Justification, Sanctification, Discipleship and the Law
“For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law…Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” - Romans 3:28, 31
Gospel clarity demands that justification always be carefully distinguished from sanctification. Gospel clarity also demands that the distinction between justification and sanctification never means their divorce. It’s by faith alone that we are justified, but the faith that justifies is never alone. On the contrary, it is accompanied by all other saving graces, and that includes the sanctifying work of the Spirit and the word that lead to our growing holiness, the destiny for which we were chosen by God from all eternity.
Justification is a once-and-for-all act of God’s grace that declares us righteous in his sight, not on the basis of anything done by us or in us, but on the basis of Christ’s righteousness alone. Its ground is not the faith we exercise to be justified, a faith that is itself a gift, but the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ, his blood, shed upon the cross for the redemption of elect sinners. Our righteousness is a gift we receive, not a status we achieve.
Sanctification, on the other hand, is an ongoing work of God’s grace within us by which the old self, crucified with Christ, is daily put to death and we are increasingly conformed to the image of Christ, to the new man, “created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Ephesians 4). Being “conformed to the image of the Son” (Romans 8:29) is the telos of the ordo salutis, the end for which we are saved by grace. In this life, the work of sanctifying grace employs the Law of God as a servant of our journey to holiness.
Far from creating tension in Christian ethics over the nature and motive of faithful obedience, and from supposing any genuine conflict between justification and sanctification can be sustained, gospel clarity highlights the grace of the law in the saving work of Christ. The Apostles received grace to preach the gospel and bring about “the obedience of faith for the sake of the name” of Jesus.
The Law does not and cannot save. “By the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified for through the law comes the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20). The Law cannot save by showing us our sins any more than a mirror can wash the face it shows to be dirty. That noted, the use of the mirror is praised for the needed and good work it does. “What the Law could not do, weak as it was…God did in sending his own Son” to save us (see Romans 8:1-4). The outcome is that those of us who are born of the Spirit of life in Christ and free from the law of sin and death begin to see the righteous requirement of the law fulfilled in us. Christ, who is “the end of the Law for righteousness” (Romans 10:1ff), is the one who came not to do away with the law, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17-20). He has done so in every way, and it is his perfect righteousness that is imputed to us in justification (Philippians 3:7-12).
Moses did not bring the Ten Commandments to Israel when they were slaves, announcing that perfect obedience to them would result in their deliverance. On the contrary, Moses announced God’s saving power to Israel, telling them that God had heard their cry, seen their affliction, and had come down to deliver them. God bore them on eagle’s wings and brought them to himself by his saving mercy and power (Exodus 19:1ff). Only after that great deliverance did he summon them to a new life of liberated obedience. Their obedience did not save them, but they were saved for obedience.
The Gospel, the Law, and the Discipleship of Believers
On the basis of this gospel indicative, Paul goes on to disciple believers in the gospel imperative of God’s moral law. The apostolic mission makes disciples by baptizing in the Triune Name and teaching the baptized to “obey all” that Jesus “commanded” (Matthew 28:18-20).
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is a perfect example of this approach. Having spent the first three chapters praising and teaching the all-sufficient sovereign grace by which we are saved, Paul moves in the final chapters to instruct the church in godly conduct that is an outcome of such mercy, using the Ten Commandments as the catechetical basis for his teaching. He sets Christ before the Ephesians first as Savior and only then as Exemplar. Paul moves from the position believers have by the grace that justifies to the practice of holiness believers embrace by the grace that sanctifies.
Gospel Indicative - Our Position in Christ: Ephesians 1&2 - “God has chosen us in Christ before in the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him…You were dead in your trespasses and sins… but God made you alive together with Christ… by grace you have been saved by faith…not the result of works, that no one should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that we should walk in them…”
Gospel Imperative: Our Way of Life in Christ: Ephesians 3-5 - “Walk in a manner worthy of the calling which you have been called…walk in love…walk in the light…”
And how does the Apostle set forth such a “walk”? By the moral law of God, summarized in the Ten Commandments (Found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 in the Old Testament, and summarized by Christ in the greatest two commandments, Matthew 22:36-40, itself rooted in Israel’s Shema).
First-Third, and Seventh - Ephesians 5:1-14
Fifth - Ephesians 6:1-4
Sixth - Ephesians 4:31
Eighth - Ephesians 4:28
Ninth - Ephesians 4:25
Tenth - Ephesians 5:3
Christ has transformed the Law from gracious executioner, putting the sinner to death, into the gardener of holy virtues in the life of the faithful, upon whose hearts the law has been written in regeneration under the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31ff). Christ has also transformed the Law itself under this new age of the new covenant, ending the merely ceremonial shadows of what was to come without reducing its prophetic principles (We still need a lamb - we have THE Lamb!), and by applying the civil law within the Church, taking its penalties through death into a resurrection utilization: keeping one’s ox unmuzzled still applies, but now to servants of Christ at work in the Lord’s harvest rather than Judah’s farm families just outside Bethlehem. In this application of the civil law, church discipline and excommunication are the censures of the city of God (Deut 25:4; 1 Cor 9:9; 1 Tim 5:18).
The entire second table of the Law is used by Paul to catechize the Ephesians, and the entire first table is applied as well, apart from the Sabbath regulations (another discussion entirely touching on the finer points of the relationship between the moral and the ceremonial law).
Three Uses of the Law
This approach recalls the three uses of the Law, as outlined in various traditions within Reformational theological systems, from Wittenberg to Westminster. They instruct us that while the Scriptures teach us the difference between Law and Gospel, they do so in such a way that both come from God for our good and his glory.
The first use of the moral law alerts us to the restraining power of the law. Use of the law in the home and in society in this manner resonates with the consciences of all people, regardless of faith, as it is written into the constitution of their being as image bearers of the Almighty.
The second use of the law, the evangelical use, serves to convict sinners of their rebellion against God, their moral culpability before God’s tribunal, their inability to justify themselves, and their need for the Savior, to whom both the Law and the prophets bear witness.
The third use of the law is the didactic use by which disciples are taught to observe what Jesus commands. As a result, we are always directed away from self-righteousness and toward a deeper understanding of our need for mercy and God’s cleansing power, and of how we might offer ourselves utterly and completely to Christ, who gave himself up for us. Because Christ has become the curse of the Law and liberated us from its accusing voice, we can hear the Law’s instruction as torah-wisdom that shows us the authentic “look of love”, for “love is the fulfillment of the Law” (Romans 13).
In this framework, both antinomianism and legalism are refuted, and a rich gospel proclamation is reinforced, together with discipleship shaped by the whole counsel of God. Grace does not cancel moral responsibility. It reinforces it and drives it home.. Because salvation unites believers to Christ, a life increasingly shaped by his love is the expected result. As Luther frequently observed, this is the active righteousness of the true Christian, the good tree producing good fruit: the fruit does not make the tree good, but the good tree will always show its nature by the fruit it grows. The once and for all justified will grow in grace to be fully conformed to the image of Christ.