For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
Romans 5:6-10 (NASB)
Normally, I use the New King James version for my Scripture study, though it is the Greek New Testament that remains my “authorized” version. But, in the case of the Scripture above, the New American Standard Bible has a rather felicitous translation of Romans 5:6-10. There are three words that Saint Paul uses that build in strength, leading us to a full appreciation of what God has done for us in the Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Those three words are translated in the NASB as “helpless, sinners, enemies.” It is a build-up that strikes harder and harder at our self-conception as somehow worthy (Axios). Had we been merely helpless, we might have been worthy of being loved. Who does not love the helpless baby, the helpless kitten, the helpless puppy, who through no fault of their own finds themselves in an unfortunate position? We see Our Lord Jesus’ love expressed in practical ways to even those who have died and are raised in anticipation of the eventual Final Resurrection. The blind see; the lame walk; the dead receive their life.
It becomes harder to love the sinner. Jesus uses several of his parables to show the love that God has for the sinner. Parables that range from the Samaritan woman to the adulterous woman to the publican to the tax collector all point to the incredible love that we ought to have, in a practical way, for the sinner. Our Lord Jesus’ love for the sinner is not simply theoretical or spiritual, but an altogether practical love that has him put himself between the adulterous woman and the mob, thereby endangering his life for the sake of the sinner. Eventually, he dies for the sinner.
It becomes incredibly difficult to love the enemy. Moses gives Pharao 10 opportunities to repent and set God’s people free. Our Lord Jesus appears to Saint Paul, after he has participated in the execution of St. Stephen, and calls him to his service. Saint Paul converts the Praetorian Guard who are holding him unto death without asking of them anything more than that they accept Our Lord Jesus Christ and be faithful to him.
When I attended seminary, the Scripture quoted above was one of the favorites of our New Testament professor. He used it to show how Saint Paul used his writing to build a climax that sealed the idea that we had won our salvation, or were worthy of our salvation, away from any practical consideration. He pointed out that it was not merely that we were helpless, which is a very forgivable condition, but that we were sinners, which is an offense against the Law, culminating in our being active enemies of God. This meant that we did not merely sin, but rather that we actively engaged in a campaign to undo the reign of God here on Earth.
But, our professor was not a Reformation Protestant. He was an Anabaptist, a member of The Brethren Church. Not for him was a strict separation between justification and sanctification. He could not teach those verses in Romans without pointing out that if there were no practical outworking of those verses in our lives, then our salvation was in serious doubt. That is, we were to see ourselves as having received the grace of God while helpless, sinners, and enemies. Then, we were to extend the grace of God to all those with whom we had an encounter. If we could not do the second, then we did not understand the first. If we did not understand that “God so loved the world,” properly, then we could not live out that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Later, when I became Orthodox, I realized that what he had said was something that also resonated within Orthodoxy. There is no justification without sanctification. This should not have been strange to me since it is clearly stated in the Epistle of James, “faith without works is dead.” But, the scholasticism of Roman Catholicism, followed by the rejections of the Reformation has led to a Western phenomenon in which we are able to argue for someone’s faith with little regard for their behavior.
In theory, both Roman Catholics, and some Protestants would agree that “faith without works is dead.” So the Dutch Calvinist with his TULIP acrostic acknowledges that the P in the acrostic equals the Perseverance of the Saints. Mind you, the Calvinists twist that P somewhat to keep their conception of sovereignty undamaged. So, the failure to show the fruits of salvation means that one was never really elect. It could not possibly mean that–like Hebrews–someone had had the Truth and had sold it for a mess of pottage.
But, what has happened among various descendants of the Reformation is the building of a strict separation between justification and sanctification. The separation can best be stereotyped with the phrase, “once saved always saved.” The result of the strict separation has been the possibility of someone being saved while continuing to behave like an unsaved sinner. This strict separation is not found among the early Reformers and is not found at all among the Anabaptists or the early Methodists.
It was only after I became Orthodox that I began to see that the lives of the saints in Scripture and in Tradition were lives that reflected an intertwining between justification and sanctification. It is not that the saints were always perfect. Just think about the life of St. Augustine of Hippo and what he wrote in his Confessions and you will think about the life of one who became a saint over time. Yet, his life shows a growing crescendo of sanctification as a result of and intertwined with his justification.
What I have seen over the years is that when we separate justification from sanctification we end up with self-justifying believers who are able to commit the most grievous sins against the People of God while unable to see their utter sinfulness. They are the modern Publicans in our congregations. When we separate sanctification from justification, we end up with self-righteous prigs whose judgementalism spreads a pall over the congregation, as they criticize all who do not meet their standards.
It is the humble sinner/saint who is the most valuable member of our congregation. That person who recognizes their justification while bewailing their need for more sanctification is the person who is most likely to be the beloved contributing and productive member of our congregations. It is they who do not separate justification and sanctification, not even for scholarly purposes, that appear to me to end up being those who live out a practical Christian life that draws others to Our Lord.
So, I have come to conclude that separating justification and sanctification is a very bad idea, even if we are doing it for scholarly reasons. Only when we maintain them together and intertwined can we hope to live out an exemplary Christian life.
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