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THE DYNAMICS OF GRACE,
Part 4
The Justification – Sanctification Connection(Why Justification is the Foundation of Sanctification) by Jay Wegter INTRODUCTION – Justification
defines our relationship with God.
Justification involves the application of the benefits of Christ’s life,
death and resurrection to the believer (Rom. 5:8-11). By Christ’s work, we are brought into relationship with God.
Justification becomes the basis for our adoption, acceptance, favor and
sonship. Justification
is forensic in nature and relational in its result.
Justification removes every barrier to eternal fellowship with God. As our Substitute, Christ took upon Himself
all of the dis-relatedness, the enmity and the alienation caused by our
sin. He became our curse and our
guilt. He willingly assumed the
temporal and eternal consequences of our iniquity. Here is the
great scandal of the cross. It
frustrates natural human reason to think
that by God’s own hand the Son of God should be bruised, crushed,
tormented and excommunicated. The most
righteous man that ever lived was by God’s own plan, crucified by evil rebels
and hateful cowards. Christ was brought
to abject weakness, agony and shame. He
was forsaken to die in ignominy and abandonment.
The cross, the
greatest breach in human justice in history, became the greatest satisfaction
of divine justice in time and eternity.
Christ became
our dereliction of fear. He became our
separation, our dereliction and our dis-relatedness. The dis-relatedness of non-being (the exp. of being cut off from
God) fell full strength upon His Person.
On Calvary He experienced the loss of all well being -- He became the
embodiment of man in hell. As our suffering
Substitute, He removed the barriers
to fellowship with God. And as our
Substitute, He established the
foundations of perfect fellowship with God.
Christ not
only became a curse for us, He also is the believer’s right-relatedness to the Godhead. His perfect
obedience to God, His perfect love to God, His perfect relatedness to the
trinity is OURS BY IMPUTATION! Christ is not
only the revelation of God, He is our RIGHT-STANDING with God. He is meeting place, altar, covenant,
eligibility, access and living way (Heb. 13:15; Is. 42:6; 49:8; Phil. 3:9; Eph.
3:12; Heb. 10;20). He is our
eligibility for an unbroken flow of divine love and blessing. In removing the barriers of dis-relatedness,
He spanned the infinite moral gulf between God and man. Justification is an infinitely gracious
exchange. He gives us His own right
relatedness to the Father. He takes
upon Himself our wretched dis-relatedness. The right
standing we now have in Him is only by union with Him. He is the sole source of our favor,
acceptance and sonship. By God’s grace,
we have His moral perfection by imputation
and by union with Him.
In justification, there is a
radical dealing with everything that produces dis-relatedness. Justification is relational grace. It is the
ground of our reconciliation. It is the
basis for perfect fellowship, for belonging, for oneness, for immutable
love. It is by abiding in this divine
love that we are transformed (1 Jn. 4:16-18).
As we “preach the gospel to
ourselves every,” we are enabled to surrender to God in obedience and
adoration. “Gospel reasoning” enables us to take delight in God and to abandon
ourselves to Him (Rom. 12:1,2).
Justification is of great practical value!
JUSTIFICATION
CHANGES OUR WHOLE RELATIONSHIP TO GOD’S HOLINESS. Through Christ,
the justified man has become “rightly adjusted” to God’s person, character and
attributes. The justified man is
“rightly adjusted” to the claims of God, the government of God and the law of
God. The justified man has been legally severed from the reign of the
Adamic nature (Rom. 6:5,6; Col. 2:11-13).
The justified man has a new Master – Christ and righteousness (Rom.
6:16,18,22). Therefore,
sanctification involves taking one’s justification seriously.
Sanctification is the process of receiving the word of justification
repeatedly and of receiving it in new areas of our being. To the degree that grace truths permeate the
believer’s thoughts, values and conclusions, he is transformed by them. That is growth in grace, living in the light
of these truths and seeing oneself and one’s relationships in light of these
truths (Gal. 2:20). Application – Study the imagery in Revelation 3:15-21
(“blind, poor, naked, wretched, miserable, needing nothing…”). Contrast the negative description of the
Laodicean church with the promised blessings of Christ. In what ways does this contrast provide a
picture of self as an ineffective “source” versus Christ as Source Person? (See 2 Pet. 3:18; Eph. 4:15,16; Col. 2:19.) SANCTIFICATION
INVOLVES BECOMING AS WE ARE REGARDED (2 COR. 6:14-7:1). “Sonship is the
motive and meaning of gospel holiness” (Lewis Sperry Chafer). Justification established our status as sons
and daughters of God. The bestowal of
sonship is completely gracious but our sonship is joined to moral imperatives
(Matt. 5:44,45; Rom. 8:12-17; Eph. 5:1,2ff.; 1Jn. 3:9,10). ROMANS 6 IS THE
TRANSITION CHAPTER OR “BRIDGE” THAT JOINS OUR JUSTIFICATION TO OUR
SANCTIFICATION. “The gospel does
not command us to do anything to obtain life, but bids us live by that which
another has done” (H. Bonar). The soul’s
rest in the life-giving truth of the gospel is the root of all true labor. “In receiving
Christ we do not work in order to rest, but we rest in order to work” (Jerry
Bridges). Believers work from a
position of pardon. Realized
forgiveness is the joyful motive for obedience. Justification is the ongoing foundation for all progress in
sanctification. “The sinner’s legal position must be set to rights
before his moral position can be
touched” (H. Bonar). Romans 6 opens
with the federal fact (Christ’s federal rep.
of us) -- that Christ’s death was a representative union. (All the legal liabilities and
responsibilities of His people rest upon Him.) Christ’s death
was not only “on behalf of” (huper)
our sin, but “unto” (eis) sin. Here Paul brings the federal fact to
light. Not only was Christ’s death
intended to redeem His people from their sins, (Rom. 3-5) it was also intended
to change His people’s relationship toward sin (Rom. 6-8). Our federal solidarity with Christ brings
not only forgiveness of sin but also freedom from sin’s dominion! Thus, we may affirm “Christ died for us and
we died in Him.” In Romans 6, Paul joins
the previous theme – salvation from sin’s penalty, with deliverance from sin’s
dominion. Remember, Romans 5 established that the
penal consequence of Adam’s sin was that mankind was delivered over unto the
legal reign of sin. The great
revelation of Romans 6:10 is that Christ died unto sin on our behalf. By reason of our federal union with Him in
His death, we died as well to the legal reign of sin (Rom. 6:6-11). “We could not
take one step in the pursuit of holiness if God in His grace had not first
delivered us from the dominion of sin and brought us into union with His risen
Son” (Jerry Bridges). THE FACT THAT WE
DIED TO SIN IS NOT IMMEDIATELY EXPERIENTIAL. “Our old self
was crucified,” is a revealed truth
that is addressed to faith (Rom. 6:6).
The positional truth of co-crucifixion and union with Christ is not
perceived primarily by experience, it is apprehended by faith. If we “consult”
our unmortified desires, we may conclude that we have not died to sin. Our indwelling sin seems to testify to the
contrary that we are dead to sin. Our
natural desires, passions and reasonings are not a reliable standard for our
behavior (“[We] do not live by the standard set by the lower nature, but by the
standard set by the Spirit” Romans 8:4b – Wms. Transl.). THE FACT THAT WE
DIED TO SIN IS A TRUTH EXPERIENCED BY FAITH.
Paul affirms that the death of the old self in Christ’s death was
necessary in order to “do away with our body of sin.” The Greek word for “do away” in this context means to annul or
put out of business (kartegeo). By our co-crucifixion with Christ, all the
legal rights of sin are gone. Christ’s
work applied to the believer has the net effect of annulling the power of indwelling sin. The
ramifications of co-crucifixion with Christ are carried into practical living
by means of faith. The believer is
called upon to reckon a fact that appears contrary to experience, namely that
he is dead to sin (6:11). To “consider”
or “reckon” is an imperative or command in the Greek (Rom. 6:11-13). Application – The benefit of Christ’s death to sin is
the rightful property of His people.
Here lies the incumbent challenge of preaching the gospel to ourselves
daily. Our experiences of indwelling
sin seem to contradict the federal fact of our death to sin. The difficulty resides in believing the
astounding revelations of Romans 6. The
old self causes trouble and we are immediately tempted to leave off the way of
faith (expressed in reckoning) and turn back to carnal reasoning (fleshly
strategies for coping with judgment). The fact that we
shared in Christ’s death to sin and that we are alive unto God in Him must be
believed. There is no other path that
establishes our souls and causes us to rest in Christ (Heb. 4:11). Our “fruit unto
sanctification” turns upon the daily presentation of ourselves to God (an
activity born of reckoning) (Rom.
6:22). SCRIPTURE JOINS
THE RECKONING OF OURSELVES IN CHRIST “POSITIONALLY” WITH OUR BEING MADE HOLY
“PRACTICALLY.” In
justification, God preempts all of the individual’s efforts to commend himself
to his Creator. Status, favor, and
acceptance are granted by a gracious divine donation. As a result, the pursuit of sanctification is liberated from
every legal effort to enhance standing and acceptance before God. Only in this way can sanctification be all
of grace (Rom. 4:3-8,16; 1 Cor. 1:30). Efforts in
sanctification that are completely divorced from the cross belie a carnal
confidence that the flesh is perfectible (Note the Galatian error addressed by
Paul). Scripture keeps justification
and sanctification joined in the Person of Christ. The believer’s federal
union with Christ is central in both doctrines. All advances spiritually are grounded upon
faith in God’s Word. When the believer
reckons the benefits that flow from his solidarity with Christ, God is
glorified because Christ is the source Person, not self (Gal. 2:20). Application – For passages that affirm that progressive
sanctification is by faith, see Rom. 6:19,22; 2 Cor. 3:18; Gal. 2:20; 5:16-26;
Col. 2:6,7; 3:1-11; 2 Thess. 2:12,13; 1 Tim. 6:12; Heb. 3-4; 6:11,12. SCRIPTURE KEEPS
JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION DISTINCT BUT INSEPARABLE. The three
“tenses” of salvation (I was saved, I am being saved, I will be ultimately
saved) are also true of sanctification.
(Justification and sanctification are bound together, one never occurs
without the other.) The three tenses of sanctification: 1.) I was set
apart for God at the moment of salvation (1 Cor. 1:2; Heb. 10:10). 2.) I am living a life that is continually separated unto God that
progresses in practical holiness (Rom. 6:22; 2 Cor. 7:1). 3.) When I am glorified, I will be absolutely set apart from sin, experiencing complete sanctification
(Phil. 3;20,21; Rom. 8:30; Eph. 5:26,27; 1 Thess. 5:23). Errors that result from
separating or confusing justification and sanctification: 1.) PERFECTIONISM (Gal. 3:1-3) – This error stresses that
the flesh is perfectible. Supposed
“progress” in sanctification is given as evidence that man can be perfected by
the flesh (supra-biblical standards are often used to measure progress). The “higher life” version of this error is
commonly seen in “holiness” denominations.
They stress a second work of grace.
Sanctification becomes divorced from faith in the Person and finished
work of Christ. Justification is
devalued as sanctification becomes a new sought after “plane” of existence
grounded upon human performance. (See
also Quietism.) 2.) ANTINOMIANISM (Jude 4; 2 Pet. 2) – This deadly error
denies the need for personal holiness.
It turns the grace of God into an excuse for sinful expression. It produces both a false security and a
false sense of “freedom.” 3.) SUBJECTIVISM (experience oriented Christianity – Col. 2:18,19) – In this error,
religious experience becomes a badge of spiritual superiority. Private revelations, ecstatic experiences and
sign gifts are paraded about and turned into a sacrament. Experience becomes the mark of the
“spiritual.” In the process,
justification is devalued. Union with
Christ is de-emphasized. 4.) LEGALISM (Col. 3:16,17; 1 Tim. 1:7) – Legalism is
closely associated with perfectionism.
False religion is nearly uniformly legalistic, for it seeks to establish
merit before God in a man-centered fashion.
Perfectionism is more subtle than legalism. Perfectionism is the most common symptom among true believers who
separate justification and sanctification. Application – Discuss how the “narrow way” is a
fitting metaphor to describe the biblical salvation path that steers clear of
both legalistic perfectionism and carnal antinomianism. (Example - Like
the relationship between the two natures of Christ in the doctrine of the
hypostatic union, justification and sanctification are distinct yet
inseparable. Where there is true salvation, justification and sanctification
will be distinct yet inseparable.) Gal. 2:20 -- We are justified because of union with Christ, not because of our conduct. BUT justification should affect our conduct. For Paul, justification is not merely a past event, but a present reality which he experiences everyday of his life. Peace with God, forgiveness, and acceptance belong to believers because of the righteousness of Christ – thus Paul lived by faith in the righteousness Christ. Though justification is a point in time past event, Paul brings justification into the present in Galatians 2:20. We work, serve and obey from the perspective that Another has performed for us, we live by faith in Him. |
