Category Archives: Justification

Protestants, Do You Know What You’re Protesting?

Posted on by

With Roman Catholicism making headlines this week in the election of a new Pope, it’s useful for Protestants and Catholics alike to sit down and think through our differences. I have had the unexpected and (at least from my side) pleasant opportunity to engage in a couple conversations on this matter that show, I think, the ignorance on both sides of the aisle. Protestants and Catholics alike seem insistent that what unites us is greater than what divides us–and that what divides is just a small matter. Now I know that not every adherent to Roman Catholicism agrees en toto with the teaching of their church. For that reason I want to be careful at the outset to say that I love any who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth. But we must be equally adamant that Rome and true Protestantism are not alike in many things, making union and communion between the two seemingly impossible.

What do I mean by that? Unless I should be accused of being a cranky Protestant, let me demonstrate this reality from the side of Roman Catholicism. I know it’s very difficult for us in our overly individualistic day to think in terms of corporate identity. Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic Church has a corporate identity which has been expressed through her councils, catechism, and canons, an identity many individual Catholics are unaware of (even as many Protestants are unaware of what makes us Protestants!). I don’t claim to be an expert on all things Catholic, but I also can’t ignore the black and white. The Council of Trent, Rome’s response to the Protestant Reformation, set out to define and defend Catholic doctrine against the Protestantism of Lutherans and the Reformed, and in so doing pronounced “anathemas.” An anathema is a denunciation by means of curse (see Galatians 1:8). To this day the anathemas that were pronounced by the Council of Trent have not been revoked by the Catholic Church. Despite the ecumenical efforts of Vatican II, the anathemas remain the teaching of the Church. So would you pass the test?

  • Do you reject the Apocrypha as not being a part of the Scriptures contained in the Old and New Testaments? Then according to Rome you’re anathema.
  • Do you accept that we are justified by the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ apart from works? Then according to Rome you’re anathema.
  • Do you reject that Christ is present physically in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper? Then according to Rome you’re anathema.
  • Do you believe that Christ was sacrificed once and for all on the cross of Calvary, rejecting that the Eucharist is a perpetual propitiatory sacrifice? Then according to Rome you’re anathema.
  • Do you believe in the priesthood of all believers and that the church does not reside within the clergy? Then according to Rome you’re anathema.
  • Do you reject the authority of the Bishop of Rome (the Pope)? Then according to Rome you’re anathema.

Do you see what the official teaching of Roman Catholicism is? They consciously rejected the truth and doctrine that was reclaimed by the Protestant Reformation and to this day continue to reject it and curse not only the doctrines but the people holding to them. Rome recognizes, as have Protestants in times past, that the “gospel” of Catholicism and the “gospel” of Protestantism are not the same thing, and Paul is quite forceful about preaching a false gospel (Galatians 1:8). And to say that, is to say nothing different than what the Church in Rome teaches. To pretend that there is little to no difference is only to the think the Emperor is wearing clothes.

The Relationship Between Justification and Sanctification

Posted on by

“The very first step towards sanctification, no less than justification, is to come with faith to Christ. We must first live, and then work.”-J.C. Ryle

 

In What Are Justification and Sanctification Alike?

1 Both proceed originally from the free grace of God. It is of His gift alone that believers are justified or sanctified at all.

2. Both are part of that great work of salvation which Christ, in the eternal covenant, has undertaken on behalf of His people. Christ is the fountain of life, from which pardon (justification) and holiness (sanctification) both flow. The root of each is Christ.

3. Both are to be found in the same persons. Those who are justified are always sanctified, and those who are sanctified are always justified. God has joined them together, and they cannot be put asunder.

4. Both begin at the same time. The moment a person begins to be a justified person, he also begins to be a sanctified person. He may not feel it, but it is a fact.

5. Both are alike necessary to salvation. No one ever reached heaven without a renewed heart as well as forgiveness, without the Spirit’s grace as well as the blood of Christ, without a fitness for eternal glory as well as a title. The one is just as necessary as the other is.

Now Let Us See Wherein They Differ:

1. Justification is the reckoning and counting a man to be righteous for the sake of another, even Jesus Christ the Lord. Sanctification is the actual making a man inwardly righteous, though it may be in a very feeble degree.

2. The righteousness we have by our justification is not our own, but the everlasting perfect righteousness of our great Mediator Christ, imputed to us and made our own by faith. The righteousness we have by sanctification is our own righteousness, imparted, inherent, and wrought in us by the Holy Spirit, but mingled with much infirmity and imperfection.

3. In justification, our own works have no place at all; simple faith in Christ is the one thing needful. In sanctification, our own works are of vast importance, and God bids us fight and watch and pray and strive and take pains and labor.

4. Justification is a finished and complete work, and a man is perfectly justified the moment he believes. Sanctification is an imperfect (unfinished) work, comparatively, and will never be perfected until we reach heaven.

5. Justification admits of no growth or increase: a man is as much justified the hour he first comes to Christ by faith, as he will be to all eternity. Sanctification is eminently a progressive work, and admits of continual growth and enlargement, so long as a man lives.

6. Justification has special reference to our persons, our standing in God’s sight, and our deliverance from guilt. Sanctification has special reference to our natures and the moral renewal of our hearts.

7. Justification gives us our title to heaven, and boldness to enter in. Sanctification gives us our fitness for heaven and prepares us to enjoy it when we dwell there.

8. Justification is the act of God about us, and is not easily discerned by others. Sanctification is the work of God within us, and cannot be hid in its outward manifestation from the eyes of men.

I commend these distinctions to the attention of all my readers, and I ask them to ponder them well. I am persuaded that one great cause of the darkness and uncomfortable feelings of many well-meaning people is their habit of confounding justification and sanctification. It can never be too strongly impressed on our minds that they are two separate things. Never should the distinction between them be forgotten.

Holiness a Necessary Consequence

Posted on by

John Witherspoon, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence and president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) once wrote, “I have always found, that the most specious and plausible objection, and that most frequently made against the doctrine of justification by imputed righteousness, has been in this case, as indeed usually before, that it loosens the obligations to practice” (Works, 1:28).

Imputed righteousness is the belief that in our justification (standing before God), the believer has nothing to offer in and of himself. Rather, the righteousness (or obedience) of Jesus Christ is credited to one’s account so that by faith in Christ, God looks at a man as though he had never sinned. It doesn’t make a man righteous (that’s sanctification), but it accounts him righteous in the sight of God. Therefore, justification is a declarative act–God declares a man not guilty.

In a brilliant and applicable sermon on Romans 6:1 Witherspoon worked to counter this argument by showing, “The imputed righteousness of Christ, is so far from weakening the obligations to holiness, that, on the contrary, the belief and reception of it, as its necessary consequence, must make men greater lovers of purity and holiness and fill them with a greater horror of sin than any other persuasion on the same subject.” He gives six reasons:

  1. First, those who are justified by the imputed righteousness of Christ have the clearest and strongest conviction of the obligation every man has to the law of God.
  2. Second, he who believes in Christ and expects justification by imputed righteousness has the deepest and strongest sense of the evil of sin.
  3. Third, the one who expects to be justified only through the imputed righteousness of Christ have the greatest view of the danger of sin.
  4. Fourth, they have the highest sense of the purity and holiness of God; and are therefore under the conviction of the necessity of purity in order to be in his presence and enjoy him.
  5. Fifth, justification by imputed righteousness strengthens one’s gratitude and thankfulness to God which are the strongest inducements to obedience.
  6. Sixth, those who are justified by the imputed righteousness of Christ are possessed by a supreme love to God which is the very sum and substance, even the perfection of holiness.