Over in American Christian Reformed blog-land there’s been an ongoing debate recently about the differences between, and connections between, justification and sanctification (that is sanctification in the progressive sense rather than the positional sense – that’s a whole other debate!)
Up until now the main protagonists in this conversation have been Tullian Tchividjian and Kevin DeYoung, but in the last couple of days David Murray has also joined the fray. I won’t rehearse all the points of difference that have emerged on both sides, suffice to say that my sympathies tend to lie with DeYoung and Murray rather than Tchividjian, even though Tchividjian has many good things to say!
Murray’s most recent article has been particularly helpful. He greatly appreciates Tchividjian’s definition of justification - that it's the completed obedience of Christ and not our obedience that secures our legal standing before God. But he also highlights that sanctification, though connected to justification, is different in crucial ways. Sanctification does involve effort on our part, a striving to obey God.
A failure to recognise and emphasise this can actually lead away from a deeper experience of God's love in our hearts and lives.
A failure to recognise and emphasise this can actually lead away from a deeper experience of God's love in our hearts and lives.
Christ’s obedience is all that matters for our legal standing before God (our justification), and without doubt dwelling on what God has done for us in Christ by justifying us will remind us of how much he loves us, but our obedience also comes in to play as regards our felt relationship with God – in other words the more we obey God the more we will experience of God’s love in our hearts and lives. Murray quotes John 14:21 and 23 to back this up.
So we should work hard at our sanctification (in reliance upon God’s help by his Spirit) not in order for God to accept us (we have acceptance through faith in Christ), but because firstly God is glorified by our increasing obedience, and secondly the reward for us is an ever greater depth of the felt experience of God’s love.
So we should work hard at our sanctification (in reliance upon God’s help by his Spirit) not in order for God to accept us (we have acceptance through faith in Christ), but because firstly God is glorified by our increasing obedience, and secondly the reward for us is an ever greater depth of the felt experience of God’s love.
Murray’s concern is that Tchividjian ends up shortcutting the need for diligent obedience to God’s word in order to experience God’s love, by arguing that our justification in Christ alone guarantees that we will experience such love.
Have a read of the article at http://headhearthand.org/blog/2011/12/14/does-jesus-respond-to-our-obedience-with-love/ – David Murray draws it all together far more eloquently than I can!
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