Grace Restores Nature in the Theology of Herman Bavinck

Herman Bavinck towers head and shoulders above most theologians, though he is only beginning to be more widely read in English. His chief accomplishment was the four-volume masterpiece, Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, originally published in Dutch from 1895 to 1899. The English translation, Reformed Dogmatics, was completed in 2008 and is a treasure-trove of theological reflection.  

The melody running through all four movements of Bavinck’s theological symphony is the happy theme that “grace restores nature.” In Bavinck’s own words, “Grace serves, not to take up humans into a supernatural order, but to free them from sin. Grace is opposed not to nature, only to sin . . . Grace restores nature and takes it to its highest pinnacle.”^[1]

Bavinck understood that God’s ultimate purpose is not to rescue human beings from the created world by releasing us from our bodies and relocating us to heaven, but rather to renew the fallen creation and reestablish God’s kingdom on earth, with human beings as his restored image-bearers. The goal, then, is not escape, but recreation, renewal, and redemption.

The greatest proof for this claim is Christ’s resurrection. Bavinck said, “The bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead is conclusive proof that Christianity does not adopt a hostile attitude towards anything human or natural, but intends only to deliver creation from all that is sinful, and to sanctify it completely.”^[2] Following Bavinck, the story of salvation might be plotted with several “form” words: “The form (forma) given in creation, was deformed by sin in order to be entirely reformed again in the sphere of grace.”^[3]

Such a perspective will protect us from both worldliness on one hand and otherworldliness on the other. “We continually err on the side of the right or on the side of the left,” said Bavinck. “On the one side looms the danger of worldliness, on the other side that of otherworldliness. Often the Christian life lurches on an unsteady path between the two. And yet we hold fast to the conviction that the Christian and the human are not in conflict with one another . . . The Christian is the true man, on every front and in every domain. Christianity is not opposed to nature, but to sin. Christ came, not to destroy the works of the Father, but only those of the devil.”^[4]

When it comes to eschatology, Bavinck looked for the “renewal of the world . . . [not] a second, brand-new creation but a re-creation of the existing world. God’s honor consists precisely in the fact that he redeems and renews the same humanity, the same world, the same heaven, and the same earth that have been corrupted and polluted by sin. Just as anyone in Christ is a new creation in whom the old has passed away and everything has become new (2 Cor. 5:17), so also this world passes away in its present form as well, in order out of its womb, at God’s word of power, to give birth and being to a new world.”^[5] In fact, the final chapter of Bavinck’s four-volume project is entitled “The Renewal of Creation.”

Bavinck would have agreed with the hymn-writer Isaac Watts:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make his blessings flow

Far as the curse is found.^[6]

End Notes

---

[1] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 3: Sin and Salvation in Christ, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006) 577.

[2] Herman Bavinck, De offerande des lofs: overdenkingen voor en na de toelating tot het heilige avondmaal (Gravenhage: J.C. De Mildt, 1907), 52. Quoted by Jan Veenhof, trans., Albert M. Wolters, Nature and Grace in Herman Bavinck (Sioux Center, IA: Dordt College Press, 2006) 21. See also Dane C. Ortlund, ““Created Over a Second Time” or “Grace Restoring Nature”? Edwards and Bavinck on the Heart of Christian

Salvation” in The Bavinck Review 3 (2012): 9–29. Available online at: https://bavinckinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/TBR3a-Ortlund1.pdf Accessed March 18, 2016.

[3] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 2: God and Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006) 574. 

[4] Quoted in Veenhof, “Nature and Grace in Bavinck.”

[5] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 4: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, 717.

[6] Isaac Watts, “Joy to the World,” 1719.

3 Reasons Why Christ's Ascension Matters to You

The Ascension, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1636

The ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven is one of the most important events recorded in the New Testament. But though it occupies a vital place in Scripture, it doesn’t get a lot of attention today, even among Christians.  My guess is that you probably haven’t read any books about it or heard many sermons on it. Usually we focus on the crucifixion and the resurrection. But the ascension is pivotal, especially in the writings of Luke.

Luke wrote a two-part history of the origins of Christianity. Volume one is the gospel that bears his name. Volume two is the book of Acts. And the ascension was so important for Luke, that he ended volume one with it (Luke 24:50-51), begins volume two by reporting it again (Acts 1:9-11), and then refers back to it several times in the book of Acts.

As Joel Green, a New Testament scholar who specializes in Luke’s writings, comments, “Luke presents the exaltation (i.e. resurrection & ascension) as the salvific event.”[1]

Why is that?

For one thing, the ascension accounts for why the appearances of Jesus during the forty days following his resurrection ceased. The ascension also foreshadowed the final event in salvation history: Jesus’ personal, physical, glorious return.

“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

But there’s more to it than that. For the ascension of Jesus was also the climatic, crowning event of his exaltation, and the necessary precursor to his continuing work through the Spirit and the church.

In Acts 2, the Apostle Peter reflects on Jesus’ resurrection and ascension in light of Psalm 16 and Psalm 110, and tells us that Jesus was exalted to “the right hand of God.” When we trace this phrase through Acts we see three things that the ascended and enthroned Christ does for his church.

1. The ascended and enthroned Christ pours out his Spirit on the church.

Jesus himself had told his disciples that it was good for him to go away, because only then would he send them another Helper, the Spirit of truth (John 16:7-16). And that’s exactly what happened on the Day of Pentecost, ten days after Jesus’ ascension. The Spirit descended on the church with power, inaugurating a new age in the history of salvation.

That’s why Peter connects Jesus’ exaltation and the outpouring of the Spirit in Acts 2:33:

Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.

2. The ascended and enthroned Christ applies the blessings of salvation.

Having accomplished redemption through his suffering on the cross, the risen and exalted Christ now applies the salvation he has won, by granting the gifts of repentance and forgiveness of sins.

As Peter says in Acts 5:31:

God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

3. The ascended and enthroned Christ cares for his suffering people as they bear witness to him.

We see this in Acts 7, when Stephen becomes the first martyr of the Christian church. 

But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:55-56)

All of this should give us great encouragement! When feel weak in ourselves, Luke reminds us that the exalted Christ has given us his Spirit, who equips us with the power, boldness, and courage we need to accomplish our mission.

When we feel cynical about evangelism and fear no one will respond to our message, Luke reminds us that the exalted Christ is the Leader and Savior who grants repentance and forgiveness of sins. He is the King who seeks and saves the lost. That means we don’t have to manipulate and that we can be confident that some people will in fact respond.

And when we’re paralyzed by fear at the thought of the risks entailed in taking Jesus to the hard to reach nations and neighborhoods of the world, and tremble when in contemplating potential rejection or persecution, Luke reminds us that the exalted Christ cares for his suffering people and stands to welcome them home.

This post was originally written for Christianity.com. 

Notes

[1] Joel B. Green, ‘Salvation to the End of the Earth’ (Acts 13:47): God as Saviour in the Acts of the Apostles” in I. Howard Marshall & David Peterson, ed., Witness to the Gospel: The Theology of Acts(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998), p. 95.

Assurance: Know You are Saved

A few months ago I sat down with Todd Friel and Bob Glenn for a discussion on assurance of salvation. The videos are now available for purchase. You can order the DVD or download the video and study guide at Wretched radio's website. 

Every Christian experiences doubt to some degree. But where is the line between doubt and unbelief? 

Perhaps you are one of the millions of Christians who has been horrified at a thought like this:

- I don't have a conversion story, I must not be saved.

- I sin too much so I can't be saved.

- I don't pray or read the Bible enouugh, I couldn't possibly be saved.

- I think God is mad at me.

- I just don't think God can forgive me.

- I am mad that I keep sinning.

- I am depressed.

- I have failed too many times as a parent.

- I have a nagging sense of guilt.

If you fear that you might not actually be a Christian, join Todd Friel and Pastors RW Glenn and Brian Hedges as they gently lead you through the process of examining yourself to see if you are in the faith. 

Your Christian walk should be joy filled, not worry laden. Working through this issue can be challenging, but the process is worth the effort as you will know for certain that you are His child.

Saint Augustine on Rightly Ordered Love

St. Augustine by Sandro Botticelli

In his City of God, Saint Augustine defined virtue as “rightly ordered love” (City of God, XV.23). The right ordering of love was a running theme in Augustine’s life and writings. In one of his clearest explanations, he said:

But living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things: to love things, that is to say, in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, or have a greater love for what should be loved less, or an equal love for things that should be loved less or more, or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved equally. (On Christian Doctrine, I.27-28)

Augustine’s conception of rightly ordered loves has prompted a lot of substantial and creative theological reflection over the centuries. In Purgatorio, for example, Dante conceived of the seven deadly sins in terms of disordered love. The proud, envious and wrathful were guilty of misdirected love; the slothful were guilty of deficient love; and the avaricious, gluttonous, and lustful were guilty of excessive love. While I don’t believe in purgatory, these characterizations of sin in relationship to love are still helpful. If virtue is love rightly ordered in our hearts, it stands to reason that vice is the opposite.

This understanding of virtue and vice meshes with Scripture’s insistence that love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom 13:8; Gal 5:14; James 2:8). Augustine called virtues “the various movements of love,” and described the four cardinal virtues in terms of love: 

I hold that virtue is nothing other than perfect love of God. Now, when it is said that virtue has a fourfold division, as I understand it, this is said according to the various movements of love…We may, therefore, define these virtues as follows: temperance is love preserving itself entire and incorrupt for God; courage is love readily bearing all things for the sake of God; justice is love serving only God, and therefore ruling well everything else that is subject to the human person; prudence is love discerning well between what helps it toward God and what hinders it. (On the Morals of the Catholic Church, XV.25)

Beneath Augustine’s conception of virtue as rightly ordered love was a foundational conviction about the nature of reality. Augustine believed that the summum bonum, the highest good, was God himself and that all other goods are lesser goods that flow from his hand, intended to lead us back to him. In the Confessions, for example, Augustine says:

For there is a joy that is not given to those who do not love you, but only to those who love you for your own sake. You yourself are their joy. Happiness is to rejoice in you and for you and because of you. This is happiness and there is no other. Those who think that there is another kind of happiness look for joy elsewhere, but theirs is not true joy. (Confessions, X.22)

Within this framework, sin springs from hearts that neglect God as the Supreme Good and seek their happiness in lesser goods. But such people ignore the order and nature of reality. This is the heart of evil: to prefer a lesser good over the Supreme Good, to worship and serve the creature rather the Creator (Rom 1:25).

These are thy gifts; they are good, for thou in thy

goodness has made them.

Nothing in them is from us, save for sin when,

neglectful of order,

We fix our love on the creature, instead of on thee,

 the Creator.  (City of God, XV.22)

Augustine’s ethical system is an outgrowth of this conviction. Echoes of this are everywhere in his writings. Commenting on one of the Psalms, he writes:

He who made all said, Ask what thou wilt: yet nothing wilt thou find more precious, nothing wilt thou find better, than Himself who made all things. Him seek, who made all things, and in Him and from Him shalt thou have all things which He made. All things are precious, because all are beautiful; but what more beautiful than He? Strong are they; but what stronger than He? And nothing would He give thee rather than Himself. If aught better thou hast found, ask it. If thou ask aught else, thou wilt do wrong to Him, and harm to thyself, by preferring to Him that which He made, when He would give to thee Himself who made. (Commentary on the Psalms, Psalm 35.9, in NPNF, 1.8.81)

I’m sure that I have not done justice to Augustine’s theology of love and ethics. A lifetime could be devoted to exploring this theme in Augustine! Nevertheless, I think Augustine’s understanding of sin in relationship to love, and love in relationship to the hierarchy of goods, helps us in at least four ways: 

1. First of all, it tightly tethers our thinking about ethics to the heart. Behavior matters, but behavior is always a reflection of what’s going on in the heart – of what we love. This means that we can never settle for mere outward compliance with rules. Our approach to spiritual transformation must always be inside out. If we would change our ways, we must first order our loves.

2. Augustine’s approach allows us to embrace all created goods in their proper order. Other goods do not need to be rejected, but rather submitted, put in order, held in their proper place. Consider, for example, how Augustine discusses the good of physical beauty:

Now physical beauty, to be sure, is a good created by God, but it is a temporal good, very low in the scale of goods; and if it is loved in preference to God, the eternal, internal, and sempiternal Good, that love is as wrong as the miser’s love for gold, with the abandonment of justice, though the fault is in the man, not in the gold. This is true of everything created; though it is good, it can be loved in the right way or in the wrong way – in the right way, that is, when the proper order is kept, in the wrong way when that order is upset. (City of God, XV.22)

3. Thirdly, this means that one of our aims in Christian living should be learning to love and enjoy God through the things he has made. This is the only way to avoid idolatry. If we allow our love to terminate on a lesser good, our love for it becomes ultimate and therefore central. In Augustine’s own words, “He loves Thee too little who loves anything together with Thee, which he loves not for Thy sake.” (Confessions, X.29)

So, how do we learn this? How do we enjoy a created thing without making it an idol? How do we, to use a phrase from C. S. Lewis, chase the sunbeam back up to the sun?

I think the answer is that we must trace the specific features of the things we enjoy back to their source in God. Created goods are temporal, finite streams that flow to us from the fountain of God’s uncreated and unending goodness. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).

So when you enjoy the taste of food, remember that the Creator of food is Christ himself, the Bread of Life, and then taste and see that he is good. When you are mesmerized by the enchanting sound of music, remember that this is but an echo of the original Voice, whose love song birthed creation.

Tell me. Love, if thou canst, anything which He hath not made. Look round upon the whole creation, see whether in any place thou art held with the birdlime of desire, and hindered from loving the Creator, except it be by that very thing which He hath Himself created, whom thou despisest. But why dost thou love those things, except because they are beautiful? Can they be as beautiful as He by whom they were made? Thou admirest these things, because thou seest not Him: but through those things which thou admirest, love Him whom thou seest not. (Commentary on the Psalms, on Psalm 80:11 in NPNF, 1.8.389)

4. Finally, Augustine's writings constantly remind us that learning to love God in everything is a work of grace. We cannot order our own hearts. That’s why every sentence in Augustine’s Confessions is a prayer. He had learned first hand how absolutely dependent he was on God’s grace. That’s why he prayed,

O Love ever burning, never quenched! O Charity, my God, set me on fire with your love! You command me to be continent. Give me the grace to do as you command, and command me to do what you will! (Confessions, X.29).

And that’s why we also must pray with Augustine, “Set love in order in me.” (City of God, XV.22).

Is it possible for someone to lose their salvation in Jesus Christ?

Christianity.com: Is it possible for someone to lose their salvation in Jesus Christ?-Brian Hedges from christianitydotcom2 on GodTube.

Rescue Your Prayer Life

What does the doctrine of the Trinity have to do with the practice of prayer? Well, the Trinity is something that all Christians believe, but often find difficult to understand, much less explain. And prayer is something that all Christians do, but rarely practice with the consistency and delight they know they should. In the realms of Christian doctrine, the Trinity ranks among the most difficult. Among the disciplines of Christian living, prayer tops the list as most challenging.

But there's another connection between prayer and Trinitarian theology that helps us better understand the doctrine of the Trinity and make progress in our prayer lives. The connection is in many passages, but most succinctly in Ephesians 2:18 where Paul says, "For through him [Christ] we both have access in one Spirit to the Father." This sentence is pregnant with significance for understanding who God is and how we can come to him.

But first, some definitions: What do Christians mean when they talk about the Trinity? Essentially, three things. You might think of these as three strong pillars on which the doctrine of the Trinity rests.

• First, we mean that there is only one God. "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4).
• Second, this one God exists in three distinct persons, or personalities: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
• Third, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each fully, equally, and eternally God.

Deny one of those statements, and we get into trouble. If we deny the first and say that there are actually three gods, then we are tri-theists, rather than monotheists. More commonly, people say that there is one God who acts in three different modes, or manifests himself in three different ways, or wears three different hats: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (much as I myself am a son, a husband, and a father).  But this idea (formally known as modalism and condemned by both Protestants and Catholics), denies the second pillar, and dozens of texts, that affirm the distinct personalities of Father, Son, and Spirit.  Others, especially among the cults, teach that the Son and/or the Spirit are somehow inferior to the Father, being less than fully, equally, and eternally God.

But Scripture leads us to affirm all three pillars. There is one God, who exists in three Persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and these three are each fully, equally, and eternally God.

So, what does this have to do with prayer? Well, prayer is essentially talking with God. But communication with God requires access to his presence. And Ephesians 2:18 shows us that our access to God involves all three Persons of the Trinity.  

• We have "access…to the Father."  
• But that access to the Father is "through him" - Jesus Christ, God's Son, who reconciles us to the   Father (see Ephesians 2:11).
• But notice further that our access to God is "in one Spirit". This means that our prayers are enabled and empowered by the Spirit.

So, when we pray we come to Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. Prayer is communion with the Three-in-One God.

Now, how can this rescue your prayer life?

Sometimes we hesitate to pray, because of unbelief. We're not sure God really cares about our needs. But this is to forget that we're praying to our Father, who already knows our needs and invites us to come to him as little children.

At other times, we wrongly think we've got to manufacture certain feelings or emotions in order to pray. But Paul says that we have access to God in the Spirit. The Spirit is the one who enlivens our hearts and enables to us to pray.

All too often, we feel compelled to pray from a sense of duty. (Good Christians pray, therefore, if I want to be a good Christian, I should pray.) Or, we're held back from prayer by a sense of guilt. (Only good Christians can really come to God. I haven't been very good lately, so I'm not worthy enough for God to hear my prayers.) Worst of all, sometimes we can feel confident about prayer because we've been keeping our Christian noses clean!

But, don't you see? This is self-reliance and legalism. This kind of thinking and praying, neglects the work of the Son in reconciling us to the Father. When we live and pray like this, we're not coming through Jesus. We're coming on the basis of our own merits. And there is no access to God that way. But when we remember that our access to God is through Christ alone, then we can come boldly to the throne of grace in the confidence that God will forgive our sins and hear our prayers, for Jesus' sake.

This article was written for Christianity.com.

A Double Grace: John Calvin on Justification and Sanctification

John Calvin, the sixteenth-century Reformer of Geneva, is probably talked about more often than he is read. This is unfortunate. Christian readers who are willing to risk his Institutes of the Christian Religion will discover a treasury of Christ-centered theology that is precise in exegesis and lyrical in expression.

Calvin may be at his most helpful in Book III of the Institutes, on “The Way We Receive the Grace of Christ.” I have benefited much from Calvin’s reflections on grace and salvation. Here is a powerful summary statement:

Christ was given to us by God’s generosity, to be grasped and possessed by us in faith. By partaking of him, we principally receive a double grace: namely, that being reconciled to God through Christ’s blamelessness, we may have in heaven instead of a Judge a gracious Father; and secondly, that sanctified by Christ’s spirit we may cultivate blamelessness and purity of life.[i]

Grasping Christ by faith, we receive a “double grace.” We receive justification and sanctification.

Justification: Reconciled through Christ’s Blamelessness

When we grasp Jesus with the hand of faith, we are “reconciled to God through Christ’s blamelessness.” This is clearly Calvin’s meaning, for he goes on to say:

Justified by faith is he who, excluded from the righteousness of works, grasps the righteousness of Christ through faith, and clothed in it, appears in God’s sight not as a sinner but as a righteous man. Therefore, we explain justification simply as the acceptance with which God receives us into his favor as righteous men. And we say that it consists in the remission of sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.[ii]

Calvin’s definition is squarely rooted in Paul’s declaration from 2 Corinthians.

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5:18-21, ESV)

The only means of reconciliation with God is in the doing and dying of Jesus on our behalf. He lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died. God treated Jesus like a sinner, so he could treat us like Jesus.

The Father accepts us as righteous before Him not because of anything we do, and not even because of anything He has done in us, but solely because of what Jesus Christ has done for us.

Sanctification: The Cultivation of a Blameless Life

But there’s more. In Christ we receive a double grace. We are not only “reconciled through Christ’s blamelessness,” we are also “sanctified by Christ’s spirit [that] we may cultivate blamelessness and purity of life.” Justification is joined with sanctification.

Calvin’s preferred term for sanctification was “repentance.”

Repentance can thus well be defined: it is the true turning of our life to God, a turning that arises from a pure and earnest fear of him; and it consists in the mortification of our flesh and of the old man, and in the vivification of the Spirit.[iii]

Don’t let the words “mortification” and “vivification” discourage you! Calvin was simply pointing out the negative and positive dimensions to sanctified Christian living. Mortification is putting sin to death. Vivification is living to righteousness by the power of the Spirit.

In the language of Scripture,

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. (Rom. 6:11-13, ESV)

Die to sin and live to Christ!

Distinct, yet Inseparable

Justification and sanctification are distinct. Yet they cannot be separated. Each depends on God’s free grace, flowing to us from the saving work of Christ on our behalf. Both blessings are integral to salvation and are experienced by all Christians. You cannot have one without the other.

In Calvin’s words:

Since faith embraces Christ, as offered to us by the Father [cf. John 6:29] – that is, since he is offered not only for righteousness, forgiveness of sins, and peace, but also for sanctification [cf. 1 Cor. 1:30] and the fountain of the water of life [John 7:38; cf. ch. 4:14] – without a doubt, no one can duly know him without at the same time apprehending the sanctification of the Spirit. Or, if anyone desires some plainer statement, faith rests upon the knowledge of Christ. And Christ cannot be known apart from the sanctification of his Spirit. It follows that faith can in no wise be separated from a devout disposition.[iv]

Simply put, you can’t take Jesus in slices. If you receive him as a justifying Savior, you must also receive him as a sanctifying Lord. Justification and sanctification belong together.

But there are important distinctions to make. The two are joined, but they are not the same.

* Justification is an event, while sanctification is a process.

* Justification is a legal transaction in which God, as our Divine Judge declares us righteous before him – absolved of all guilt, and counted in the right in his divine tribunal. Sanctification is an internal work of God’s Spirit in which our hearts are changed, cleansed, and purified.

* Justification affects our status, changing our standing before God. For Christ’s sake, we are accepted, considered righteous, even though we are not. Justification is something God does for us. Sanctification affects our hearts, changing our inner being, our nature. By Christ’s Spirit, our hearts are cleansed, made new, and transformed, so that we begin to look more and more like Jesus. Sanctification is something God does in us.

* Justification is God’s work alone. Nothing we have done or can do contributes to it in the least. Sanctification is God’s work, as well. But we must cooperate with him. Our responses and choices can either accelerate or impede the progress of our growth in holiness.

* All believers are justified and no one is more or less justified than any other. All stand before God solely by the perfect obedience of Christ. All believers are being sanctified. But the degree of holiness varies in person to person.

Double Grace, Double Cure

Justification and sanctification – the double grace God gives us through Christ. Or in the words of Augustus Toplady:

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee; Let the water and the blood, From thy wounded side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Save from wrath and make me pure.[v]

End Notes

[i] John Calvin, John T. McNeil, ed., Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960) III.xi.1, p. 725.
[ii] Ibid., III.xi.2, p. 726-7.
[iii] Ibid., III.iii.5, p. 597.
[iv] Ibid., III.ii.8 (p. 552-3)
[v] Augustus M. Toplady, “Rock of Ages,” 1776.