Regeneration Must Precede Sanctification

One of the most confusing areas of distinction in theology and church practice is the distinction between regeneration and sanctification. We often in conservative circles get the order backward, we demand evidence of sanctification via external compliance to certain rules rather than emphasizing regeneration. The reality of human nature is that external adherence to rules will get you so far but no farther. You can control behavior for a while by creating strict controls and instilling them young, and there is something to be said for this, but external conformity is no substitute for regeneration.

We have seen this first hand in conservative Anabaptist groups where a desire to "be not conformed to this world" (Romans 12:2) has morphed into a very rigid set of rules to prove one is not conformed to the world, while at the same time tending to create distinctions not just between the church and the world but just as often distinctions between the church and other parts of the church.

Simon Fry takes aim at this in his new series on Non-conformity. The second post in the series, Nonconformity- (part 2) When Does Transformation Happen?, which looks at non-conformity from a conservative Anabaptist perspective, does a deep dive on how Romans 12:2 and non-conformity are understood in that community. Simon's main point can be summarized in this one sentence:

Though we might not hear it emphasized, transformation must happen first; or nonconformity is worthless.

In other words, or as I might put it, regeneration must precede genuine sanctification. Genuine sanctification includes external signs of a non-conformity to the world but it starts with and is primarily a renewal of the mind, heart and affections away from the things of the world and toward the things of God. I can put a young woman in a homemade yoke-style dress with sleeves to the wrist and hem to the ankles but if she is harboring gossip and slander in her unregenerate heart, she is still conformed to the world no matter what she looks like.

That is not to suggest that there is no place for non-conformity. The Bible teaches modesty so a woman who tells me she is a Christian while intentionally dressing provocatively might get a raised eyebrow. An every-week-church-attending deacon at a conservative church who regularly cheats his customers in business likewise raises questions. I think brothers should be respectable in their communities and honest in their business dealings, sisters should dress modestly and submit to their husbands but only as a response to regeneration, not as a substitute for it.

Check out Simon's post, it is typical for him in being well reasoned, Scripturally based and thoughtful. Also check out the comments, there is some good back and forth going on there as well. Ultimately our Gospel priority is to see the whole man changed and not just the wardrobe.

Justification and Work

I got a question over the weekend asking what I mean when I say that we are justified by faith alone. That is a very simple answer and a very complicated one and it is fraught with all sorts of peril and potential error. Most Protestants would immediately affirm the doctrine of justification by faith alone, assuming they have ever heard of it in the first place. Unpacking what that means and the implications that come along with it are somewhat more difficult.

At the foundational level, being justified by faith alone is pretty simple. It is simply answering the question of how a sinful man, deserving of God's judgment, is made right with God. Justification by faith alone holds that men are made right before God apart from, and indeed in spite of, any meritorious works of our own. Humble faith in Christ alone is the only means of salvation. Conversely when we claim to be justified, even in part and no matter how small, by our own efforts we turn salvation into a co-operative process. Practically speaking many Christians would hold to what is called synergistic regeneration even though they would affirm the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

Paul powerfully deals with justification by faith alone in many places but nowhere more deeply and richly than in his letter to the chuch in Rome.

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-- the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one--who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law. (Romans 3:20-31)

Men are not right with God on the basis of circumcision (or water baptism for that matter), or by observing certain laws like the sacrifice of animals for the atonement for sin (see Leviticus 16).
They are only made right with God on the basis of faith in Christ. Going to church, giving your "tithe", voting Republican. None of them have anything to do with your salvation. Faith and faith is the only basis upon which a sinner can claim to be saved.
This is where faith and grace intersect. Most Christians can repeat the generally accepted definition of grace: God's unmerited favor. That is unfortunately as far as many people get but there is so much more to it. Justification by faith alone keeps the grace in grace. As Paul's letter to the Romans continues into chapter four he makes an important contrast while extending his larger point:

What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,(Romans 4:1-5)

When I get paid every other Friday, those wages are an obligation of my employer in return for the work I have done for the prior two weeks. My employer doesn't just hand out paychecks to people walking by our building but rather pays those who work. If a payday rolled around and I didn't get paid for the time I worked, I would have the legal right to go after those wages. They are owed to me based on the employment agreement between me and my employer. Grace? I have no legal claim on God's grace. I can point to nothing I have done that makes me deserving of anything other than God's wrath. God is gracious to me in spite of my sins. Grace is only truly gracious when it comes with no obligation on the part of the dispenser. God doesn't owe you grace and He doesn't owe me grace. His grace is His to sovereignly bestow as only He deems fit.

That leaves us with the question: what of good works? Are they optional or ancillary, something that is a nice add-on to our justification or something only certain Christians are called to? It certainly doesn't seem that way. Paul, James and Jesus Christ Himself seem quite concerned with how we live out our faith. There is a lot of confusion over this because on the one hand the Bible speaks so often about the necessity of good works but likewise states unequivocally that we are saved/justified by faith alone. Is this a contradiction in the Bible or are we missing the relationship between the two? I think this second part is where many Christians get tripped up. We don't know what to do with the exhortations to good works or to holiness and piety. We are so afraid of any tinge of the Roman error of works-righteousness that we freeze into inaction or become unmotivated to exhort one another to good works. This is a mistake and a serious one. We hear Hebrews 10:25 quoted to us all the time, often as a stick to "encourage" us to "go to church" but the reason we gather is important and often ignored:

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.(Hebrews 10:24-25)

The reason we gather together, at least one of the major reasons we are exhorted to not neglect the gathering of the saints, is not to listen to sermons or to "worship", i.e. singing songs, or to "partake of the sacraments". Rather it is to stir up and encourage one another to love and good works which implies that we need that encouragement! Now whether the traditional organized religion Sunday morning "worship service" accomplishes that or not is a question for another day. Suffice it to say that one of the primary reasons we gather is for born-again believers to encourage other born-again believers to love and good works. Herein lies the paradox of mixed meetings. If we are meeting in a such a way that unbelievers and believers alike are intermixed we run the risk of exhorting a non-believer to good works which can easil lead them to a false assurance of faith based on personal piety and good works, exactly what we are trying to avoid. Again, a topic for a different day but an important side-note nevertheless.

Faith and works are not an either-or proposition. They are not opposed to one another. We just need to ensure that we get the order right. The classic way of comparing a works based salvation versus a faith based salvation is to contrast Faith+Works=Salvation to Faith→Salvation→Works. In other words, saving faith leads to justification which inexorably leads to good works in response. Faith and works are inextricably linked but not equally. One flows from the other but the one cannot exist without the other. Let me try a bold and sweeping statement:

We are not saved by our works but we are not saved apart from them either.

Works are the result of justification which comes via saving faith. My favorite verse on this progression comes from the second chapter of Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Eph 2:10)

What is especially pertinent in this passage is that it follows Paul's bold declaration of the Gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, dealing with deep theology like election and monergistic regeneration. Paul doesn't stop with "by grace you have been saved through faith" but continues on from the question of "what" to "what now". God did not save us just to save us from hell. He predestined us for adoption but He also prepared works of mercy beforehand for us to walk in. Not only does He prepare the way for our salvation but also the opportunities for service that follow our justification. If God went through the process of preparing these good works, do you think maybe they are important?

So in summary, justification, our legal standing before God as justified with our sins forgiven, comes only through faith. We add nothing to it. We are not partners in it. We don't cooperate in any way. It is all of grace. As a result of this justitication and the changed heart that is regenerated by God, our outlook changes such that we will seek ways to serve God by serving, loving and witnessing to our neighbors. This is not a natural event and that is why we are exhorted to meet as the church to encourage one another.

There is nothing new here and this is merely my clumsy attempt to work through a topic that has been written about by the greatest theologians of the church for centuries. I could point you to a number of far better treatments of this topic but it is helpful to me to work through it on my own from time to time. Hopefully it is somewhat helpful or at least gets you thinking about this most precious and crucial of truths. We need to dig beyond the surface on these doctrines. Saying we are justified by faith alone is one thing but to get deeper into the doctrine, working through it and examining the implications of it, should give you a far greater appreciation of how marvelous this truth really is. When we see ourselves standing before the King with no righteousness of our own, with no claim on His favor other than saving faith in the Savior, that is when we will be able to truly sing Amazing Grace. Then we will see how gracious, precious and all-sufficient Jesus Christ truly is. There is nothing more amazing to me than to realize that He saved a wretch like me, the least likely person I have ever met and to know that He saved me in spite of and not because of whatever merit I thought I was bringing to the table. Justification by faith alone is not a theoogical "get out of hell" card but rather is the is the bedrock of the Gospel message and while it is a doctrine that we need to spend more time studying it is also a doctrine that must spur us to action: proclaiming the Gospel, loving our neighbor, visiting the widow and orphan, sharing and edifying and equipping among the Body of Christ. There is no doctrine in the Bible that is more active, more dynamic and more pertinent to how we live as Christ's ambassadors to the world. If we turn it into merely a cold point of theological correctness we will lose how truly amazing and impactful this doctrine is.

Mohler on reparative therapy

Just an outstanding essay from Al Mohler on the controversy swirling around Michelle Bachmann's husband and rumors of the use of "reparative therapy" to reorient sexual orientation: Reparative Therapy, Homosexuality, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Dr. Mohler hits all of the right points here regarding the Bible's unequivocal condemnation of homosexuality, both acted upon and the desire itself, along with the reality that the only "therapeutic" for sin is a progressively sanctified that comes from a regenerate believer. I think this is must reading because it avoids the frequent extremes on this highly visible and emotionally charged issue: either complete acceptance and embrace on one side or unequivocal and angry condemnation on the other.

Here are his concluding comments:

Christians cannot avoid the debate over reparative therapy, nor can we enter the debate on secular terms. We must bring to this conversation everything we know from God’s Word about our sin and God’s provision for sinners in Christ. We will hold no hope for any sinner’s ability to change his or her own heart, and we will hold little hope for any secular therapy to offer more than marginal improvement in a sinner’s life.

At the same time, we gladly point all sinners to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, knowing that all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. [Romans 10:13] We hold full confidence in the power of the Gospel and of the reign of Christ within the life of the believer. We know that something as deeply entrenched as a pattern of sexual attraction is not easily changed, but we know that with Christ all things are possible.

And, even as Christians know that believers among us struggle to bring their sexual desires into obedience to Christ, this is not something true only of those whose desires have been homosexual. It is true of all Christians. We will know that those believers who are struggling to overcome homosexual desires have a special struggle — one that requires the full conviction and support of the body of Christ. We will see the glory of God in the growing obedience of Christ’s redeemed people. And, along with the Apostle Paul and all the redeemed, we will await the glory that is yet to be revealed to us.

Separation and evangelism

How do we balance the two?

Scripture presents us with two seemingly opposing forces: the call for evangelism and the call for separation. It is often captured in the phrase “in the world but not of the world”. That is fine as a slogan, but how does that work itself out in the community of believers? I would argue (and have just recently) that typically it doesn’t. Let’s look at both sides, starting with the separation side. The most overt verse and the one most often quoted is found in James:

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (James 1: 27)

James later in his epistle rightly pegs the source of contention and strife in the church, i.e. worldliness….

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4: 1-4)

James describes worldliness as spiritual adultery, wanting to have Christ as Savior but the world as lord. It is pretty clear from what James writes and likewise it is confirmed by what we see all around us that it is worldly desires that cause the strife and contention in the church. When the church fights about money, when it quibbles about doctrines, when it follows after personalities, all of that stems from worldliness or more specifically an entanglement with and love for the things of the world.

We read something similar from Paul regarding the world, warning us against being “conformed to this world” in Romans 12…

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom 12: 1-2)

We often hear about being renewed in mind but we need to recognize that the opposite is also true, we are not to be conformed to this world. Three times in John’s Gospel he quotes Christ as referring to Satan as the ruler of this world (John 12:31. John 14:30 and John 16:11). John also speaks of the world in his first epistle….

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2: 15-17)

Jesus is even harsher in His condemnation of the pursuit of the world and His warnings (promises?) of persecution by the world. Read John 14-17. So the world kind of gets a bad rap. Whether it was the Israelites getting entangled with pagan people and their practices in the Old Testament times or the church today adopting the world's standards and methods, being too comfortable or even loving the world is a recipe for disaster.

Conversely, separation as a concept gets the stink-eye in most of the church and not without cause. Separation is most typically linked to extreme fundamentalist movements and degenerates into either extreme isolationism or a focus on external pietism (‘No Pokemon Cards or Harry Potter books!’, as if avoiding those things will make one holy).

So what are we to do?

The solution to worldliness is clearly not being religious. That sort of belief gets a pretty rude treatment by Christ in his condemnation of the empty religious ritualism of the Jews. Unfortunately that is pretty much how most of the Body thinks. If I go to church on Sunday and perhaps Wednesday, don’t watch (many) R-rated movies, don’t drink and don’t let my kids read Harry Potter books or Twilight books or play with Pokémon cards, I am not being worldly. There are not a lot of Christians who openly proclaim their desire to be worldly and most condemn worldliness but you see how they live and wonder what exactly is markedly different from the world.

To compound matters, we have 1 Corinthians 5: 9-13 which speaks of the importance of discipline within the church (something that is only really feasible with a regenerate church). So we are not only to avoid entanglement with the world, we are also to enforce pretty serious discipline upon the unrepentant sinner among the Body, “purging” them from among ourselves. All in all, a pretty strong mandate to be separate from the world and from unrepentant sin within the Body.

On the other hand we have a pretty important call to proclaim Christ to the world.

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt 28: 18-20)

That doesn’t have much ambiguity unless you think it applies only to the disciples which I think is an untenable argument given the rest of the New Testament. Nor is it something that is reserved to just a few people (see Acts 8: 1-4). How we accomplish that is another matter. We often get the example of Paul in 1 Corinthians 9, the “all things to all people” passage:

To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. (1 Cor 9: 22-23)

That is often (mis)interpreted as being a call to fit in with the world so that we can win the world to Christ. That idea seems to be at odds with what Paul says elsewhere about not being conformed to this world, what James says about being unsoiled by the world and the general principle throughout Scripture of God’s people being segregated from the unbelieving world. It seems to me that the church is called to be a witness to the world, not a sub-category of the world like a Rotary club or a political party.

So how do we sort this out? I think it becomes easy to stray too far one way or the other. I am not talking about people who are in cults in Idaho or those who think that Christian liberty is a license to act like a fool, waving the flag of freedom while pushing boundaries just because they can. “Yeah, I had a beer with dinner and got a tattoo. Whatcha gonna do about it Pharisee!” I am talking about rational people who read the Scriptures and come to a conviction one way or the other that slips into excess. It is a well meaning excess perhaps but excess all the same.

On the one hand (the more common end) there is the worldly church. You see this all the time in churches with marketing strategies and corporate structures. In a lot of churches, the world’s way of doing things is the preferred method. I am not just talking about “seeker sensitive” churches. The majority report in evangelicalism is the flimsiest excuse for community, a minimalist faith that only requires the most cursory adherence (typically in the form of regular attendance and “tithing”). You can be an evangelical believer in the most conservative church and still live in a manner little different from the rest of the world 98% of the week. The vast majority of Christians (my family especially) are pretty worldly by almost any measure in how we live and how we interact with the world. I don’t know of many Christians who are “unspotted” from the world in any real sense and in general I would argue that when we mix the world in with the community of believers, the community suffers far more than the world benefits.

On the other extreme there are the purists. Some of these take the form of the traditional extreme separatists like the Amish. The Amish and other related groups are separate to the point of being insular. Others come in the form of the hard line fundamentalist movement or (at the risk of getting myself in trouble) there are those who are evangelists for their own distinctives. Isolationist tendencies are understandable. It is easiest to avoid worldliness by avoiding any contact with the world at all. If you don’t have a TV or computer (probably both good ideas), you are in far less danger of being inundated with messages of immorality, licentiousness, covetousness or any of the other myriad sins that flood the airwaves and the internet. Being completely removed from the world is the easiest. However in doing so, it becomes awfully hard to proclaim the Gospel and also it is pretty hard to be unified with the greater Body of Christ in any sort of meaningful way. Plus you can get rid of your TV and computer, eschews worldliness, have your wife cover your head and make your daughters wear dresses and still have heart issues.

So somewhere in the middle is probably the right answer. Like so many areas of doctrine, we need to tread a narrow path that is easy to fall off, either to the right or the left. We cannot ignore the perishing world to focus only on ourselves and our families or even our community. We also cannot become entangled with the world lest we find ourselves becoming “worldly”. I would say that for the majority of the church, the issue is more one of worldliness than it is isolationism.

This whole line of thinking is what has led me to investigate Christian communities. Is an intentional Christian community, living and worshiping and eating together daily, sharing with one another in an Acts 2 and Acts 4 way that also reaches out to the lost through preaching and acts of mercy the way to go? I think it might be a good start if you can avoid the pitfalls like isolationism, prideful separatism and megalomaniac leadership. It only works if you are intentionally reaching the lost. (In fairness to some of the more isolated groups, it is not like most "evangelical" churches do much in the way of evangelism). The community of the church should in and of itself be a witness to the world, something different from and distinct from the world. Our mission as the church is not to win elections or to defend our “rights” or to count pew sitters. It is to proclaim the Christ and to welcome those who have been saved into that distinct and unique fellowship with the church.

I am sure of this. The church is so entangled with the world that it has become in many ways virtually indistinguishable from the world, in the visible gathering of the church and in the lives of individual Christians. There must be a better way.

How or what now?

Where should the emphasis in the gathered church be?

I started thinking about this the other day when I read something Dr. Black wrote regarding Felix Manz:

Whenever we downgrade good works, wherever we make sanctification some kind of appendage to justification, whenever we emphasize more what God does for us than what He does in us, we have become proponents of an unbalanced Christianity. The doctrine of justification by faith is taught in the Scripture, and I rejoice in it! But an emphasis on the forensic and juridical nature of our salvation can easily lead to a light emphasis on the "good works that God has foreordained that we should walk in them." In this regard, Luther's theology was decisively one-sided, and it was his disparagement of good works that caused him to collide with the letter of James.

(note: I looked up “juridical” because I didn’t think it was a real word. Turns out it is. Learned something new today)

So it has kind of been bothering me. Are we overemphasizing justification? I am treading on shaky ground here because I recognize how central the doctrine of justification by faith alone is. Reformed theology spends an awful lot of time focused on justification. It is where our great debates take places, where we write our polemics and where we find our areas of greatest emphasis. It is the subject of many (if not most) of our conferences. This is quite understandable because justification gets to the heart of how any sinner has been redeemed from an eternal hell and made right with God. Without justification, there are no Christians and there is no church. We must recognize this. That still begs the question. Can we focus so much on justification that we ignore sanctification or as Dr. Black describes it relegate sanctification to a secondary doctrine?

In other words, from a practical standpoint within the gathered church should our focus be on the doctrine of how we were saved or should we focus on how we should live now that we are saved? I fear that in our understandable concern to recover the central doctrine of justification by faith alone, we have pushed the role of sanctification into a secondary role in the church. Are we not called as Christians to live holy lives, lives unstained by the world? As I have said ad nauseum the ritualism and sacralism of the traditional church can exacerbate this by giving people a sense of religious fulfillment that is completely foreign to the Bible and that stands in marked contrast to what we are called to as Christians in the Word. We are not made more holy or sanctified by merely eating a cracker and sipping some wine at church, even if we dress it up by calling it a “means of grace”. We are sanctified by the work of the Holy Spirit working in us demonstrated by a life that is progressively and demonstrably more holy, a change that is observable in our lives.

God did not send His Son to die to save us so that we could sit around reminiscing about how swell it is to be saved. He regenerated us and left us on this earth to live out the life of a Christian and proclaim the Gospel:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Eph 2:10, emp. added)

And again…

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. (Titus 2: 11-14, emp. added)

I think that passage in Titus is just stunning. It literally made my head hurt today. That passage is going to be a focal point of an upcoming blog post because I think we tend to stop at “bringing salvation for all people” and not focus on what else Paul is telling Timothy here.

The Scriptures don’t diminish the importance of good works at all. Jesus, Paul, James all speak of us living holy lives and doing good works, not to be saved but because we are saved. If we are not living lives that are progressing in holiness and lived out by our works, we are not living a balanced Christian life. So to answer my original questions, yes it is possible to overemphasize justification. I think we can spend so much time and effort thinking about, writing about and talking about how we were saved that we forget what we are to do now that we are saved. It is not so much that we need to focus on justification less, it is that we need to focus on sanctification more. If the church is indeed a gathering of redeemed sinners who go out into the world to proclaim Christ we need to emphasize justification to lost sinners but we need to emphasize sanctification within the gathered Body.

I might be way off-base here. I haven’t had time to really flesh it out. Thoughts?