Sanctification
& Justification
by Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920)
Yield your members servants to righteousness unto sanctification." --Rom.
vi. 19.
SANCTIFICATION must remain Sanctification. It may not arbitrarily
be robbed of its significance, nor be exchanged for something else. It must
always signify the making holy of what is unholy or less holy.
Care must be
taken not to confound sanctification with justification; a common mistake,
frequently made by thoughtless Scripture readers. Hence the importance of a
thorough understanding of this difference. Being left unnoticed, it may lead to
confused preaching, which causes one-sidedness; and active and thoughtful men
invariably systematize their one-sidedness.
What, then, is
the difference? According to our ancient theologians it is fourfold:
1. Justification
works for man; sanctification in man.
2. Justification removes the guilt; sanctification the stain.
3. Justification imputes to us an extraneous righteousness:
sanctification works a righteousness inherent as our own.
4. Justification is at once completed; sanctification increases
gradually; hence remains imperfect.
In the main the
answer is correct, but insufficient to meet present error. It is shallow,
external, and incomplete, makes too much of righteous-making and holy-making,
while it does not consider righteousness and holiness, a correct. idea of which
is absolutely necessary for the clear understanding of justification and
sanctification.
Let us examine these fundamental ideas, first, in God Himself. It becomes
evident at once that the words, "Our God is righteous," Impress us
otherwise than. "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord I"
The latter
impresses us with the feeling that the name of Jehovah is infinitely exalted
above the low level of this impure and sinful life; we discover a distance
between Him and ourselves which, as it widens in more transcendent holiness,
casts us back into ourselves as impure creatures, while it causes His Being to
be resplendent in the light unapproachable. If the angels exalting His holiness
cover their faces with their wings, how much more ought we sinful men consider
it with covered face and in godly fear! "The Lord is of purer eyes than to
behold evil," impresses us with the deep sense of God's unspeakable sensitiveness,
which is so keen that even the faintest suggestion of sin or impurity arouses
in Him such antipathy that He can not bear the sight of it.
But guilt
is out of the question. In the presence of the divine holiness we do not feel
guilty, but are overwhelmed by the consciousness of our utter uncleanness and
wickedness. Even among men we do not always feel quite satisfied with
ourselves. Our brother's warmer zeal and love often make us feel ashamed. Yet
the feeling does not amount to loathing of self. But in the presence of the
holiness of God we feel at once with Isaiah our spiritual impurity, and are
inclined to cry for a live coal from the altar to sanctify our lips; and the
word "loathing of self" is not too strong to express our feeling as
we prostrate ourselves before the holiness of the Lord Jehovah.
This establishes
the antithesis at once. The divine holiness in its most exalted aspect affects
us, not with fear of punishment, or with anguish, because we owe a debt that we
can not pay; but with dissatisfaction with ourselves, with abhorrence of
our uncleanness, and contempt for our righteousnesses which are as filthy rags.
It makes us feel, not our guilt, but our sin; not our condemnation,
but our hopeless wickedness; it does not crush us under the penalty of
the law, but it causes us to be consumed by our impurity; it does not overwhelm
us by righteousness, but it uncovers our unholiness and inward corruption.
But the divine righteousness affects us altogether
differently. It does not impress me with the transcendence of His exalted
Covenant name as the divine holiness; but in God's hand it oppresses me,
pursues me, leaves me no rest, seizes me, and breaks me to pieces under its
weight. His holiness makes the soul thirst after holiness, and with sorrow we see
His majesty depart. But His righteousness antagonizes
the soul, which does not desire it. but struggles to escape from
it.
Sometimes it
seems different, but only seemingly so. Godly men in the Old and New Covenants
frequently invoke the divine righteousness. "Shall not the judge of all
the earth do right?" This divine upholding of the right is the strength,
the prospect, and the consolation of His oppressed people. This is why in the
closing article of their Confession our fathers cry for the day of judgment,
when as the righteous judge He shall destroy all His enemies and ours. Yet the
difference is only seeming. In this case the divine right is directed against
others, not ourselves; but the effect is the same. It is His people's prayer
and hope that the divine right pursue those enemies, and deal with them
according to their deserts.
Hence God's
righteousness impresses us, first, with the fact of His authority over us; that
not we, but He must determine what is right, and how we ought to be;
that all our opposition is vain, for His power will enforce the right; hence
that we must suffer the effects of that righteousness.
But it is not
merely the power of the right that impresses us, neither the
consciousness that we are taken and judged, but much more, that we are taken
and judged righteously. And not this arbitrarily; on the contrary, we
feel inwardly that the divine might is right, and therefore may and must
overpower us.
Hence the divine
righteousness includes the creature's acknowledgment: "The prerogative to
determine the right is not mine, but His." And not only this, but our
souls are deeply conscious that God's decisions are not only right and good,
but absolutely righteous and superlatively good.
The divine righteousness brings us face to face with a direct working of the
divine sovereignty. All earthly sovereignty is but a feeble reflection
of the divine; but sufficiently clear to show us its fundamental features. A
sovereign is deemed sufficiently wise to see how things ought to be; and qualified
to determine that so they shall be; and powerful to resist him who dares
be otherwise. This applies also to the King of kings; or rather, it applies,
not to Him also, but to Him alone. He alone is the Wisdom
with absolute certainty to choose, and according to this choice to see how
everything must be to be its best. He alone is the holy Qualified One,
according to this to determine how everything must be. And He is the alone-Mighty to condemn and destroy what
dares be otherwise.
And this reveals
the deepest features of the contrast. The holiness of God relates to His Being,;
the righteousness of God to His Sovereignty. Or, His righteousness
touches His relation and position to the creature; His holiness
points to His own inward Being.
He that is holy, let him be holy
still." -Rev. xxii. 11.
THE divine Righteousness, having reference to the divine
Sovereignty, in one sense does not manifest itself until God enters into
relationship with the creatures. He was glorious in holiness from all eternity,
for man's creation did not modify His Being; but His righteousness could not be
displayed before creation, because right presupposes two beings sustaining the
jural relation.
An exile on an
uninhabited island can not be righteous nor do righteously; he can not even
conceive of the jural relation so long as there is -no man present whose rights
he must respect, or who can deny his rights. The arrival of other men will
necessarily create the jural relation between him and them. But so long as he
remains alone, he may be holy or unholy, but he can not be said to be righteous
or unrighteous. In like manner it may be said of God that before creation He
was holy, but could not display His righteousness simply because there were no
creatures sustaining toward Him the jural relation. But immediately after the
creation the display of righteousness became possible.
Still the
illustration can be applied to God only to a certain extent. Essentially God is
not alone, but Triune in persons; hence there is between the Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit a mutual relation. This relation, being the highest,
tenderest, and most intimate, contains from eternity the completest expression
of righteousness. And even with reference to the creature, the divine
righteousness did not originate until after the creation, but finds perfect
expression in the eternal counsel. That counsel not only determines every
possible jural relation between the creatures and the Creator, and the
creatures themselves, but indicates also the means whereby this relation must
be restored when broken or disturbed.
Hence His
righteousness is as eternal as His Being; yet, in order to express clearly the
difference between holiness and righteousness, we may say that as His holiness
was glorious from eternity, so is His righteousness displayed and exercised
only in time, i.e., since the
creature began to exist. It did not originate then, but became perceptible
then. Whatever may be said on the subject, the fundamental difference remains
that God is holy even though considered alone by Himself; while His righteousness begins to radiate when He
is considered in relation to His creatures.
God is holy
essentially; before the least impurity existed, there was in Him vital pressure
to repel all foreign mingling with His Being. But only as Sovereign
could He determine the right, maintain the violated right, and execute
righteousness upon the violater.
In its
fundamental features this applies to us as men. Even in us righteousness is
entirely different from holiness; the former has exclusive reference to our
relation to and position before God, man, and angel; while holiness refers, not
to any relation, but to the quality of our inner being. We speak of
righteousness only when it concerns our relation to God or man. Noah is said to
have been a righteous man "in his generation," which indicates not
his essential quality, but his relation to others.
Righteousness
implies right, which is unthinkable but as existing between two persons in
connection with the qualification of either one or of a third to determine that
right. Hence man's righteousness with reference to God has a twofold aspect:
First, it implies the
acknowledgment of God's sovereign qualifications to determine man's relation to
God and man.
Second, it implies reverence
for the divine laws and ordinances enacted with regard to man's service of God.
A man may keep
strictly some of these ordinances, not from the motive of reverence, but
because he is compelled to approve them. In some respects he gives God His due;
but His position is wrong. He fails to honor God as his sovereign Ruler, to
acknowledge God as God, and to bow before His majesty.
Or he may reverence
the divine authority in the abstract, but in practise constantly rob God of His
right.
Therefore original righteousness, which
has reference to man's status before God as a creature, and derived
righteousness, which refers to the act of honoring the divine ordinances, are
two different things. Both are righteousness--i.e., the act of occupying the
position divinely ordained. But the first refers to our personal standing in
the position determined by God; the second to the act of conforming our thoughts,
words, and deeds to His divine requirements.
It is
unnecessary to speak particularly of righteousness with reference to men.
Whatever we do in relation to them is righteous or unrighteous according to its
conformity or non-conformity to the divine ordinance, and every transgression
against the neighbor becomes sin only because it is in non-conformity to the
righteousness of God.
Briefly, man's
righteousness consists of two parts:
First, that his status be what
God has determined.
Second, that his thoughts,
words, and deeds be conformed to the divine ordinances. Hence our
righteousness need not be the product of our own soul's labor. The
original righteousness of Adam and Eve lacked nothing, although they had not
done anything to it personally. They simply stood in the right position before
God--a position not self-assumed, but divinely determined. And so may the
right, after it is disturbed, be restored independently of the violator, by a
third person. The question is not how the right relation was restored,
but whether it agrees again with God's sovereign will.
He that delivers
a debtor from imprisonment by paying his debts restores him to his right
relation to his former creditors, even though the prisoner himself did not pay
a farthing of the debt. Because righteousness has reference to mutual
relations, the right is satisfied as soon as the disturbed relation is restored
and the lost position recovered. How it was accomplished is immaterial.
This gives us a
deeper insight into the profound significance of the cross, and why it is that
our righteousness can not be increased nor decreased, although it does not
affect our essential character.
Entirely
different is the soul's holiness, which touches directly the quality of person
and character; as our ancient theologians correctly expressed it:
"Justification acts for man; sanctification inheres in man."
The ungodly is justified, ie., the very moment that he believes; before
sanctification has begun to operate in him, he knows that he stands before God perfectly
right. He is not merely beginning to be right; partly right, to be a little
more right to-morrow, and perfectly right when he enters heaven; but perfectly
right now, henceforth, and forevermore. He is righted not only for the present
and for all eternity, but also for the past. He is assured of standing before
God in flawless right, as though be had never been wrong, nor ever could be
wrong again.
Hence the
consciousness of being justified is instantaneous and at once complete, and can
not be increased nor decreased. And this is possible because this righteousness
has nothing to do with his being, but has exclusive reference to the relation
in which be sees himself placed. This relation was miserable and wholly
unrighteous; but another, outside of himself, has restored that relation and
made it what it ought to be. Hence he stands right, without any reference
whatever to his personal being. This is the deep significance of the confession
that he who is justified is always an ungodly person.
But this is not
the case in regard to man's holiness; that touches his person and can act be
effected outside of his inward being.