The Biblical Paradigm for Individual and Corporate Sanctification – Part I

Introduction to Church Discipline

Matthew 18:1-35

The practice of church discipline has fallen on hard times as of late. Given the history of the practice, some would say that this is not such a bad thing. “In the first five centuries it was invoked against those Christians who became flagrant sinners or in ecclesiastical disputes over doctrine or jurisdiction.” [Katourette, Kenneth. A History of Christianity: Beginnings to 1500, 531] Today however, it is a much different story. We rarely witness church discipline being carried out in the church. And when we do engage in the process, it is rarely carried out according to Scripture.


It can be said with a degree of truth that church discipline came on hard times because of the rise of the individual, and the history of abuse of the practice itself. As is often the case, the pendulum swings were so radical that balance was lost in both directions. For example, during the middle ages, the church could inflict an interdict on an entire community during which there could be no rites of religion, no services, no marriage ceremonies, no flesh eaten, and no religious burial granted. [Sheldon, Henry. History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2, 129] In addition, according to English law, the excommunicated person could enter into no legal contracts, and could have no place in court. No one was authorized to eat with him, or even speak to him. [Sheldon, 130] One does not have to have a seminary degree to see the power-grabbing abuse that we sinful humans tend to have when granted a little authority.

In a letter from Gregory of Neo-Caesarea to another pastor in Pontus (northern Asia Minor), dated around 260 A.D., describes the conditions around discipline at this time. He talks about four grades of penitents who by five stages attained restoration and admission to the communion. The first group is “the weepers.” They stand outside the door of the church, beseeching the faithful to intercede for them. Next, the “hearers” are placed in the narthex [vestibule]. The third group is the “kneelers.” They kneel within the nave amid the standing congregation. And finally, you had the “costanders.” They join with the others in the congregation except that they cannot take communion. After many years in this graded process the penitent is fully restored and can take communion. [Culver, Robert. Systematic Theology: Biblical and Historical, 960] As is the case with everything we touch, we sinners have the tendency to pervert God’s order in one way or another. Clearly, church discipline is not intended to intimidate people or keep people away from the church that we simply don’t want there for whatever reason.

 The believers are not to cut such people off from communication – complete social ostracism – for Paul goes on to say, ‘Do not regard him as an enemy, but warm him as a brother.’ (2 Thess. 3:15) With delinquent but not totally alienated folk such treatment effected in a loving way is a powerful instrument for good. [Culver, 960]

 It is a most egregious abuse of power for pastors or elders or churches to use this process in order to displace a person from the Christian community. While this happened commonly in the middle ages it is rare today. In fact, today, the problem is just the opposite. Most churches have not executing church discipline biblically in their entire existence. The sad truth is that most churches ignore the process altogether. And those who do claim to adhere to church discipline do not actually carry it out according to Scripture.

Most churches I have been a part of simply have ignored this practice completely. Others have simply either refused to use it for fear of law suits or have tweaked it to their own liking. For instance, I was once in a church where a deacon and Sunday school teacher said that when Jesus was on the cross, as He said “my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He ceased to be God at that moment. I took this to the senior pastor at the time and asked for help. The pastor was close friends with this man. I followed up with the pastor and he informed me that the man refused to repent of his view. He believed that Jesus ceased to be God on the cross. I asked the pastor what he was going to do. And the answer was, “what do you mean?” To make long story short, nothing was done. The man continues to teach to this day and I am unaware if he ever repented of his heresy. What should have been done? Church discipline should have been carried out according to Matthew 18. This is how we would have loved this man back into obedient thinking about the person and nature of Christ. I had to leave the church over this heresy because the pastor and the deacons would not do the right thing to help this man. I was unable to change his mind. His pastor was unable to change his mind. And that is where it ended.

In most cases, when people are threatened with discipline, they are allowed to resign and move to another church where they feel more comfortable and that is the end of the process. The leaders shrug their shoulders and take the attitude that it isn’t their problem any longer. This is not how we love one another and help one another grow in Christ. So how should we conduct church discipline in a way that honors and obeys God? For that we consult Matthew 18. This entire chapter serves as the paradigm for our attitudes before, during, and after discipline. Moreover, it lays out a crystal clear path for the process itself. If we follow this path in process and in spirit, we will glorify God and win believers back into loving obedience to their Lord and Master.

Church discipline is impossible without a sound discipleship program in place. Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” The Greek word for disciple is mathetes. Some people think it simply means a student. But it means much more than that. When we think of a student, we simply think of a learner. Our frame of reference for a student is not at all as rich as the context which this word mathetes demands. In Koine Greek, a disciple was one who was a student, or an apprentice; one who is rather constantly associated with someone who has a pedagogical reputation or a particular set of views. Mathetes always implies the existence of a personal attachment which shapes the whole life of the one described as mathetes, and which in its particularity leaves no doubt as to who is deploying the formative power. [Kittel] A man is called a mathetes when he binds himself to someone else in order to acquire his practical and theoretical knowledge. [ W. Bauder in NIDNTT] Jesus said if you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine. (John 8:31)

Church discipline is impossible without an environment of close-knit relationships. This is where the foundation of biblical sanctification is located. Loving your brother as you love yourself means caring enough to know them. How would you feel about someone you were courting if they were not really investing any time in getting to know you? In the Christian community, we love one another enough to take the time to get to know one another. This intimate relationship lays the foundation necessary for mutual respect. It places us in the unique situation of being able to hold one another accountable for our behavior in a way that is very loving. Without this relational aspect, it is very difficult to talk to someone about sin in their life. Churches need to take deliberate steps to create and foster an environment that brings people together. And this is not accomplished in a Wednesday evening meal before bible study. It takes much more than that. If takes small group formation, discipleship and mentoring, retreats, etc. Some churches engage in “check the box” routines that accomplish nothing more than making the elders feel like they are doing something to create such an environment when the sad truth is they are accomplishing next to nothing. Believers need close relationships with other believers if church discipline has a chance of being effective.

Church discipline is impossible unless it becomes part of the Christian culture. I can’t remember ever being part of a church that incorporated church discipline into its new member class. I have recommended it, to no avail. The biblical teachings on church discipline should consume a full session of the new membership classes so that people understand their responsibilities to each other. This also helps to keep people from being caught off guard when it is time to move to the final step of church discipline should that ever happen. There should be regular Sunday school classes on church discipline. And finally, church discipline should be publicly proclaimed from the pulpit regularly. It should be something the Christian community is intimately familiar with. Moreover, every discipleship program should contain something on the subject of church discipline. Taking such a deliberate approach to Church discipline will ensure that it achieves its goal of progressive sanctification and church purity.

There are abuses in both directions around church discipline. In many cases, it is ignored entirely. The radical individualism of the enlightenment has vanquished it to the ash heap along with anything that requires any reference to authoritative tradition. And the American ‘self’ has been all too eager to reinforce this godless philosophy. In other cases, it is engaged in for all the wrong reasons. Unfortunately, an evil abuse of power seduces us into behaving sinfully toward God and toward our brother. And yet in many instances, the steps are distorted or ignored. We don’t keep things private as our Lord commanded us and we end up hurting the reputation of our brother unnecessarily. Love covers a multitude of sin. Jesus was concerned enough about privacy to emphasize it. That should be enough for us to appreciate and respect it. Far too many times church discipline is treated like a lawsuit between the church and the individual in American and other western cultures. In some cases, elders who are supposed to have the primary goal of restoring someone to the fellowship refuse to even communicate with people except by certified postal receipt. That is fine if a person has refused to meet with anyone and has refused to acknowledge their sin and repent of it. Eventually, contumacy leads to excommunication. But if such a tone is set prematurely or too early in the process, just about anyone could predict the outcome of such an approach. Remember, the goal is to restore a broken relationship.

The foundation of church discipline is Christian love. The motive is restoration and reconciliation for the individual and the purity of the Christian community. We have no choice but to purge the leaven that seeps in among us. That purging takes place through winning the repentant brother and excommunicating the contumacious and rebellious one. In all cases we are guided by loving humility, kindness, grace, mercy, and patience. This is not a case of Elijah calling down fire from heaven on the prophets of Baal. Jesus told the disciples that displayed this type of spirit at one point, “you do not know what spirit you are of.” (Luke 9:55) The next blog entry will deal with the details of the entire 18th chapter of Matthew so that we can understand both the spirit and the process that are bound up in the biblical paradigm for sanctification. Discipline is a very delicate issue that must be handled with the due care it demands. It is essential to get both the steps of the process correct and the manner in which those steps are carried out. This goes to action and attitude which will be discussed as we walk through the occasion for this teaching in Matthew 18.

The Biblical Paradigm for Progressive Sanctification

It has been well established that Christians are regenerate sinners with a multifarious sin nature. Some of us struggle with lust, while others have trouble with anger. Some of us are tempted with homosexuality while others are tempted with self-righteous pride and arrogance. We lie, cheat, steal, commit sexual immorality, fight, divide, refuse to submit to one another, and a host of other sins too long to mention. Hopefully you get the point. But is there a real difference in the behavior of Christians who struggle with sin and the behavior of professing Christians, so-called, who revel in it? Can you observe the life of Christians at work, at home, with their family, in social settings, in discussions, etc., and see a set of distinctive behaviors that you really do not see in other people? I will argue in this article that, for the most part, and with some slight exceptions which I will cover, you can. In doing so, I will also lay out what I believe to be God’s design to preserve sanctification within the Christian community. God Himself has given us a paradigm by which we are to execute the sanctified life individually and corporately within the Christian family of faith. This paradigm has been ignored and/or dismissed by many in the church even though as of late there seems to be a resurgence taking place. For that, I think we should all rejoice.


The first mark of genuine faith is Christian love. Without Christian love we have no hope of ever executing on the sanctified life in the way that God has designed. First of all, Christian love is theocentric. Its focus is God. God is the center of all that we do. Every motivation we have for engaging in behaviors that are critical to the Christian ethic is directly connected with our love for God. Simply put, without Christian love, there is no motivation to drive Christian behavior. Our motivation becomes the same old selfish desire to please me. We need a motivator if behavior is going to change. There is no greater motivation than the motivation to please our heavenly Father. If you are not motivated to please God, you are likely unregenerate. Pleasing God matters to Christians. Hypocrites look for excuses for how they can get away with as little as possible. When God threatens the autonomous self, hypocrites come up with more excuses and exceptions than you could ever imagine for not responding to God in simple obedience. Hypocrites always see their sin as different from the sin of others. A hypocrite’s sin is never as bad as everyone else’s sin. Hypocrites are also some of the most loveless, joyless people you ever want to me.

Secondly, Christian love places the interest of others before itself. This is not easy for most of us to do and it is especially difficult to do consistently. Christian love will sacrifice its desires for the sake of others. It will especially sacrifice its desires for the sake of the gospel. This is a critical component within the Christian family and community. Husbands and wives who model Christian love will place the needs of the other spouse before their own. When forgiveness is necessary, it is extended without limit because this is how God loves us. We forgive the way God forgives. We display mercy to one another the way God displays mercy toward us. Because we have received the richness of God’s grace, we unhesitatingly extend grace to others. We extend patience where patience is due. We recognize God’s patience with us and therefore understand we have no basis for not being patient with one another.

The Christian community is no different from the Christian family unit. It is this love that motivates us to take an interest in our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is not a “check-the-box” kind of love. What is “check-the-box” love? It is not love in reality. It is calling someone just because you know you should, but you really aren’t interested in how they are doing. You called them so that you can feel good about yourself essentially. You did the right thing. Pat yourself on the back and go on about your business. Of course it would be an improvement if we could get people to actually pick up a phone once in a while and demonstrate to their brothers and sisters that they really do care about them. What a novel concept that is. The point is that in order for Christians to live a sanctified life, the presence of Christian love is essential. Without Christian love, the sanctified life will always be a legalistic life that really seeks more to uphold an appearance than it does engage in real heartfelt meaningful service to God and others. Christians really love God and do what God commands. Their lives reflect active, deliberate obedience to their heavenly Father. When they fail, they are not pleased with themselves. They get back up and try again. Should they fail again, they keep trying. They will not quit even if it means a million failures.

So the paradigm for Christian sanctification is not a list of rules. It isn’t a list of do’s and don’ts. It is love. It is love for God first, and love for our neighbor second. What is the greatest commandment? What is the second greatest commandment? Jesus said, by this all men will know you are my disciples, by the love you have for one another. (John 13:35) Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. (John 14:15) Notice that Jesus did not say that most of my disciples will love most of my disciples. He also did not say if you love me you will keep most of my commandments or the really important ones at least. Jesus equates keeping his commandments with loving him repeated. 1 John 3:10 is one of those in your face kind of verses. John says that anyone who does not love their brother is not of God. Now if this is true, we had better understand what loving our brother looks like and commence to doing it. John says the message we received from the beginning was that we were to love one another. (1 John 3:11) John says he who does not love abides in death. (1 John 3:14) The one who does not love does not know God. (1 John 4:8) If someone says he loves God and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. (1 John 4:20) Love is the paradigm for biblical sanctification. Love is what sets biblical sanctification apart from legalism. Love motivates from the inside out while legalism, with its concern about appearances and facades, is external only.

Our love for God motivates us to make godly decisions. But this love does not eradicate the sin nature. Sin is a real and present threat to every believer every day of their temporal lives. How does Christian love help us with our sanctification? The answer to this question is found in Matthew 18:15-18. Christian love serves as our basis for helping each other overcome the sinful proclivities we have in our lives. If you see a brother or sister caught up in a sin, you are to go to them according to Jesus. You are to go to them in private. This matter of sin is to remain between you and him alone. You mission is to win him out of his sin. You want to restore him. So you lovingly confront him, in humility, and show him that he sinned. If he listens to you, tell it to no one else, you have won your brother. If he does not listen to you, you are to bring two or three witnesses of the sin and confront him again. If he does not hear them, you are to tell it to the church. The church then will go to the sinning brother over time and attempt to win him back. If he remains obstinate in his sin, the church is to treat him as an object of evangelism. This public ostracism is designed to pressure the sinner individual to repent. Its purpose is to restore. This is the biblical paradigm for personal and corporate sanctification. First, this is God’s mechanism for correcting erring believers. He calls us back like a lost sheep. And he forgives our debt like a merciful master when we respond. Second, this is God’s way of keeping the church pure. There is no place in the Christian community for individuals who profess Christ with their mouth, but refuse to obey Him with their lives. The church must be concerned with her purity and testimony. She is the keeper of the gospel. As such, she has to set the standards and maintain that level of integrity and credibility that makes her the light that shines into a dark world. Believers may fall into sinful patterns for short periods of time, but will always be brought back to obedience. Church discipline is a key component that God ordained to this very end. We ignore it to our peril and when we do, we are not loving those we claim to love.

Sanctification: Old-Fashion Legalism or Biblical Mandate?

In contemporary society, the word sanctification has not been en vogue for some time now. In fact, oftentimes the mention of the word is a red flag to some, that the person using it has a certain theological profile. In other words, if you use the term “sanctification,” you run the risk of being stereo-typed as a fighting fundamentalist or a belligerent legalist. In my view, the antinomian mindset that exists within many quarters of the Christian community is no more attractive than the legalism it seeks to eradicate. Now to be sure, legalism certainly needs eradicating, but so too does the antinomianism spurred on by Descartes’ modernity as well. Moreover, what some label legalism is nothing of the sort. The Scripture presents us with a very balanced approach to how we are to behave in this world. But make no mistake about it, there are very clear prohibitions against certain behaviors and certain patterns of living that, when ignored, require attention by the individual and those in the Christian community that profess to love that individual. In addition, those on the opposite end of the spectrum must understand that Scripture is not merely a list of rules, the keeping of which places us in a kind of special position with God. In other words, Sanctified living does not establish various categories of Christians. Christians not only like to categorize themselves based on what they don’t do and what others do, they love to brag about their private lifestyle openly as if to say, “I don’t do this or that.” Apparently they think that not watching television places them in a higher class of Christians. Some Christians will only listen to Christian music as if that makes them holier. If you do these things, please do not think I am taking pot shots at you. I am not. If you do these things to brag and you do them to convince yourself you are less worldly somehow, then I am taking pot shots at you. You are sorely misguided. In fact, your self righteousness is just as ugly as that of the Pharisees. We must take care not to criticize one person for what they don’t do the same as we should take care not to criticize a person for what they do. If you see someone sin there is a process that is clearly outlined by Christ Himself that you must follow. And that process does not include talking about them behind their back to everyone you know. I will cover this process as the means by which we can recognize those who truly desire to please God with their lives as compared to those who may only be interested in the benefits of appearing to be something they really are not.


What does a biblical perspective of sanctification look like, and should we continue to use this term to communicate the meaning of Scripture regarding this all important doctrine? Paul says in Romans 6:1-2, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin live any longer therein? Many Christians so-called are so ignorant of Scripture, they don’t even realize this verse is in the bible. I am not talking about new converts to Christianity. I am talking about young people who have been around Christianity for 5 and 10 years. To them, Bible-reading is not the best way to spend your time. They go to church, listen to shallow sermons that are mostly geared toward social causes, listen to tons of music and never, ever pick up and read their bible except in special circumstances. It is a sad state of affairs indeed. Paul understands the nature of human sin. He knows that this justification by faith alone business may be misunderstood by some to mean that there really are no consequences to this act of God on those who believe in Christ. Therefore, he issues some highly practice, highly logical points around this fact and how it relates to our daily living. First, does the fact of justification by faith alone mean that how we behave on a daily basis is irrelevant? Do we go on living a lifestyle predominantly patterned after the world? And do we do this so that we may receive more and more grace? Paul uses the Greek expression, me genoito! This is the strongest possible way to so no in Koine Greek. In other words, absolutely not, or under no circumstances whatever!

Paul asks the questions, “how shall we who died to sin live any longer therein?” This is an interesting sentence. Paul uses the aorist tense to describe our “death” to sin, but he uses the future tense to describe our “living” in sin. Douglas Moo comments,

“Living in sin” is best taken as describing a “lifestyle” of sin – a habitual practice of sin, such that one’s life could be said to be characterized by that sin rather than by the righteousness God requires. Such habitual sin, “remaining in sin,” (v.1), “living in sin,” (v.2), is not possible, as a constant situation, for the one who has truly experienced the transfer out from under the domain, or tyranny, of sin. Sin’s power is broken for the believer, and this must be evident in practice (see also Jas. 2:14-26; and perhaps 1 John 3:6, 9).

There are two extremes to be avoided here. On the one hand, we must avoid the antinomian extreme of living recklessly before our Lord and before the world. We are set on display by God to serve as His light to the world. We have no right to conduct our lives as we please or as we see fit. Such extreme individualism is entirely incongruent with the Christian worldview. On the other hand, we must resist the urge to label everything a sin, take pride in avoiding it, and classifying those who don’t as “a different kind of Christian than me.” This leads to self-righteousness and hypocritical judging. A.W. Pink says it very well,

“In sanctification something is actually imparted to us, in justification it is only imputed. Justification is based entirely upon the work Christ wrought for us, sanctification is principally a work wrought in us. Justification respects its object in a legal sense and terminates in a relative change—a deliverance from punishment, a right to the reward; sanctification regards its object in a moral sense, and terminates in an experimental change both in character and conduct—imparting a love for God, a capacity to worship Him acceptably, and a meetness for heaven.”

Romans 6:4-7 teaches that at our conversion we have now been positioned to walk in a “newness of life.” This word new means “the sate of being new, and different, with the implication of being superior.” This newness of life reflects the fact that we are no longer slaves to sin. Sin no longer holds us captive. The believer is dead to sin. Now this does not mean that our sin nature has been eradicated. Clearly it has not. While the believer is dead to sin, sin is clearly not dead to the believer. Nevertheless, Paul expects a radical impact to the life of a person who has been justified and consequently sanctified. And this radical impact is visible and presents itself as clear proof that God is active in this person’s life. The idea that a person would convert to Christianity with little to no impact on their life from the inside out is completely foreign to the teachings of Scripture. And this is precisely where the controversy comes in. There is a plethora of professing Christians who simply reject or ignore the teachings of Scripture on this point. Typically these are the so called “Jesus-lovers” who love Jesus so much they don’t bother to read anything about His life and teachings.

I once had a “worship leader” tell me that music was just as important as preaching and teaching. Now I don’t intend to downplay the importance of music in worship. I am a musician myself. But nothing takes precedence over the dissemination of Scripture through teaching and preaching. However, this is the mindset of many young people today in the church. Scripture just isn’t important. Reading it, studying it, hearing it preached and taught all take a back seat to “other” things. I once had a discussion with a minister who was over the entire youth program at a church. He admitted to me that he had not worked out his view on divorce as of yet. This man was responsible for teaching teenagers how to glorify God with their lives. A huge part of his job was to prepare these kids to be adult Christians who will grow up and marry some day. What was he teaching them about marriage and divorce? This is the kind of non-sense that the church must address. Youth programs have become nothing more than religious entertainment centers in the Christian church where “self” continues to be the main emphasis of the program. Is it any wonder why sanctification has faded off the scene? If you don’t think it is so, ask where all these young people go when they leave home and head for college. What are the parents modeling in the home and what is the church doing to prepare them for life in the real world where biblical Christianity is despised?

Paul reaches the culmination of his argument in 6:22, “But now, having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.” There is an ineluctable relationship between justification and sanctification. Paul expends considerable energy demonstrating this truth throughout chapters 3-6 in Romans. Contrary to popular thinking, Paul does not contradict James in the slightest. There are two assertions Paul makes in his argument: 1) We have been freed from sin, and 2) We have been enslaved to God. In the previous verse, Paul talks about the benefit we were deriving from the things that we are now ashamed of. There is a clear demarcation between the life that was and that life that now is.

Rather than disagree with James, as those with a low view of Scripture contend, Paul reinforces James’ eloquent point that faith without works is dead. If your Christian conversion had little to no impact on your life, then there is a strong likelihood that it was no conversion after all. The Bible describes this conversion as a person “becoming again.” You are “becoming” all over again. We call it being born again. It is radical! It can be seen in every aspect of our lives. No difference in your life means that Christ is not in your life. The idea that Christian conversion is as simple as a prayer, joining the role, and settling into a small group is false. This is not how the Bible describes Christian conversion. Yet in numerous churches throughout the world, this is precisely what is practiced. Christianity becomes indistinguishable from joining a club or organization if you will.

The fact that God has declared Christians righteous by faith in the person of Jesus Christ means something significant. It means that God not only acts on behalf of those he has declared righteous, but that he works in and through them as well. God sanctifies all whom he has declared righteous. This is Paul’s point. And this sanctification changes the Christian’s life from the inside out. Sanctification is both positional and progressive. God sets us apart for service and works in our hearts and minds causing us to adopt the attitude of Christ more and more until eventually, some day, we experience the pinnacle of this work in the glorification of our entire person as we enter into eternity. Does this sanctification mean that Christians never fail? Does it mean we don’t make mistakes and that sometimes those mistakes are tragic? Does this work of God in our heart mean that we have no responsibility to avoid sin? Of course not! But that will be the subject of the next article. How do we achieve balance in our Christian walk, as we receive and celebrate God’s grace, mercy, and kindness while at the same time attempting to be the example God has called us to be in a very dark world? Christians are not perfect, just forgiven as the saying goes. But that is easier to say than it is to accept.

Justified Once and for All

“Being justified as a gift by grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” The Greek participle di-kai-ou-men-oi is a present tense participle. This participle is describing the aspect of being justified as a continuous state. Once justification is declared, it is finished. We say, “I am innocent of those charges.” That innocence describes the present state. This is true for all believers alike. How do we know this is true for all believers? The participle modifies “all” of v. 23. All of us are presently justified. We have all (those who have faith in Christ) once for all been declared innocent of the charge of breaking God’s law. Legally, we are not guilty. The absence of guilt however cannot be ascribed to works we have or have not done. This state of justification is a result of a gift by grace. That is to say that this grace we receive is entirely a gift from God. Moreover, this gift of grace is made visible through the completed work of Christ in redemption. The Greek word redeem is apolutroseos and it means to purchase out of the market place. It carries the idea of purchasing a slave out of the market for the purpose of releasing him/her from painful interrogation. It means to release from a captive condition. We are all on equal footing here. We were all slaves. Not one of us was good, not even one. (Rom. 3:10) As far as God is concerned, we are all cut from the same filthy cloth. The CEO of the bank is the same as the custodian who cleans the toilets. The unregenerate boy-scout is no different from the unregenerate prostitute. We are the same. The powerful, wealthy politician is no different than the powerless, poor widow living in the one room apartment. The preacher who rips widows off on TV is no worse off than the little old unregenerate lady at church who spends all her time stirring up discord, strife, and engaging in continuous malicious gossip. The act whereby we have been made righteous or innocent of the charges against us is entirely the act of God from beginning to end. Now that is mercy. Now that is kindness. Now that is love. You cannot soften the sinful condition without the unintended consequence of diminishing grace. If I am not a wretch, then grace isn’t amazing.

But there was a cost involved. God is holy. God is eternally righteous. He is a just God. Sin cannot go unpunished. God, because He is holy, cannot simply dismiss sin. Sin must be punished. This is where so many in contemporary cultures around the world run aground. Christ’s atonement was not simply God in His wisdom, providing us with an example of what Christian service looks like. Jesus’ death on the cross was far more than the ultimate example of service. Paul says that God displayed Jesus (as a propitiation) publicly in His blood (through faith) to demonstrate His righteousness. What is Paul getting at? Paul is continuing to assert that there is nothing in us or in our works that merits God’s grace or deserves His legal declaration of our innocence. The Greek word hilosterion means both expiation and propitiation. In one act, God’s anger and wrath is averted while his favor is directed toward us. And this act is based on the work of Christ in the atonement. Even though we are all from the same lump of vile clay, God, in His kindness and mercy, has called us out of darkness and made provision for our justification through faith in Jesus Christ. There is no distinction. Just as we are all vile sinners before God, taken from the same sinful lump, now we are all declared righteous through faith in one and the same person, Jesus Christ. This will come back to our sinful desire to categorize one another, and judge each other before this is over. So please be patient with me. It cannot be overemphasized that we all come from the same sinful lump of clay, and that it is the same work of Christ on the cross that justifies all those who believe. We are the same.

“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand.” The Greek word for justify again is in the aorist tense which points to action that has taken place. Justification is a declarative act of God that is applied to our lives by faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We all have peace with God because God has declared us righteous. The Greek word “have” is in the present tense which indicates continuous action. In other words, having been declared righteous by God, we are having peace, or we are in a state of peace, with God. Because we have been reconciled to God and declared righteous, we are no longer His enemy and as such, we are in a state of peace with Him. When an adversary conquers, the peace is imposed on the terms of the conqueror, not the one conquered. We will revisit this when we discuss sanctification and how all this works its way out in the unified whole of the Christian scheme of thinking. We were all the enemies of God. The sin nature desires to keep us in a hostile state toward God. Having been justified, we have now been set apart. We have been declared righteous, and now have been adopted by God into His family, and we are no longer enemies, but now we are called friends. Again, this is true of all of us. There is no distinction.

It must also be pointed out clearly that God’s basis for declaring us righteous is the atoning work of Christ. This atoning work did not simply provide for God’s ability to potentially declare us righteous depending on what WE would do. That is not the grammar used here by Paul. This act of declaration is viewed by Paul as in the past with the result continuing in the present. Christ’s work at Calvary did not provide for potential justification, nor did it lay the groundwork for contingent justification. It IS the basis for actual justification. Calvary is the basis for the once for all declaration by the Father that all the believing ones have been justified before God. This declaration is realized in actual justification at the point in time when faith is placed in Christ. The declaration precedes the application. Were this not the case, no one could have been declared just at the cross. And justification could not have been looked at as an event that happened “then,” but rather as an iterative process that is on-going even to this day.

Paul spends Romans 1-3 establishing the fact that there is none righteous, no not one. We are all sinners cut from the same sinful lump of clay. In chapter 4, he introduces us to Abraham, the father of the faithful. Abraham believed God and his faith was credited to him as righteousness, apart from the law. Finally, in chapter 5, Paul begins by informing us that those who believe in Christ Jesus are also justified and now have peace with God. Paul elaborates further on our condition in Adam, pointing out that because sin belongs to us all, we all die. Get it? We ALL die. We are ALL the same. We are all sinners, born into sin, and as a result we all die. Those who believe in Christ do so as a result of the free gift of God’s grace on their lives. They are declared righteous by the work of God from top to bottom.

Now we enter the part of this discussion where controversy is alive and well. If justification is an act once for all declared by God, how is it that not everyone is righteous? How is it that God can declare us righteous because of the work of Christ while most human beings are still unrighteous, and most of them will enter eternity damned? God has declared only those righteous who exercise faith in Christ. So God has declared all those who exercise faith in Christ to be righteous. This justification is applied to the individual at the point that this person places their faith in Christ. But isn’t this personal application based on the actions of the human subject? The answer is yes and no. Yes, they are expressing faith in the person of Jesus Christ. That action certainly belongs to them. But the faith they possess, they do not possess on their own. God grants to them this gift of faith by grace so that they will believe. Unregenerate people do not possess saving faith and remain unregenerate. James pointed this out when he said “even the devils believe in one God and tremble.” That isn’t genuine faith. Genuine faith is the gift of God upon those whom God has called to salvation. So the question then is how do we know who is truly justified and who isn’t. That is the subject of the next portion of this series. On the one hand, there is a way to tell who has been declared justified and who likely has not. There is a very specific mechanism in place to help us recognize when a person has genuine faith in Christ and when they probably do not. On the other hand, this is a very serious and sober area. You want to avoid blindly accepting everyone who says “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” as genuine Christians, while at the same time, the last thing on earth you want to engage in is hypocritical judging. Do not call a believer an unbeliever. Moreover, do not call an unbeliever a brother when the evidence is clearly pointing in the other direction. But take care in how you arrive at your conclusions. There are very specific steps in place designed to help us hold one another accountable as well as help us understand the difference between a genuine member of the Christian community and a pseudo member. This will all come out in our discussion on sanctification. Yes, sanctification matters and the balance here, as you will see, while possible is not easy.

Justification and Sanctification – The Assertions of an Apostle

Before I get carried away, as is often the case with me, I think it best to turn to the texts mentioned in the first article and attempt to understand what Paul’s assertions were about the congruency between justification and sanctification. Previously, I mentioned balance as our goal. While that is true, perhaps it is a bit misleading if not understood in the context of which I intended. I do not suggest that we seek balance for the sake of balance alone. Otherwise, we fall into the trap of transforming the biblical text into what we desire. And this is precisely what I do not want to do. The aim of the Christian is to be transformed by the text. Therefore, when I say we seek biblical balance, what I mean is that we simply seek to conform to the teachings of the biblical text. I mean nothing more and nothing less than this.

Romans 3:21-26 deals very directly with the subject of how Christians are to understand their righteous standing before a holy God. After all, Christians are sinners. We have a sin nature. Our flesh desires to engage in activities that defy the divine Lordship of God. How is it then that we can move from being unholy, profane sinners to such a prestigious position in the sight of God? Paul begins the passage by driving home his point that succinctly, saying, “But now, apart from the Law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction.” As John MacArthur puts it, Paul has just finished talking about the impossibility of gaining righteous through human works. He has also debunked the view that humans are good people in general back in 3:9-18. He says that all are under sin. The Greek word pas is in the accusative, plural, masculine. When this word is in the plural it means “all.” No one escapes. Again here in v. 22 Paul says there is no distinction. It does not matter what culture we are from or live in. It does not matter what our social standing is. Our earthly heritage carries no weight with God. We are all the same before the Creator. What holds true for sin, now also holds true for righteousness. It does not depend on works, or genes, or cultures, or social standing. Righteousness comes from God to us through faith in Jesus Christ, apart from the Law. Leon Morris writes,

“In the first instance this means quite apart from the Jewish law, the law of Moses. It has been part of Paul’s method to demonstrate in the section leading up to this point of the argument that that law cannot bring salvation. It can show up the problem; it can and does make clear that all are sinners. But it can do no more.” [Morris, PNTC, Romans, 174]

If righteousness does not come by the Law of Moses, which itself is good and holy, then righteousness certainly cannot come by human means any of kind.

Paul uses the Greek particle de which continues his thought and brings additional specificity to this righteousness of God. “That is” is probably the best rendering. So we read, “That is, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe, for there is no distinction.” It is observed then that the righteousness of God comes through faith for all those who believe. The fact that pisteos Iesou Christou is in the genitive could mean that the phrase is subjective. This means that this verse could be understood to read as follows, That is, the righteousness of God that comes through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all those who believe. Given the grammatical evidence however, it is best to take the genitive here as an objective genitive and therefore, the expression as “faith in Jesus Christ,” to be the best rendering of the phrase. We are made righteous by God through faith in Jesus Christ. To be sure, this faith is also a free gift from God. (Eph. 2:8-10) So the righteousness we receive from God is a free gift as much as the means by which we receive it, not to mention the person by whom it comes. And finally, says Paul, “for there is no distinction.”

The Greek word diastole is rendered, “distinction.” It appears three times in the N.T. In Romans 10:12, Paul uses it to say that there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. And then again, in 1 Cor. 14:7, the apostle uses it to talk about the distinct sounds that different musical instruments give. The word means a clear or marked distinction – difference, distinction. But we love to make distinctions among ourselves and set up classes both inside and outside Christianity. Within Christianity, in some cases we set up classes of Christians. They don’t come to Sunday school as often as me, so they are in a different class of Christian than I am in. Or they don’t attend Sunday nights like I do. I am more spiritual or I care more about the things of God than they do. There are a million different examples. They go to movies and I don’t is another one. Or, they watch too much television. They listen to less refined music than I and therefore they are a different class of Christian that I. Or even worse, they are not as travelled or as cultured as I am and therefore they are a less enlightened Christian than me. We love our classes. Or how about this one: they have been married twice or three times, and therefore they are clearly defective in some way and I have been married to the same spouse for 40 years now. I am so holy. I must be one of God’s favorites. Yes, we love our classes. But the righteousness of God comes through faith in the person of Jesus Christ, for there is no distinction.

It is significant that Paul ties in the very next phrase with the universality of sin once again in v.23 with his statement in v.22. Literally, v.23 reads, “For all have sinned and are falling short of the glory of God.” The question that an exegete wrestles with is the Greek gar which is a conjunction and in this case functions as an epexegetical. That is to say, the word “for” in v.23 is expounding on v.22. Does the conjunction “for” look back at the entire sentence in v.21-22 or just at the phrase “for there is no distinction.” It is probably best to take the whole phrase “for there is no distinction, for all have sinned and are falling short of the glory of God as parenthetical. Note that Paul places the Greek adjective pas at the beginning of the second phrase. He does this for emphasis. He is emphatic about this ou diastole (no distinction) point. In order to keep with this theme, he places “all” at the beginning of this phrase. Then he uses the aorist tense to describe the action of the all. All have sinned. No one exists, outside of Christ, who has not sinned. We are all sinners. There are regenerate sinners and unregenerate sinners. But make no mistake about it; the sin nature that is in the unregenerate is the same one that resides in us. To my knowledge, I know of only two states: regenerate and unregenerate. And I know only of one sin nature, not two or three or four. Like it not, we are all the same. Now I realize how upsetting this is to the old-fashioned legalist who considers themselves as somehow better than all those Christians who engage in practices that they abhor. Thanks be to God that only He can legitimately classify us. No man can legitimately classify us as better or worse Christians. Those who have expressed genuine faith in Christ are just as righteous the day of their conversion as they will ever be. There is no such thing as progressive righteousness. There is progressive sanctification but progressive righteousness, no.

The tense of hemarton is aorist. All this tells us is that the action happened. The action happened sometime in the past. That is all one may gather from the aorist. Context must determine the rest. So Paul points that everyone, all of us have sinned.

We are falling short of God’s glory. This Greek verb, husterountai is in the present tense, passive voice, and indicative mood. The present tense indicates continuous action. In other words, we are continuously falling short of God’s glory. Now what is also interesting is that the voice is passive which means the action of continuously falling short of God’s glory is action that is happening to us, not action we are doing. In other words, the continuously falling short of God’s glory is not action we are engaging in. The fact that we have sinned has created the continuous action of falling short of God’s glory.

Now all this defines the essence of sin. Sin must be understood out of the relationship in which God has placed man to himself as his creature and in which he has given and held out the prospect of life to him. [Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology, 105]

 The fact that we have all sinned and that we are all continuously falling short of God’s glory is profound, but missed by most Christians because of our sinful tendency to classify people.

What is the point of all this? The point is simply that we are all cut from the very same cloth. Later in Romans Paul uses the analogy of a lump of clay to describe each of us. Paul uses the Greek phrase tou autou phuramatos to describe all of us as he points out God’s sovereign right to choose whomever He pleases to be a vessel of mercy. Both, the vessels of mercy and the vessels of wrath are carved from the very same sinful lump of clay. So there is nothing in the clay itself that would account for any difference in class between Christian sinners and unregenerate sinners. It is entirely the work of God from beginning to end. We are all the same. Any difference in the unbeliever and the believer can only be accounted for by the presence of God in the life of the regenerate heart. But the owner of that heart cannot brag of himself, but only in Christ. Brothers and sisters, regeneration is the work of God. Justification, the judicial act of God’s proclamation that we are made righteous by faith in Jesus Christ is entirely the act of God. We cannot take any credit for that work. There is none good, no, not one. As one scholar put it, you may be located upon the mountain, while others are down in the mine. But your can no more grasp the stars as the person in the mine. Neither can any of us, in and of ourselves, attain the glory of God that was before the fall. We are the same. Out tendency to classify sin and one another, and then set up categories is borne from pride. We want to publish standards, aim at them, and then have a sense of accomplishment that we have reached them. Moreover, we eagerly seek the recognition that we think should come with that sense of accomplishment. And not only this, in our pride we want to be set apart from others and elevated to a status of achievement. We are different. I am here, you are there. You sit here while I sit up there. It is our sin that entices and seduces us into behaving in such a sinful manner.

It would be a mistake to take these comments as assent to the contemporary view of easy-believism. I find the doctrine of “once-saved-always-saved” to be lacking on all fronts when examined in the light of Scripture. My views in this area will be evident when I move to the discussion of sanctification. Keep in mind, we are made righteous by a declaration of God through what we call forensic justification. We have legally be declared innocent. That declaration has consequences which shall be investigated more fully as we move to the question “How shall we then live?”

The Heidelberg Catechism asks in Q. 60: How are thou righteous before God?


Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ; so that, though my conscience accuse me, that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God, and kept none of them, and am still inclined to all evil; notwithstanding, God, without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ; even so, as if I never had had, nor committed any sin: yea, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me; inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a believing heart.

Part II - Antecedents for Christian Behavior: What is a Christian?

This is part two of "The Congruence between Justification and Sanctification."
Before discussing the meaning of the term “Christian,” it is important to talk about what is meant by the term “antecedent.” The word antecedent means, something previous, prior to, that which precedes something else. It is a reference marker designed to point to something previous in order to avoid  redundancy. It is typically the case when translating the biblical text from Greek, or Hebrew to a receptor language that we encounter a pronoun, that we immediately begin to look for the antecedent of that pronoun in order to understand what it is referring to. Here is an example: The bible is the Word of God. It is such a wonderful book. The antecedent of it is bible. It refers back to the bible. Hence, when you see the title, “antecedents for Christian Behavior,” what I am referring to are those contingencies that are necessary in order for Christian behavior to take place. This tends to be a very controversial subject in contemporary times. And depending on what part of the world you live in, it may be even more controversial for you. One challenge of Christian living (and there are many) is the avoidance of extremes. If you have been in the Christian way any length of time at all, you probably understand what I’m getting at. The balance one seeks to achieve is a biblical one. You want to land in the place that values doctrine and relationships, abstract knowledge and Christian praxis, bible study as well as appropriation. The goal is to hold the standards of Christian living high, all the while living in the valley with the rest of us Christian sinners at the same time. Know the standards of God intimately, value them, aim for them diligently, but never ever forget what you are, where God found you, what He saved you from, not just what He saved you to.

Does this not go against the popular notion that I am in Christ, I am righteous now that I know Christ, my sin is cleansed and I am now a child of the king mentality? Not really. That is not all we are! We are all those things. We are forgiven! We are blessed! We are loved! We are recipients of the richness of God’s mercy and grace. We are the objects of His love and kindness! Amen. We are all those things! But we are also sinners. We possess a sin nature that is so prone to wander from God’s standards. We love our sin. Paul said the things I hate, I do! Those were not just words. Our problem is we either don’t take Paul seriously here, on the one hand, or on the other hand, we use Paul’s words as an excuse not to hate sin and worse, to pattern our lifestyle after it. Again, the delicate goal here is to achieve biblical balance in how we behave as Christians. Oh, and by the way, human thinking is a human behavior, and therefore, when you see behavior, please recognize that it means how you think as well. That cannot be overemphasized.

What is a Christian? What is the impact to the life of the person who is a Christian, not to mention, the impact to the lives of those with whom that person relates or comes into contact with? Unfortunately, there are millions of professed Christians who do not understand what it really means to be a Christian. They think they do, but they are terribly mistaken and have been deceived into thinking they have made a commitment to Christ when in fact all they did was submit to an outward formula and speak a certain set of words, not unlike taking your oath to serve in a particular military. However, the antecedents of Christian behavior and of becoming a Christian are much deeper and far more profound than outward procedures and words spoken with the mouth. Since Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven,” it seems in our best interest to understand who will enter into the kingdom of heaven if for no other reason, so that we can understand our eternal destination.

The first antecedent to Christian behavior is regeneration. This takes place solely as a work of God in the heart of the individual. Jesus said, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. (John 3:3) The Greek words genethe anothen literally mean born from above. This means to experience a complete change in one’s life. The voice is passive which indicates the action is being done to the object. We do not make ourselves born again. Only a born again person would follow Christ. A person whose heart is unregenerate is an enemy of God (Rom. 8:6-8) with a darkened heart and a blind mind. (2 Cor. 4:4) Regeneration is the work of God on the human heart by which he removes the cold hard stony heart and gives us a new heart. Hence it follows that the very first antecedent for Christian behavior is the work of God in regeneration. (Titus 3:5)

Knowing God’s word is the next antecedent to Christian behavior. Jesus said, “He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you did not hear them, because you are not of God.” (John 8:47) The grammar could not be more straightforward. First, to hear God’s word obviously means to do God’s word. The Greek word akouo means to believe something and respond to it on the basis of having heard it. Obviously the Jews heard what Jesus was saying. Hence, He could not mean hearing in the sense of hearing the audible syllables he was using to put together the words necessary to form sentences. Such thinking is mere folly. They heard the sentences, but they did not hear. They rejected Jesus’ words. Why? Jesus gives us the clear reason why they rejected God’s word; it was because they were not of God. People reject God’s word because they are not of God. They don’t reject it for any other reason. Jesus is correct! How novel is that? We think that ungodly people accept God’s word and become godly. Not according to Scripture. Christian behavior is not a decision unregenerate people make. It is the result of the work of God on the heart first and foremost. Now obviously, there is a component of Christian behavior we are responsible for, but only after this work of God has been performed in our hearts. Please God means keeping His word. It does not mean feeling a certain way about God. It does not mean subscribing to a creed. It does not mean adopting certain outward practices. Notice these three involve the emotion (feeling), the intellect (subscribing), and the will (adopting). This is how we become deceived into thinking we have a valid relationship with God. Worse, it is how we are sometimes used by the enemy to deceive others into thinking they have had a valid born again experience. This is devastating to the gospel not to mention to the Christian community. We feel warm and fuzzy about Jesus if we are from a culture that emphasizes feelings. We get our thinking straight if we are from a culture where logic and reason are emphasized. We make sure our thinking is orthodox! Finally, we go through all the outward processes expected of Christians if we are more prone to adherence to rules. We go to church every week, or confession. We sing the right songs. We attend Sunday school and Wednesday night bible study. We may even engage in visitation. We do whatever is expected of “Christians.” But this is wide of the mark when compared to Scripture’s description of what it really means to be a Christian.

John the Baptist is said to give the people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of sins. (Lu.1:77) The kind of knowledge Scripture talks about is not just intellectual knowing. While it is true that it includes intellectual knowing, it involves much more than that. Oftentimes, we stop at intellectual knowing. We must move beyond intellectual knowing to knowing intimately. This is true knowledge. True knowledge involves not only a right understanding of doctrine or theology, but an intimacy of those things that only appropriation can provide. Christians take abstract knowledge of God’s word, head knowledge, and appropriate it to their hearts and lives. But without head knowledge, it is impossible to know intimately. Hence, it is folly to contend that doctrine is unimportant. Without regeneration, it is impossible to know existentially. Hence, we end up with a cold, dead orthodoxy. Without doctrine, is impossible to know how to please Christ from the heart. Hence we end up with outward rules that have no basis in a heartfelt, biblically informed knowledge of the Savior. And when the going gets tough, our ability to do the right thing for love of the right thing is considerably diminished.

Desire is the last antecedent to Christian behavior. Christians are not produced by decisions people make for Christ. They are produced by a radical new birth that only God can perform. Secondly, Christians cannot come up with the right feelings, the right knowledge, and the right actions to make themselves Christians. They need a source of knowledge. They need something to inform them. That something is Scripture. Scripture provides Christians with all things necessary for life and godliness. (2 Peter 1:3) Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) How is it then that so many Christians believe they can love Jesus and not keep His commandments? Yet it is clear that many Christians all over the world have somehow arrived at the conclusion that their love for Christ is valid irrespective of how they live their lives. John wrote, “The one who says, I have come to know him, and does not keep His commandments in a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him is the love of God perfected.” (1 John 2:4-5) To love God is to keep His word. It is not an emotion. It is not the collection of abstract knowledge. It is not a list of rules that we follow week in and week out. It is heartfelt obedience to the simple truths and commands expressed in Scripture simply because we want to be like Christ and love our heavenly Father. We want our lives to represent God in the earth. We love one another because we love God and because God first loved us. Human behavior changes when our desire for different results is strong enough to cause us to do things differently. That desire must come from God. It must come from outside of us initially. Man is not able to please God in his unregenerate condition. He hasn’t the desire to hear God. God acts on man’s heart, and regenerates him. With that regeneration, comes the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit produces a desire to please God with our lives in every way. Hence, we busy ourselves with the revelation of God’s expressed will in Scripture. The Holy Spirit illumines our heart to understand God’s word. Moreover, the Holy Spirit spurs us on to appropriate what we read to our lives. We burn with desire to know Christ and to be like Him. Nothing is more important to us than behaving in a way that pleases our Lord and Master. This is what it means to be a Christian. Christians do not despise God’s commandments. They keep them. Christians desire to read Scripture and to do Scripture because they have a burning passion to be like Christ. However, Christians have a very serious problem. Christians are sinners. And as such, we sin. That will be the subject for our next discussion as we move to an exegesis of Romans 3:21-26; 5:1-2; 6:1-2, 4-7, 11-19.

The Congruence between Justification and Sanctification

[Romans 3:21-26; 5:1-2; 6:1-2, 4-7, 11-19]

Introduction

There is an appalling misunderstanding and consequently, a considerable unsettling discrepancy in the Christian community as it relates to the doctrines of justification and sanctification. Whoever came up with the notion that doctrine wasn’t important evidently rejected the entire concept of critical thinking ex manus manus. In other words, critical thinking was abandoned without any consideration of the potential consequences of the impact that such thinking (or non-thinking as the case would have it)would have on the Christian community. Had anyone bothered to attend to these potential consequences, perhaps we wouldn’t be where we are today. Nevertheless, this is precisely where we are and that by God’s providence. And where we are specifically, is in a very desperate place indeed when it comes to a biblical understanding of justification and sanctification and the congruency that exists between these two doctrines. There is desperation in the church for sound theology and balanced doctrine that not only ignites the imagination but also has real meaning in the realm of Christian praxis. Far too long we have had imbalance in the church surrounding the issues of abstract theology, relationships, and praxis.


Most theologians recognize there is a false dichotomy between interpretation, understanding, and application. But somehow, this dichotomy is not recognized in the Sunday schools and in many instances, not even the pulpits. Something must change if we are to ever recover what it really looks like to express Jesus Christ to the world. If we neglect the doctrine of justification and fail to grasp the legal concepts it teaches, we end up with a legalistic notion of Sanctification not to mention a cold harsh and almost heartless orthodoxy. This expression of Christianity is seen as unloving, harsh, judgmental, and impatient, not to mention that it is missing the relational aspects so essential to a vibrant Christian community. If, on the other hand, we neglect the doctrine of sanctification, we end up with an empty, relational, shallow Christianity that is powerless to demonstrate the real life-changing power of a gospel that asserts, as its central message, a radical transformation in the heart that is made visible to all. Hence, the claims of Christianity become disgraced, and the gospel loses credibility because Christianity has no integrity. People reason that if the message of change is not true on the basis that they cannot see any change in the lives of Christians they know, then all other Christian claims must be just as fallacious as the core message itself. Hence, if we are to preserve the veracity, credibility, and integrity of the Christian worldview, we must do things differently. In the former case, Christians are viewed as having ridiculous rules, being judgmental, unloving, uncaring, without empathy, and even mean-spirited. In the later case, they are viewed as gullible, naïve, shallow, and no different from anyone else except for the fact that they attend church. Does any of this sound familiar? How do we embark on the long, hard tedious journey of fixing this problem? As with every other problem in the world, it begins with a review of divine revelation. What does God have to say about justification and sanctification?


The Ordo Salutis
An understanding of the order of salvation is helpful from the start of a discussion such as this one. First and foremost, Salvation belongs to the Lord. That is to say that God is sovereign over the salvation of sinners as He is over all other things. It is God who takes the initiative in the process of salvation. God not only takes the initiative in salvation, he also completes that which he begins. (Phil 1:6) There are a few variations in the ordo salutis, but I will provide the basic idea around the application of salvation as taught in Scripture. There are two people acting in the process of salvation, even though God is the initiator of the process. Salvation begins with the decree of God to elect man to faith. This election is followed, in time, by God’s effectual call. God provides man with a new heart. This regeneration instantly produces faith and repentance and we see man’s response in outward conversion. It is at this point that man is instantly justified before God, adopted into the family of God and sanctified, or set apart for holy service to the living God. Hence the elect’s response to this call is repentance and faith. We call this man’s part. This results in God’s continued work of sanctification in man, leading to perseverance, ultimately culminating in glorification. And there you have the order of salvation, also known as the ordo salutis. Notice that both, justification and sanctification are viewed as God’s acts and God’s work respectively. In justification, man is declared by God to be released from the sin debt. In sanctification, man is not only declared holy, but God’s work in man’s heart is on-going which is why sanctification is both an act of God on man, and a work of God in man. It is the congruency that exists between these two acts of God and the effects on man that these series of articles is concerned to treat.


Readers will notice that I am writing from a reformed position in the area of Soteriology. It is not the purpose of this article to dispute with Arminian, Semi-Pelagian, Pelagian, or other schemes of theology. Such systems are viewed as ranging from error, to serious error, to heresy from my perspective. I will leave you guessing as to which scheme I see as heretical. My aim here is to make a critical examination of what the Scripture teaches about justification and sanctification, how they relate to one another, and how a proper understanding of these doctrines work their way into our daily living and especially into our relationships in the Christian community. In the end, Scripture has a perlocutionary aim. It seeks to transform us into the image of Christ.


The Power of the Gospel on Display
The power of the gospel is best displayed in and by a community of believers whose lives have been transformed into something radically different from what it used to be. The world should see a community of people living, relating, acting, and thinking in ways that are fundamentally antithetical to the way the world behaves. What does this mean? Does it mean we don’t make mistakes? Does it mean we don’t sin? Does it mean that we attain sinless perfection? Not at all. But it does mean that we don’t engage in those things the way we use to, i.e., they don’t reflect the dominant pattern of our lifestyle. It means we respond to those behaviors differently than we use to. We hate our sin and struggle with it daily. It means we have a much different disposition and attitude toward those things than we use to. Our efforts are focused on putting these sinful behaviors away from us. Moreover, it also means we relate to one another in an entirely different way than we use to. If this is not the case, then the community is not really distinctively Christian. It is nothing more than a group of people gathering together who have all agreed to hold to the same religious errors collectively. This community is impotent to effect meaningful change in the lives of its members or its surrounding community. It expends very little effort in actually realizing such change. This community is more interested in appearances and outward practices than it is in real internal change. After all, real internal change takes real effort. And from a behavioral standpoint, real effort generally requires serious passion. We need serious passion in order to generate intense energy so that we may to effect radical change. Scripture calls it diligence! This community creates, with words only, the perception that it is different. It sounds like it is interested in people’s lives and may even sound like it is passionate for the truth of the gospel. But when one lifts the hood to examine its practices versus what it preaches, what they find is the same ole same ole. They find a group of people who gather a couple of times a week, listen to the same kind of sermon and Sunday school lesson, sing the same songs, talk about the same people, even talk to the same people, and then return to their respective homes and eventually to work, with absolutely no change in their lives. They do this week in and week out. It has become a casual routine just like every other casual routine in their life. They say it is different for them and some may even work themselves up emotionally from time to time when they talk about it. But after the talk is done, and the emotions simmer, life remains for them, the same as it always has. There is no real tangible difference. They can be heard talking about one another, gossiping, slandering, lying, cheating, cursing, fighting, divorcing and any number of other practices that any other community without claims to religious faith might practice. These are the kind of people who attack one another behind their backs over personality idiosyncrasies. Rather than confront one another in love over sin, they don’t bother to get involved. Or they may even lend support to someone in sin having been given over to contemporary notions of psychology and the godless philosophies of self-happiness that permeate so many cultures today. Or worse, they confront everyone over every single sin they see usually with their goal being anything but restoration. Rather,they seek judgment, retribution, and punishment almost as if they are a modern day crusader. They claim to forgive you, but refuse to speak to you. They profess to love you, but never pick up the phone to see how you are doing, even when they know you are going through the worse kind of personal crisis. They view themselves as God’s elite. They are not capable of the same sins as others are. Their routines run over from weekly routines, to monthly routines, to seasonal routines, and even annual routines. They convince themselves they are doing something, when in fact, the sad truth is, they are doing nothing meaningful, nothing real, nothing of any value whatever. There is no significant difference between this community and what one finds in a godless or even anti-religious, atheistic culture.


In fact, in many respects, secular communities far surpass Christian communities in how they care for one another. Why is this? One reason can be seen in attitude. Secular attitudes are not quite as judgmental as those in the Christian community so-called. Now there is a balance here to be sure. There is no accountability in the secular community for the most part except in cases of extreme immoral behaviors. In secular society there are really no moral classes except in those extreme cases. Everyone understands that everyone else is really no different than themselves. But in the Church, the pendulum swings to the extreme. Christians have classes. Some look down their noses at others when they discover sin in their lives. Worse, it doesn’t even have to be current, on-going sin. It may be something from years ago. They instantly reclassify them. You lied! I could never lie. Therefore you are different than me. I am more special to God than you are. I can contribute to the Church because I don’t sin like you or I am not a sinner in the same respect that you are. Such thinking reflects a gross misunderstanding of our true nature. There is a difference between loving, caring, biblical accountability, and the sinful behavior of hypocritical judging. A right understanding of justification and sanctification should help us move closer to the middle. It should help us achieve a healthier balance between accountability and care, between standards, confrontation, and loving attitudes that reflect godly humility. That is the model of Christianity that Jesus and the Apostles introduced in the first century. It is the forgiveness of the woman taken in adultery coupled with the holy admonition, “go and sin no more” that is our aim. It is the Christianity that removes the incestuous scandal from the Church as in 1 Corinthians 5, but turns in loving acceptance when the guilty repent, understanding that each one is capable of the same sinful behavior, as in 2 Corinthians 2 & 7. This is the Christianity that we must recover!


Now on to the subject at hand and perhaps we begin by identifying at least some of the problems that lead to this kind of phlegmatic Christianity and recommend some solutions so that we can do our part to honor God and do all things to the praise of his glory as opposed to just saying that is what we do. Who knows? God may stir the mind of one believer who has fallen into an indifferent state as of late. If so, then not only is it time well spent, but that is a bonus. It is always time well spent to examine the Scripture.

Whatever Happened to Evangelism?

I was brought to a saving knowledge of Christ in the fall of 1979. The man most responsible for that conversion was my uncle, Bob Knuckles. We called him Bobbie. Bobbie married my aunt Lois in Cleveland, Ohio. Bobbie and Lois were like many other young couples in the 70s. They liked to party and have a good time. But during the middle of the partying, the booze, and the drugs, God transformed both my uncle Bobbie and aunt Lois through the power of the gospel. Lois was my dad's younger sister. We lived in a small town in in the coal fields in Logan County, West Virginia. Life was simple in those days. The town we lived in couldn't have had more than 200 people living in it. The most exciting thing to do then was to get together with a handful of friends and play football in Jill Atkins's front yard. Jill had a huge front yard. Afterwards, we would all walk down to Amie and Cletus' carry out and by a Royal Cola soda and sit on the steps of the post office bragging about the plays we had just made. I was athletic, participating in all three sports as kid. My favorite was football. As I grew into my teens and life started taking some direction for me, little did I know that everything was about to change. My uncle Bobbie would visit frequently. We lived beside my grandfather and when his children came in to see him, we were right there to enjoy the company as well. It was always a treat to see my uncles and aunts. There wasn't much going on in that small town in the middle of nowhere, WV. So when family came down for a visit, it was exciting. Bobbie, being a new convert to Christ, began to share the gospel with the entire family. We never attended church. I had only been inside a church twice by the time I was 14. One by one, family members begin confessing their sins to God and conversions started taking place. I kept hearing about the end of time, the judgment of God, and how God would hold me accountable for my sin. At first I balked at the message as any unregenerate 14 might do. But the message of Christ started to bother me. I became inquisitive. I started asking questions instead of avoiding the conversations. And then on a Tuesday night, I decided it was time to make a change. I went to a prayer meeting at the Crawley Creek Church of God for the sole purpose of going to the alter to "get saved." This is what I thought one had to do. Little did I realize at that time that God has already opened my eyes and regenerated my heart. I was simply doing what comes natural for a newly born again person: I was making it know to all that I believe Jesus is the Christ and profess Him as my Redeemer and Savior. It wasn't long after that that I got my first Bible: a Thompson Chain Reference. Wow! I loved that Bible. And it wasn't terribly long after that that I began sharing my faith and witnessing to friends about the life-changing power of the gospel of Christ. We would go into the town of Logan and hand out tracks. On one occasion I even went to Cleveland, OH. and passed out tracks and witnessed to the gospel there. It is 31 years later now and I still share the gospel with unbelievers as often as I can. But I have noticed that this practice has fallen on hard times since those early years in Logan, WV. I think there are several possible contributors to this phenomenon and I will mention a few ever so briefly.

Everyone loves Jesus
I was looking at a statistic the other day that claims that nearly 80% of people who live in the United States are Christian. Now if you live in a different culture, hang onto to your hat. I will get to some like reasons for why people don't share the gospel in your society. However, I am not convinced that it is as big a problem as it is in American society. As soon as you ask someone if they are a follower of Christ, if they believe in Jesus, they answer yes. But this also begs the question, kinda. Many people don't even get this far.

People have little confidence in their ability to articulate the gospel
Some people are new in the faith and are uncertain of how to talk to someone about Christ. Fair enough. My response would be talk to them about Christ in relation to you and how your life has been impacted by the gospel. Once you have begun to really dig into the Word of God and have a better understanding of the gospel itself, and how to present it, then you can change the conversations a little. But don't feel like you have to be a theologian to share Christ with friends.

The effects of pluralistic philosophies
We have spent years thinking that the worse thing we could possibly do is be closed or narrow minded on a subject. We have been conditioned to think that we should tolerate competing beliefs and worldviews. Hence it follows that presenting a gospel that leads people to eternal life if they accept it or eternal damnation if they don't is about as unpopular as the Queen making a toast down at the local Irish pub. The last thing we want to do is be perceived as a narrow-minded bigot. We have been bullied in our culture not to cut against the grain. The fear of man has great sway over us in this country. And worse, many Christians do not think Christianity is the only right religion. They believe there are numerous other paths that also lead to God. This makes witnessing irrelevant.

The practice of confrontation
Face it. One of the most difficult things to do is confront someone. We hate this. In a society where tolerance is the highest ethical practice and pluralism the most esteemed philosophical outlook, approaching the subject of the exclusive claims of Christ is not such an easy task. We do not want to offend folks and there is a very real threat that offense could result from talking to someone about how they live their life and where they will spend eternity. This fear of confrontation serves as a huge impediment to evangelism in our culture.

Radical individualism
Americans place the highest value on individualism. People's religious views are personal. How they live their life is personal. Their relationship with God and where they attend church are private matters. And not only that, given the prevalence of pluralism, this information is really quite sensitive not to mention, none of our business. We are taught we must respect people's basic right to privacy and confronting people with a gospel that is invasive and exclusive is offensive to people on so many levels.

Fear of man
Sometimes we don't share the gospel because we are afraid of what might happen. It may be a relationship we have with someone who is unsaved that we don't want to jeopardize. We may fear that they will end the relationship if we even attempt to approach the subject. Others may fear that they will lose their job if they are outspoken regarding their faith. There are real situations where some Christians may be jailed for sharing their faith. And in some instances, one could lose their life for sharing the gospel.

Conclusion
What are we to do? We could do what many in the Christian church have done in Western culture. We could change the gospel. We could drop the concept of exclusivity from the claims of Christ. Some have done that and managed to grow their churches, win friends, and influence people (maybe). We could make the gospel into a success philosophy rather than the life changing power that it is. We could take the Joel Olsteen approach of telling people the gospel is really about living your best life now. If you really want to be a successful business woman, mother, father, teacher or just fill in the blank, then Christianity is the key. Or we could do what Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Disciples did. Jesus' first sermon was, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." [Matt. 4:17] John the Baptist's sermon never changed, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. [Matt. 3:2] Peter's first sermon was, "Repent and be baptized, everyone of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." [Acts 2:38] Jesus was loving and caring in how he handled everyone. But loving and caring took on different methods from time to time. For the woman taken in adultery, Jesus was soft and tender as he told her that he did not condemn her. But he also said "go and sin not more." In other words, no more adultery. In our society, even telling folks to cease from practicing an ungodly lifestyle is out of vogue. But then again, the world has never liked being told what to do. Remember what John the Baptist said to Herod regarding his brother, Phillips wife? It got John his head handed to him quite literally. Did that possibility keep the prophet from thundering God's word. In John's day, a prophet was feared and respected to a degree. Oddly enough this did not stop people from killing them. Even Herod had some trepidation about taking John's life, but he did so anyway. His sin was more important to him than God's prophet. But in our day, we have even transformed Christ into a modern projection of our culture. We think that Jesus was a soft spoken man who was SO sensitive to our sins that he would never rebuke someone or threaten someone with their unbelief. But is this an accurate representation of the historical record we find in the gospels?  In Matt. 7:5 Jesus says, You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye." By our standards, that doesn't sound very nice. Jesus says in Matt. 7:21, "Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. Wow. That sounds a bit narrow and harsh as well. Jesus says, "Fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." [Matt. 10:28] That sounds like a threat to me. Again Jesus said, "Don't think I am come to bring peace on the earth, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." [10:34] Is this really the same Jesus that we hear about in some of the sermons and discussion about Jesus today? In Matt. 12:34 Jesus said, "You brood of vipers, how can you being evil, speak what is good." Woe! That is over the top. Jesus was not the soft-spoken gentle type we might imagine in many of our modern cultures today. Jesus was very different from our modern projections of Him. The gospel works to convert men to Christ because God is the one who is sovereign over salvation. God calls and elects those He has chosen for salvation from the foundation of the world. [2 Thess. 2:13] He has chosen the foolishness of preaching to do so. It takes the power of God to open the eyes of blind, unregenerate sinners. [1 Cor. 2:14; Rom. 8:7-8]

Don't be afraid to share the gospel of Christ in any culture. There is nothing greater than to be persecuted for the cause of Christ. Do you love man more than God? Do you fear man more than God? If you do, I would say to you that you should repent of such devotion to man and submit to God. The kingdom of heaven is at stake.  I leave you with the words of Peter as he wrote to a community of believers that were in serious peril, on the brink of real persecution: "Do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence." [1 Peter 3:14-15]

The Plight of American Christianity

Hedonism, pluralism, relativism, humanism, empiricism, individualism, socialism, and post-modernism. These are but a handful of the godless philosophies that permeate American culture. The pattern of American culture is as antithetical to the Christian worldview as any pattern could possibly be. One may retort that atheistic cultures are far worse, citing perhaps the lack of religious and other basic freedoms that are suppressed within them. After all, in some cultures, Christians are not free to worship, witness, or engage in a number of other sacred practices. However, there is something far more disturbing about a culture that murders 1.5 million unborn babies each year, accepts, encourages, and promotes the practice of homosexuality, and practices the highest divorce rate of any other country in the world, all the while professing to be distinctly “Christian” in its worldview. Ever wonder why this is?

To be sure, there is a distinct gap between what we see described in the Bible as “Christian,” and what we see accepted in modern culture as Christian. For those of you reading this in other parts of the world, perhaps some of it may resonate with you as well. It is certainly not my intention to target American Christianity as if these problems are isolated to American culture. However, American culture truly has some unique cultural issues that other societies do not seem to have. For example, the divorce rate in American culture is higher than any other culture in the world. Yet the percentage of people who say they are Christian in the United States is relatively high at 78%. What is responsible for this gap?

As mentioned at the outset, there are a number of competing philosophies and religions in American culture. It would be naïve for one to think that these philosophies have little to do with influencing, to one degree or another, a number of our ultimate philosophical commitments. At least two contributing factors come together, in my opinion, to create this phenomenon that I call the God gap. Actually, there are three. First, we are a product of our culture. We are exposed to a pleathora of philosophies from the time we are young children. It is only reasonable that these philosophies weave their way, in one form or another, to one degree or another, into our thinking, our outlook, our worldview. Such results are about as avoidable as getting in the water without getting wet. The second problem is somewhat related because this is a way of thinking that traverses most other ways of thinking. In American culture there is this idea of openness, or tolerance as we call it. Americans consider themselves very open minded. In many cases, some Americans even equate this open-minded tolerance with intelligence quotient. Closed minded or narrow minded people are viewed us unintelligent, and uncultured in many cases. Others believe this open-minded tolerance to be the single greatest ethic one can achieve. To them, closed minded, intolerant people are bigots, cruel, and evil. In fact, to some, the only real evil that exists in the world is the evil of intolerance. Hence, this explains why, in American Christianity, the most quoted verse in all the Bible has shifted from John 3:16 “For God so loved the world,” to Matthew 7:1, “Judge not.” And finally, the third problem is, well, the reason that the first two problems exist in the first place not to mention every other problem that every other culture faces today, id est, sin.

These numerous philosophies are deeply imbedded in our sub-conscious mind. We find ourselves thinking according to these patterns without even realizing we are doing so. It’s like breathing. We do it without consciously thinking about it. Now add to these conditions the fact that we have moved wholly away from developing critical thinking skills and we have a recipe for a huge gap between Christianity in word, and Christianity in deed. One may call it Christianity in theory in contradistinction to Christianity in fact. Critical thinking’s practice of thinking about one’s thinking, what we call metacognition, in practice can help with this gap, but only insofar as one’s cognition has been transformed by God’s power and is in the process of being reformed or renewed by God’s word. This goes back to the sin problem mentioned earlier as the third problem.

We are all converted to Christ with a sin nature that has a way of thinking that will tend to reject God as we begin the long slow process of sanctification. Without realizing it, we view some of these patterns of thinking as simply, the right way to look at things. For example, the American dream of prosperity, home ownership, cars, and other materialistic possessions transfers into Christianity and becomes God’s blessings on us in our way of thinking. That is not biblical thinking, but many if not most American Christians think it is. American Christians tend to think that America is somehow God’s favorite country in the world. If you were to listen to some, one would think that God is an American. God is not an American. But our mind has been so macerated with this kind of thinking that we fail to recognize it. This is why it is so important that all Christians immediately begin the process of renewing their mind with God’s word at the point of conversion so that they can move away from cultural conditioning and be transformed by the renewing of their minds. Metacognition will help, but only as it uses the Word of God as the standard by which we think about our thinking. Eventually, all those philosophies that have infected our thinking will be identified one by one and weeded out over time. However, make no mistake about it. This is a long process and it takes tremendous effort. Diligence is the word that comes to mind.

The second contributor to the plight of American Christianity is tolerance. It is the reason that many Americans no longer take their Christianity seriously. The idea of tolerance has been married to the concept of “Once-Saved-Always-Saved,” to form an unholy alliance that has resulted in the degradation of the Christian lifestyle to the point that it is impossible to tell who is a Christian and who isn’t a Christian by how they conduct their lives. It use to be that biblical correction served as the tool by which genuine Christians were regained and purity was maintained in the church. However, pluralism and an extreme attitude of diversity and tolerance has seen the disappearance of church discipline. Now, everything is a private matter and no one has the right to call us on the carpet for how we conduct our lives. Such behavior is seen as intolerant, narrow minded, intrusive, an invasion of privacy, and exclusivism. Americans value individualism as much as any culture in the world if not more. That individual spirit and attitude has led to the thinking that fellow believers, pastors, and churches do not have the right to expect us to maintain biblical standards in our lives. My relationship with God is between me and God. A few years back there was a major Christian artist that openly left her husband, without biblical grounds, divorced him and married her bass player. Rather than respond with moral outrage at this overt rejection of God’s standard and open display of contempt for God’s design for marriage, the Christian community rallied around her in total support. What the church should have done is rallied around her marriage to help her save her marriage at all cost. But since American Christianity has displaced godliness with personal happiness, the church had no moral power to respond appropriately.

Tolerance is a self-defeating concept. Complete tolerance is impossible. People who contend that tolerance is the greatest of all ethical values fail to realize that they also do not tolerate people who disagree with them. Why is it that those who promote the homosexual lifestyle are viewed as tolerant and those who reject it viewed as intolerant bigots? Why isn’t the person who is for homosexuality viewed as intolerant of the idea that sexual relations should only be between a man and a woman? People who are tolerant exclude people who they consider to be intolerant of their views. Aren’t they doing the same thing that the people whom they claim to be intolerant bigots do? The answer is yes they are. The question I have is why do we let them get away with it without challenging them? We are charged to stop false teachings and every thought that opposes Christ and take them captive. In order to do that, we must think more biblically and more critically about our thinking. Paul said, Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 2:5) Paul also commands, “Set you mind on things above, not on things that are on the earth.” (Col. 3:2)

We have a problem with infectious worldly philosophies, and an attitude of tolerance that is antithetical to the rudimentary elements of Christianity, not to mention a sin nature that is predisposed to wander from biblical thinking every chance it gets. Pastors, teachers, elders, and professors have their work cut out for them if Christianity is not to become an insignificant, irrelevant religious social club whose ability to influence people and turn the world upside down is forever relegated to the archives of ancient history.