What’s the relationship between justification and sanctification in Scripture? I think we need to go back a few steps. Before we can state what’s the answer to the problem, we need to state the problem.
Even if man were not a sinner, I don’t think a sinless man could ever merit God’s approval. How could he? Even if he were a good person who did good works, he wouldn’t be responsible for his own virtue. Rather, that would be because God created him with a virtuous character.
But, of course, the present situation is a good deal grimmer. Man is fallen. Man is evil.
Yet the natural and proper reaction of a holy being is to hate evil and punish evil. So how can sinners ever be acceptable to God?
Now, even sinners can do good deeds, in a qualified sense. But it’s still someone evil who’s doing the good deed. And he does so with mixed motives.
Moreover, we all know the saying that every man has his price. It takes very little to make him do the wrong thing. A suitable temptation. The absence of outward restraint.
Left to our own resources, the situation would be hopeless. As a result, justification is contingent on penal substitution.
However, the fact that a man is justified apart from actual virtue doesn’t mean that God is unconcerned with actual virtue. It’s not as if God is indifferent to whether someone is actually good or actually evil. He’s not going to populate heaven with merely justified versions of Josef Mengele.
Strictly speaking, good works are not the inevitable fruit of justification. Justification is not the cause of good works.
Rather, the God who justifies the elect is the same God who regenerates and sanctifies the elect.
Good works are directly related to regeneration rather than justification. What’s at issue is not so much good works, but the anterior condition which results in good works, or the absence thereof.
God isn’t going to justify someone, but leave him in an unregenerate state.
Both justification and sanctification are related to regeneration, but in different ways. Regeneration is a necessary precondition of sanctification. You can’t have the fruit of a good heart without the root of a good heart.
But regeneration is also necessary to justification inasmuch as saving faith is the result of regeneration, and justification is contingent on faith. The unregenerate cannot exercise saving faith.
Causally speaking, regeneration is directly related to sanctification, and indirectly related to justification.
Put another way, when we talk about the necessity of good works, this has reference to the necessity of regeneration and sanctification. Justification doesn’t render that nugatory. Justification involves an objective condition whereas sanctification involves a subjective condition.
Sometimes, hovering in the background of this discussion, is the current controversy over the covenant of works. Was the implicit covenant with Adam a covenant of works, and does this imply meritorious works?
I affirm the former, but deny the latter.
ii) If God promises x for doing y, it doesn’t follow that z merits x. Rather, it only means that God keeps his promises. God is true to his word.
iii) I can pay one worker $50 an hour and another worker $100 an hour for doing the very same work. Did both workers earn their wages? In a sense.
Did the worker who got twice as much for doing the same job deserve twice as much for doing the same job? No.
Merit often involves the idea of desert. But you can earn something without deserving something. The reward might be out of all proportion to your labor.
Are the two workers equally deserving of what they got? No, since one got twice as much for the same job. But, in that event, strict merit does not apply. There is, in this example, no one-to-one correspondence between the effort and the reward.
Approaching this from another angle, there are disanalogies as well as analogies between the work of Adam and the work of Christ. In the case of Jesus, I’d say that it’s both a covenant of works and a covenant of meritorious works.
A divine Incarnation, for redemptive purposes, is intrinsically meritorious or supererogatory since God doesn’t owe anything to sinners. God has no duty to save sinners (although God can assume such an obligation, and the assumption of such an obligation is meritorious or supererogatory.) And, of course, God has nothing to gain—unlike Adam.
The work of Christ can be meritorious in a way that the work of Adam cannot.
It’s possible for human beings to perform supererogatory deeds in relation to each other, but not in relation to God.
"God has no duty to save sinners"
ReplyDeleteI've read this blog for a while. You guys are obviously intelligent, and sometimes I even agree with your ideas.
I just can't get past your clinical, almost distanced approach to all of humanity, though. You don't seem to relate to your fellow creatures much. I say this as someone who is considered a practical recluse.
People aren't just meatbags, you know. Do you have any sense of empathy? Life, in general, is woefully full of misery for most of us. You have to fight to just survive. Add to the health problems the stresses of work, children, aging, the general fears and anxieties that come with living in the modern world. This is for Americans who have many modern conveniences. For much of the world, the world is darkness, poverty, pain and misery.
Starvation and disease are common. Children suffer the ravages of AIDS with no available medical treatment in many areas of the world.
Somehow, all this misery just isn't enough, however. God created all of this just to toss them aside for MORE misery in the afterlife.
Why? Is it really necessary so a few fortunate "elect" get to sing happy songs for all eternity? It just seems wildly unnecessary to me.
I'm not discounting that many people are, in fact, rotten. But your worldview seems so narrow and accounts for so little of the human condition.
Oh well, this is probably just going to be seen as rambling "emotionalism", I'm certain.
James, I would say, look to the context of this type of analysis. We not only exist now, but we exist (I mean, the church exists) in history. The questions that Steve is analyzing have a long history of analysis behind them, better and worse. It is essential to put our feet in the right place, if we are to be able to stand going forward, or that our actions would be effective in any way
ReplyDeleteI don’t think anyone here takes lightly the conditions of human misery that you describe. But rushing off just to “do something” doesn’t put anyone in a position of being able to do anything that has any meaning.
"And, of course, God has nothing to gain—unlike Adam."
ReplyDeleteIs God's primary motive in redemption love of the creature, or glorification? Or, would the same degree of glorification be achieved without the Incarnation and instead universal damnation? Is God glorified equally if he just created one soul for damnation/salvation as opposed to a billion?
Hi steve did you write anything before about active and passive reprobation,I know this is off topic but what do you think is correct.
ReplyDeleteTHE DUDE SAID:
ReplyDelete“Is God's primary motive in redemption love of the creature, or glorification?”
False dichotomy. God glorifies the elect.
“Or, would the same degree of glorification be achieved without the Incarnation and instead universal damnation?”
I’ve been over this ground on several occasions. The glorification of God doesn’t mean that God is the beneficiary. The elect are the beneficiaries. God is manifesting his attributes for the benefit of the elect, and not himself.
I’ll address your final question separately.
JAMES SAID:
ReplyDelete“I just can't get past your clinical, almost distanced approach to all of humanity, though. You don't seem to relate to your fellow creatures much. I say this as someone who is considered a practical recluse.__People aren't just meatbags, you know. Do you have any sense of empathy?”
How, exactly, does one empathize with 6.6 billion perfect strangers? It’s hard to feel anything for someone you’ve never heard of, someone you know absolutely nothing about. At a concrete level, I don’t know that most folks even exist. I simply know a raw number. A big figure.
As a practical matter, we empathize with people we know or know about. Friends and family members. Classmates and coworkers. Or someone we hear about on the news.
But empathizing with a vast anonymous mass is inherently detached.
I know, abstractly, that a little boy is starving on the streets of Calcutta. But I can’t feel for that little boy the way I’d feel for my own little boy if he were starving.
At most, we have very generic feelings for the fate of those we never knew and shall never know.
Now, there are things we can do for perfect strangers. But even that is very selective. I can give to charity, for example.
“Life, in general, is woefully full of misery for most of us. You have to fight to just survive. Add to the health problems the stresses of work, children, aging, the general fears and anxieties that come with living in the modern world. This is for Americans who have many modern conveniences.”
I live in the same world you do. I experience much the same thing you do.
“For much of the world, the world is darkness, poverty, pain and misery. __Starvation and disease are common. Children suffer the ravages of AIDS with no available medical treatment in many areas of the world.__Somehow, all this misery just isn't enough, however. God created all of this just to toss them aside for MORE misery in the afterlife.”
And why all this misery? Because people make themselves miserable. Because people make each other miserable. In this life and the afterlife.
“Why? Is it really necessary so a few fortunate ‘elect’ get to sing happy songs for all eternity?”
I don’t know what percentage of humanity will be saved.
“It just seems wildly unnecessary to me.”
What seems unnecessary? The misery? Or the people?
Everyone alive today exists because of the fall. Apart from the fall, other people would exist, but not you and me. So there’s a tradeoff. I notice that you haven’t committed suicide. So I know what side of the tradeoff you come down on.
“But your worldview seems so narrow and accounts for so little of the human condition.”
To the contrary, Calvinism accounts very well for the human condition. Much better than, say, Arminianism or universalism.
LONELYBOY SAID:
ReplyDelete“Hi steve did you write anything before about active and passive reprobation, I know this is off topic but what do you think is correct.”
Passive reprobation is an attempt to insulate God from complicity in the sins of the reprobate. The motivation is commendable, but, of course, God is not an idle spectator in reprobation.
The deeper issue involves the relation between determinism, causation, and responsibility.
That’s an essentially philosophical issue. We can come up with models of causality which intuitively seem to inculpate God in the sins of the reprobate, but we can also come up with models of causality which intuitively seem to exculpate God in the sins of the reprobate.
We could affirm active reprobation in the sense that God is not a mere bystander in the act and means of reprobation. But we also need to avoid models of causality that inculpate God in the sins of the reprobate.
Steve, would you mind explaining the concept of merit a little more?
ReplyDeleteYou wrote, "Even if [a sinless man] were a good person who did good works, he wouldn’t be responsible for his own virtue. Rather, that would be because God created him with a virtuous character."
You seem to be suggesting that works are a function of grace. This seems contrary to what Paul writes in Romans 11:6: "And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work." (NKJV)
Thanks in advance.
Paul does think that good works are gracious works, viz. Gal 5:22-23; Eph 2:10.
ReplyDeleteThe distinction is between justifying works and sanctified or sanctifying works. Paul denies the possibility of justifying works—works which contribute to our justification before God. But Paul affirms the possibility of sanctified works—works which result from spiritual renewal. Moreover, works can contribute to our sanctification through the due use of the means of grace.
Ah ok so God does not create fresh unbelief in the hearts of the reprobate to prevent them from receiving the Gospel as what RC Sproul suggested in his book Chosen By God of those who believe in active reprobation right?
ReplyDeleteLONELYBOY SAID:
ReplyDelete"Ah ok so God does not create fresh unbelief in the hearts of the reprobate to prevent them from receiving the Gospel as what RC Sproul suggested in his book Chosen By God of those who believe in active reprobation right?"
God doesn't have to create unbelief in the reprobate since unbelief is the default setting of the reprobate. Belief and unbelief are asymmetrical. It requires divine intervention (a la regeneration) to create faith. To change the status quo ante.
Steve, do you think that sanctification is synergistic?
ReplyDeleteSo Steve as I understood you the debate between active and passive reprobation is a philosophical issue as to the model of causality not an exegetical issue right?also what do you think of Vincent Cheung's view of active reprobation in case you didnt know he affirmed Clark's view?
ReplyDeleteRESTING SAID:
ReplyDelete“Steve, do you think that sanctification is synergistic?”
Sanctification has a cooperative aspect. One factor in sanctification is the due use of the means of grace (e.g. prayer, Bible study).
Whether or not the cooperative aspect renders it synergistic depends on other theological commitments we bring to the issue.
In Catholicism, sanctification is synergistic because human merit figures in sanctification.
In Arminianism, sanctification is synergistic because our cooperation is contingent on the libertarian exercise of our will.
In Calvinism, sanctification is not synergistic since God has foreordained our cooperation.
lonelyboy said...
ReplyDelete“So Steve as I understood you the debate between active and passive reprobation is a philosophical issue as to the model of causality not an exegetical issue right?”
I think that’s largely correct. The Bible attributes some effects to direct divine action, and other effects to second causes. But the Bible doesn’t present a model of causality in the philosophical sense. And the theodicean issues regarding reprobation are, to some extent, philosophical issues regarding how we model the causality of reprobation.
In terms of the decree, God is the immediate cause of reprobation. Even at that level, reprobation takes sin into account. Sin is a necessary (but insufficient) condition of reprobation.
The active/passive debate involves the actual implementation of reprobation in history. How does God providentially effect the decree of reprobation?
We can point to some factors, like a person’s moral and spiritual environment, and the impact of placing the unregenerate in a certain environment.
But it also involves your theory of the will. How divine determinism and human responsibility cohere. And that, in turn, involves your model of causation. God is an agent. A human being is an agent. How does God cause a human being to do something? That’s a largely philosophical question—a question for philosophical theology to chew over.
“Also what do you think of Vincent Cheung's view of active reprobation in case you didnt know he affirmed Clark's view?”
Since Cheung is an occasionalist, he’s committed to direct divine agency for everything that happens. Occasionalism has no room for second causes.
Although Calvinism is deterministic, determinism is not interchangeable with Calvinism. There are varieties of determinism. Some forms of determinism are morally problematic.
Clark handled the problem of evil in a very superficial and inadequate fashion. There are ways of determining an outcome that are morally suspect. Not just any form of determinism will do.
Steve, You wrote, "In Calvinism, sanctification is not synergistic since God has foreordained our cooperation."
ReplyDeleteHow does foreordination eliminate human merit? For example, Rev 22:12 says, "And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work."
A reward doesn't have to be a meritorious reward. It can simply be an incentive to persevere.
ReplyDeleteSteve, Would you please define merit from a theological/philosophical point of view? Thanks.
ReplyDeleteTraditionally, merit would be that, at least to some extent, we deserve to be justified on account of our good works.
ReplyDeleteCan merit be without reference to justification, i.e., anything we do that gains the favor of God?
ReplyDeleteFor example Hebrews 11:6 - "But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased."
Our good works are the result of divine favor, not the cause of divine favor. Good works are the fruit of grace.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that doing good is pleasing to God doesn't make it meritorious. We're doing our duty when when we do the right thing.
Steve, You wrote, "How does God cause a human being to do something? That’s a largely philosophical question—a question for philosophical theology to chew over."
ReplyDeleteHow do you answer that question, i.e., How does God cause a human being to do something?
Thanks.