3. The relationship between justification and sanctification in the strict sense.
What the Scriptures and the Church, abiding by the Scriptures, teach about the relationship of justification or faith to sanctification and good works can be summarized in the following two main points: 1. There is an indissoluble connection (nexus indivulsus) between justification and sanctification. Where justification is, there is sanctification in every case. 2. But in this nexus indivulsus the last must not be put first, that is, sanctification or good works must not be placed before justification, but left in their position as a consequence and effect of justification. Both main points are expressed in the
6) Σάρξ denotes here in the compilation with πνεύμα to indicate the essence of man the οώμα of man.
7) The άνακαίνωοις τον νοός points directly to the inward transformation of the mind. — As for sanctification "in spirit and body," the dogmatists use the terminology: subiectum quod sanctificationis sive renovationis est homo iustificatus. Subiectum quo est anima quoad facultates suas, intellectum, voluntatem et appetitum sensitivum, secundario etiam membra corporis, quatenus animae renovatae aut sanctificatae instrumenta sunt ad obeundas actiones sanctas necessaria. [Google]
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Formula of Concord when it describes the connection between justification and sanctification in this way (619, 41 [Trigl 929, Sol. Decl, II, 41 🔗]): "Which is not to be understood as if justification and renewal were separated from each other in such a way that a true faith could be and exist for a time alongside an evil intention, but only the order is indicated here, how one precedes the other or succession (ordine causarum et effectuum, antecedentium et consequentium ita distribuuntur). For it remains true that Luther rightly said: 'Faith and good works rhyme and send themselves together'; but it is faith alone that takes hold of the blessing, without 'works' it is never and at no time alone." Because it is of such great importance to maintain this right relationship between justification and sanctification in the face of all confusion, here follows a more detailed explanation of the two main points. In the struggle that the Lutheran Church had to wage in the sixteenth century in the so-called Antinomian and Majorist disputes, it was also necessary, on the one hand, to maintain the nexus indivulsus between faith and works, and on the other hand, to reject the inversion of the relationship between faith and works.
First of all, the nexus indivulsus is to be noted. Wherever the Holy Spirit has worked faith in the gospel in a man, he also immediately works sanctification and good works in the same man through faith.8) Although justification and sanctification are to be distinguished ordine causarum et effectuum, they do not fall apart in time.9) Therefore the sentence is correct: Where there is no sanctification and no good works, there is no faith. All kinds of people let this
8) This was also the case with the thief on the cross, Luke 24:40-41.
9) The Formula of Concord says (619, 41 [Trigl. 931, Sol. Decl., III, 41 🔗]) that the faith that takes hold of the blessing without works "is yet never and at no time alone." Carpzov, in Baier III, 301: Statim ac eo ipso momento, quo fides accenditur in nobis et per eam, quatenus rem iustificam oblatam apprehendit, nos iustificamur, etiam mente et corpore renovamur. [Google] Quenstedt II, 896: Regeneratio, iustificatio, unio et renovatio tempore simul sunt et quovis puncto mathematico arctiores, adeo ut divelli et sequestrari nequeant, cohaerent. Secundum nostrum tamen concipiendi modum (conceptual) ordine prior est regeneratio et iustificatio unione ista mystica. [Google] Quenstedt here grasps regeneratio as generation of faith, l. c., p. 897.
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nexus indivulsus not apply. We already reminded that newer theologians of the critical trend shake their heads when they see that the apostle Paul binds with the actus forensis of justification, i.e. with the iustitia imputata, an inner moral transformation or an iustitia inhaerens sive vitae. They find this connection unthinkable. Therefore, they believe themselves justified in the assumption that the Apostle got mixed up unawares in "two streams of thought", the Jewish and the Hellenistic, which in reality do not go together.10) But also newer theologians of the positive trend do not trust the iustitia fidei imputata to be causal in relation to sanctification. In order to ensure sanctification according to their opinion, they insist that faith itself in justification is not merely instrumental, but is conceived as an "ethical act" or as the "germ" of sanctification. Furthermore, we must unfortunately confess that even those Christians who in theory hold the indissoluble connection between justification and sanctification still stand in constant danger, according to the flesh, of forgetting this binding in practice.
In contrast to this, the Scriptures powerfully inculcate the fact that sanctification is inseparably bound up with justification. Even if we cannot declare the how or "the psychological mediation" in more detail, the "that" or the fact stands firm. After the Apostle has presented justification in the Epistle to the Romans from chap. 3:21 to the end of the 5th chapter as actus forensis, as a mere declaration of righteousness,11) and to that extent as a mere declaration of righteousness, that he contrasts faith, through which justification is accomplished, with every moral quality in man,12) he himself directs chap. 6:1 the attention to the question, how it stands with such a justification with the life in sin, and answers the question to the effect that the justified can of course no longer live in sin, with the reasoning that the justified are dead to sin. The apostle presents this state of affairs as a given and established fact in the section chap. 6:2-11. He closes the section with the summarium in v. 11: "Hold yourselves to the fact that
10) Cf. the comments on p. 488 ff.
11) Holtzmann rightly states (II, 153) that Rom. 5:12-21 also deals only with justification, not already with sanctification.
12) Rom. 4:5; 3:28; Gal. 2:16; Phil. 3:9.
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ye are dead to sin, but alive to God in Jesus Christ," νεκρούς μεν είναι τή αμαρτία, ζώντας δε τφ ϑεω εν Χριστώ Ίησον. The thought that the justified could still live to sin and not to God would be—so the apostle states the matter—as absurd as if we would still trust the dead, who have passed from this life and lie in their graves, to appear and walk in this earthly life. Thus there can be no doubt that the apostle Paul indissolubly binds sanctification, conceived as moral transformation or iustitia inhaerens, with justification, conceived as actus forensis or mere imputation of righteousness. 13) — But what about the how or the "psychological mediation"? The matter is not quite as inconceivable as Pfleiderer, Holtzmann and others think. We even have an analogy in the field of natural life. Proven love generates counter-love. Now it stands, as is well known, that God has shown a wonderfully great love to man. God thus (οντω) loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.14) In this (εν τούτω) stands the love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.15) God proves (σννίστησι) his love toward us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.16) If men could be convinced of this love of God towards them, it would really not be so strange, but rather natural, that they should love God again, who first and so wonderfully loved them, and shun sin for love of him. Everything depends only on whether there is a means or a way by which men can be made completely certain or convinced of this love of God. Of course, by nature man does not believe this love, but considers it foolishness.17) This love cannot be demonstrated either, as the apostle Paul explicitly reports.18) But when it is proclaimed as a fact in the word of the gospel, then it is the business
13) Holtzmann II, 166: "With the passage from the sphere of the law into the sphere of grace, the dominion of sin has reached its definite end for the believer."
14) Joh. 3:16. <w:t xml:space="preserve">15) 1 Joh. 4:10.
16) Rom. 5:8: <w:t xml:space="preserve">17) 1 Cor. 2:14; 1:23.
18) 1 Cor. 2:4: ό λόγος μου και τό κήρυγμά μου ουκ εν πειϑοΐς οοψίας λόγοις.
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of the Holy Spirit until the Last Day, to work faith through this proclamation, Rom. 10:17: ή πίοτις εξ άκοής.19) And when this faith in the gospel, or in the love of God in Christ, is present in a man's heart by the action of the Holy Spirit, then he has no more need of love to God and enmity against sin. Then justification and sanctification are "psychologically mediated" and no longer represent a "two-layered doctrinal formation." ¶ This is how justification and sanctification are bound together for the apostle Paul. Gal. 2:20: "What I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." So also it seems to all Christians not "two-layered," but quite "unified" and self-evident, when John charges them, "Let us love him, for he first loved us!"20) and Paul, "He [Christ] therefore died for all, that they which live should not live unto themselves henceforth, but unto him who died for them, and rose again." 21) This psychology also corresponds to the experience or "experience" of Christians. The more certain they are of the grace of God and of the heavenly inheritance, the more lively and strong is in them the sense of serving God and of striving for what is above. "If thou comfort my heart, I will run the way of thy commandments." 22) Love for one's neighbor is also psychologically imparted in this way—that is, by faith in the love of God which appeared in Christ—as John also expressly teaches, "Beloved, if God so (όντως) loved us, we ought (δφείλομεν) also to love one another,"23) and Paul, "Walk in love, even as Christ loved us, and offered himself for us a gift and a sacrifice, to God a sweet savor." 24) Thus, love of God and neighbor, that is, the fulfillment of the law,25) "spiritual-natural," nexu indivulso, is bound up with justifying faith. So justification and sanctification are really not two heterogeneous "streams of thought" running abruptly side by side, but they occur in clear and sure psychological mediation with each other. — Where does it come from.
19) Joh. 16:14; 1 Cor. 2:5.
20) 1 Joh. 4:19. Or also άγαπώμεν, indicative: "We love him", whereby the self-evidence of love for God is emphasized even more.
21) 2 Cor. 5:15.<w:t>22) Ps. 119:32.<w:t>23) 1 John 4:11.
24) Eph. 5:2.<w:t>25) Matt. 22:34-39; Rom. 13:8-10.
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that faith is not thought to have a causal relationship with sanctification? The reason for this is that one has in mind a faith that man makes wholly or partly for himself, for which man decides for himself, for which man is determined by scientific evidence. One rightly feels that this faith has no causal relationship to sanctification. Luther and the Lutheran Confession also admit that faith, which is a human power, is a completely impotent thing. But it stands quite differently with faith, which without human cooperation, by the Holy Spirit's action alone, in the midst of the terrors of conscience, "agrees to the promise of God, in which for Christ's sake forgiveness of sins and justification are freely offered." Illa fides, quae iustificat, … est assentiri promissioni Dei, in qua gratis propter Christ offertur remissio peccatorum et iustificatio. [Google]26) This faith infallibly establishes the connection with sanctification and good works. The Apology takes this psychologically: "This same faith, when each one believes for himself that Christ is given for him, obtains forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake alone. … And because the same is in righteous repentance, restores our hearts even in the terror of sin and death, by the same we are born again, and through faith the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts, who renews our hearts, that we may keep God's law, love God rightly, fear assuredly, neither waver nor doubt, that Christ is given to us, that he hears our calls and supplications, and that we may rejoice in God's will even in the midst of death."27) Likewise Luther. While he says of fides acquisita: "As it [fides acquisita] is a human fiction and a dream, which the reason of the heart never experiences, so it does nothing and no improvement follows afterwards," [St. L. XIV, 99 (Trigl. 941, F. C., Sol. Decl., IV, 10 ff. 🔗)] so he says of the faith wrought by the Holy Spirit: "Faith is a divine work in us, which changes us and gives us new birth from God, Jn. 1:13, and kills the old Adam and makes us completely different men of heart, courage, mind and strength, and brings the Holy Spirit with it. Oh, it is a living, busy, active, powerful thing about faith, that it is impossible that it should not work good without cessation. Nor does it ask whether good works be done,
26) Apology 95, 48. [Trigl. 135, Apol., IV, 48 🔗]<w:t>27) Apol. 95, 46. [Trigl. 135, 45 🔗]
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but before you ask, it has done them and is always doing them. … Faith is a living, bold confidence in God's grace, so certain that it would die a thousand times over. And such confidence and knowledge of divine grace makes one cheerful, defiant and merry toward God and all creatures, which the Holy Spirit does in faith. Therefore, without compulsion, man becomes willing and joyful to do good to everyone, to serve everyone, to suffer all things for the love and praise of God, who has shown him such grace, so that it is impossible to separate works from faith, indeed as impossible as burning and shining can be separated from fire." — ¶ Unnecessarily, a difficulty has been found in the fact that sanctification is derived once from faith29) and then again from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit30) . The fact is this, that the Holy Spirit as causa efficiens of sanctification works it through faith as instrumentum. By maintaining faith in the grace of God or the forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake in the human heart, the Holy Spirit also inscribes love for God and all the Christian virtues, that is, the whole law of God, in the heart.31) Thus also, from this point of view, the indissoluble binding between justification and sanctification again comes into the light. There is also no contradiction in the fact that in Scripture faith is once described as an effect of the Holy Spirit32) and then the reception of the Spirit is again presented as being mediated by faith.33) In the former case, the Holy Spirit is addressed insofar as he first approaches man from outside through the word of the gospel and brings forth faith. In the latter case, the Holy Spirit is addressed insofar as He has already made His dwelling in the human heart. Having first wrought faith, the Holy Spirit does not turn back, but enters the human heart with faith, now to maintain from within faith in justification, and by maintaining faith to bring forth sanctification and good works as fruits of faith. This is the nexus indivulsus between justification and sanctification or between faith and works.
28) St. L. XIV, 99 f.<w:t>29) Gal. 5:6.<w:t>30) Rom. 8:9.
31) Gal. 2:20.<w:t>32) 1 Cor. 2:4-5.<w:t>33) Gal. 3:2,. 5.
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But with this nexus indivulsus the hindmost is not to be put first. This is the second main point, which is also to be explained in more detail. Sanctification is always to be taught only as consequens, never as antecedens of justification. This divine order of things all men by nature hold to be perverse. According to all the concepts they have of religion, the chariot belongs before the horses, that is, works before justification. Thus all heathens believe34) and all apostate Jews.35) This is the doctrine of the papal church under Christian pretense, while at the same time it pronounces a curse on all those who do not want to put the cart before the horse.36) This is also the doctrine of all Protestants, who in various ways and under various names make good works, "ethical" deeds, right conduct, etc. precede conversion, justification, or at least the attainment of salvation, either expressly as causa or as conditio sine qua non.37) Whence this general inversion of the divine order? It has its ground in opinio legis, which is innate in all men, and which they do not renounce until they have been taught by God from his doctrine by the action of the Holy Spirit, and have renounced all thoughts of their own in matters of religion.38) And because all Christians still have the flesh about them, they too are still inclined to give works a place before justification.39) Finally, it must be admitted that even those teachers who correctly determine the relationship between faith and works in theory are tempted to lose sight of this relationship in practice. When they see that the doctrine of grace is misused for neglect in good works, they may well succumb to the temptation to be silent about the οίκτιρμοϊ τον ϑεον ["mercies of God”] (Rom. 12, 1) as the only source of good works and to approve, at least tacito consensu, even such
34) Acts 17:22-23; 1 Cor. 8:1; 10:20. Apology 122, 85. [Trigl. 177:Apol., III, 85 🔗]
35) Rom. 10:3. The Apology 122, 86. [Trigl. 177, ibid., 86 🔗]
36) Trid., sess. VI, can. 24: "If anyone says that these works" (namely, the aforementioned good works) "are only fruits and signs of the attained justification, but not a cause of its increase, let him be accursed!"
37) Arminians, Synergists, Majorists, modern theologians of negative and positive trends.
38) The Apology 134, 144. 145. [Trigl. 197, ibid., 144-145 🔗]
39) Luther on Ps. 131. St. L. IV, 2077 f.
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works as have not come about as fruits of justification.40) This matter is to be taken up again under the chapter "The Good Works of the Heathen".
All overt and covert reversals of the order between justification and sanctification are characterized by Scripture as pernicious blindness and folly.41) Scripture instructs us that in every case where works are placed before justification, two things are accomplished. First, the opposite of justification, the curse, is achieved.42) Second, the very opposite of sanctification and good works, the increase of sin, is also achieved. Either sanctification and good works are left standing in the back or second place, namely as fruits of faith in the gospel, or they are not present at all. This presents Scripture from several points of view. He who does not believe justification by faith without works of the law still stands under the law. The law, however, does not dethrone sin, but only makes it mobile.43) It does not impart sanctification, but — out of guilt of the οάρξ — hypocrisy44) or despair.45) Further, he who does not stand in the faith of the gospel, that is, has not been justified before God by faith without works, is not governed by the Holy Spirit but by the devil. Therefore, he does not do the holy will of God, but thinks, wills, and does what the devil works in him.46) Therefore, both the practical need of the individual Christian, insofar as he is concerned about his Christian faith and life, and the practical need of the Church, insofar as she has to teach faith and sanctification, demand that on the one hand the nexus indivulsus between justification and sanctification, and on the other hand also the ordo antecedentium et consequentium be clearly recognized and precisely recorded. This is also the purpose of the further explanations.
40) I have in mind here, for example, the widespread bad practice of collecting church contributions through "sales," "socials," etc., on the grounds that without following this method the necessary "good works" would not be done.
41) Gal. 3:2.<w:t>42) Gal. 3:10.
43) Rom. 7:5, 7-11. Luther VIII, 1455.
44) Jer. 31:32; Luke 18:11-12.
45) Acts 16:27.<w:t>46) Eph. 2:2; Tit. 3:3; Luke 11:21.
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