece. It seems then, according to Calvin, that sanctification is a necessary condition for justification, not in a chronological sense, but in a logical sense, just as being female is a necessary condition for being a sister.
In that case, it’s not clear how deeply different Calvin’ perspective from Thomas Aquinas’ distinction between operating and cooperating grace. See, for example, my recent article in The Evangelical Quarterly, “Doting Thomists: Evangelicals, Aquinas, and Justification”: https://bearspace.baylor.edu/Francis_Beckwith/www/Sites/Doting.pdf
Thanks, Frank. I’ll need to spend some more time with the essay in the EQ to weigh the similarities / differences between Calvin and Aquinas. Sorry, Thomistic categories are not my native tongue.
It is important to note that Calvin holds sanctification and justification together through his doctrine of union with Christ. Significantly, the “necessary condition” for either justification or sanctification is our union with the living Jesus, not primarily one of the other benefits.
Therefore, to say that “sanctification is a necessary condition for justification” as “being female is a necessary condition for being a sister” seems to miss Calvin’s genius. To be a sister you must be a female, but to be a female you need not be a sister. For Calvin to approve this logic, both sides of the analogy must work. The justified are being sanctified, and those being sanctified are justified because they share in Jesus – the giver of all salvation’s benefits.
Chuck, thanks for this post! Part of the struggle with the Law/Gospel distinction is that the Gospel is reduced merely to justification (as you suggested above). Although I laud the insistence of the thoroughgoing graciousness of grace, this insistence often unwittingly leaves us with an anemic view of the Christian life and how obedience takes shape. If the gospel is merely justification, then you cut off your nose to spite your face, leaving no sense of how grace is operative even in our obedience. But when Sanctification and Justification are as Derek suggested the “double-gift” emerging from our union with Christ, then we find a solid ground upon which to build a life of obedience than doesn’t diminish the grace of God, but is rather a participation in the grace of God by virtue of our participation in Christ.
Samuel,
I think you are exactly right about the reductionism at work in the law / gospel camps. Ironically, these quarters frequently claim that the church has forgotten grace, and decry all talk of sanctification as some form of self-help Pharisaism. Here, the problem is not an over-emphasis on grace, but rather an under-realized doctrine of grace. Any doctrine of grace that cannot account for the newly created life we have in the Spirit of God comes up short of the NT’s way of speaking about grace. Grace is big, and we need to be cautious around anyone who sequesters it to forgiveness alone.
And in this regard the proponents of grace merely as justification alone end up in a tragically impossible situation, where all works are flattened out to “works righteousness” because they are all works done apart from grace, so narrowly defined. But in Calvin’s scheme the Christian doesn’t do any of his works apart from grace because he doesn’t do any of his works apart from Christ, in whom his life is hidden.
Please see the very important article by John Murray:
http://www.the-highway.com/definitive-sanctification_Murray.html
1 Cor. 6:11, Heb. 10:10, 14, et. al.
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