Sanctification--God's business or ours?
Lamb Chopped
Shipmate
Help me out here. I am working through the ramifications of a bit of theology I ran across a couple weeks ago, though I suppose I’ve been living by it for forty years now. But if there are any holes in it, I’d like to find out now before I start teaching wrongly. So if you’d like to take issue with it, that’ll help me find all the weak spots.
Here’s the thesis in a nutshell: God is wholly responsible for our sanctification, just as he is for our justification.
Or to use less churchy language,
You didn’t save yourself by your own efforts, Jesus did; and you aren’t going to improve yourself and become more like him through your own efforts now, Jesus is handling that too. So stop fussing and bean counting your sins. Leave all that in God’s lap. Get on with living your life as a person who loves Jesus and cares about his feelings.
(Yes, I do realize this is a paraphrase of Augustine’s “Love God, and do as you please.”)
Anyone want to fight with me? 😊
Here’s the thesis in a nutshell: God is wholly responsible for our sanctification, just as he is for our justification.
Or to use less churchy language,
You didn’t save yourself by your own efforts, Jesus did; and you aren’t going to improve yourself and become more like him through your own efforts now, Jesus is handling that too. So stop fussing and bean counting your sins. Leave all that in God’s lap. Get on with living your life as a person who loves Jesus and cares about his feelings.
(Yes, I do realize this is a paraphrase of Augustine’s “Love God, and do as you please.”)
Anyone want to fight with me? 😊
Comments
(Heh, never mind. It's James 5:16. But I really do want to know what you draw out of that.)
Yeah but that doesn't sanctify us, it works the other way around.
Well that our sins (and I would say sins of omission as well as commission) do matter as we aim for a closer walk with Him. It's not just 'bean counting '. But I agree sanctification must be God's project because for myself I would never know if I was making any progress!
Or alternatively; "Jesus came to raise the dead, not to teach the teachable, reform the reformable, or improve the improvable"
Or looking at it from the bottom up "I cannot pray, except I sin. I cannot preach, but I sin. I cannot administer, nor receive the holy sacrament, but I sin. My very repentance needs to be repented of and the tears I shed need washing in the blood of Christ."
In general I'm suspicious of language of improvement, because sanctification doesn't come naturally to us, and so I think it ends up being very easy to think of it as being something other than it is and turning it into various forms of law. Sanctification seems to be something that we best recognise in retrospect and can often seem to be agonisingly slow.
‘Get on with living your life as a person who loves Jesus and cares about his feelings’ surely means going to a great deal of effort to do our best to get things right in his eyes - which leads inevitably to our recognising where we fail, and moving on, all with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Our ‘yes’ puts us under an obligation to co-operate in our sanctification.
I wonder if there is a difference between "effort" and "works"--that is, between what you just somehow wind up doing, from day to day, because you love him and it's come to your attention that he would like you to handle x or y in this particular way--and a self-improvement program, however spiritually flavored. The latter seems to me dangerous, and that's what I think of when I hear "co-operate" in sanctification.
I wonder if that's intentional--I mean, all the holy people I know can't see it in themselves, everyone else can--but not them, they are looking at everybody else in awe. And I think that's a feature, not a bug, in God's way of handling sanctification.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctification_in_Christianity
Admittedly it gets wonky with the four different types of grace and yadayada, but what you laid out in the OP is classical Lutheran theology as I understand it. Not being Lutheran, I disagree, but if you’re going to teach this to fellow Lutherans then go for it.
Well, one hole would be the fact that "the Catholic and Anglican tradition don’t quite teach this." But this may depend on why one believes the doctrines one believes. For some of us, Christian Tradition is critical in why we believe what we do. (Some of us in the Anglican tradition refer to the three-legged stool of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason, for example.)
I think that before you can avail yourself of God’s grace in being justified, you must first make an effort of the will to receive that grace. To receive God’s gift of grace you must accept that grace. This requires a movement of the will. It’s not unresistable but completely resistible, in this life at least.
God is not wholly responsible for our sanctification because we must make an effort to be sanctified. We must make the willful effort to throw ourselves upon the cross and work with Christ.
There are surely unrepentant sinners in this life, and how do we account for them? Surely God’s will cannot fail, God’s efforts can’t come to naught. So how do we explain them? Well some people refuse his grace in this life.
God sanctifies and justifies but we need to make the effort to receive such.
The clay makes no effort; it is acted upon. Our free will comes into play by accepting that we are the clay rather than by fighting it, and we can certainly avail ourselves of the various means of grace made available to us. But it is still God who acts to sanctify, not us. And even our acceptance is dependent on grace, not something we can do for ourselves, so I’m resistent to language that would assign any efficacy to our effort.
But then, I’m Reformed, so I come at this from a perspective very close to the Lutheran one.
My apologies for being unclear. I think that what I said above is roughly what the Anglican tradition would say to your OP. I don’t know of an unbiased view of sanctification, unless we go back to the Fathers, and I don’t think they’re particularly systematic or, really, clear on this. What I described above is what I understand classical Anglican theology, refracted through a very Augustinian lens for sure, to be saying
This disagreement is, historically, one of the reasons for our divergents. It comes down to a question of will, and that seems to be axiomatic in some way
Over the years, my view of sanctification has changed.
Basically, I would sum up sanctification is the process of living out justification. It is progressive in nature, It is more than a moral building up, but a bringing into reality what I believe. If God has shown undeserved grace to me, I am to present that undeserved grace to others. I admit I struggle with it, but that is where the Holy Spirit empowers me to do better.
My next line will sound like Pelagius. I see sanctification as a cooperative venture. I choose to do good works because of God making me who I am. God's spirit empowers me for sanctified living. When I do fail, which is daily, I am assured of forgiveness. That assurance drives me to do more.
Unlike the old Norwegian pastor, on my deathbed I want to remember the many good works that I accomplished through the grace of God. I want to be able to that God for empowering me to live out my faith.
It's similar in a way to the Catholic understanding of the Mass. God does the magic with the cookie, but before that the faithful have to bake or buy the cookie, make or buy the wine, and bring them (and the water) to the Table. Indeed they have to make the table, and make or buy the vessels all the elements are carried/contained in. The faithful aren't doing the magic. That's 100% God's doing. But if they don't do their part as noted, the magic can't happen. The Mass, then, is a cooperative effort between the faithful and God.
Similarly then, theosis is a cooperative effort between the faithful and God, consisting on the human side of prayers, fasting, confession, the eucharist and other mysteries, and other stuff I'm not remembering. As the Christian lays themself open before God in these ways, God is able to reach in, so to speak, and move the soul toward theosis.
Why, you may ask, do we need to do all that, when God could just reach in and do it if he wants? You may well ask, why doesn't God blorp into being the bread, wine, glassware/brassware, etc., for the mass? For some reason, the story goes, God wants the faithful to do their part as well. The faithful are God's children, not God's bendable action figures.
Amen!
I wouldn't tell myself I'm waiting for God to sanctify me as grounds for not doing what I should here and now. I think it's a doctrine to bear in mind when we would otherwise be censorious about other people or ourselves looking backwards, and less so looking forwards.
Works are an outflowing from our relationship with God, while our sanctification is an inflowing from God which relies upon our active acceptance of it - and our co-operation with it in the sense of listening to and acting upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
But I dunno ...
It all sounds so very, very 'Protestant'. We can't possibly have anything to do with our own sanctification because otherwise it:
- Deprives God of the glory.
- Is tantamount to salvation by works.
- Is likely to make the sky fall in.
The Orthodox have the idea of 'synergia', of course. Co-operation with divine grace.
That's proving a hard concept for someone like me to deal with from my own Protestant evangelical background. But then, without sounding glib, I'm coming to see that it ain't all about 'concepts' - although we need those of course.
I have no idea how any of this stuff 'works'. But then I don't understand the internal combustion engine either.
I've even less idea how any of it works in places like Greece where a Greek lad tells me that around 80% of people can't understand a single word of the Liturgy given that it's chanted in an outmoded form of the language.
'Faith comes by hearing...'
I s'pose I'm gradually coming to the same kind of conclusion that @Lamb Chopped cites with her Augustine reference. 'Love God and do what you will.'
But then, unlike the preachers and pastors among you, I'm not 'called' to preach or teach any of this in a congregational context.
That said, and I don't mean this as some kind of dismissive cop-out but the longer I'm out of Protestant circles the less interested I am in the finer points of debates about justification, predestination and so on. Not that I think they are irrelevant but it strikes me as rather like missing the beauty of the trees because your focus is on the mechanics of photosynthesis.
Great if you are a biologist but you can enjoy a walk in the woods without understanding all that.
The stories of The Desert Fathers (and Mothers), are full of saintly people saying that they'd not even begun to repent.
I just try to do what I can. Any attempt to 'evaluate' how far I've come or how far I've got to go seems futile. I try to say the prayers, observe the fasts and feasts to the extent that I'm able and do what little good I can when opportunities arise.
'Ask my neighbour,' said the Anabaptist.
I'm not an Anabaptist of course but I reckon that's a good way of measuring these things.
Mother Maria of Paris said that she wouldn't be asked how many church services she attended, how many prostrations she made. But only whether she'd fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited those sick or in prison. 'And that's all I shall be asked.'
Lord have mercy!
There are historical reasons that the mechanics of things like justification, sanctification and predestination took such a central place in the discussions at the Reformation. But yeah.
I tend to think it’s not so much that we’re preaching different truths, as it is that we’re looking from different angles at a bigger truth, one that perhaps we can’t fully grasp. Now we see in a glass dimly, and we’re doing our best to make out what we see. But I fully expect none of us are getting it quite right.
We then have nothing to gain and nothing, to lose but God invites us, in grateful response to his saving love, to be transformed, transformed into the divine likeness, which in human form is most fully expressed in Jesus. To return to my previous analogy, to step away from the circumstances which led to the need for a life-ring in the first place. This is the continuation of repentance, having turned back we now need to journey in the new direction. It is in and through this journeying that sanctification happens.
While ‘work’ or ‘works’ may be trigger words from a Lutheran or a Reformed perspective, I can’t avoid seeing NT texts which speak about our work in the process. I see it as implicit in Matthew 24.45ff, Mark 13.34ff, Luke 12.42ff, and in the parable of the talents, and more explicit in 1 Cor 3.13ff, 1 Cor 15.58, Phil 2.12ff and so on. This work that we do is co-operation with God at work in us, and part of the means by which he sanctifies us.
Lutherans, following Augustine*, have a negative theological anthropology. From that point of view, humans suffer from the bondage of the will to sin. Whatever good humans do is God doing the good through, and in spite of, the human propensity to sin. She sends her Holy Spirit into the world through various means. Humans can choose whether to block or allow the Spirit's work through themselves, and that choice is how humans exercise free will.
* I am going to plead for people not to talk shit about Augustine, who is recognized as a saint in the Eastern and Western Churches. Good faith analysis welcome though. Thanks in advance.
Christians with a positive theological anthropology believe that humans have innate goodness. ISTM that Eirenist laid out a Gnostic position above concerning human nature. (which doesn't mean "stone the heretic" - we don't do that anymore.)
Given that these are such different starting points wrt human nature, I'm not sure we can agree on the fundamentals of sanctification.
Yes, he's a Saint in the Orthodox Church but he's seen as one with some flaws in his theology. He's nit the only one. There are other Saints, even from further east geographically as it were, who are also seen as being a bit wonky in some respects.
Meanwhile, I hope we don't see people 'talking shit' about God the Holy Spirit ... 😉
But back to the plot ...
@Pease - well I don't see any RCs or Orthodox claiming that God isn't responsible in some way for the grain, the grapes and the stone etc.
The fact that you've felt the need to add that caveat makes my point for me. It all sounds rather dualistic.
'Ah but God made the grapes you know ...' 🙌
Meanwhile, yes, Sophia, Divine Wisdom. I know, I know ...
BroJames, Purgatory Host
Understanding the way God interacts with us is impossible, but I think some formulations are less inaccurate than others, and for me the best is to see that God can act on us in such a way that we act freely. We aren't in some sort of semi-hypnotic state if God is acting on us, nor can we detect it, we are acting in the full exercise of our human freedom but it is "God who acts in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure".
The NT, Paul especially, portrays the Christian as an athlete in training to win the race. Paul says he buffets his body and leads it as a slave. There are many examples. These are our own efforts, but no less God's working in us.
Where of course I do agree with you is that we should not be neurotic about our sins, unless we are one of the unfortunate Christians beset by things which urgently need addressing. I have many habitual failings but none of them are in the same bracket as, for example, a strong desire to abuse others, or living my life through defrauding others, or serving in a police force to violently oppress others. Sadly, as much for them as for others, some do and really do need to do something fairly drastic. Cutting off your hand or plucking out your eye is of course hyperbole, but it surely means more that leaving the problem with Jesus.
Try not to read polemic in where none is intended.
Thank you
Ok. Fair do's mind.
I may very well have over-reacted and apologies for mixing up your points with those made by Pease.
I think @Anteater hits on some good points too.
I suppose what I was trying to say, was that the 'it starts and ends with God' thing extends beyond the Reformed tradition - where for historical reasons it has a particular resonance and emphasis of course.
In the Orthodox Tradition of course, God is 'present everywhere and filleth all things.' Yes, we like the 'eths' and so on.
So trying to work out which bits are us and which bits are God strikes us as something of a false dichotomy.
Not that I am accusing you of doing that. But there can be a Western 'Scholastic' tendency to do so, if I can say that without being unduly polemical.
Or not. Since the premise here seems to be that nothing we do matters, at least as far as God is concerned, it seems one can be just as sanctified living their life as someone who hates Jesus. Or is indifferent to Jesus. Kind of a theistic nihilism where God does everything and people can do whatever they want without divine consequences.
Whilst strictly speaking, dear old Martin is regarded as heretical by the Orthodox - as indeed is Monsieur Calvin - I don't think it's fair to say he promulgated a kind of 'do what the hell you like' approach.
I certainly feel the Magisterial Reformers had a lot going for them in reaction to late medieval Roman Catholicism but ultimately think they did topple over into rather dualistic territory. Hardly surprising under the circumstances.
'Learned Germans,' as the Ecumenical Patriarch wrote after some considerable deliberation. 'We would ask you not to write to us on these matters again but only to correspond with fraternal greetings and messages of goodwill from here on.'
My paraphrase.
One of the best put-downs in history. Don't call us. We'll call you. 😉
Luther's great for fart jokes and Calvin's 'Institutes' are a good cure for insomnia. 😉
I'm a big Bunyan fan but think we can see strong elements of both in his 'Grace Abounding To The Chief Of Sinners.'
We can also very easily deceive ourselves.
That said, we are exhorted in scripture to 'test' ourselves to see if we be in the faith.
It's a tricky one and all Christian traditions have to find ways to navigate between the Charybdis of legalism and the Scylla of licence.
Ah, the romance of Anglo-Catholicism.
That and the enormous argument between Betjeman and Waugh where Waugh - delighting in the conversion of Penelope Betjeman - bombarded Betjeman with letters picking holes in the ‘church of Wantage’ and urging him to do likewise.
I stay for the same reason Betjeman did, and which he eventually declared to Waugh in a letter that basically said ‘leave me alone’.
I’m unwilling to deny the presence of Christ at the CofE’s altars.
Romance doesn’t come into it. If I wanted romance I’d be long gone from the church of my birth.
It would have been an easier option culturally, though, than crossing the Bosphorus.
I admire Anglo-Catholicism and it can put on a terrific show.
I find it ecclesiastically confused though. It looks and sounds great but doesn't make a great deal of ecclesial sense to me. It seems to want to have its cake and eat it.
I still maintain there's a kind of Sir Walter Scott Romanticism at the heart of it, though. But I'm looking at it from the outside so may miss some of the nuance.
We're getting off topic though.
It's not intended as a caricature. @Lamb Chopped's position, as she explained it, is that nothing people do (like "living your life as a person who loves Jesus and cares about his feelings") can effect their sanctification one way or the other, so it literally doesn't matter how you live, at least as far as the question of sanctification goes. (The law of consequences may catch up with you on other matters, though.)
In other words, there's no reason to believe that a person who lives their life as a person who hates Jesus is any less "sanctified" than someone who lives their life as a person who loves Jesus. They might be, but they could just as easily be more sanctified than the person who lives like they love Jesus, at least according to @Lamb Chopped's proposed rubric.