From the forensic aspect of justification, as pardon in harmony with law, we pass now to its ethical outcome in righteousness of life. The former predominates in Paul’s Epistles, but the latter is not omitted. Faith not only puts man right with God through the appropriation of the saving benefits of Christ’s death, but it brings him into vital relation with God, whereby he actually attains inward and outward conformity to the moral law. Faith works by love (Gal_5:6), and self-surrendering faith is the condition of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling whereby alone “the requirements of the law are fulfilled” in those “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom_8:4).
1. The first justification or acceptance is therefore a preliminary step: it is acceptance for admission into the Divine household, or city of God, or life in Christ. It is a means to an end, and that end is the fellowship of Christ and continually developing assimilation to Him.
The close connexion between these two elements of experience is shown by the ease with which Paul transmutes the objective facts which were the basis of his assurance of pardon into symbols of the process of moral renewal through which he had passed. “If we have become united with him by the likeness of his death, we shall be also by the likeness of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; for he that hath died is justified from sin.” The objective facts both produce and typify the inward process. The act of faith, which apprehends God’s grace in Christ, involves so complete an acceptance of Him that we share His crucifixion, and burial, and resurrection. Our old self is crucified and buried with Him, and we rise with Him to newness of life. In other words, the consciousness of acceptance with God and that of moral renewal are the crown of the same venture of faith and of the same operation of the Divine grace.
2. Does this mean, then, that justification and sanctification are processes following the one on the other, of which the former is over before the latter begins? Such a statement must be repudiated so far as its latter clause is concerned. You cannot thus logically sever a vital process. They are two parts of one vital process; and the man who is not on the way to being made like Christ (however far off it he may be at the moment) is by that very fact shown to be not in a state of justification or acceptance with God. The two experiences must necessarily be treated by theology in order, and sometimes they are regarded as successive stages; but in reality they are synchronous, whether gradual or instantaneous. The doctrine of Justification by Faith is thus the expression, not of a legal fiction, but of a reality of experience.
3. No doubt the faith that justifies precedes the faith that sanctifies. The religion of the Bible is the religion of a sinner. The book comes to man first of all as such. Its immediate object is not the regulation of conduct, the formation of character, the production of practical excellence, and so on. This, indeed, is its grand and ultimate aim, the end which it incessantly pursues, and without accomplishing which it accomplishes nothing; but its first, immediate, direct object, is not this. That is the pardon of the guilty, their reconciliation to God; then comes the regulation of external behaviour, the promotion of that holiness “which becometh saints.”
The having our “heart set at liberty” is a preliminary to “running the way of God’s commandments” (Psa_119:32). Yet even so we must recognize that Paul never exactly uses this language. When he describes the stages of God’s dealings with the soul he passes from justification to glorification, or (final) deliverance from sin and wrath. Or, on one occasion, he mentions sanctification before justification. This is in part accounted for by the fact that the word translated “sanctify” or “sanctification” means rather “consecrate” (as to priesthood) or “consecration.” And though this consecration involves “sanctity” (in our sense) because of the character of God to whom we are dedicated, yet it may precede it; and we are in fact consecrated and hallowed at the moment when we are accepted into the “priestly body” and anointed with the Divine unction. This exact meaning of the term “sanctification” in part accounts for Paul’s not speaking of sanctification and justification as successive stages of the spiritual life. When he is speaking about justification he is answering the question, What is the attitude of the human soul towards God which sets God free, so to speak, to accept it and work upon it? And the answer is, The attitude of faith. When he speaks of sanctification, or rather consecration, he is answering the implied question, How is the individual to be thought of when he has been admitted to baptism into the Christian community? And the answer is, He is to be thought of as consecrated, or as sharing the life of a consecrated people.
In the Bible, Christianity is given us as a whole; but men are apt to take confined and partial views of it. Faith is connected in Scripture, both with the pardon of sin and with the deliverance from the power of sin; or, in other words, with justification and sanctification, according to common language. In its connexion with justification, it is opposed to merit, and desert, and work of every description; “It was by faith that it might be by grace, or gratuitous, or for nothing,” Rom_4:16. Some exclusively take this view, which in itself is correct, but which does not embrace the whole truth. Faith, as connected with sanctification, “purifieth the heart,” “worketh by love,” and “overcometh the world,” and produces every thing which is excellent and holy, as may be seen in that bright roll which is given in Hebrews 11. Some again are so engrossed with this view of the subject, that they lose sight of the former. This is a fruitful source of error. [Note: T. Erskine, An Essay on Faith, 9.]
