Sunday, March 6, 2011

Justification and Sanctification - Not to be Confused

From James R. White, The God Who Justifies: The Doctrine of Justification (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2001), 88-89:

Justification must be distinguished from sanctification. If it is not,
 tremendous errors result, for inevitably this wrong view results in a confusion
 of the experience of sanctification with the grounds upon which all of the work 
of God rests, the perfect sacrificial work of Christ on Calvary.... Justification [the declaration by God that the sinner is no longer under the penalty or curse of the law] takes place in the past, while sanctification is ongoing.... Unlike sanctification, [justification] is not something that is being worked out over time. It is a declaration made by God upon the exercise of saving faith, which then inevitably and infallibly begins the experience of sanctification in the life of the believer.

From William Hendriksen, Galatians, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 98:

Justification is a matter of imputation (reckoning, charging): the 
sinner's guilt is imputed to Christ; the latter's righteousness is imputed to 
the sinner (Gen. 15:6; Ps. 32:1; Isa. 53:4-6; Jer. 23:6; Rom. 5:18-19).
 Sanctification is a matter of transformation (2 Cor. 3:17-18). In 
justification the Father takes the lead (Rom. 8:33); in sanctification the Holy
 Spirit does (2 Thess. 2:13). The first is a "once for all" verdict, the second a
 life-long process. Nevertheless, although the two should never be identified [as 
in Roman Catholicism], neither should they be separated. They are distinct but
 not separate. In justifying the sinner, God may be viewed as the Judge who 
presides over a law court. The prisoner is standing in the dock. The Judge 
acquits the prisoner, pronouncing him "not guilty but righteous." The former 
prisoner is now a free man. But the story does not end here. The Judge now turns
 to that free man and adopts him as his son, and even imparts his own Spirit to
 him (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:5-6).

From Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 513-14 (emphasis added):

1. Justification removes the guilt of sin and restores the sinner to all the filial rights involved in his state as a child of God, including an eternal inheritance. Sanctification removes the pollution of sin and renews the sinner ever-increasingly in conformity with the image of God.

2. Justification takes place outside the sinner in the tribunal of God, and does not change his inner life.... Sanctification, on the other hand, takes place in the inner life of man and gradually affects his whole being.

3. Justification takes place once and for all. It is not repeated, neither is it a process; it is complete once and for all time. There is no more or less in justification; man is either fully justified, or he is not justified at all. In distinction from it, sanctification is a continuous process, which is never completed in this life.

4. While the meritorious cause of both lies in the merits of Christ, there is a difference in the efficient cause. Speaking economically, God the Father declares the sinner righteous, and God the Holy Spirit sanctifies him.