Justification, Sanctification

and

Indwelling Sin

(The Pastor's Letter February 1974)

Dear Friends,

The title of our letter in this edition covers those subjects that can lead into erroneous paths, and in these days the misunderstanding of the facts breed all forms of error.

Let me explain. There is a vast difference between Justification and Sanctification. Justification is that great sovereign act of God whereby He pronounces all His people absolutely forgiven and cleared from their sins through the merit of the blood of His only Begotten Son. Once a believer is Justified he can never be Unjustified. The debt is paid, the demands of justice are met, the Holiness of God is satisfied, and the soul is delivered from going down into the pit, for God has found a ransom. Nowhere is it better stated, perhaps, in the writings of men, than in that great hymn of Augustus Toplady's:

That is justification to a “T”. And Justification, we may add, as held under the highest terms of the doctrine in the glorious light of the doctrines of grace. The devil will never possess one elect soul for whom Christ poured out His blood. As Toplady puts it in so many words – God is a Just God who must demand the payment for all our sins. But He is such a Just God that He will not “twice demand” that payment. If Christ has suffered once for the sins of His people, enduring for them the pangs of death and hell, then, they will never be called to suffer all over again for those sins already discharged through the blood of the Redeemer. Reverently speaking, that would lay our gracious God open to the most serious charge of injustice, and again, the devil would rejoice in the situation. On the one hand, the devil could accuse the Saviour's blood of impotency: that it couldn't, in fact, redeem from hell the soul for which it was shed – for here is that soul in hell with the devil now! On the other hand, he could accuse the great judge of all the earth, who always doeth right, of unjust proceedings: that He extracted payment for the sins of one of the elect, first of all, from Christ, and then, from the soul himself. But this can never be.

This is our doctrine of Justification, and we rejoice to the very fullest degree that “there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.”

But Justification in no way annuls Sanctification, and the child of God is to know the rod of correction, the chastising hand, and the punishments exacted by parenthood upon him – even the Parenthood of God who has adopted him into His only family by a sovereign work of grace to his soul. In Justification, God works as a Judge – pronouncing the soul innocent of damnation and condemnation on account of having received that suitable ransom for the souls of the condemned, so that, indeed, “there is therefore now no condemnation to them.” But, in Sanctification, God acts more like a Physician – a Surgeon – bringing the soul to spiritual health until that great day of resurrection when the mortal has completely put on immortality, and the corruptible has become incorruptible. Needless to say, the Surgeon's work is not painless, as he probes and cuts away the offending growths, and treats and re-treats the wounds that have been made, and which must be healed. Another figure which the Bible uses, is the “purifying” of gold or silver. The old dross and impurities must be removed, and there is only one real way to do this and that is by putting the metals through the “refiners' fires.”

But, one of the most precious figures in the whole of the Bible in connection with the work of God sanctifying His people, is that figure of a father with his children. Probably the classic passage in the New Testament is in that 12th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which speaks of God chastising His sons as any father would chastise his children. Why do we chastise our children? Because we hate our children? Surely not! But, because we love our children and have a true desire after their developing well-being. We may hate the wrong that we punish them for, but the purpose of the punishment is to correct the child and bring him to the place where obedience will be for his good. So, it is with God and His children. When we chastise our children with a true and sincere eye for their good, we are but following the Divine pattern which God Himself has deigned to establish for His dealing with us.

Remember Jonah! What an illustration he should be for each and every one of us. Remember how he was put through the school of correction in the belly of that great fish, until he acknowledges the absolute right of God to do what He will with His own – “Salvation is of the Lord.” What a state he was in! Look at him prior to that: he has decided to go and seek out a ship and go to Tarshish, and as he gets down to the port of Joppa, there is a ship all ready and bound for that land; he gets a “booking” without any apparent difficulty, and obviously has enough where-with-all to pay the fare; and off he goes. One door after another opens in his favour! Yet, my friends, Jonah was in a ten-times more perilous position when all seemed to be falling out to his favour, than he was ever in when God had cast him into the stenching, steaming body of that great fish that He had prepared with the omnipotent hands of a loving Heavenly Father. Once the rod fell on Jonah for his disobedience, there was the unqualified evidence that he had a Father in heaven who cared for the soul of His child, as well as for the glory of His own great Name. And that's exactly what Paul says in that epistle to the Hebrews – the Father's chastising rod is the proof our eternal sonship to Him. No rod – no adoption of sons. Therefore, rather than rebel under chastisement; or, what is more popular, deny that there can be any such thing because we are “eternally-secure” and are called to have “no more blue Mondays,” what we must learn to do is to Know the doctrine experimentally, that the rod might be to our good and to the glory of our God.

Of course, there are all-too, many professing Christians today who believe that they have little to be corrected for. This stems from a low concept of sin in our lives and in our hearts. When God's rod falls in such cases, there is a desire to pass it of as some irritation of the devil, or some course of events that have been unfavourable to them. This is, surely, to “despise the chastening of the Lord,” which Paul warns us against in Hebrews. The other wrong path that can be so easily trod is to “faint” under the rod of correction. Again, that danger is made clear when Paul warns us that no “chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous…”; but then adds the great outcome of the work – “nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness…”

`Neither are we to despise God's rod – He knows that we have need of it, even if we are slow to admit that need ourselves – or, wilt under God's rod, for it is but to bring us nearer to Him as to the will of our Father. Sin remains within us, but we will never be condemned for that sin. This is our Justification unto life eternal. But, sin remains within us, therefore, we will ever be under the correcting hand of our gracious Father, Who would have us more and more to resemble the spotless Son of His own right hand. This is our Sanctification. We confuse both these aspects of our salvation to our own frustration, and place ourselves in danger of notions unbecoming the sons of God.

We are “little children, weak and apt to stray.” We need a Father's hand, and need not be surprised when at times, it has to be a “heavy hand.” And yet –