The World's Ruined: Sanctification & The Means of Grace

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Sanctification & The Means of Grace - Michael Horton...

Here is a pretty accurate transcription of Dr. Michael Horton giving a definition for sanctification in response to Dr. R. Scott Clark's question on Office Hours. Both men are professors at Westminster Seminary California:

Sanctification is the process of being made holy, being cut-off or separated from that which is common - not necessarily just that which is dirty or sinful but of taking something out of the category of common or ordinary an associating it with God himself.

God, ultimately, is holy in a qualitatively different way than anything that he makes holy. He may make us holy, but we aren't holy essentially as God is holy. So God, primordially, is the one who is set apart from everything else. He is the creator. We are the creature.

Set apart, consecrated or holy use - We have been set apart by the blood of Christ. And by faith and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, by union with Christ, we have been set apart from death and sin and the dominion of sin and death; and have been transferred into the kingdom of God and his dear Son...

A little later Dr. Horton addresses the word grace:

Grace is not [a] something. Grace is God being favorable. It's God's favor. It's also God's gift. God no longer looks on me as an outcast, as a rebel, as a wicked sinner who must be condemned. He looks on me as his son, as a co-heir with his natural son, Jesus Christ... taken me into his family. He has justified me. He is sanctifying me. He will glorify me one day. That is his favor, due to his favor, his grace.

His grace is the motive and his grace is also the gift, the gift of justification, the gift of sanctification, the gift of his Spirit who also sanctifies us. That gift is not some thing. It is a person, namely Jesus Christ with all his benefits and the Holy Spirit as the deposit, indwelling me, guaranteeing my final redemption.

Dr. Horton continued, explaining that God's ordinary way of communicating his grace to his people is through ordinary means. To communicate his grace God has always used, and does today, creaturely means such as the spoken Word, human ministers of the gospel, bread and wine, the written Word. He does that rather than ordinarily working through the extraordinary, i.e. immediate and direct acts of his Spirit within individuals. This is borne out by the scriptural record. It's not that God can't work in extraordinary ways, for on occasion he does. But rather, he has shown himself as the God who has chosen to ordinarily communicate his favor to his people through common means of his creation. This may sound foreign to many Christians today because the extraordinary view has gained such predominance in much of the church over the last 100-150 years.

Listen to Part One here!

4 comments:

MarkFebruary 26, 2014 at 4:06 PM
I wonder if this guy would like a conversation with fellow evangelical Mihe Horton?

http://katiecouric.com/videos/who-is-carl-lentz/

One evangelical option is to say that Jesus never talked about morality and behavior modification but only about how your "heart" feels. But Horton correctly points out that the gospel is about Christ's satisfaction of the law. If there is no law, we don't need any gospel.
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jjjsnc 302March 1, 2015 at 9:40 AM
What does Horton mean by a "FINAL" Redemption?
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jjjsnc 302March 1, 2015 at 9:41 AM
What does Horton mean by a "FINAL" Redemption?
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The Mere Mercy of God

This calling of Abram is a signal instance of the gratuitous mercy of God. Had Abram been beforehand with God by any merit of works? Had Abram come to him, or conciliated his favour? Nay, we must ever recall to mind that he was plunged in the filth of idolatry; and God freely stretches forth his hand to bring back the wanderer. He deigns to open his sacred mouth, that he may show to one, deceived by Satan's wiles, the way of salvation.

But this is done designedly, in order that the manifestation of the grace of God might become the more conspicuous in his person. For he is an example of the vocation of us all; for in him we perceive, that, by the mere mercy of God, those things that are not are raised from nothing, in order that they may begin to be something.

-John Calvin, Genesis, (Banner of Truth), p. 343

"Nor the faith also does not shut out the justice of our good works, necessarily to be done afterwards of duty towards GOD (for we are most bounden to serve GOD, in doing good deeds, commanded by him in his holy Scripture, all the days of our life): But it excludes them, so that we may not do them to this intent, to be made good by doing of them. For all the good works that we can do, be imperfect, and therefore not able to deserve our justification: but our justification doth come freely by the mere mercy of God..." (Thomas Cranmer - Homily of Justification)

Justification-Sanctification/Law-Gospel

In short, I affirm, that not by our own merit but by faith alone, are both our persons and works justified; and that the justification of works depends on the justification of the person, as the effect on the cause. (John Calvin, Acts of the Council of Trent with the Antidote)

The law guides, directs, commands, all things that are against the interest and rule of sin. It judgeth and condemneth both the things that promote it and the persons that do them; it frightens and terrifies the consciences of those who are under its dominion. But if you shall say unto it, “What then shall we do? this tyrant, this enemy, is too hard for us. What aid and assistance against it will you afford unto us? what power will you communicate unto its destruction?” Here the law is utterly silent, or says that nothing of this nature is committed unto it of God: nay, the strength it hath it gives unto sin for the condemnation of the sinner: “The strength of sin is the law.” But the gospel, or the grace of it, is the means and instrument of God for the communication of internal spiritual strength unto believers. By it do they receive supplies of the Spirit or aids of grace for the subduing of sin and the destruction of its dominion… (John Owen, A Treatise of the Dominion of Sin and Grace)