Formed: Justification - Suzy Silk

[@JoelGrant-ie4ly]

My sins , nailed to the Cross. Its hard to really wrap your mind around that.

[@philipbenjamin4720]

Repentance is NOT a pre-requisite for justification. Read on for proof of that - and also for how that wrong conclusion leads to a wrong understanding of sanctification - and how these things affect our preaching/pastoring/living. Reader - when you first heard someone tell you the gospel (presuming that this has happened) what were you told? I was told that Christ had died for my sin and that to be in right relationship with him I needed to place my faith in God - repent. While there is much that can be said when preaching the gospel - if most people who have heard the gospel reduced what was said to them down to a sentence - I believe that the sentence above would be the summary of the typical person. What I am hoping to reveal in this post is that this is in fact a wrong summary of the gospel. I am going to show that unless we accurately understand the two distinct elements of salvation - justification and sanctification - combining them without undermining the meaning of either - we will end up misunderstanding- and misrepresenting - the truth. So much so that I am going to dare to state that the gospel as preached across the first world and beyond differs significantly from the gospel revealed in scripture. At the same time as correcting our wrong understanding of justification and sanctification - I will also show that the Calvinist belief that grace leads to faith - AND the non-Calvinist belief that faith leads to grace - are only correct together (with the qualification that the Calvinist belief that grace is 'irresistible' is not correct). They are EACH true - they are each key in rightly defining salvation. As the preacher explained - justification is the part of salvation where God - like the judge in a court room - declares someone forgiven - free to go - because of Christ’s death for their sin - and resurrection. Sanctification on the other hand is the part of salvation where people live faithful to who they are - loved children of God. With that in mind consider the third sentence of my post above - my one sentence summary of 'the typical gospel'. The reason why this summary is not correct is because it MERGES justification and sanctification - creating a result which is not faithful to either. The summary sentence says that one must repent in order to be justified. This I will show is not correct. Justification - when offered subject to people first needing to repent - is withholding grace from people. It implies that God is distant - disapproving - until people first make themselves clean. In saying this I don't mean to imply that God is not holy - I only mean to imply that God intends for people to have the choice to BEGIN relating with him before repenting. I’m about to show that this isn’t what the bible says - but before I do I need to point out that the word grace is terribly misunderstood. God’s grace - like his holiness, justice, and mercy - is A PART OF GOD’S CHARACTER. It is a character attribute of God. The way in which both Calvinists and non-Calvinists generally talk about grace is ignorant of that truth - in opposition to that truth. You will hear grace talked about as “God’s undeserved favour” - when favour is certainly not a character attribute - or “G R A C E - God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense”. Again - ‘riches’ are not a character attribute. I am not going to divert right now to prove my definition of grace - “God’s perfect (self-giving) intention” - I only want the reader to be able to understand verses below due to their at least thinking of grace as a character attribute: Titus 2:11 ESV For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people,... Notice in the verse above that Christ dying for the sins of all people - and rising from the dead - IS grace BEFORE there is any opportunity to do anything to gain access to grace. (Some people call this PREVENIENT grace - and they call the grace that we experience after being saved SAVING grace - but when we consider that God's grace is a character attribute - it is clear that these distinctions are wrong). Justification is THE GRACE that is Christ dying and rising for us - and without the need to repent to gain access to this grace. The cross is grace before anyone has the opportunity or obligation to repent. It now becomes clear that the repentance spoken of as necessary in the bible isn’t related to justification - but rather sanctification. I summarise justification and sanctification as follows: Justification - Christ died and rose for us Sanctification - We must die and rise with Christ Instead of repentance being PART of justification - repentance/obedience is a separate and distinct component of the gospel - sanctification. Instead of preaching this the typical gospel preacher preaches that sanctification is our GRADUALLY becoming more like Jesus - with this GRADUAL process being a necessary SIGN of someone having saving faith. The typical gospel preacher therefore denies that being united with God is enough to cause a person to ALWAYS act rightly - from the moment union begins. Each of these things is incorrect. (The reason why we still sin is not because union with God only occasionally enables us to act rightly. We sin because we are not diligent in always relating with God under our true identity - through which we are ALWAYS united with God - see 1 John 1:10, Romans 8:5-8, and Ephesians 4:22-24). So the two main failures in the way in which people preach the gospel are: 1. The grace that is Christ’s death and resurrection for us is withheld from people until they repent. 2. Sanctification is presented as the inevitable result of justification - or as a process in which we GRADUALLY become more like Jesus - instead of people being able to obey God from day one. (Jesus was able to live a perfect life - not because he was ready to preach the sermon on the mount on his fifth birthday - but because his Father allocated tasks to him - as he does to us - which he had been made ready to complete. This is growing in maturity - NOT growing in holiness). The second thing that is wrongly understood - which is absolutely critical - is that justification and sanctification are each CONDITIONS of being saved (the typical gospel preacher believes only that good works prove that we have saving faith - they think of sanctification only as a necessary sign of justification - instead of a CHOICE and a CONDITION of being saved. Below is a bible verse which proves that each is a condition: Justification - John 3:16 ESV For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Note that this verse mentions the need to believe - which is strange. It's strange because if Jesus died for our sin and rose from the dead why do we need to choose to believe it for it to be true? (Nothing is true only while we believe it to be true). But remember that I have already shown that Christ dying and rising for us is grace - grace which we must CHOOSE to receive. If we must already choose to receive grace there isn't room for justification to be an additional choice - instead the choice to receive grace results in the GIFT of faith. Justification is the CHOICE to receive grace leading to the GIFT of faith. Sanctification - Romans 8:13 ESV For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Romans 8:13 above shows that sanctification is the converse. Sanctification is the CHOICE to place faith in God (which God responds to with the gift of repentance - see Acts 11:18, and 2 Tim 2:25) resulting in the GIFT of grace. So justification is ENCOURAGEMENT to be sanctified (the gift of faith is encouragement to CHOOSE to place faith in God) - and sanctification is ENCOURAGEMENT to be justified (the gift of grace is encouragement to CHOOSE to receive grace from God). The CHOICE to receive/obey one of these does NOT automatically lead to receiving/obeying the other - each is a CHOICE. (This is proven in Romans 8:13 being expressed as a CONDITION). If grace is received immediately as part of our justification - and also after faith/repentance in the case of sanctification (this supposed to be ALMOST immediate) - if justification is forgiveness BEFORE we repent - and sanctification is forgiveness AFTER we repent - how on earth do we explain and model this seeming contradiction to others? We do by saying that a condition of their ongoing forgiveness is that they turn from sin (this is placing sanctification in the world of justification). Or - this time doing the converse (placing justification in the world of sanctification) - we tell the non-believer employer who has just decided to follow God’s advice IN ONE THING by paying their workers a decent wage - that if they were to continue to obey God one action at a time (something Romans 8:13 above says is only possible BY RELYING ON THE SPIRIT) and kept going - this would BE their being saved. Which leads to my final point which relates to correcting doctrine - before I then make specific comments about the sermon (see reply below) - salvation can begin with EITHER justification - OR sanctification. So a person who doubts that their homosexual attractions are brokenness - can begin to relate with God by receiving the justification of the cross. Whereas a person who is more confident that Christ is the Way than they are confident that God has accepted them - can begin by performing individual obedient acts - this being possible through relying on God.

[@philipbenjamin4720]

One last point - which would be in the post above if the post was not - by adding it - too long. Telling people to believe (justification) - and telling people to repent (sanctification) have something in common. In each case - while people are told to do each - people aren't able to do each DIRECTLY. In the case of believing people must CHOOSE to receive grace - with this leading to their having faith as a gift (John 3:16) - and in the case of repenting - people must CHOOSE to place faith in God - with this leading to God giving them repentance as a gift (Acts 11:18, 2 Tim 2:25). Below I list points in the sermon where I was in disagreement with the preacher: At 18:02 the preacher says that the Israelites were not saved from slavery because they were good. The preacher doesn’t divert to explain this statement - which definitely needs clarifying. The Egyptians were also not good - why did God respond to the Egyptians as if they were outside grace? Instead their first born children were killed. I have already responded in detail to Tim Brown’s sermon in this series preached three weeks ago - Formed - Election - I proved that Calvinism is not viable (I ask the reader to read it - I spent a long time on that reply - it has a lot of useful information!). I therefore have to explain - and so does the preacher - why the Israelites are being saved - and the Egyptians are not. The first point to note is that the Israelites have been waiting for 430 years to be delivered from the Egyptians - so if Calvinism is right doctrine (it’s not - see my other post!) - if all of the Israelites are unable to repent - unless God intervenes enabling them to do so - the Calvinist God lets generation after generation die in Egypt without doing anything. No - the true reason why God did nothing for 430 years is because he is a God of unchanging character - the Israelites continued to live without aligning themselves with that unchanging character. The reason that Israel is eventually delivered - and Egypt is punished - is NOT because God JUSTIFIES Them - but because they are at last living as those agreeing to be SANCTIFIED - God therefore relates with them consistent with their having access to his grace. That this is the reason is proven in the passage below. The deliverance of the Israelites (who are not all individually righteous - see Romans 9:6 - it is therefore not inappropriate to believe that any faithful Egyptian would not have been subject to judgement - and that any unfaithful Jew - expressed in not placing blood above the doorpost - would not have been delivered) is NOT their eternal salvation - salvation is union with God - not obtaining one's own real estate! Deuteronomy 7:6-11 ESV For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those WHO LOVE HIM AND KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today. At 43:20 I have shown that the preacher should not have spoken of justification being available to people “who repent and believe”. Repentance is not an element of justification. It is an element of sanctification - it IS sanctification. At 44:55 the preacher says that justification is offered to ALL who would repent and believe. I agree that it is offered to ALL who believe (repentance is related to sanctification)- but three weeks ago Tim Brown in his sermon Formed - Election - said that only people whose desires are changed by God - are ABLE to repent and believe. Are COTC NYC turning away from the Calvinism they preached three weeks ago - or is this statement a ruse - because in fact not everyone is able to repent and believe? At 45:23 the preacher reaches a wrong conclusion from Galatians 3:2-3. Verse 2 is about being justified - with the Galatian's having been justified proven by their having the gift of faith. Verse 3 - in being about good works (as a result of repentance) - is about both justification and sanctification (it's about justification because the person who refuses to be justified attempts to self-justify by producing good works by the flesh - and it's about sanctification because sanctification is about good works completed through faith in order to be saved). The Galatians are attempting to produce good works through the power of the flesh. The preacher reaches the wrong conclusion here about the relationship of justification and sanctification (I have explained that one is only ENCOURAGEMENT to receive/obey the other - I explained that each is a separate choice). She says that they should be assured that if they were justified by faith they will be sanctified by faith. This is not correct - being justified is one decision (CHOOSING to receive the grace that is Christ’s death and resurrection) and being sanctified is another decision (CHOOSING to turn to God in faith - which God responds to with the gift of repentance - Acts 11:18, 2 Tim 2:25 - enabling people to put to death the deeds of the body - and therefore receive the gift of grace - salvation). We see in scripture examples of people being justified - but then either never choosing not to be sanctified - or choosing not to CONTINUE being sanctified - thereby placing themselves in danger of losing their salvation (see Romans 11:22 - which is about the theoretical possibility of losing one's salvation, see 2 Peter 2:20 and Hebrews 10:29 which are about people who are in DANGER of losing their salvation, and see Hebrews 6:4-6 which is about those who DO LOSE their salvation). At 45:50 the preacher says that there is nothing that believers can do to lose or earn God’s approval. This is incorrect. I just showed that people who are justified can choose not to be sanctified (or else Romans 8:13 would not be expressed as a condition). And I also showed that sanctification is 'earning' God's approval - although through faith. If we cannot lose our salvation what do the following passages mean? 2 Peter 1:10-11 ESV Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Hebrews 3:12-14 ESV Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. A final overall objection - for the reasons that I have explained above I don't believe that this series should be called FORMED - which implies that there is such a thing as spiritual formation. We are able to both know and obey God from the moment we are re-united with him. Instead the growth that believers experience is deepening understanding/experience of God as Word (Son) and Spirit - as preparation for a wider range of tasks.