Ever heard the expression, “There’s no such thing as being a little bit pregnant”? It’s used when people try to underplay something in an inappropriate way. “I sort of told a lie.” The fact is, some things are simply either/or. Either you told a lie or you didn’t. Either you’re pregnant or you’re not.
But, then again, pregnancy is progressive–from conception to delivery. Is that a contradiction? No. We’re comparing apples and oranges. The development of a fetus is not in conflict with the status of being pregnant. One is either/or and the other is gradual but they both reflect the same reality.
This simple illustrations might show you why I am so frustrated to hear of educated theological popularizers who demand a “nanosecond” between justification and sanctification in order to “protect” one from the other–typically to protect justification from sanctification (no one seems really to worry about the integrity of sanctification that much).
The Westminster Larger Catechism is a good guide for this:
Q77: Wherein do justification and sanctification differ?
A77: Although sanctification be inseparably joined with justification, yet they differ, in that God in justification imputeth the righteousness of Christ; in sanctification his Spirit infuseth grace, and enableth to the exercise thereof; in the former, sin is pardoned; in the other, it is subdued: the one doth equally free all believers from the revenging wrath of God, and that perfectly in this life, that they never fall into condemnation; the other is neither equal in all, nor in this life perfect in any, but growing up to perfection.
There is nothing here or anywhere else about the difference lying in differing moments, seconds, or even nanoseconds when they begin. On the contrary, they are “inseparably joined.” There is not even a nanosecond when one is found without the other.
This is amply demonstrated by looking at an earlier question and answer:
Q67: What is effectual calling?
A67: Effectual calling is the work of God’s almighty power and grace, whereby (out of his free and special love to his elect, and from nothing in them moving him thereunto) he doth, in his accepted time, invite and draw them to Jesus Christ, by his word and Spirit; savingly enlightening their minds, renewing and powerfully determining their wills, so as they (although in themselves dead in sin) are hereby made willing and able freely to answer his call, and to accept and embrace the grace offered and conveyed therein.
Notice that the catechism is speaking here of the inception of saving or justifying faith. One embraces “the grace offered and conveyed” in God’s mighty call by “accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace” (Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 14, Paragraph 2).
Notice what attitudinal and behavioral change is produced by this “work of God’s almighty power and grace.” Quite obviously, this is a description of the beginning of sanctification as well as of justification. To say that justification precedes sanctification, even for a nanosecond, is to denyjustification by faith alone. Actually, it is to deny justification by faith at all. The only way to get around this would be to claim that justifying faith is within the ethical ability of the natural man.
But if we keep in mind the difference between a legal status and a transformation of character then we realize that they can begin simultaneously without being in any way confused with one another. In fact, to even assert the need for some difference in time of inception, implies confusion either of the nature of justification or of sanctification. If one was thinking clearly, there would have never been any need to postulate the unconfessional and unbiblical nanosecond.
There are people who actually believe this. A few years ago I asked a fellow on the Warfield List, who also happened to be a ruling elder in the PCA, what the difference was between justifying faith and sanctifying faith. He said….. “a nanosecond.” Yes, he actually said that. I suppose he felt it’s necessary to concoct this scheme to in order to refute Norman Shepherd or something. I was shocked. I was even more shocked when he called some of my elders up and asked who I was. This was late in 2002, the early stage in the AAPC witch hunt, and right about the time my Elders pulled The Call of Grace from our church library. I guess he thought I was a pastor or something and wanted to report me. The Warfield List showing its true colors. Yup, those were the good ole days.
Multiperspectivalism to the rescue once again, Thank you for this post Mark.
Distinctio sed non separatio. A good Calvinian move.
Blessings.
MJP
Is the issue here that some people are bothered by the idea that God would make a judicial determination in a person who posessed infused righteousness (sanctification) at the same time that he posessed imputed righteousness, that the imputed righteousness was all that was comprehended in justification?
It them becomes a claim not that we should not trust in our own righteousness for our justifcation, but at the ‘moment’ of justification we have none to trust in. But a nanosecond later (after this secret declaration of justifcation) we start getting some infused into us.
I don’t see how that squares with the definition of regeneration in the WCF, that before we can exercize the faith that is the instrument of our justifcaiton, God renews our “wills, and, by His almighty power, determining them to that which is good”. By that definition we’d seem to posess sanctifying grace prior to justification, because its prior even to the exercise of faith.
And its at this point that some Lutherans have been known to accuse the reformed of believing in justification by Law.
pduggie, I think you’re onto something. There seems to be a buried assumption that if we HAVE any infused righteousness at the moment we’re justified, we’ll automatically start counting that as the source of our justification. But that hardly follows. Yet I think that it is justification solely on the basis of imputed righteousness they are trying to protect, all based on the unfounded (and probably unconscious in most cases) assumption that if we admit we have infused righteousness at the moment of justification, we’ll automatically use that as the ground of justification.
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