One of the Reformation’s fiercest battlegrounds was the relationship between justification and sanctification.

These two important doctrines are distinct from one another in that God does not make the sinner righteous by justifying him, He declares that person righteous (Romans 3:28; Galatians 2:16). Justification imputes Christ’s righteousness to the sinner’s account (Romans 4:11); sanctification imparts righteousness to the sinner, personally and practically (Romans 6:1–7; 8:11–14). Justification takes place outside sinners and changes their standing (Romans 5:1–2); sanctification is internal and changes the believer’s state (Romans 6:19). Justification is an event; sanctification is a process.

The two must be distinguished but can never be separated. God does not justify whom He does not sanctify, and He does not sanctify whom He does not justify. Both are essential elements of salvation.

So why differentiate them at all? If justification and sanctification are so closely related that you can’t have one without the other, why bother to separate themcon ceptually?

Justification in Reformation Teaching

Everyone who affirms justification by faith alone should also refuse to disengage justification and sanctification—this is the teaching of the Reformers.

Calvin, for example, wrote,

Christ . . . justifies no man without also sanctifying him. These blessings are conjoined by a perpetual and inseparable tie. Those whom he enlightens by his wisdom he redeems; whom he redeems he justifies; whom he justifies he sanctifies. But as the question relates only to justification and sanctification, to them let us confine ourselves. Though we distinguish between them they are both inseparably comprehended in Christ. Would ye then obtain justification in Christ? You must previously possess Christ. But you cannot possess him without being made a partaker of his sanctification: for Christ cannot be divided. Since the Lord, therefore, does not grant us the enjoyment of these blessings without bestowing himself, he bestows both at once, but never one without the other. Thus it appears how true it is that we are justified not without, and yet not by works, since in the participation of Christ, by which we are justified, is contained not less sanctification than justification.^[1]John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), 2:99.

Elsewhere, discussing James 2:21–22 (“Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected”), Calvin added,

It appears certain that he is speaking of the manifestation, not of the imputation of righteousness, as if he had said, “Those who are justified by true faith prove their justification by obedience and good works, not by a bare and imaginary semblance of faith.” In one word, he is not discussing the mode of justification, but requiring that the justification of believers shall be operative. And as Paul contends that men are justified without the aid of works, so James will not allow any to be regarded as justified who are destitute of good works. Due attention to the scope will thus disentangle every doubt; for the error of our opponents lies chiefly in this, that they think James is defining the mode of justification, whereas his only object is to destroy the depraved security of those who vainly pretended faith as an excuse for their contempt of good works. Therefore, let them twist the words of James as they may, they will never extract out of them more than the two propositions: That an empty phantom of faith does not justify, and that the believer, not contented with such an imagination, manifests his justification by good works.^[2]John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), 2:115.

Martin Luther championed justification by faith as passionately as any Reformer. Did he believe sanctification was optional? Not at all. When some of Luther’s associates began to teach antinomianism (the idea that behavior is unrelated to faith, or that Christians are not bound by any moral law), he opposed them. He called their teaching “the crassest error,” designed to “grind me under foot and throw the gospel into confusion.” Such teaching, according to Luther, “kick[s] the bottom out of the barrel” of God’s saving work.^[3]Martin Luther, Table Talk, in Luther’s Works, ed. Helmut T. Lehman, trans. Theodore G. Tappert, 55 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967), 54:248.

Although many more examples are available, I’ll mention just one other. The Formula of Concord, the definitive Lutheran statement of faith, written in 1576, dealt extensively with the relationship between justification and the believer’s obedience. The Formula of Concord, like every other significant Protestant confession, refused to divorce justification from sanctification, though it underscored the distinction between the two.

According to this confession, “the renewing of man . . . is rightly distinguished from the justification of faith.” The Formula stated explicitly that “antecedent contrition [repentance] and subsequent new obedience do not appertain to the article of justification before God.”^[4]Phillip Schaff, ed., The Creeds of Christendom, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 3:117–118.

But it immediately added, “Yet we are not to imagine any such justifying faith as can exist and abide with a purpose of evil. . . . But after that man is justified by faith, then that true and living faith works by love [Galatians 5:6], and good works always follow justifying faith, and are most certainly found together with it.”^[5]Phillip Schaff, ed., The Creeds of Christendom, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 3:118. Emphasis added.

The Formula of Concord repudiated the teaching that justify means “[to] become in very deed righteous before God.” But it also condemned the notion “that faith is such a confidence in the obedience of Christ as can abide and have a being even in that man who is void of true repentance, and in whom it is not followed by charity [love], but who contrary to conscience perseveres in sins.”^[6]Phillip Schaff, ed., The Creeds of Christendom, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 3:119. Emphasis added.

The well-known Reformation epigram is “Faith alone justifies, but not the faith that is alone.” On these matters the principal Reformers all agreed. Only the antinomians taught that true faith might fail to produce good works.

Justification in Roman Catholic Doctrine

The nature and effects of justification were also the central issue between Rome and the Reformers in the sixteenth century. Roman Catholicism blends its doctrines of sanctification and justification. Catholic theology views justification as an infusion of grace that makes the sinner righteous. In Catholic theology, then, the ground of justification is something made good within the sinner—not the imputed righteousness of Christ.

The Council of Trent, Rome’s response to the Reformation, pronounced anathema on anyone who says “that the [sinner] is justified by faith alone—if this means that nothing else is required by way of cooperation in the acquisition of the grace of justification.” The Catholic council ruled that “justification . . . is not remission of sins merely, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man, through the voluntary reception of the grace, and of the gifts, whereby man of unjust becomes just.” Thus Catholic theology confuses the concepts of justification and sanctification and blends the righteousness of the believer with the righteousness of Christ.

This difference between Rome and the Reformers is no mere theological hair-splitting. Corrupting the doctrine of justification inexorably results in several other grievous theological errors. If sanctification is included in justification, then justification is a process, not an event. That makes justification progressive, not complete. One’s standing before God is then based on subjective experience, not secured by an objective declaration. Justification can therefore be experienced—and then lost. Assurance of salvation in this life becomes practically impossible because security can’t be guaranteed. The ground of justification ultimately is in the sinner’s own ability to continue upholding virtue moment by moment, not in Christ’s perfect righteousness and His finished atoning work.

Those issues were fiercely debated in the Reformation, and the lines were clearly drawn. Reformed theology to this day upholds the biblical doctrine of justification by faith against the Roman view of justification by works or merit.

But the key question is this: Is the Reformation doctrine of justification taught in Scripture?

We will answer that question next time by turning to the book of Romans.

(Adapted from The Gospel According to the Apostles)