There are some
passages of Scripture that speak of our justification by faith, meaning the
part of our Christian experience that is 100% complete in Jesus Christ. The
moment we are “saved” we are 100% saved, 100% justified.
There are
other passages that speak of our glorification by faith, referring to things we
will experience in the future. These things are 0% complete because we aren’t
there yet. I don’t mean by this that our inheritance is not already waiting for
us in heaven,[1]
only that we are not yet in heaven experiencing what is promised for our
future. We get the whole 100% of our glorification when it happens.
There are also
Scriptures that speak of our sanctification by faith, encouraging us to keep
pressing on in ways that we are growing up to be like Jesus “from one degree of glory to another.”[2]
While this growth carries on throughout our lifetimes, there is no way for any
of us to gauge the percentage God would use to describe how far along we really
are.[3]
One of the
struggles that is common among Christians is when people apply justification
thinking to sanctification Scriptures. This is when people treat Scriptures as
if they are talking about things that are 100% complete in Christ, when they
are really speaking of things that will keep growing and improving in our lives
until the day of our glorification when no further growth will be required.
These things will be 100% complete one day, just not on this day.
For example,
consider how this Scripture would be interpreted through both justification
thinking, and sanctification thinking. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear
has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”[4]
If
we interpret this only through justification thinking, we would have to say
that every Christian has come into the perfect love of God, that perfect love
of God “casts out fear,” so “whoever fears” is not a Christian. Justification
thinking makes people think that this must already be 100% complete, therefore,
real Christians have no fear, and anyone who has fear could not possibly be a
real Christian.
On
the other hand, sanctification thinking would acknowledge that there is “no fear” in the perfect love of God. It
would affirm that the perfect love of God casts out fear. It would agree that
the fear in people’s lives is associated with the threat of punishment. And it
would have no difficulty with the thought that “whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” They would simply
see this as something that every Christian can grow in until the experience is
100% fulfilled in their glorification.
One
of the simplest ways of determining if Christians are still able to have
certain kinds of problems after they are justified is to ask Christians what
kinds of problems they have going on in their lives. We can’t take Scriptures
like above and tell Christians that this means that they can’t have fear in
their lives even though so many Christians have fear in their lives.
Instead,
we address the wonderful gift of sanctification that gives us hope that we can
daily change to be more like Jesus, including experiencing his perfect love in
greater ways so as to experience that perfect love casting out even more of our
fear. One day the unchanging perfect love will have changed us perfectly and
fear will be gone. In the meantime, imperfect love covers over a multitude of
sins,[5] and whatever nasty little fears are still tangled around our hearts.
Another
example of this is something the apostle John wrote down a chapter later. “We know that everyone who has been born of God does
not keep on sinning, but he who
was born of God protects him, and
the evil one does not touch him.”[6]
When this Scripture
is interpreted through justification thinking, people conclude that everyone
(100%), who has been “born of God”
(100%), will not “keep on sinning”
(100%), because God will protect them (100%), and the evil one will not be able
to touch them (100%). In the justification mindset, every part of this verse
has to be considered 100% fulfilled, nothing more to be improved during our
growth in sanctification.
Now, let’s
consider this same verse as one more encouragement to our growing up in Jesus
Christ our Lord “from one degree of glory
to another.”[7]
In that case it would mean that, “everyone
who has been born of God” refers to our justification by grace through
faith, giving us access into this grace in which we now stand.
In fact, when
Paul wrote, “Through him we have also
obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in
hope of the glory of God,”[8]he
addressed our justification (we have also
obtained access by faith into this grace), our sanctification (this grace in which we stand), and our
glorification (and we rejoice in hope of
the glory of God).
Yes, being “born of God” refers to our
justification, but just as a baby’s birth is one thing, and the life they live
afterwards another, so our new birth experience is done and complete, but the
life we live while away from home is still in progress and incomplete.
So, when we
know that “everyone who has been born of
God” refers to those who are justified through faith in Jesus Christ, what
does it mean that such ones do “not keep
on sinning”? Was John teaching sinless perfection, as some would claim? Or
was he teaching that once we are born again we do not continue living the lives
of sin we were in when Jesus saved us?
John’s answer
to this question seems pretty clear when he writes, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may
not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous.”[9]John
was writing to Christians (my little
children). His aim was that they would not sin. However, “if anyone does sin,” they were not to
be treated as though they were not Christians. Rather, they were to be reminded
that “we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”
Now, if “everyone who has been born of God does not
keep sinning” means does not continue the life of sin we left behind in the
world, what is involved in experiencing this kind of protection from God in
which the evil one cannot touch us? Does this mean that, in this present
lifetime, we are 100% protected from God, and the evil one has no ability to
touch us? Or is this another sanctification Scripture that tells us what is
available in Christ, and we must keep growing up in this experience “from one degree of glory to another”?
I believe that
there is good reason to treat this issue of God’s protection in the same way as
we treat his perfect love. His perfect love casts out fear, but we are growing
up in that perfect love now towards that day of glorification when his perfect
love will finish its work.
We can also
consider that God’s protection means one thing in our justification, another
thing in our sanctification, and something perfectly complete in our
glorification. The evil one cannot touch our salvation once it is given to us
in Christ (justification), but our sanctification requires us to put on the
whole armor of God in order to take our stand against the devil and his schemes.[10] In
the same way as some Christians have a better grasp of God’s perfect love, and
so a better experience of fearless faith, some Christians have a better grasp
of putting on the whole armor of God, and so a better experience of God’s
protection from the evil one.
I am writing
this because I believe that there are painful divisions for Christians who are
dealing with unresolved issues in their sanctification, but judged by others with
the justification thinking that brands them as heretics for claiming that
Christians can have such problems. On one side, there are Christians who feel
that the devil has found a way to “touch” them, just as some would think that
fear is in the way of their experience of God’s perfect love. On the other side
of the division are those who say that these things were settled “at the cross”
in their justification, so any claim of such experiences is wrong.
Perhaps it
would help in such cases if we would differentiate between what any given
Scripture means in our justification, our sanctification, and our
glorification, just to be sure we aren’t applying God’s wonderful truth in
inappropriate and demoralizing ways.
For me, I want
every Christian to know that what God’s perfect love accomplished in our
justification gives us every reason to live by faith that this perfect love
will continually cast out our fears until the day of our glorification when we shall
be just like Jesus, we shall “know fully,
even as I have been fully known,”[11] and
be free of fear forever.
In the same
way, I want every Christian to know that what’s God’s protective power has done
in our justification makes our salvation so perfectly protected that God will
continue sanctifying us, until the day that every remnant of the devil’s touch
is gone and forgotten, and we live in the perfection of God’s glorious presence
forever.
In the meantime,
if you are a believer in Jesus Christ who struggles with fear, ask God to give
you brothers and sisters who will so exemplify the love of God to you that you
will feel that his love is driving out your fears.
And, if you
are a believer in Jesus Christ, and you are sure the devil has found some way
to touch you that others have said could never happen, ask God to give you a
spiritual family that will help you “wrestle… against the rulers, against the
authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the
spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places,”[12]until
Satan loses his touch.
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, Canada, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
I Peter 1:4
[2]
II Corinthians 3:18
[3]
I suspect that it is not as high as we might hope, and yet a glorious tribute
to grace that there is any transformation whatsoever.
[4]
I John 4:18
[5]
I Peter 4:8
[6]
I John 5:18
[7]
II Corinthians 3:18
[8]
Romans 5:2
[9]
I John 2:1
[10]
Ephesians 6:10-20
[11]
I Corinthians 13:12
[12]
Ephesians 6:12
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