THE LIFE OF THE BELIEVER is united with Christ’s life. Christ is in the believer no less than the believer is in Christ. “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you” (John 14:20; Hilary, Trin. 8.15).
“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11; Chrysostom, Hom. on Rom. 13). Sin does not have dominion in this regenerate person, who is “not under law, but under grace” where sin no longer reigns unchecked (Rom. 6:14). By faith, the believer participates in the Son’s life with the Father, being justified by his free gift (Hilary, Trin. 9.55).
The sinner does not deserve eternal life, but receives it through faith in Christ. Christ does not deserve death, but offers death through obedience on the cross for the sinner (Chrysostom, Baptismal Instructions 3.21).
In this way, Christ lives in the faithful, who are treated as if righteous, clothed in Christ’s righteousness, adopted as children of the family of God (Didymus the Blind, Comm. on 2 Cor. 5.3; Calvin, TAA: 134–35).
In response to justifying grace, the sinner is restored to that communion with God which once characterized the original human condition before the fall when man and woman were “naked and not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25; Chrysostom, Baptismal Instruction 11.28).
Human consciousness still possesses its own characteristic faculties, features, and individuality, yet is being penetrated by the life of Christ (Augustine, On the Spirit and the Letter 38). The believer shares in that new humanity of which Christ is the head, the body of Christ.
Peter, Paul, and John all preached and taught of this union. The letter of Peter described this communion as a partaking in God’s nature (2 Pet. 1:4). Paul stressed union with Christ’s death and resurrection (Rom. 6). John highlighted the union with the Incarnate Son (John 6:53–57; Cyril of Alex., Meditation on the Mystical Supper 10). In each case the apostles were speaking of an incomparable unity that the believer experiences with God the Father through the Son: “Our fellowship is with the Father and with his son, Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3; Andreas, Catena, Cramer, CEC: 107).
Life In Christ
In this intimate communion, Christ is said to be in the believer and the believer in Christ. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1, italics added). “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4, italics added; Tractates on John 81.1). To be “in Christ” means to “have Christ in us.”
To be in Christ means that the believer participates in his death and resurrection: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God” (Gal. 2:20; Marius Victorinus, Epis. to Gal. 1.2.19).
This indwelling fellowship has potent consequences. It implies a death to sin: “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24; Basil, On Baptism 1.15). They have renounced anything that would that keep them turned away from God: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14). “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17; Augustine, Enchiridion 9.31; Calvin, Inst. 3.11.10; 4.15.6).
Union with Christ is offered to those in whom the Spirit comes to dwell. “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you” (1 Cor. 6:19; Chrysostom, Hom. on Cor., 18.3). One who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Paul’s desire was simply to “be found in him” (Phil. 3:9).
The Indwelling Spirit of the Triune God
The Spirit carries on Christ’s work, calling, gathering, transforming persons into likeness to Christ, communicating to them the benefits of redemption (Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 5.8). Where the Spirit resides, Christ resides (Rom. 8:9–11). Christian experience daily attests the gracious presence of one God in three persons. “We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God” (1 John 4:13–15; Oecumenius, Comm. on 1 John 4).
The principal mark of the indwelling Spirit of God is responsive love: “If anyone loves me he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we [Father and Son] will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23, italics added; Ambrose, Letter 49 to Horontianus). God is taking up abode in the faithful through the indwelling Spirit (Gregory Nazianzus, Orat. 30).
The church prays to the Father through the Spirit for the indwelling of Christ: “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:16–19; Gregory of Nyssa, On the Three Days).
Partaking of the Divine Nature
Life in union with Christ is like communion with the risen Lord. Faith celebrates that union through the sacraments: partaking, eating, and drinking of him who was made known to the Emmaus disciples in the breaking of bread (Luke 24:35).
As Christ partakes of the Father, so the believer partakes of Christ (John 17:11–13; Hilary, Trin. 10.42). This occurs archetypically at the Lord’s table: “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” (1 Cor. 10:16, 17; Augustine, CG 21.25; Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 5.2). Jesus said: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:56–58; Cyril of Alex., Meditation on Mystical Supper 10).
Believers live in Christ in all they do. They die with him, are raised with him, dwell with him eternally, and he with them. They share his righteousness, become sons through his Sonship, heirs through his inheritance, pardoned through his sacrifice (Hippolytus, Holy Theophany 8; Calvin, Inst. 3.11, 4.17).
Theosis: In What Sense Does Sanctifying Grace Enable the Soul to Partake of the Divine Nature?
Through Christ’s life, death and resurrection, “he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature”—share the life of God in Christ through the Spirit—“and escape the corruption in the world” (2 Pet. 1:4, italics added; Tertullian, Ag. Marcion 2.26–27; Hippolytus, Refutation of all Her. 10.29).
Those who are regenerated share in the nature of the spiritual progenitor. “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:9; Didymus the Blind, Comm. on 1 John 3.9). “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him” (Col. 2:7).
Athanasius stated the union in this crucial expression: “He was made man that we might be made God [theopoiēthōmen]” (Incarnation of the Word 54). He was “first God and then man, in order that He might allow us to share in his deity” (Athanasius, LCHS, To Serapion 1.24; cf. Defence of the Nicene Council 14; Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 4.38; Origen, Ag. Celsus 3.28), bringing us into union with himself (Gregory of Nyssa, Ag. Eunomius; Augustine, Enchiridion 37). To receive sinners and empower them to “be made like to God” is the consummating work of the Spirit (Basil, On the Spirit 9.23; cf. Ps. 82:6). “The Holy Spirit works in us in his own way, truly sanctifying us and joining us to himself; and by this coalescence and union of ourselves with him he makes us sharers in the divine nature, beautifying human nature with the splendor of the divinity” (Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus 34; cf. Letters 1). God “inserts his own sanctity into us” (Cyril of Alexandria, Comm. on John 10, intro.).
God offers himself to the creature in such an intimate way that the creature is awakened and transfigured by divine grace (John of Damascus, OF 2.12). “Now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2; Augustine, On Trin. 15.16.26).
How Our Lives Enter into Spiritual Union with Christ
Union with Christ is not adequately viewed as a solidarity of workers in a common task or of business partners in a coalition of interests or of the union of mind between teacher and student. Nor does Christ dwell in us in the way that a parent influences a child or a therapist is close to a client. Rather, the union is conceived more intimately as expressed in organic analogies: as cellular members of a living, functioning body, as living branches of a living vine. As one “feeds and cares for” one’s body, so “Christ does for the church—for we are members of his body” (Eph. 5:29, 30; Augustine, Tractate on John 9.10). Consequently, union with Christ is by definition a living union (Gal. 2:20), not a conflation of inert separable objects as if the pieces of a puzzle were being put together. Mechanistic analogies fall short of describing organisms.
As seeds are buried and await new life and growth, so in union with Christ we are buried and arise with him. In dying to sin, the believer dies with Christ, entering daily into the full consecration that is willing to participate bodily in God’s suffering through service (Ignatius, Romans 7–8). Union with Christ is a participation in the resurrection. Through dying to sin, one is found to be living anew, resurrected in Christ (Ambrose, Paradise 29; Calvin, Inst. 4.15–17). The life of faith is hidden in Christ, as if the body were buried. “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:3, 4; Athanasius, Festal Letters 7.3).
Union of the believer with Christ is a spiritual union whose enlivening energy comes from God the Spirit. The Father who raised the Son “will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you” (Rom. 8:11; Origen, Comm. on Rom. 8.11).
If Christ is in you, “your spirit is alive because of righteousness” (Rom. 8:10). As the Son has life by partaking of the Father, so the faithful have life by partaking of the Son (John 6:53–57; 1 Cor. 10:16, 17). Without loss of individuality, the spirit of the person is enlivened by the Spirit of Christ, so that “he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17; Origen, OFP 2.9.3).
So close is this union that Luther would “say with confidence: ‘I am [one with] Christ,’ i.e., Christ’s righteousness, victory, life, etc., are mine; and Christ, in turn, says, ‘I am that sinner,’ i.e., his sins, death, etc., are mine, because he adheres to me, and I to him; for by faith we are joined into one body and one bone” in an “inherence, which is by faith, and whereby Christ and I are made as it were one body in spirit” (Luther, Comm. on Gal.: 171). The righteousness conveyed in this union is the believer’s by grace through faith, but not by nature or achievement. In this way we are made partakers of its benefits (1 Cor. 11:23–26; Ambrose, Sacraments, 4.5.21–23; Bunyan, Works 1:302–12). “You are what you have received” (Augustine, Easter Sunday Homily 227).
The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship
Grace has the effect of making the soul beautiful, as if a sculpture was being shaped by the divine artisan (Tho. Aq., ST 2–2, Q145). The image of the triune God is being once again imprinted upon the soul, where Christ is being formed in human history (Gal. 4:19; Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 3:16).
The same grace has the effect of drawing human persons into friendship with God, wherein the righteous “become the friends of God” (Wisdom 7:14), who said: “I have called you friends” (John 15:15; Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 4.13.4). In love as friendship (philia) there is conscious mutual benevolence and affection between persons (Augustine, Comm. on John, 85; cf. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics 8; Tho. Aq., Comm. on Four Books of Sentences 3.27, Q2.1.1).
“By the Holy Spirit we are established as friends of God.” That which is “specially proper to the friendship” is “to take delight in a friend’s presence.” For “one reveals his secrets to a friend by reason of their unity in affection, but the same unity requires that what he has, he has in common with the friend” (Tho. Aq., SCG 4.21; cf. Augustine, CG 19.8). Marriage is the most intense and enduring form of friendship (Chrysostom, Hom. on Eph. 20), hence a fit analogy of the union of Christ with the church.
In Union with Christ, All Believers Are United with Each Other
The union each member shares with the head, unites each one to all members of the body (1 Cor. 12:12–30; Ambrose, Of Holy Spirit 1.3.45). The unity of Christ is already given in Christ, yet it is always being proximately actualized as a task by the community of faith in diaspora around the world.
In Christ we are one. Our task is to embody that oneness. Already we possess unity in Christ. The indicative reality of radical unity becomes an imperative task calling for our active embodiment. God’s gift becomes our task. Union is fully and freely given to us in Christ, if only partially and inadequately received in faith (1 Cor. 2:12; Chrysostom, Hom. on Paul, 1 Cor. 2.12, 7.7).
Though believers are many, faith makes them one (Augustine, The Creed 2.4). In faith the “multitude of believers were of one heart and one soul” (Acts 4:32). From Christ all spiritual blessings come. In Christ they cohere. Toward him they finally are drawn (Chrysostom, Hom. on Eph. 1).
Jesus prayed for his disciples, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17; Gregory of Nyssa, Trin., NPNF 2 5:328). Paul called those who heard the gospel to “offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship” (Rom. 12:1). The subject of sanctifying grace that we have been discussing above (theosis, union with Christ) is commonly called sanctification.
Sanctifying grace is the culminating phase of the Christian teaching of salvation (soteriology). The holy life is a crucial theme of teaching on the Christian life. It is integral to the life of prayer, familiar to all who worship, and a central feature for all who receive basic pre-baptismal instruction (Early Liturgies, ANF 7:547).
The vision of perfect love and sustained faithful responsiveness to grace is not merely an individualistic vision but a life shared in a community (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect., 4.16). It is by means of sanctifying grace that the moral disposition is being effectively transformed.
Sanctifing grace is given in order that the believer may spontaneously and habitually love good and resist evil (Basil, On the Holy Spirit 9.22–23). God the Spirit is enabling the human self to will the proportionally greater good (Augustine, Enchiridion; 3). That embodiment occurs within a supportive community, a communio sanctorum (Calvin, Inst. 4.1, 4.10–12).
In order that this doctrine may be taught rightly in our time, sanctifying grace must be restudied in the light of Scripture and consensual exegesis. When we study sanctifying grace as a church doctrine, we soon learn that it is a mystery pointing beyond itself to the wholeness of the Spirit’s own quiet, inconspicuous mystery in our midst (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 16).
Modernity has secularized the Christian teaching of sanctification, naturalizing and reducing it to a vision of the betterment of human life or moral improvement or political achievement or upward social mobility. This has led to serious misjudgments about salvation and sanctification, resulting in a loss of resolve and vitality of these important teachings. They have been caricatured as judgmental, perfectionistic, and out of date. Biblical sanctification themes have been trimmed down and squeezed into fashionable metaphors of psychological growth or stress reduction or creative management or Realpolitik or social change or moral development. My purpose is to allow the classic consensual teaching of the holy life to be stated in its own powerful terms.
Toward a Classic Ecumenical Statement of Sanctification Teaching
I intend to state only those points on which Christians of widely different viewpoints have generally concurred regarding the aim of the Christian life.
Centuries of debate have burdened the presumed agenda with persistent exaggerations and distortions of the teaching of the holy life. Protestants have sometimes spoken too abruptly of faith as if without works of love. Popular pietism has spoken of emotive faith as if without intellect. Popular Catholicism has sometimes portrayed works as meritorious apart from the good news of unmerited justifying grace.
This reappraisal of sanctification teaching emerges out of a broad tradition shared by Baptists and Catholics. I hope it will be examined fairly by Calvinists, Arminians, Lutherans, Social Liberals, and Charismatics. I hope they will see that their own teaching is being affirmed and the mind of the believing church is being accurately represented. I intend to allay quickly the worries of Reformed critics who might assume that I might be pressing for a particular view of sanctification, perhaps an Eastern Orthodox or Wesleyan-Arminian view, so as to ignore the profound views of sanctification in the Augustinian-Lutheran-Reformed tradition. That would misread my intentions. Hence I will be quoting frequently in this chapter from Augustinian, Lutheran and Reformed sources on sanctification, which I believe to be substantially consistent with the line of argument that thus far developed from the ancient-ecumenical consensus.
What Is Sanctifying Grace?
The Westminster Catechism provided a prototoype definition of sanctification as “the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness.”
The influential American Calvinist theologian Charles Hodge (ST 3:213), stated well the shared common points of the Reformed teaching of the distinction between justification and sanctification in a way that Reformed teachings would on the whole agree (and upon which the ancient patristic consensus would concur, cf. Oden, The Justification Reader):
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Justification |
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Sanctification |
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What Christ has done for us |
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What the Spirit does in us |
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A completed, transient act |
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A progressive, continuing work |
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A forensic declaration |
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An effect of continuing grace |
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Enabling a changed relation |
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Enabling a change of character between sinner and the holy God |
Sanctification “consists in the gradual triumph of the new nature implanted in regeneration over the evil that still remains after the heart is renewed” (Hodge, ST 3:224). During the entire time that sanctifying grace is continuing to work—throughout life—the believer is daily called upon to confess, repent, and pray for forgiveness.
The new birth begins a life that grows in responsiveness to unmerited grace and presses on in the way of holiness. The fullness of sanctifying grace is not necessarily received immediately at the beginning of conversion but grows through an extended developmental process (Bonaventure, The Soul’s Journey into God, CWS: 59).
The key text is Philippians 3: “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of [katalabō, capture, appropriate] that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained” (Phil. 3:12–16; Marius Victorinus, Epis. to Phil. 3.12–15).
It belongs to God’s saving economy (oikonomia, plan of salvation, arrangement, order) that the faithful shall be made holy by the indwelling Spirit. This occurs precisely within the limits of finitude. For “from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth” (2 Thess. 2:13; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 5.12).
Sexual accountability is not an ancillary aspect of this process. In the tradition of Paul it is a key case in point for understanding the good life in God: “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality, that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable” (1 Thess. 4:3, 4; Chrysostom, Hom. on Thess. 4).
The way of life to be put aside is that of the old self “corrupted by its deceitful desires” (Eph. 4:22), falsehood, stealing, seething anger, and unwholesome talk (Ambrosiaster, Epis. to Eph. 4:25–29). “Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice” (4:31), sexual immorality, greediness, obscenity, idolatry, deception (Eph. 5:3–6; Chrysostom, Hom. on Eph. 13,14).
“Setting Apart” Under Law and Gospel
To sanctify something is to set it apart for holy use, to separate it out from the profane world for sacred employment. To sanctify (Heb. qadesh, hagiazō, set apart, to separate) means to consecrate for holy purpose, to make holy in the proximate sense that finite creatures may maximally participate in God’s holiness (Chrysostom, Hom. on Gal. 3.27).
Under Hebraic law, persons and things were set apart, separated, and offered to God for holy purpose. The temple, the tithe, the seventh day, the priesthood, and the vessels for holy use are Hebraic examples of such a setting apart (Gen. 2:3; Exod. 30). The furniture and utensils of the temple and priestly vestments were sanctified or set aside, consecrated wholly to that special service.
The law applying to the temple was fulfilled in the sacrifice of Christ. So the earlier forms of consecration were transmuted. They now point to the new creation enabled by a new birth. They seek to manifest the steady and growing conformity of the whole person to the will and image of God (Gregory of Nyssa, FGG: 81–84).
Holy Living as Gift and Task
God’s sanctifying work in us is not reducible to our work of moral exercises. No one is sanctified by his or her own will or ego strength or moral power, but only by grace—by God’s unmerited gift. Though sanctification elicits and requires discipline, it is not limited to acts of discipline. It is from beginning to end a work of God’s free and sovereign grace (Ambrosiaster, Epis. to Eph. 2.4–10).
The dead cannot voluntarily decide to rise. However much moral initiative I may apply, I cannot while spiritually dead in sin raise myself up to new life. The soul that is spiritually dead is unable of itself to make the slightest move toward God. The holy life is lived as if from the grave, from which the sinner hears the voice of redeeming grace, and is raised by its power (Luke 7:22; 1 Cor. 15; Cyril of Alex., Comm. on Luke, Hom. 37).
As in the case of justifying grace, sanctifying grace is God’s own work, not our work, not our merit added to Christ’s merit. Just as no one can boast for being born, no one upon receiving sanctifying grace can make a claim of merit upon one’s growth process (Gal. 6:14). In the presence of God’s own holiness, our sin, like Isaiah’s, reaches for a “live coal from the altar to sanctify our lips” (Kuyper, WHS: 441).
Paul prayed for the church at Thessalonica, “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through” (1 Thess. 5:23—entirely, wholly; Gregory of Nyssa, On Perfection 205). The church proclaims, admonishes, and teaches this wholesome doctrine “that we may present everyone mature [teleion, complete, perfect] in Christ” (Col. 1:28).
Though sin remaining after baptism is encumbering, we are called to “make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble” (Heb. 12:14; Jerome, Letters 66,8). “Sanctification does not exclude all cooperation,” but calls for “unremitting and strenuous exertion” (Hodge, ST 3:226).
The Hope and Limits of Sanctification Teaching
The gracious purpose of God in creation is being revealed in the actual universal history of humanity. This purpose is redemption, which is being carried forward ultimately to a fitting consummation. God would not write a drama without a fitting ending, even if that ending is not yet grasped but only glimpsed.
The believer remains an active self-determining agent in human history, past, present, and future, hence ever tempted to fall from grace. The holy God does not abide sin in his temple. “I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy” (Lev. 11:44). “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy’ (1 Pet. 1:15, 16; Barth, CD 2/2:515). The believer becomes the temple of God.
God requires holiness, but more so provides the means of receiving it: “Since God, who called us to salvation by the gospel, is holy, those who obey his calling must also become holy in all their thoughts and behavior, especially since he who calls us to this also provides the necessary sanctification himself” (Didymus the Blind, Comm. on 1 Pet. 1.15).
The holiness required is simple. It is that we faithfully receive the gift of atoning grace day by day. Christ died to deliver sinners from sin, not only from the guilt of sin but also the power of sin. The cross does not address humanity simply in theory as a formal juridical verdict of pardon, but intends to reshape each hearer actually and behaviorally toward walking in the way of sacrificial love.
We are not being asked to be wise above what is written, but to be made wise by what is clearly written. The more perfect knowledge of that which is seen as if through a glass darkly may be left to that future illumination when we will “know fully, even as…fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12; Clement of Alex., Stromata 1.94). “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29). “The highest righteousness of man is this—whatever virtue he may be able to acquire, not to think it is his own, but the gift of God. He then who is born of God does not sin, so long as the seed of God remains in him” (Jerome, Ag. Pelagians, NPNF 2 6:454).
The Surprising Breadth of the Consensus
Evangelicals and Catholics may be closer on sanctification than either party is quite ready to acknowledge. This is made clearer by examining how far the evangelical confessions reflect this patristic consensus. The New Hampshire Confession, for example, defined sanctification as “the process by which, according to the will of God, we are made partakers of his holiness.” It confessed that “it is a progressive work; that it is begun in regeneration; and that it is carried on in the hearts of believers by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, the Sealer and Comforter, in the continual use of the appointed means, especially the Word of God, self-examination, self-denial, watchfulness and prayer” (CC: 337).
God does not command what is impossible (Hermas, Mand. 12.3). “Sanctification is the process by which the regenerate gradually attain to moral and spiritual perfection through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in their hearts. It continues throughout the earthly life, and is accomplished by the use of all the ordinary means of grace, and particularly by the Word of God” (So. Baptist Convention of 1925). This language is drawn from the early ecumenical consensus on how the Spirit draws humanity toward life in God.
The Lausanne Faith and Order Conference defined sanctification as “the work of God, whereby through the Holy Spirit He continually renews us and the whole Church, delivering as from the power of sin, giving us increase in holiness, and transforming us into the likeness of His Son through participation in His death and in His risen life.”
Without Spot or Blemish
Christ was anointed to be set apart sacrificially for our sakes, that we might be totally set apart for him: “For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified” (John 17:19; Ambrose, The Christian Faith 2.9.77–78). Christ “gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own,” in a unique way that makes us “eager to do what is good” (Tit. 2:14; Chrysostom, Hom. on Gal. 2.20).
Like an incomparably loving bridegroom, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:25–27). “We refer this to the endurance of the husband, which entails his giving himself for the wife and bearing and suffering all that is hers, even sharing in all that she endures, she is being cleansed with water and the Word—that is, she is being purified in the Lord’s sight when he renders her pure and by his endurance makes her ready to be sanctified by washing and the Word” (Marius Victorinus, Epis. to Eph. 2.5.25–26).
The covenant people of God are being enabled by grace to live the holy life, hence called to holiness. The Father chose us in the Son “before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:4, 5).
Walking Worthy of Our Calling
The walk of the new life is one of mercy, tranquillity, holiness, love, self-giving, righteousness (Eph. 4:20–5:2), being filled with the Spirit, giving thanks always (5:18–21).
It is a way of life that reshapes all human actions and relations—between husbands and wives, parents and children, and all those one meets daily in the domestic and economic orders (Eph. 5:22–6:9). The first half of the letter to Ephesus set forth the vocation of the called-out community. The last half (beginning “Therefore,” Eph. 4:1) describes the conduct or walk of the community through time. It demonstrates the steady link between calling and community, gift and task, teaching and practice.
To walk worthy of their calling, the faithful are to walk in unity shaped by love: “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit” (Eph. 4:2–4). The oneness of Christ’s body is animated by one Spirit, “one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all” (Eph. 4:5, 6), yet within this unity there are diverse gifts of the Spirit (Eph. 4:7–16). The purpose of these gifts is “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:12, 13; Theodoret, Epis. to Eph. 4.13).
The English word saint derives from the Latin sanctus—holy, consecrated. A saint (hagios) is one set apart whom God’s grace is making holy, who in eternity will share fully in God’s holiness, and in whose life is already recognizable some fruits of a holy, charitable, merciful, humble life (Eph. 1:18; 3:8, 18). Note that the same term is applied to those who are justified and newly born in faith (1 Cor. 1:2), being separated from sin and consecrated to God’s service. Every member of the body, no matter at what stage of maturity, is called to be holy even as God is holy.
Maturing Grace Grows Out of Justifying Grace
Justifying grace offers the sinner a righteousness not his own. Sanctifying grace enables a freely willed righteousness that emerges cooperatively by grace-enabled freedom responding to God the Spirit. Justifying grace erases guilt through forgiveness. Sanctifying grace uproots the behavioral causes of guilt through the reshaping of human choices.
Justifying grace is a finished work of the Son on the cross. Out of this flows a continuing and current work of the Spirit in our hearts and social processes. In sanctifying grace, God’s Spirit works precisely within and around us, seeking and enabling our cooperative response, calling upon all our redeemed powers to be applied to working out our salvation while God is working in us to will and to do according to his good pleasure (Phil. 2:12, 13; Augustine, On Grace and Free Will 21; J. Wesley, WJW 6:506–13).
The paired Augustinian terms preparing grace (or prevenient) and justifying grace encompass both the period of preparation that leads up to saving faith in the cross, and saving faith itself. “Conversion” points to that decisive moment in which the sinner becomes fully receptive to atoning grace on the cross and receives it as applied to him- or herself. At that point the sinner begins, by repentance and faith through God’s pardon, to be cleansed from sin.
Justifying grace opens the door and makes way for the sanctifying grace that would draw the faithful toward ever fuller responsiveness. The grace of justification is joined and imparted freely through an extended process by the grace of sanctification (Augustine, On the Perfection of Human Righteousness, 2.1ff.).
Classic Christianity rejects “any view of justification which divorces it from our sanctifying union with Christ and our increasing conformity to his image through prayer, repentance, cross-bearing, and life in the Spirit” (Gospel of Jesus Christ, Affirmations and Denials 15). Calvin argued that justification and sanctification cannot be separated (Inst. 3.11.10). “Although we may distinguish them, Christ contains both of them inseparably in himself” (Inst. 3.16.1). Wesley similarly granted that the term sanctified was “continually applied by St. Paul to all that were justified,” and that “by this term alone, he rarely, if ever, means saved from all sin,” and that “it behooves us to speak in public almost continually of the state of justification,” adding that we must also learn to speak “more rarely, in full and explicit terms, concerning entire sanctification” (Larger Minutes, CC: 382, italics added). This level of consensus on sanctification teaching is grounded in the consensus of classic Christian exegetes on scriptural teaching.
Though uprighting and maturing grace work in varied ways, grace always flows from the single source—God the Father as incarnate Word working through the power of the Spirit. There is only one grace—God’s own. To say that God’s grace works simultaneously through justification by the Son and sanctification through the Spirit does not divide grace into two parts (the ancient error of modalism). While justifying grace works primarily for the sinner, and sanctifying grace works in the penitent faithful, both work together as the gift of one eternal Giver.
Sustaining the Gracious Life
The Christian life is a continuing and growing exercise in the reception of justifying grace. The will may move increasingly toward a sustained condition of receiving grace. What may have been a transient awareness at the first moment of receiving justifying grace gradually may become a more enduring and constant condition, a more permanent state of free consent sustained by sanctifying grace through Word and Sacrament. It is this habit-shaping grace that is sometimes called sanctifying grace (Tho. Aq., ST 1–2, Q49–52).
Sanctifying grace is viewed by medieval Christian teaching as working to elicit sustained and stable patterns of responsiveness. These are encouraged sacramentally by prayer and Eucharist in ways that tend to reflect the divine sonship (Tho. Aq., ST 1–2, Q49–62). This firmness is enabled by the Spirit through Word and Sacrament, and cannot be acquired simply or naturally by natural moral self-determination (Suarez, De Gratia, 4.2). Grace can only become a pattern of moral character if it has first become actually and effectually offered by God and received in human willing. Actual grace is a divine gift that enables persons to perform acts beyond their natural powers.
Scripture describes sustaining grace through metaphors such as seed abiding in the person (1 John 3:9; Didymus the Blind, Comm. on 1 John), a new birth by which the Spirit comes to dwell in the soul (John 14:23). In this way personal behavior can be compared to a treasure hidden in earthen vessels (2 Cor. 5:7), and a temple of the Holy Spirit (Ambrosiaster, Comm. on Paul, 1 Cor. 3:16; Calvin, Inst. 1.13.15; Goodwin, Works 6:459–70; Luther, Treatise on Good, WML 1:189–90).
In all these classic Christian traditions, sanctifying grace thus works negatively by purging idolatries and inordinate desires and positively by engendering virtues and dispositions that reflect God’s own goodness and enable the soul to please and enjoy God.
The Grace of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Communion
By a growing union with Christ the behavioral disposition of the believer is strengthened in grace to become cleansed from negative misdeeds and positively drawn to virtue and to a steady disposition to do that which is pleasing to God (Hilary, Trin. 8.7–12). In this way grace elicits both a distancing from sin and a deepening union with God (Ambrose, Duties, NPNF 2 10:43). By an ongoing process of grace-enabled consecration the believer becomes further set apart for service.
The sacramental prototype of consecration is the believer’s reception of the grace of baptism, by which the believer is incorporated into the body of Christ, made a member of the family of God by adoption into sonship or daughterhood. The baptismal gift is ratified by the gift of the Holy Spirit in confirmation and the growth of Christian affections, whereby the believer is equipped with those gifts requisite to proceed on the journey toward the celestial city. “God can work in our acts without our help. But when we will the deed, he cooperates with us” (Augustine, On Grace and Free Will 32).
The grace offered in baptism is confirmed, accepted, and ratified in confirmation. By this grace, the soul is indelibly imprinted with the seal of the Spirit. Those who are thus baptized and who have confirmed their baptism by being equipped with gifts of the Spirit are called in the New Testament the elect, or the saints (those set-apart) of God, implying not merely that they are called to the way of holiness, but that they are already in some measure walking in the way of holiness and growing in that way, being equipped and endowed with the gifts necessary to walk in that way (1 Cor. 6:11; 1 Thess. 5:23; Ambrose, Concerning Repentance 2.2.9).
The sacramental prototype of growing union with Christ is Holy Communion, by which believers are daily fed and nourished in life in Christ and sustained as members of the family of God and heirs of life eternal. The eucharistic gift feeds and sustains believers on the hazardous way through temptation and trials (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 22). By means of the grace of these sacraments and the living Word that they make visible, the believer is enabled to cooperate with grace in doing good works fit for repentance, each motive and step of which is enabled by faith through grace (Luther, Treatise on Good Works).
Growth in Grace
Wheat and tares grow together (Matt. 13:30). Frequently imperfections remain mixed with even the best qualities of the most faithful.
It is characteristic of the Holy Spirit to work personally and uniquely in each recipient to do what is proportionally and contextually required and salutary to draw that person closer to God. If this were not so, then there would be nothing for personal freedom to do after receiving God’s pardon, no works of love in response to grace, only quiet receptive passivity that does not cooperate or cowork. Growth in grace does not occur through quiescent inactivism or simply doing nothing (James 2:26; SCD 1221–28; J. Wesley, JWO: 353–76).
Simplistic egalitarian criteria, whether bureaucratic, legalistic, or impulsive, are insufficient to grasp the contextuality of the work of grace. The Spirit wishes to save each person, the whole person, to the uttermost, to show a way through every trial, and to bring the faithful to final blessedness (Col. 3:1–17; Eph. 4:15–5:20; Augustine, Conf. 7).
It is in this personal sense that the apostles spoke of receptivity to grace increasing. Believers “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord” (2 Pet. 3:18; Chrysostom, Hom. on 2 Thess. 2). Paul preached that the Spirit who supplies grace will “increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness” (2 Cor. 9:10).
Growth in grace occurs by personal receptivity to the gifts of the Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit are given that “the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature [teleion], attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:12, 13, italics added; Ambrosiaster, Epis. to Eph. 4.13). The apostle promised that “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8; Chrysostom, Hom. on 2 Cor., Hom. 19).
“The progressive aspect of sanctification is that process of growth in Christian maturity, Christlikeness, and practical godliness which results from walking obediently in the Light (1 John 1:7), from spiritual nurture and discipline (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:17–18), and from repeated infillings of the Holy Spirit and His continuing ministry in the cleansed and yielded believer (Acts 4:31; Eph. 3:19, 5:18; Rom. 8:26)” (OMS International Statement of Faith, 8; Ambrosiaster, Epis. to Eph. 3.19.1–4).
The Neonate Analogy: New Birth and Growth
The newborn baby is perfectly complete as an infant human being, yet incomplete and immature from a developmental point of view. The infant must grow and develop in body, soul, moral judgment, and spirit in order to become more fully matured as a human being (Marius Victorinus, Epis.to Eph. 1.3.20–21).
The perfection of the seed is different from the perfection of the flower, yet both are capable of change, growth, maturation, and progress (Matt. 13:31; Hilary, On Matt. 13.4; 1 Cor. 3:6). Immaturity, in this way, is far from being inconsistent with perfection, as the language is normally used, for “A child may be immature as to stage of growth, but at the same time be perfectly healthy. Growth of the body requires time and development, while health is an immediate state of the body which determines its present enjoyment and growth. Likewise in the spiritual realm, a newborn saint may have the fullness of the Spirit, while being nevertheless quite immature, and in contrast a mature saint may lack the fullness of the Spirit…. What physical health is to the growth of the physical body, the fullness of the Spirit is to spiritual growth” (Walvoord, HS: 191; Jerome, Comm. on Matt. 2.13.31).
The finished work of Christ’s earthly ministry occurred on the cross. But the finishing work of the Spirit in the believer is currently at work in all seeking to live by faith (2 Pet. 3:18; Calvin, Inst. 3.19–20). Though regeneration quickens life, it does not ordinarily “effect the immediate and entire deliverance of the soul from all sin. A man raised from the dead may be and long continue to be, in a very feeble, diseased, and suffering state” (Hodge, ST 3:220). After the sinner is brought to new life, the needed repair process may be extensive.
How Sanctifying Grace Is Received
Grace works in time, like leaven (Matt. 13:33; Hilary, On Matt. 13.5). It calls for a continual dying to sin, so “put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry” (Col. 3:5; Augustine, Sermons 350A.4).
Living faith is like a long-distance race not completed in an instant but only by continued running—more a marathon than a sprint. Bodily growing does not occur instantly like a verdict, but continuously and actively (Acts 20:24; 2 Tim. 4:7; Heb. 6:1; 12:1; Ambrose, Duties, 1.15.5 8).
Though a process of growth is required for every believer, there still may be moments when such spurts of growth in grace are possible. It is rash to rule out the possibility that the Holy Spirit may flood the soul with sufficient grace that the trajectory of continued walking in the way of holiness is firmly set (Photius, Fragments on Heb. 6.1–3; Bonaventure, The Soul’s Journey into God 7; Fletcher, Checks, 7; P. Palmer, PPSW: 185–208).
Justifying faith may be in intention or purpose victorious over sin yet not have rooted sin out altogether. The testimony of conversions prevents us from assuming that there are no remarkable instances of instantaneous transformation. But the more typical work of grace appears to be gradual, maturing like an organism grows (Chrysostom, Hom. on Matt. Hom. 44.4–5; John Cassian, Conferences 14; J. Wesley, WJW 6:77–99).
Those who have most powerfully experienced justifying grace often find that the roots of pride and idolatry and anger have not been destroyed instantly. Thus they are being called to continue to struggle with the vestiges of sin, even though they have experienced a complete pardon of their sins. The remnants of sin may continue to plague the believer after truly receiving justifying grace (Augustine, On Perfection in Human Righteousness, 19; Goodwin, Works 6:88–95; cf. J. Wesley, WJW 5:144–70).
The New Birth Looks Toward the Holy Life
Whether new birth is instantaneous or gradual depends upon the point of view from which spiritual rebirth is seen. Viewed providentially, developmentally, and synoptically from the vantage point of the entire work of the Spirit in preparing, convicting, calling, enabling faith, and sanctifying, the whole process is seen as a gradual unfolding of the divine plan of salvation.
Viewed inwardly from the vantage point of one being born, there must be posited some distinct beginning of this life. Anything that happens in the human story has a beginning in time. In this sense new birth is by definition instantaneous.
The picture of a live birth would be imprecise if birth itself was thought to occur gradually over years of time. Pregnancy occurs over time, but live birth itself is an event that occurs in a particular hour. No mother or child could endure nine months of being born, but that time of pregnancy is normal. This is why the language of conversion so often focuses on a particular instant of transformation or recognition or a distinct moment of an unparalleled new beginning. No one has literally two or more different physical birthdays.
This means that on some particular day or period of the spiritual life of the penitent, he or she begins to trust God’s grace by faith (Basil, On the Spirit 15.35; Wesley, WJW 6:65). To begin to trust does not imply a perfect trust, but a beginning trust, which may rightly be called the regenerating grace of God the Spirit. Whether measured in minutes, hours, or days, it has some sort of beginning in time which is more like a birth than a pregnancy.
There may indeed be a gradual growth of the renewed soul, but in order to grow the soul must first be born. As life’s ending at death is punctilial (ending at some punctum, point), so is life’s beginning at birth. As living beings “die in an instant” (Job 34:20), so are they born in an instant. When Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43), God’s pardoning and regenerating action began occurring in the condemned man at that particular moment (Augustine, Sermons on NT Lessons 17.7).
One reborn of God is not thereby immediately mature. Birth does not prevent but invites and enables the process of growth. One reborn of God is a budding saint made ready to receive a gradual process of growth toward ever fuller receptivity to the Spirit (Rev. 22:11). In new birth life is imparted yet not fully developed (Merrill, ACE: 187). The new life in Christ is then constantly being renewed. “You have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Col. 3:10).
Yielding to the Spirit’s Guidance
When the Old Sin Nature Remains Alive in New Believers
The new birth does not entirely destroy the old nature, the flesh, the old Adam. The old orientation to the flesh comes under the influence of the Spirit, but has not been eliminated altogether (Rom. 7:21–23; Augustine, on Romans 45–46).
If all possibility of temptation were eliminated, there would be no need for growth in grace, or testing, or confession, or prayer. But such is not the life in the Spirit. Flesh continues after justification to war against spirit. Previously the flesh had almost complete sway. Now the flesh is by faith’s intention crucified with Christ, but this does not always imply that the way of the flesh has in every sense been utterly removed. For flesh continues to lust against spirit (Gal. 5:17; Chrysostom, Baptismal Instructions 3).
The adversary of the old dead life has “gone out of you, being chased by baptism. But he will not easily submit to the expulsion…. If he finds in you a place, swept and garnished indeed, but empty and idle, equally ready to take in this or that which shall first occupy it, he makes a leap into it, he takes up his abode there with a larger train” (Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat 40.35). The orientation to the flesh (sarx) must die daily (Rom. 8:1–11). Participation in Christ’s death and resurrection is an event that will be chosen and rechosen day by day (Ambrosiaster, Comm. on Paul, Rom. 8.10).
Even then the new self is being called to live as if the old self were in fact truly dead (Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:24). You are to “count yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life” (Rom. 6:11–13; Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 5.14.1; Origen, Comm. on Rom. 6.12). Jesus assumed that the will is free to follow when he said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Luke 9:23; Calvin, Inst. 3.3).
Meanwhile believers continue to struggle with sin: “Although the saints are spiritually minded, they are still carnal in the corruptible body which remains a weight upon the soul. They will, however, be spiritual also in body when the body sown animal with rise spiritual….Thus I came to understand this matter as did Hilary, Gregory, Ambrose, and other holy and renowned teachers of the church, who saw that the apostle, by his own words, fought strenuously the same battle against carnal concupiscences” (Augustine, Ag. Julian 70). Note here how Augustine is adjusting his thinking to the consensus fidelium of classic Christian teaching in a way that would gratify Vincent of Lérins.
Yielding and Filling: Mortification and Vivification
Faith requires a daily attitude of being yielded—a full readiness to respond to the promptings of grace by the Spirit. By this daily yielding, one is enabled to become more fully conformed to God’s will “that we may share in his holiness” (Heb. 12:10).
One may grow in yieldedness to grace by daily surrender and obedience. “Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Rom. 8:12–14; Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 5.10.2).
Under the tyranny of sin we were previously committing our bodies daily to a kind of “slavery to impurity and every kind of wickedness.” Now that grace has come in Jesus Christ we are free to commit our bodies totally “to righteousness leading to holiness” (Rom. 6:19; Origen, Hom. on Gen. 3.6).
The Christian life requires simple surrender of the will to God on a continuing basis (Matt. 6:10). In proportion as God’s will is done in one’s life, one is walking in the way of holiness. In proportion as one is able honestly to say, “Nevertheless not my will but thy will be done” (Luke 22:42), just in that degree is one receptively cooperating with maturing grace (John Cassian, Conferences 14–15). The disciples at Pentecost were fully yielded. So was Peter before the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:8; Chrysostom, Hom. on Acts 10), and the worshiping community when they prayed (Acts 4:31). The martyr Stephen was fully yielded to the Spirit as he faced death (Acts 7:55; Augustine, Sermon 214.8), as were the apostles Paul (Acts 9:17) and Barnabas (Acts 11:25; The Martyrdom of Polycarp).
The Way of the Servant
Consensual Christian teaching did not uniformly affirm only passive or restricted roles for women. It sought a moral language shaped by the reciprocity implicit in the creation of women and men (Chrysostom, Hom. on Eph.; cf. David Ford, Mysogynist or Advocate: Chrysostom on Women, diss.). But this did not mean that all subordination metaphors must be abandoned, for it is none other than God the Son who has taken on the ultimate subordinate role and called men and women to follow this serving model in relating to each other as male, each serving and caring for the partner on behalf of the offspring.
Christ chose voluntary poverty as the narrow way. So he became poor for our sakes that we might become rich in spirit. He chose subordination, humility, and yieldedness as the way. He became lowly for our sakes that we might become exalted in spirit (Chrysostom, Hom. on Phil. 7).
Be Filled with the Spirit
The faithful are called to “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18; Ambrosiaster, Epis. to Eph. 5.18–19). To be filled with the Spirit (Luke 1:15, 41, 67; Acts 13:9, 52) means to submit completely to the indwelling Spirit in order that God’s own work may be accomplished (Augustine, On the Spirit and the Letter 7.12; Calvin, Comm. 18:561).
Immediately after his baptism Jesus was “full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit in the desert” (Luke 4:1; Ephrem, Comm. on Tatian’s Diatesseron 4.4–5). This filling was attested in the lives of the Baptist, Elizabeth, Zacharias, and the blessed Virgin (Luke 1). After the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost upon the disciples, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:4; Hilary, Trin. 8.30). When Peter preached he was “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 4:8). Those chosen to be deacons were “known to be full of the Spirit and of wisdom” (Acts 6:3).
The evidences of being filled with the Spirit are the works of faith active in love. Though the sealing and indwelling of the Spirit are given to all baptized believers, those completely yielded to God and separated for responsive service are said to be filled with the Spirit and “with the fruits of righteousness” (Phil. 1:11; Chrysostom, Hom. on Phil. 3.1.11). They “make music” in their hearts to the Lord, “always giving thanks to God the Father for everything” (Eph. 5:20; Jerome, Epis. to Eph. 3.5.19), ready always to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (5. 21). The contrast is that between being drunkenly controlled by spiritous liquors and being fittingly empowered by the Spirit of God so that music pours out of one’s heart in praise.
Believers who are yielded to the Spirit will be empowered in their meekness. Fruits will be born from this empowerment. Believers can walk the narrow way without committing known sin as long as they remain yielded to the Spirit. “Man is a vessel destined to receive God, a vessel which must be enlarged in proportion as it is filled and filled in proportion as it is enlarged” (F. L. Godet, Commentary, John, in Gordon, MS: 91).
Perfecting Grace and the Fullness of Salvation
The Perfect Sacrifice
The Lord by his “one sacrifice” has “made perfect [teteleioken] forever those who are being made holy [hagiazomenous]” (Heb. 10:14). This is a past act completed on the cross, but one in which believers already now participate.
The perfect work of Christ for the believer (sometimes called positional sanctification) offers itself for the maturing of those being made holy. “Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore” (Heb. 13:12, 13, italics added). The completeness we already experience in union with Christ is distinguishable from but related to a growing process of maturing in the believer. “Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and whole [teleioi kai holoklēroi], not lacking anything” (James 1:4). “Patience builds character, so that someone who possesses it cannot be overcome but is shown to be perfect. For this reason believers are tested in order to improve their patience, so that by it their faith may be seen to be perfect” (Bede, Concerning the Epis. of James 1.4).
Paul’s “message of wisdom” to be spoken “among the mature [teleiois]” is “a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began” (1 Cor. 2:6, 7). What is “destined” is not our response but God’s grace in the Son before time. Personally responsive maturation moves toward a goal that Paul assumed when he chided the Galatians: “Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?” (Gal. 3:3). He exhorted the faithful to “stop thinking like children,” and “be adults” (1 Cor. 14:20), as those “who are mature [teleioi]” (Phil. 3:15). Even to the irrascible Corinthians he wrote: “What we pray for is your improvement [katartizesthe]” (2 Cor. 13:9; Ambrosiaster, Comm. on Paul, 2 Cor. 13.5–11).
Of the various Hebrew words sometimes translated “perfect,” or “blameless (shalem, tamim), it is usually contextually clear that the individuals referred to are not wholly without sin (Hezekiah, 2 Kings 20:3; David, Pss. 37:37; 101:2). When the Old Testament spoke of the upright man such as Noah or Job as “perfect” (tamin, whole, complete, Gen. 6:9; Job 1:1, 8), this did not imply absolute moral sinlessness but complete sincerity of trust in God. They will be found in the heavenly city as “the spirits of righteous men made perfect” (Heb. 12:23; Basil, Hom. on Ps. 18.4 (Ps. 45); Calvin, Comm. 22:334).
Israel was commanded under the law to be “blameless before the Lord your God” (Deut. 18:13). Under the gospel this command was fulfilled on the cross by the obedience of the Son, in whom faith may fully trust.
Optimal Faith
Those in whom grace is working optimally are those presently living toward the end for which God made them, who are cooperating maximally with grace (Jerome, Ag. Pelagians NPNF 2 6:454). Those who are thoroughly cleansed from sin by faith and wholly consecrated to God have that mind in them that was also in Christ Jesus (Phil. 2:5). They are “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:11). They give thanks in all things (1 Thess. 5:16–18), praying without ceasing. They do not choose to set that which is wicked before their eyes (Ps. 101:3). Their passions and bodily appetites are put to the use for which they were intended (1 Cor. 9:24–27; Augustine, To Simplician 10). God reigns without a rival in them.
Classic Lutheran consensual teaching as found in the Augsburg Confession defines Christian perfection in this way: “For this is Christian perfection; honestly to fear God and at the same time to have great faith and to trust that for Christ’s sake we have a gracious God; to ask of God, and assuredly to expect from him, help in all things which are to be borne in connection with our callings; meanwhile to be diligent in the performance of good works for others and to attend to our calling. True perfection and true service of God consist of these things” (Article 27, Book of Concord).
Full Responsiveness Not Intrinsically Impossible
The full powers of the regenerated life are being released. There is no fated or absolute necessity that they remain forever bound by the power of sin. God the Spirit is contextually offering grace sufficient to meet each and every successive temptation or challenge (John Cassian, Conferences 3). There is nothing intrinsically impossible about aiming toward “loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength,” wherein “all the thoughts, words, and actions are governed by pure love” (J. Wesley, WJW 11:366).
Through many centuries the consummating purpose of grace has been often defended against skeptical detractors (Council of Constance, SCD 600–604; Alexander IV, SCD 458). It is not arbitrarily impossible to continue increasing or growing in grace, or to persist in deepening and enriching the life of virtue in response to grace (Council of Vienne, SCD 471; Trent IV, SCD 802).
The body is not an absolute obstacle to the reception of sanctifying grace, but rather a means for its reception. The body, with all its passions, concupiscence, energies, libido, powers, and members, is to be taken captive to Christ and sanctified as a temple of the Spirit (Rom. 6:13; 1 Cor. 6:19, 20; 11; Heb. 10:22). There is no arbitrary limit to what the Spirit can do with a consecrated human life who cooperates steadily with grace (2 Cor. 4:10; Chrysostom, Epis. to Cor. 13.2; Palmer, PPSW: 165–85). Every aspect of life is awaiting to be taken captive to Christ (Finney, Sermons 4.18; Mahan, Christian Perfection).
The Language of Perfecting Grace: Biblical Terms for Complete and Fitting
Of the thirteen Greek words sometimes translated “perfect,” two in particular are pertinent to these questions. The verb katartizō suggests completeness, or fittingness in all details, as if something is rightly adjusted and completely fitted to its purpose (2 Cor. 13:9; 1 Thess. 3:10). The Spirit is giving gifts “for the perfecting [katartismon] of the saints” (Eph. 4:12), abundantly equipping and preparing God’s people for works of service (John 10:10; Ambrosiaster, Epis. to Eph. 4.12.6; Fletcher, Checks Ag. Antinomianism 7; A. Clarke, Christian Theology 12).
The verb teleioō suggests completing, attaining, ending, perfecting, bringing something to its proper goal (1 Cor. 2:6; Eph. 4:13; Phil. 3:15). Teleioō may mean to mature, to fulfill, to make full, or to come to a fitting conclusion. Such maturing is frequently sought and commended in this life by New Testament writers. The faithful are called to grow toward maturity through patience (James 1:4) and love (1 John 4:17, 18), in knowledge of the will of God (Col. 4:12) and in holiness (2 Cor. 7:1; Cyprian, Treatise 9). Love “binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col. 3.14; Chrysostom, Hom. on Col. 8).
The teachings of maturing grace, holiness, sanctification, and perfect love are not merely permitted but specifically defined and commended by scripture. To assume that the attempt at complete responsiveness to grace necessarily leads to pride and presumption is to misunderstand their scriptural intent. Though what follows cannot be portrayed as unchallenged consensual teaching, it is a preponderant view awaiting fuller refinement. The original Hebrew and Greek terms used in scripture to describe the fullness of salvation (shalem, tamim, teleio-sis, katartisis) are, when appropriately grasped, well designed to serve Christian teaching.
A fine balance of tolerance and rigor is called for at this juncture. Where Catholic teaching tends to stress the sin removed by baptism, and Reformation teaching tends to emphasize the sin remaining after baptism, the excesses of either view needs the corrective of the other.
Sustained Faithful Responsiveness to Grace
There is an operating distinction in the biblical teaching of sanctification between positional sanctification in Christ (1 Cor. 1:30) and experimental (or progressive or experiential) sanctification in relation to the believer’s yieldedness to Christ (Eph. 5:26, 27; 1 Thess. 5:23; 1 Peter 3:18); and both of these are distinguishable from celestial or final sanctification in glory (1 John 3:2; Rom. 8:29).
Consistent with the ancient ecumenical tradition, the Reformed tradition has wisely taught that “(1) all believers are positionally sanctified in Christ ‘once for all’ at the moment they are saved. This sanctification is as perfect as He is perfect. (2) All believers are being sanctified by the power of God through the Word, and this sanctification is as perfect as the believer is perfect. So, also, (3) all believers will be sanctified and perfected in glory into the very image of the Son of God” (Chafer, ST 1: 285).
Viewed schematically:
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Sanctification Tenses |
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Three Overlapping Phases of Sanctifying Grace |
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Positional |
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Experiential |
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Final |
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Past Tense |
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Present Tense |
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Future Tense |
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Perfect Sacrifice on the Cross |
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Behavioral Participation in Christ in Preparation for: |
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Celestial Glory |
Positional Completeness in Christ
Paul addressed all believers at Corinth in the positional sense as ‘saints’, as “those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy” (1 Cor. 1:2, 30; 6:11). Yet the Corinthian letters were written to correct abuses of those who were still experimentally and progressively maturing in Christ by an extended process by which we “reflect the Lord’s glory,” being “transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory” (2 Cor. 3:18; Gregory of Nazianzus, Theol. Orat. 5.26; cf. John 17:17; Eph. 5:26), which seeks to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior” (2 Pet. 3:18). This process looks toward fitting future consummation, or final sanctification (1 Thess. 5:23).
“Why did Paul write ‘to those called to be saints’ as well as to those who are already ‘sanctified’ and in the church? Surely this means that the letter is addressed not only to those who are already cleansed from their sins but also to those who still await cleansing, though they are among those whom God has called” (Origen, Comm. on 1 Cor. 1.1.7)
Sanctification (hagiasmos) is used in the New Testament to point both to the continuing development of the Christian life and to its fulfillment. The community of faithful baptized believers, however unfinished or incomplete in faith, is referred to as “saints” or “sanctified” (Acts 9:13; Rom. 1:7; 2 Cor. 1:1; Eph. 1:1; Col. 1:2). Hence this is called in Reformed teaching positional sanctification. In this sense all who share life in Christ by faith, even weak faith, are being sanctified by the power of the Spirit (1 Cor. 1:2; Phil. 1:1). For faith requires and implies that one is consecrating one’s whole self to God and turning away from all that would detract from reconciliation with God.
Growth in Maturity in Christ
Experiential sanctification is an ongoing process of daily rededication, reconsecration, mortification, and vivification of the whole person to God. It calls for believers to live out their baptism in time so as to allow new challenges and circumstances to draw them further on toward the fuller reception of grace and the deepening of purity of heart (1 Thess. 5:23; Heb. 12:14; Philoxenus of Mabbug, Memra on the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Brock: 118).
This continuing, yielding consecration is not separable from the initial acts of repentance and faith. Rather it is that same repentance and faith that is growing and developing under conditions of temptation and day by day hearing of the Word. It is a continuing unfolding of what was implied in the initial act of consecration (Calvin, Inst. 3.3). Sanctification in this sense is “the continued transformation of moral and spiritual character so that the life of the believer actually comes to mirror the standing which he or she already has in God’s sight” (Erickson, CT 3: 875).
Final Sanctification in Christ
Paul prayed that God may “strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes” (1 Thess. 3:13; Augustine, Grace and Free Will 38). The sanctification ultimately hoped for is that by which the God of peace sanctifies “you through and through,” by which “your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23; Ambrose, Cain and Abel 2.6).
Exegetes differ as to whether this final sanctification may occur in this life or only at death or at the time of the general resurrection. Consensual exegesis points in this direction: it is not common, though possible, for persons to respond continuously and fully to sanctifying grace in this life (Gregory of Nyssa, Moses; Bonaventure, The Soul’s Journey into God, CWS: 110–16).
The doctrine of sanctification is not primarily a teaching about the human capacity as such, but about the sufficiency of God the Spirit to transform all human capacities. It is less about human ability than the Spirit’s ability to reshape human capacities (Barth, CD 4/2:495; Outler, TWS: 3). “In the future life we shall attain perfection. But in the present life we need all the help we can get from the apostles, the prophets, and our teachers” (Theodoret, Epis. to Eph. 4.13).
The Holiness of Mature Believers Distinguished from God, Angels, and Adam
If redeemed humanity is made capable by grace of full maturity in Christ, how is this maturity distinguished from (1) that perfection that only God knows, and (2) from the angelic and (3) the Adamic state?
First, the best conceivable forms of human responsiveness fail to compare with the utter holiness of God. It is useful to recall the distinction between antecedent and consequent (or absolute and ordinary) power in God: Considered antecedently, nothing is beyond God’s power, because it is God’s. Absolute power can extend itself in any way without limitation, since unmitigated power can work without mitigation. The sovereign power of God has chosen to create proximate, temporal companionate wills that may in self-determination stand temporarily over against God’s power (Origen, OFP 2.9; Oden, The Transforming Power of Grace, 3–5).
As prevenient, providential, common grace works through secondary causes, so does sanctifying grace work through and before and above and beyond other creaturely causes, and not merely unilaterally but cooperatively. It is a category mistake to assume that grace can be reduced to simple, unilateral divine causality, without positing other layers of cooperating causality. Though it is God who gives growth, it is Paul who plants and Apollos who waters (1 Cor. 3:5–9).
Second, the incorporeal angelic beings who are assumed in scripture to be capable of serving God exceed human capabilities enormously. For all human capabilities exist within a fallen history of sin and under conditions of corporeality. Of whatever level of maturity or radical responsiveness humans may be capable, it must be distinguished from angelic perfection, which does not labor under the bodily constraints of time and space with which human virtue must contend (Tho. Aq., ST 1–1, Q50–74).
Third, whatever full responsiveness is now enabled by grace must be further distinguished from that originally possessed by Adam and Eve, because an intervening history of sin has drastically limited the choices available within fallen human history to choices between tainted values, goods, and eventualities, not the untainted or unimpaired actions of Eden. The unimpeded love promised to sinners must function within the capacities given by grace to human beings within the contexts of fallen history (Ambrose, Letters to Priests 49; Augustine, Patience 17; Reinhold Niebuhr, NDM, 1,2).
Classic Consensual Teaching on Perfecting Grace
Some uncritically define perfection as a simple state of freedom from sin attainable in earthly life. They do not qualify how freedom from sin differs from finitude or ignorance or error or infirmity. If so, the doctrine of full responsiveness to grace becomes a straw man waiting to be knocked down. Several issues have in fact been thoughtfully resolved by ecumenical consent in setting forth the biblical teaching of Christian maturity and perfecting grace. To these we turn.
Classic Christian reasoning is subtle and requires patience. To neglect any of the following eight maxims is to invite confusion. Rightly acknowledged, they strengthen the plausibility of the classic consensual view of the fullness of grace in sanctification.
Human Infirmities Amplify the Perfections of Grace
First, the moral unlikelihood of extended sinlessness is in large part a due to human finitude, as distinguished from sin. It is not due to the deficiency of grace. Sin occurs within finitude, but is chosen. Finitude is different—we do not choose it; we are it.
The very conditions of the human soul-body composite make optimal outcomes unlikely. The human condition is exceedingly vulnerable due to its very nature as finite freedom. Freedom is nested within finitude.
Classic Christian teaching has been acutely aware of the causes of human infirmity: “The infirmity of human nature flows from four separate and distinct sources: (1) concupiscence (fomes peccati); (2) imperfection of the ethical judgment (imperfectio iudicii); (3) inconstancy of the will (inconstantia voluntatis); and (4) the weariness caused by continued resistance to temptation” (Pohle, DT 7:120). God’s grace is sensitive to the differences between the causes of infirmity. At each level of causality we reason differently about the relation of grace and freedom.
When all these forms of human infirmity conspire to limit human willing and acting, it seems plausible to speak in a virtual sense of a prevailing tendency to sin (necessitas antecedens peccandi), not as if the will were fated to fall, but in the awareness that it is highly unlikely that the will might continue interminably without special grace to resist an endless series of temptations (Origen, Comm. on Rom. 3.9–19; S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety).
The human proneness to sin does not destroy free will or the moral culpability of sin, nor does it imply that what God has commanded is formally impossible. Yet it does make free will vulnerable, and sin virtually inevitable (Ambrosiaster, Comm. on Paul, Rom. 3:9–20). This is why a static form of perfection is practically unattainable over a long period of time without the assistance of special grace (Tho. Aq., ST 2–2, Q184).
There is a fine but conceptually plausible line between the tragic tendencies of human infirmity and voluntary transgressions of known law (Clement of Alex., Stromata, 2.14–16). One is tripped up by finite circumstances, the other is willed. Hence Reinhold Niebuhr was intuitively correct to insist that sin is “inevitable but not necessary” (NDM 1:255). Whatever can stumble will find a way of stumbling, given time for the exercise of vulnerable freedom (Tho. Aq., ST 1–2, Q109).
We do not decide how we are to be tempted, only how we are to respond to temptation. A person may be able to resist successfully a thousand temptations in succession while a hidden one is silently taking over at a lower level of awareness (Augustine, Letters 181.8).
Whatever level of sustained faithful responsiveness is made possible by grace, this does not imply that every small sin is overcome or that anyone becomes irreversibly impeccable (Council of Mileum II, SCD 107; Council of Vienne, SCD 471). For human freedom remains free within finitude. If it were the case that a person does not sin because he cannot sin, then “free will is destroyed” (Augustine, On Nature and Grace, 28; Jerome, Ag. the Pelagians).
Sustained Faithful Responsiveness to Grace Does Not Imply Freedom from Error
Second, unimpeded responsiveness to grace does not imply the infallibility of freedom or freedom from error. As long as perception has its housing in the fragile body, one is liable to inaccurate perceptions that lead to errors of judgment, and deceptive appearances that tend toward erroneous conclusions. These conditions, being characteristic of human existence generally, remain characteristic also of those walking the way of holiness (Ambrosiaster, Comm. on Paul, Rom. 7.18; Owen, Works, 3;468–538).
Freedom is easily thrown into disequilibrium by “fears occasioned by surprise, unpleasant dreams, wandering thoughts in prayer, times when there is no joy, a sense of inefficiency in Christian labor, and strong temptations,” but these are “by no means inconsistent with perfect love” (Binney, TCI: 132). One may be entirely consecrated to God and still remain subject to the infirmities and defects that inevitably accompany finite human existence. Even amid such defects of perception, these are not charged to conscience or accounted as sin as long as the heart remains pure, the will is yielded, and the intention is shaped wholly by love of God and neighbor, inasmuch as “love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom. 13:10; Clement of Alex., Stromata 4.6; Caesarius of Arles, Sermon 137.1).
The faithful may be misled by clouded memories or limited imaginations to form inaccurate impressions and hold distorted opinions. “This is a natural consequence of the soul’s dwelling in flesh and blood. But a man may be filled with pure love, and yet be subject to ignorance and mistake” (Field, HCT: 228). Even where information is wrongly processed, the heart may remain pure, and every act may spring from love. Such finitude is not properly viewed as sin, if sin is willful disobedience to recognizable moral truth. The Manichaeanism that asserts that finitude is sin has long been consensually regarded as a heresy (Augustine, Reply to Faustus the Manichaean 14.11). Walking steadily in the way of holiness does not imply that one may know with certitude that one will persevere (Chrysostom, Epis. to Heb. 21.1; Trent, 6.802–6).
Sustained Faithful Responsiveness to Grace Does Not Imply Sinless Perfection
Third, the Council of Vienne, AD 1311–12, specifically rejected the doctrine of static sinless perfection, “that man in the present life can acquire so great and such a degree of perfection that he will be rendered inwardly sinless, and that he will not be able to advance farther in grace” (SCD 471).
The wholesome love sought and attested is not a perfection that would pretend to eliminate unconscious sin, but rather a pure heart of faith active in love that is presently overcoming all habitual sin (Fletcher, Last Check to Antinomianism 1). “Among holy men it is impossible not to fall into those small lapses which occur because of something said, some thought, some surreptitious act. These sins are quite different from those which are called mortal, but they are not without blame or reproach” (John Cassian, Conference 11.9)
Sustained Faithful Responsiveness to Grace Does Not Imply Antinomian License
Fourth, grace as radical gift does not succumb to antinomian license which would ignore the command of God and slacken human effort to reflect the holiness of God under the flag of Christian liberty (Luther, Treatise on Good Works, WML 1:196–99).
The challenging task of growing in grace is not furthered by imagining that human beings in their sin are made acceptable to God by some sort of instant holiness. Christianity seeks to show that the making holy of the human person is God’s own work, yet accomplished in such a way as not to disavow human accountability and responsiveness (Augustine, On Nature and Grace, 61).
The long walk on the way toward perfect love does not imply that one is no longer required to keep the commandments (SCD 804), or no longer to seek virtue or love one’s neighbor (SCD 476). Nor does sustained faithful responsiveness to grace imply an immobile state, or death of the senses (SCD 501,1221). Optimal responsiveness is “always wrought in the soul by faith, by a simple act of faith,” which, due to sufficient grace, is not in any situation intrinsically impossible (Field, HCT: 240; P. Palmer, Faith and Its Effects).
Sustained Faithful Responsiveness to Grace Does Not Imply the Overcoming of Involuntary Transgressions
Fifth, the life of perfect love commended in the New Testament is not a perfection according to an absolute moral law, but according to the remedial economy enabled by the cross, in which the heart, having been cleansed, fulfills the law by faith active in love (Rom. 4; 5; 13:8–10; Caesarius of Arles, Sermon 137.1). The pivotal obstacle overcome by God’s saving action is voluntary sin of every kind, not the infirmities of finitude (Augustine, On True Religion 87; On Nature and Grace, 1–4).
The psalmist distinguished between willed sin and hidden sins that are not consciously willed. The Psalmist prayed: “Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless” (Ps. 19:12, 13, italics added; cf. Ps. 119:133). One may be filled with the love of God and still remain liable to involuntary or unconscious temptations (J. Wesley, PACP: 67). No theosis is posited by orthodoxy that ends finitude. There is no resurrection of the body that does away with the body altogether. Classic exegetes are divided as to how deeply involuntary responses are rightly to be called sin, but united in the assumption of the sufficiency of grace.
Sustained Faithful Responsiveness Does Not Imply an Eradication of the Sin Nature
Sixth, John’s letter specifically warned against the claim that sin is permanently eradicated upon belief in Christ (1 John 1:8). Yet in the next verse the letter enjoined believers to confess their sins that they may be purified “from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9; Bede, On 1 John 1.8–9).
This does not amount to a claim that the old sin nature is eradicated by faith, or that one is permanently made not able to sin. Rather, because of the work of the Son and the Spirit one is being given power in specific contexts step-by-step not to sin. The struggle against temptation continues, but is being constantly guided and hedged in by sufficient grace (Augustine, Ag. Two Letters of the Pelagians 4. 24–31).
If the complete eradication of all possibility of sin were God’s way of dealing with our fallen nature, then there would be little point in talking further about discipline or facing temptation. Rather, both Paul and John teach that the sin nature continues after faith begins, yet the indwelling Spirit empowers the new person of faith sufficiently in each circumstance.
Sustained Faithful Responsiveness to Grace Does Not Imply Freedom from Temptation
Seventh, the world, the flesh, and the adversary are not eradicated in this present age, though their power is being overthrown. The world continues, temptation continues, the flesh exerts its power, the devil rails, but amid these trials the Spirit works to enable fully adequate responses in each circumstance and growth toward an ever-larger pattern of full responsiveness (1 John 3:1–10; Chafer, ST 6:268–70).
Steady reception of sanctifying grace does not imply absolute freedom from temptation. Adam while innocent was tempted. Even Jesus who knew no sin was tempted in every way that characterizes human existence generally. To be tempted is not to succumb. To be tempted is human and belongs to self-determining creaturely existence. To succumb is sin and belongs to fallen existence. Those whose feet are set on the path to full salvation do not become free from temptation, though they grow in their ability to overcome it (SCD 1001–80). There is no point at which they can make no further progress in grace (Council of Vienne, SCD 471). With each new challenge to the will, there comes a new choice, which itself may strengthen or weaken the habits of holy accountability.
Sustained Faithful Responsiveness to Grace Offers No Grounds for Boasting
Finally, no tsaddiq (just person, made upright, dikaios) will ever be heard boasting of his or her sanctification. No one who is struggling seriously against pride will be found referring to him- or herself as holy or completely matured in Christ (Jerome, Ag. Pelagians 3.14). Yet paradoxically, the very one who least claims maturity may be optimally gaining ever-greater maturation and fullness of growth in the Spirit (Mt. 28:41–44; Incomplete Work on Matt. Hom. 54). It is the habit of the saints to be aware that the closer they walked the way of Christ, the more were they aware of their own distance from the purity of Christ. As their vision became clearer, they could see their own imperfections more clearly (Calvin, Inst. 4.13; Teresa of Avila, Life; Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul). However far along the road one may be, it is always premature to “boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth” (Prov. 27:1; Babai, Letter to Cyriacus 4). For “our life here below has many turnings, and the body of our humiliation is ever rising, falling and changing” (Gregory Nazianzus, Orat. 16.3).
Each of these qualifiers, if clearly and plausibly stated, strengthens the case for a sober view, based on classic consensual sources, of what has variously been called perfect love or Christian perfection, or what we have called here sustained responsiveness to grace.
How Debates on the Holy Life Have Been Resolved by Ecumenical Consent
The Lord’s Prayer Assumes that Sin Will Continue in Believers
The Second Council of Mileum (AD 416; SCD 108) rejected the view that the petition to forgive us our trespasses, when pronounced by saintly persons, was pronounced merely in token of humility, but not truthfully. The PanAfrican Council of Carthage (AD 418) rejected the Pelagian view that the Lord’s Prayer petition, “Forgive us our trespasses” (Matt. 6:12; Enchiridion Symbolorum, 221–230), does not need to be said by the saints.
Sins of surprise, errors of judgment, and moral misperceptions are not consciously chosen, hence not always counted as negligence. “Who can say, ‘I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin’?” (Prov. 20:9; Gregory of Nyssa, On the Lord’s Prayer 5).
There are no Eucharistic liturgies of classical Christianity that fail to offer pardon for genuine penitents. This does not place the way of holiness out of reach for believers, but puts believers constantly on the path of daily confession and renewal (Mt. 6:12; Cyprian, The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 19.5).
A Momentary Gift of Grace, Having Been Received, May Be Lost Through Disbelief
The consummating grace that is received by faith can be lost by unfaith. “If a man, being regenerate and justified, relapses of his own will into an evil life, assuredly he cannot say: ‘I have not received,’ because of his own free choice of evil he has lost the grace of God that he has received” (Augustine, On Admonition and Grace 6.9).
If it were considered impossible to fall from a single instant of perfecting grace, there would be no need for repentance of believers, hence no need for Eucharist, no need for preaching, and no need for discipline. Even if full receptivity to grace is possible in any given moment, that does not imply that it will be extended inevitably or durably. For “if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin and does the same detestable things the wicked man does, will he live?” This will jeopardize “the righteous things he has done,” lacking justifying faith (Ezek. 18:24). “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” (1 Cor. 10:12; Chrysostom, Hom on 1 Cor. 23.5).
The way of holiness is being actualized in that degree to which it is daily sustaining trust in God’s righteousness. Those justified still may have sin remaining in them, even if it is not reigning (Calvin, Inst. 3.3.11; J. Wesley, WJW 5:156–71).
In What Sense Are Believers Called to “Be Perfect”?
Abraham was commanded by Yahweh to “walk before me and be blameless” (Gen. 17:1; Ambrose, On Abraham 2.10.76). “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified” (1 Thess. 4:3). The letter to the Hebrews called persons to “go on to maturity” (Heb. 6:1).
The best we can do is not ever as good as the best God has done already for us. “The difference between God’s righteousness and ours is the difference between the face of a man and its image in a mirror. There is a certain resemblance, but the two substances are completely different” (Bede, On 1 John 3.7)
Scripture calls the faithful to become mature and complete in the likeness of God—“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48 Hilary, On Matt. 4.27). The meaning is this: “You must be perfect in the perfection of grace, just as your Father is perfect in the perfection that is his by nature, each in his own way. For between creator and creature there can be noted no similarity so great that a greater dissimilarity cannot be seen between them” (Fourth Lateran Council 2, italics added).
To this end Christ gave his life to redeem us and the Holy Spirit came to sanctify us. The behavioral realization of perfect love is the end toward which justifying grace points (Tertullian, Ag. Marcion 1.24–29). “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us” (Eph. 5:1, 2; Polycarp, Philippians).
Justified Sinners May Truthfully Refract God’s Own Righteousness
Christ’s righteousness was indeed substituted for our unrighteousness, not so as to imply no further accountability or responsiveness on our part, but rather that our freedom might be awakened, that we might “put off the old nature with its practices and put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of the creator” (Col. 3:10; Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man 30.33–34; Calvin, Inst. 4.17–19). The fulfillment of the law, impossible on the basis of the law alone, now becomes possible on the basis of grace, which works to elevate and transform human behavior. Moral accountability and perfect love are progressively awakened by sanctifying grace working through Word and Sacrament (Gregory of Nyssa, FGG: 81–84).
The light of the sun is refracted on the surface of water even while the water is changing and moving. So may human freedom modestly but truly refract certain aspects of the reality of God: justice, love, understanding, knowledge, and foresight. God calls us to be holy as God is holy in proportion as finite creatures may contextually refract God’s own holiness (Matt. 5:48; Origen, OFP 2.7.2; 4.1.37). God calls the faithful not to sin, but if any do sin, they have an advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1; Gregory of Nazianzus, Theol. Orat. 30.14). God’s saving plan intends that sin be displaced by righteousness of character among all who are to share God’s own life eternally.
There Is a Perfection that Admits of Continual Increase
Does growth in perfect love admit of continual increase? However love may be optimally enabled by grace at any moment, it is always capable of being further perfected by a love that may be empowered in some subsequent moment in a way that is heretofore unimaginable. In this sense it is argued that there is no perfection that does not admit of continual increase (Eph. 4:15, 16; Phil. 3:13–17; Heb. 6:1; 1 Pet. 2:2–5; 2 Pet. 3:18; Gregory of Nyssa, On Perfection; J. Wesley, WJW 11:366).
What the faithful “reckon as perfect today” may be more adequately grasped tomorrow as they discern their own more refined intentions. Thus “By this gradual advance never being static,” they are “able to teach us that what we supposed in our human way to be perfect still remains in some ways imperfect. The only perfection is the true righteousness of God” (Jerome, Dialogue Ag. the Pelagians 1.15). “All of us who are running the race perfectly should be aware that we are not yet perfect. The hope is that we may receive perfection in the place to which we are now running perfectly” (Augustine, On the Perfection of Human Righteousness 19).
Optimal Response Varies with Stage of Development
This question was thoroughly explored by the great ecumenical doctors of the church: Gregory the Great, Gregory Nazianzus, and Basil: The athletic prowess of the child is not that of the young adult. To walk the way of holiness in full accountability is to walk each step with purity of heart unmixed by sullied motives, to love God without alloy. What that means at each step must be understood in relation to the capacity of the soul at that specific step (Gregory I, Pastoral Care 3.1).
As misperceptions and defects are gradually overcome, as capacities increase, as the soul grows, as the mind becomes enriched with wisdom, so will moral requirements be sharpened and intensified. At any age, sufficient grace is being offered for fully adequate responsiveness to whatever emerges within the finite limits of the situation (Gregory Nazianzus, Orat. 2.28–33).
Our best human abilities are developed “in accordance with the gradual progress of our education, while being brought to perfection in our training for godliness, we were first taught elementary and easier lessons suited to our intelligence, while the Dispenser of our lots was ever leading us up, by gradually accustoming us, like eyes brought up in the dark, to the great light of truth. For he spares our weakness” (Basil, On the Spirit 1.14).
Before these classic teachers, Irenaeus and Tertullian were already casting the drama of human development on a world-historical stage featuring the coming of the Son as the decisive event: Christ “sanctified each stage of life” by making possible at that stage “a likeness to himself,” which would in due course pass “through every stage of life. He was made an infant for infants, sanctifying infancy; a child among children, sanctifying childhood, and setting an example of filial affection, of righteousness and obedience; a young man among young men, becoming an example to them, and sanctifying them to the Lord. So also he was a grown man among the older men, that he might be a perfect teacher for all” (Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 2.22.4).
“The Lord has sent the Paraclete for this very purpose, that discipline might progressively be guided, ordered, and brought to perfection by his representative, the Holy Spirit…. The province of the Holy Spirit is just this; the guidance of discipline, the interpretation of Scripture, the reformation of the intellect, the advance toward better things. All things have their proper time and await their due season…. So righteousness was at first rudimentary, when nature feared God; then by means of the Law and the Prophets it progressed to infancy; thereafter through the Gospel it reached the fervor of adolescence; and now through the Paraclete it is being established in maturity” (Tertullian, On the Veiling 1).
Life in Christ amid the Tension of Flesh and Spirit
The Paradoxical Uprightness of the Saints
Jerome was quick to catch the irony of the Christian struggle: “We are then righteous when we confess that we are sinners” (Jerome, Ag. Pelagians NPNF 2 6:454). “Even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience; yet so that with earnest purpose they begin to live, not only according to some, but according to all the commandments of God” (Heid. Catech. Q114).
Leo I the Great stated this point most durably for the ecumenical tradition: As our finite freedom “always has the possibility of falling back, so has it the possibility of advancing. And this is the true justness of the perfect, that they should never assume themselves to be perfect…because none of us, dearly beloved, is so perfect and holy as not to be able to be more perfect” (Leo I, Sermons 40, italics added). “Although Divine Grace gives daily victory to His saints, yet He does not remove the occasion for struggling,” in order “that something should remain for our ever-changing nature to win, lest it should boast itself on the ending of the battle” (Leo I, Sermons 78). “For human nature has this flaw in itself, not planted there by the Creator but contracted by the transgressor, and transmitted to his posterity…. And in this strife such perfect victory is not [so] easily obtained that even those habits which must be broken off do not still encumber us, and those vices which must be slain do not wound” (Leo I, Sermons 90). “There are no works of power, dearly beloved, without the trials of temptations, there is no faith without proof, no contest without foe, no victory without conflict,” even as “the Lord allowed Himself to be tempted by the tempter, that we might be taught by His example as well as fortified by His aid” (Leo I, Sermons 39).
Daily Combat
Meanwhile, the ancient adversary does not cease to “masquerade as an angel of light” and “his servants as servants of righteousness” (2 Cor. 11:14, 15). “He knows whom to ply with the zest of greed, whom to assail with the allurements of the belly, before whom to set the attractions of self-indulgence, in whom to instill the poison of jealousy; he knows whom to overwhelm with grief, whom to cheat with joy, whom to surprise with fear, whom to bewilder with wonderment; there is no one whose habits he does not sift, whose cares he does not winnow, whose affections he does not pry into” (Leo I, Sermons 28).
The way is not easy. “The path of virtue lies hid…. A great work and toil it is then to keep our wayward heart from all sin, and with the numberless allurements of pleasure to ensnare it on all sides…. Who ‘touches pitch, and is not defiled thereby?’ Who is not weakened by the flesh? Who is not begrimed by the dust? Who, lastly, is of such purity as not to be polluted by those things without which one cannot live?” (Leo I, Sermons 49). “The vice of pride is a near neighbor to good deeds, and arrogance ever lies in wait hard by virtue” (Leo I, Sermons 42).
Do not close your eyes to Satan’s devices (2 Cor. 2:11), one of which is to nurture the illusion that the walk of faith is easy and broad, not narrow. “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law” (Gal. 5:17, 18; Augustine, On Continence 18). This daily combat of the sinful nature with the Spirit begins with regeneration and continues until death (Clementina, Recog. 8–11).
It is wiser that the Spirit works gradually to disclose the full range of sin. The self is not suddenly flooded and washed away by sin, but sin is revealed to the self gently and gradually (Thérèse of Lisieux, Autobiography of a Soul). Faith does not despair over the residues of the depths of evil in one’s heart. For that discovery itself is powerful evidence that the Spirit is presently working (Winslow, WHS: 122). It is a gradual process by which one is more fully enabled to pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps. 139:23, 24).
Theodicy and Growth in Grace
In order to grow, God’s people are “tested in the furnace of affliction” (Isa. 48:10). “God uses even evil for a good purpose, and in a wonderful way turns perversity to good account” (Abelard, TGS: 117). Only after his abandonment could Joseph say to his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good” (Gen. 50:20; Chrysostom, Hom. on Gen. 67.19).
Any challenge may work toward one’s salvation (Ps. 139:67–68). Any affliction may increase the depth of the work of sanctifying grace (Lam. 3:7, 9).
The Spirit’s coming is “like a refiner’s fire” (Mal. 3:3). “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed” (1 Pet. 4:12, 13). Satan rages where the righteous continue faithful through adversity (Chrysostom, Hom on the Statues). Tertullian set forth compelling evidence that the church grows precisely under persecution (Apology 50).
The classic Christian view of human nature is characterized by both realism and hope. Exaggerated perfectionism tends to make God’s sanctifying grace into a human work of ascetic self-preoccupation. When this is fused with an exaggerated expectation that one must easily rise above infirmities and errors of perception or judgment, it may become compulsive and neurotic (Luther, Ag. the Heavenly Prophets; Calvin, TAA; Wesley, Letters, To William Law).
Whether Sanctification Takes Place Only in the Next Life
Christian traditions differ not so much on whether sanctification is possible, but whether it may occur before death. Some in the Reformed tradition have argued that death itself is a sanctifying transition for the elect, readying them for the holiness of God (Augustine, Ten Homilies on 1 John, 9.2; Calvin, Inst. 3.3–11; Barth, CD 4/2:590). Others argue, “We should expect to be saved from all sin before the article of death” (Wesley, Larger Minutes, June 17, 1746), and that it is an offense to the sovereignty of God to assert that God the Spirit is impotent to save persons wholly from their sins while soul and body are united. Whatever these differences, there is relatively greater consensus that the holy life is commanded under the law and enabled under the gospel (Luke 1:74, 75; Titus 2:12; 1 John 4:17).
Is one made perfect only at death? Must sanctification await death for its completion? Though it is possible for the Spirit to enable holiness as an instantaneous work of grace, it is more often a gradual work of grace that becomes fully matured only when, upon facing death, the faithful may receive death in the form of trust in God (Tertullian, On the Soul 50–58). Though one dies only once, one may face death many times so as to require readiness for death. It is well to remember that it is not death as such that cleanses from sin, but the atoning work of Christ (1 John 1:7; Rev. 1:5; Bede, On 1 John 1.7).
Examining Arguments on the Intrinsic Unattainability of Perfect Love
Sustained faithful responsiveness to grace is safeguarded by consensual exegesis on the grounds that God would not command what is impossible, that God would not promise what is intrinsically unattainable, that it remains a duty to pray for holiness, that there are attested examples in scripture of unreserved responsiveness to grace, and that texts that seem to argue absolute unattainability are explainable on different grounds.
God Does Not Command What Is Intrinsically Impossible
There is little doubt that a mature, complete, continuing response to grace is enjoined repeatedly in scripture (Exod. 19:6; John 5:14; 2 Cor. 7:1; 13:1; Heb. 6:1; 12:14; 1 Pet. 1:15–16). God would not require holiness in this life (Deut. 6:5; Luke 10:27; Rom. 6:11) if it were intrinsically impossible.
If the way of holiness were intrinsically unattainable, noted Jerome, how could it be meaningfully or reasonably commanded? Would it not make God out to be more foolish than we are to assume that the holy God would command that which is impossible to be obeyed, or that God has placed a self-determining creature under requirement but incidentally given the creature no power or means to perform what is required? “God has given possible commands, for otherwise He would Himself be the author of injustice, were He to demand the doing of what cannot possibly be done” (Jerome, Ag. Pelagians NPNF 2 6:452–459).
God Does Not Promise What Is Intrinsically Unattainable
A complete and mature life of loving holiness is clearly promised in scripture (Deut. 30:6; Ps. 119:1–3; Isa. 1:18; Jer. 33:8; Ezek. 36:25; Matt. 5:6; 1 Thess. 5:23, 24; Heb. 7:25; 1 John 1:7, 9; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 15.19–21). God would not promise the fullness of salvation and unblemished holiness if intrinsically unattainable. If intrinsically unattainable, must not one conclude that God’s promise would be a deception, absurdly bound to fail? The very object of preaching is complete responsiveness to grace (Col. 1:28; Eph. 4:11–13). “You must receive the gift, not of a mere covering of your sins, but of a taking them clean away” (Gregory Nazianzus, Orat. 40.32).
Repeatedly scripture points to the way of holiness and perfect love as the very object of covenant history and the practical end of Christ’s work (Luke 1:74–75). “If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 3:8; cf. Eph. 5:25–27; Titus 2:14). Would it not then be contemptuous to assume its unattainability, so as to demean the cross of Christ by making it fruitless (Origen, Hom on Numbers, 26)? Rather, the Spirit is given to make attainable our actual “return to the adoption of sons, our liberty to call God our Father, our being made partakers of the grace of Christ, our being called children of light, our sharing in eternal glory, and in a word, our being brought into a state of all ‘fulness of blessing’” (Basil, On the Spirit 115; cf. Rom. 15:29).
The Spirit would not lead the Apostles to pray for holiness in this life if it were intrinsically unattainable. The apostles repeatedly prayed for the full and complete life of holiness and perfect love (John 17:20–23; 2 Cor. 13:9–11; Eph. 3:14–21; Col. 4:12; Heb. 13:20, 21; 1 Pet. 5:10). If intrinsically unattainable, the implication could be drawn that the apostles were deluded in this expectation, or misguided by the Spirit in prayer (Origen, On Prayer; Cypriain, The Lord’s Prayer 30).
There Are Examples of Saintliness in This Life
Some skeptics of the efficiency of perfecting grace are willing to concede that believers are commanded to be holy as God is holy, and provided with the means of sufficient grace to become holy, and promised holiness ultimately in eternal blessedness, and called to pray for holiness, yet they do not see anywhere any loving examples of holiness. Agreeing that God promises to make the faithful holy, they argue that this occurs not in this life, but only at its end or after this life.
The Westminster Confession defined the purpose of the church as “the gathering and perfecting of the saints in this life” (25.3, italics added). Wesley, who argued for the attainability of sustained faithful response to grace, pointedly remarked that if he knew any who were perfected in love he would not name them because the skeptics, like Herod searching for the child, would instantly pounce upon them looking for something amiss (WJW 11: 366; 5:202–12).
God would not have provided in scripture numerous examples of complete consecration and radical holiness in this life if it were for all others intrinsically unattainable. Among many examples of holy living in this life who were remembered in the sacred tradition are:
Enoch (Gen. 5:18–24; Heb. 11:5)
Noah (Gen. 6:9; Ezek. 14:14, 20)
Job (Job 1:8)
Barnabas (Acts 11:24), and
The apostles who labored among the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 2:10).
Clement of Alexandria set forth biblical examples of women of unfettered, mature faith, such as Judith, Esther, Susanna, and Sarah. He also added a remarkable list of pagan women of ancient literature whom he thought had shown forth anticipatory elements of the life of perfect love—Lysidica, Leaena of Attica, Theano the Pythagorean, the daughters of Diodorus, Arete of Cyrene, and Aspasia of Miletus (Stromata, 4.19).
If even a single instance is found in scripture of one who is living “blameless” or “free from sin” or “perfect,” its attainability is formally established. Others who appear to have walked in the way of holiness are found in Luke 1:6; 1 Corinthians 2:6; Philippians 3:15; Hebrews 12:23. There are other passages in which the teaching of full salvation is clearly implied in the text (Rom. 14:6–8; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 3:16–19; 4:12–16, 22–24; Col. 1:28; Titus 2:14; Heb. 12:14; 1 John 3:3, 9; 4:17; 5:18).
The Case for Unattainability
Certain texts appear to support the argument that there is no full redemption from sin in this life and that it is impossible to live without sin: “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins” (Eccles. 7:20; cf. 1 Kings 8:46; 2 Chron. 6:36; Gregory I, Forty Gospel Homilies 39). “How then can a man be righteous before God?” (Job 25:4; Calvin, Inst. 2.7.5; 4.1.20).
These passages assert the virtual inevitability, but not the absolute necessity, of sin—a major difference. They do not deny the power of grace to overcome sin. They do not necessarily or specifically argue that no one can under any circumstances ever live without falling into sin even while being fully receptive to grace.
One text that appears to argue for practical unattainability is 1 John 1:8–10: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us…. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.” Yet the context of this text strongly requires the teaching of purification from all unrighteousness: for “the blood of Jesus, the Son, purifies us from all sin.” The evident meaning is that Christ cleanses us from all sin, so that no one can now say, I have no need of Christ and no sin that needs to be cleansed. If we say that we have never sinned, hence do not need Christ’s atoning work, we deceive ourselves. But “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:7–9, italics added).
Luther argued that evangelical perfection is not to be thought of as a completed attainment so as to require no more repentance, but as a continual striving (EA 14.25). Yet who more than Luther spoke of the kingdom of God as the dominion Christ exercises in begetting faith and life through the word, and granting full forgiveness of sins (EA 14.181)? “The kingdom of God is nothing else than to be pious, orderly, pure, kind, gentle, benevolent and full of all virtue and graces; also, that God have his being within us and that he alone be, live, and reign in us. This we should first of all and most earnestly desire” (Luther, WA 2.98).
The Appeal to Blamelessness
Paul called God as his witness that he and his fellow ministers had remained “holy, righteous and blameless” (1 Thess. 2:10), toiling day and night “like a father with his children” (2:11; Clement of Alex., Instr. 1.5.19). He did not hesitate to remind his hearers that he had not wavered in faith even amid suffering (2 Tim. 1:12), was fully ready for his eternal inheritance (Col. 1:12, 13), having “kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:6–8; Basil, Hom. 22), and was ready to submit to God’s will, “content whatever the circumstances” (Phil. 4:12), able to “do everything through him who gives me strength” (v. 13; Chrysostom, Hom. on Phil. 16.4.10–14). Paul was described by Luke as fully willing to discharge the duties of his calling whatever the hardship (Acts 20:20–26). If this is not walking blameless in the way of holiness, what could these attestations mean?
How then could Paul also consistently say, “There is no one righteous, not even one,” “There is no one who does good, not even one”? The answer lies in the very point of this passage, which concluded, “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather through the law we become conscious of sin” (Rom. 3:10b, 12b, 20). This point is then followed by the new alternative offered in Christ: “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known” (Rom. 3:21, italics added; Chrysostom, Hom. on Rom. 7).
In another passage it appears that Paul did not regard his own life as fully matured in Christ, as suggested in his letter to Philippians: “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12–14; Ambrosiaster, Epis. to Phil. 3.12.1). Yet one must read further in the same passage to see that the same perfection that he had not attained in the heavenly sense was the final reward toward which he was already in process of racing. He then called upon all who, like himself, were “perfect,” in the sense of being cleansed from reigning sin, to be “like-minded” in pressing toward the final goal (cf. 1 Cor. 2:6; Chrysostom, Hom. on Phil. 11, 12): “All of us who are mature [Gk. teleioi; KJV, perfect] should take such a view of things” (Phil. 3:15). When Paul stated he has not yet obtained the perfect prize in the heavenly sense, he appears to be saying: I am not among the babes in Christ. I have matured. But please do not think of me as having already been perfected in love as it will appear on the last day, for in that sense I have not attained, and seek that perfection above, and strive headlong to ready myself for it. Jerome interpreted Paul’s intent in this way: He was “like an archer [who] aimed his arrows at the mark set up [more expressively called skopos in Greek], lest the shaft, turning to one side or the other, might show the unskillfulness of the archer…so that what today he thought perfect, while he was stretching forward to better things and things in front, tomorrow proves to have been imperfect. And thus at every step, never standing still, but always running, he shows that to be imperfect which we men thought perfect, and teaches that our only perfection is that which is measured by the excellence of God” (Jerome, Ag. Pelagians NPNF 2 6:455).
An impressive list of classic exegetes held that Paul in Romans 7 was not referring to his present bondage to sin but to his former “old” self now being transcended by grace. This was argued by Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian, Basil, Theodoret, Chrysostom, Jerome, Ambrose, Cyril of Jerusalem, Macarius, Theophylact, and at times though not always by Augustine (cf. Jeremy Taylor, Sermon on Rom. 7:19, TPW; Field, HCT: 238). Later Augustinians, Lutherans, and Calvinists have more often argued that Paul was describing his own continuing struggling self in Romans 7.
Warning Not to Attribute Incommunicable Divine Attributes to Finite Creatures
At this point we are cautioned by classic texts not to fall into an idolatrous or pantheistic pattern of merging of creature and Creator (John XXII, Propositions Ag. Eckhart 10; Innocent XI, Errors of Michael de Molinos, SCD 1225). The point is clarified by distinguishing incommunicable from communicable divine attributes.
Some attributes of God, such as aseity (uncreated being), completely transcend any possibility of being directly communicated to finite creatures. This is why they are called incommunicable attributes, as when God is addressed as “infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible” (Westminster Confession 2). There is no possibility of the finite creature being made infinite or self-existent. In this way, human participation in God is limited by the intrinsic difference between God and humanity.
But other divine attributes can be proximately refracted in human willing and action, for God is “most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth” (Westminster Confession). God’s mercy and love can be refracted in human mercy and love. Communicable attributes of the infinitely just and wise One may be communicated through those who are just and wise. This is why they are called communicable attributes. Restored human nature, like unfallen human nature, possesses a capacity for mature responsiveness to God unlike that of any other creature (Clement of Alex., Stromata 6.12).
Though these divine attributes are communicable, they never are communicated to creatures in the fullness in which they exist in God, but only proportionally in relation to the limited capacities of creatures. Creatures are always changing, progressing and regressing in virtue, whereas God’s excellence is such that God is always infinitely good and just, eternally merciful and wise. The excellence of which humans are made capable by grace is perfect and complete in its own way, but this way is far short of the distinctive way in which God alone is eternally perfect (Tho. Aq., ST 2–2, Q24.7; Suarez, De Gratia, Opera 9.6, 11). To be always without sin is a characteristic of the Divine power only. When the excellences of faith are compared to the excellences of God they fall short. But there are those such as “Job, and Zacharias, and Elizabeth, [who] were called righteous, in respect of that righteousness which might some day turn to unrighteousness, and not in respect of that which is incapable of change” (Jerome, Ag. Pelagians NPNF 2 6:452).
The regenerate are both like God for having the firstfruits of the Spirit and receiving divine gifts, yet unlike God for having the remnants of concupiscence lodged in the flesh (Augustine, On Forgiveness of Sins and Baptism 8–12). We have been made sons and daughters of God, but “this is a grace of adopting, not the nature of the progenitor. The Son of God alone is God” (Augustine, Comm. on Ps. 50:2, italics added).
Salvation Viewed from the Vantage Point of Its Effects
Jesus is not a myth whose appropriation is achieved by an imaginative act of recollection. The risen Lord is and remains a living person contemporary with every living human being. He invites each one he meets to receive the good news of God’s own coming (Matt. 24:25–27; Augustine, Sermon 236.2; Kierkegaard, PF: 22; TC 2).
The Mediator represents God in the presence of humanity, and humanity in the presence of God, uniting in his person that which had become separated through the history of sin. No other human being has had this distinctive mediatorial and personal significance for all others. Jesus confronts each human being with a decision about whether this gift has saving significance or not (Mark 1:15, 8:34–38; Caesarius of Arles, Sermons 159.4–5).
The Effects of Sanctifying Grace
The gospel promises a new heart, a new soul, a new life, out of which sinful actions are becoming less frequent and good actions more habituated. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees” (Ezek. 36:26–28; Sahdona, Perfection 53).
The consequences of sanctifying grace are: grace acts to make the people of God holy and pleasing to God (Heb. 12:28; John 14:23), to adopt the faithful into the family of God (1 John 3:1), to treat their bodies as a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19, 20), and to show the way to eternal blessedness (Rom. 8:14–17; Hilary, Trin., 8.27; Baltimore Catechism).
Redemption
Redemption is what happens to restored humanity as a result of the atonement (Origen, Comm. on Rom. 3.24; Athanasius, Ag. Arians NPNF 2 4:330–336). Redemption is the state of having been bought back from fallenness (Baxter, PW 8:118–27). Redemption is the effect of God’s saving action. Redemption (lutrosis, apolutrosis) is an overarching way of describing in a single word the liberation of a captive, release from slavery or death by payment of a ransom (Origen, Hom. on Luke 10.2).
The essential metaphor is that of “buying back” to free from imprisonment (Luke 1:68; 2:38; Rom. 3:24; 1 Cor. 1:30). A price (Greek: time) of ransom (lutron) is included in this purchase (agorazein, agorazo, exagorazo, to buy), which eventuates in a release (luein) of the prisoner. The whole drama is viewed as a rescue (ruesthai).
Paul joined the three complex metaphors of justification, sacrifice, and redemption in the single sentence that the faithful are “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood” (Rom. 3:24, 25, italics added; Ambrosiaster, Comm. on Paul, Rom. 3.25). The modern view that redemption simply means political or economic liberation, omitting the decisive element of substitutionary sacrifice for another under divine-human covenant, is a diluted secular interpretation.
The Glory of God Manifested as Holy Love
Through the work of the Son and the Spirit, the name, attributes, and governing ways of God are rightly and gloriously manifested by these means: The triune name is proclaimed throughout the world; the holiness and love of God are at long last understood in their intimate interrelationship; and the divine ordering and governance of the world are fittingly vindicated, having been severely challenged and contested within the history of sin.
The triune name could not be spoken until after the finished work of Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit. The triune work could be only vaguely glimpsed and intimated but not rightly grasped and named until the Son’s resurrection and the Spirit’s indwelling (Hilary, Trin. I.13–14).
The history of salvation had long awaited this moment: In the Son’s resurrection and the Spirit’s indwelling, the Son was glorified in the Father, and the Father was glorified in the Son, which could occur only when “the hour” had come (John 17:1; Theodore of Mopsuestia, Comm. on John 6.17.1; Chrysostom, Hom on John 80).
The disciples were immediately charged to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19; Jerome, Comm. on Matt. 4.28.18–20). Through God’s actions God’s essence is becoming revealed. If so, God’s name may now be rightly called and known and celebrated as Father, Son, and Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit would empower the mission to make known the good news of the Father’s sending of the Son through the power of the Spirit (Basil, On the Spirit 1.16).
Jesus rose from the dead with a glorified body that included this spiritual community of those who live in him. It is a body to be finally manifested in the final day, when all who believe in him shall be “conformed to the body of his glory” (Phil. 3:20; Tertullian, On the Resurrection 45–47).
It is now feasible to see the divine attributes in the light of resurrection and Pentecost. The deep interfusing of the two major moral attributes—holiness and love—are seen as an event in Christ’s atoning death and the indwelling of the Spirit. Nowhere do we learn more about the attributes of God than at the cross.
Holiness and love in God are uniquely understood as interrelated on the cross. The love of God was never fully grasped in nature as such or even in the history of providence, although God’s just and intelligent ordering may indeed be glimpsed there. It was not until the finished work of the Son on the cross and the outpouring of the Spirit that the simple statement “God is love” (1 John 4:8) could be fully and rightly understood. “Love is so much the gift of God that it is called God” (Augustine, Letters 186). “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:9, 10). “Christ proved his love for us by dying for us” (Bede, On 1 John 4.9).
Without God’s holiness the cross was unnecessary. Without God’s love the cross was impossible. The holiness of God opposes sin and requires punishment for sin. On the cross the divine righteousness that requires the punishment of sin and the mercy that provides the resolution of the debt are found to be dwelling in the divine nature (Pope, Compend. 2:278). On the cross love reconciles, unites, and reigns through the sacrifice of the Son in a way fitting to God’s holiness.
The purpose of redemption is to bring together the holiness and love of God. This harmonization could not have occurred by expressing either the holiness of God’s requirement alone, or the love of God for sinners in a way inconsistent with God’s holiness. The cross provided the way to understand both together. The Spirit now empowers the faithful to walk in that way. The holiness and love of God have been satisfied by this reconciliation. This is why it can be said that God was glorified on the cross (1 Cor. 2:8; Augustine, The Ascension 263).
The Spirit’s Reconciling Ministry
Reconciliation refers to the new divine-human relationship resulting from redemption and glorification (Chrysostom, Hom. on Cor. 11.4; Baxter, PW 8:113–17; Pope, Compend. 2:275, 276). The scene of the reconciliation is the relation between God and humanity.
Reconciliation (katallage) means that the favor of God has been restored to sinners who repent and trust in the efficacy of the death of Christ for humanity (Rom. 5:11; 11:15; 2 Cor. 5:18, 19). The enmity caused by sin has been removed with Christ’s death and the Spirit’s descent. The indicative of the cross calls imperatively for a change in the human heart from enmity to friendship, from alienation to daughterhood and sonship.
Reconciliation is the work of the Son through the Spirit, having restored fellowship and communication between God and humanity (Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word; Augustine, Enchiridion 13.41; Calvin, Inst. 3.2.2, 29; Barth, CD 4/2).
In this reconciliation, two sides of the relationship are significantly changed: God welcomes humanity, and humanity is called to accept God’s welcome. God has mercifully set aside the long-standing quarrel with humanity due to sin. Human beings are invited to receive God’s mercy and enter into a new relationship with the forgiving God (Luke 15:20). “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him to reconcile to himself all things,” a reconciliation that occurred “by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Col. 1:20; Chrysostom, Hom. on Col. 3).
It is not that humanity is reconciling itself to God, but that God is reconciling himself to humanity. For it is God who was doing the reconciling of “the world to himself in Christ” (2 Cor. 5:19). “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ” (2 Cor. 5:18). In an objective sense, we are being reconciled in an act that truly involves us.
The believer does not by dint of human courage navigate the stormy gulf of the divine-human controversy. God overcame that barrier on the cross. It is not that we have diminished our sins to a level of divine acceptability, but that God in Christ was “not counting men’s sins against them” (2 Cor. 5:19; Chrysostom, Hom. on 2 Cor. 11).
God’s action for us must he answered by an act on our side. God’s freedom for us invites a new human freedom to rise out of the history of our own sin. Grace does not degrade human freedom but lifts it to a new dignity. Salvation is not purchasable by human effort but received as purchased already by God, to be accepted by human gratitude (Col. 1:20–27). “By his death” he “presents you holy, blameless and irreproachable before him, provided you continue in the faith” (Col. 1:22; Augustine, On Perfection in Human Righteousness 9.20).
Cosmic Reconciliation
God’s reconciling work not only has relevance for human history, but its echoes are felt throughout the spheres of cosmic nature, the angelic hosts, and the entire eschatological audience to the drama of human history. Through Christ it pleased God to “reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Col. 1:20; Basil, Homilies 16.10, FC 46:267).
The cross visually portrays God’s arms stretched out in sacrificial suffering for the whole of nature and history, one arm embracing all past and the other embracing all future cosmic events, reaching once for all from the beginning to the end of time (Athanasius, Incarn. of the Word 24–25; Gregory of Nyssa, Address of Religious Instruction 32).
The feast is set on the table. The hungry are invited to eat and be filled. No one lacks for an invitation. The prison doors are thrown open—the imprisoned are invited to live in freedom, not licentiously as they please, but free to live precisely as those whose lives had been bought with a price. The fountain of cleansing is open to all nations and peoples. All are invited to plunge in to be cleansed of sin and rise renewed. The bridge has been built between God and humanity over the gulf of sin. Pilgrims are invited to cross over to the city not made with hands.