Justification: a Bible Study

Justification: a (very guided!) Bible Study for Protestants and Catholics, Comparing Biblical Evidence for the Protestant and Catholic Views


Outline:


I. Intro: The Protestant Critique: Catholicism Teaches a False Gospel
  A. Birth, and Life
  B. The Reformation as Context
  C. Catholics Say Grace Completes Nature
  D. Introducing the Critique
II. Horton: A Modern Protestant’s Protest
  A. The Problem With Catholicism (beginning with some Canons of Trent)
    1. Catholics Say You Must Cooperate With Grace
    2. Catholics Say You Are Changed in Justification
    3. Cooperation + Change = False Gospel
III. Response to Horton
  A. The Tenses of Salvation
    1. Past
    2. Ongoing
    3. Future
    4. Analysis
  B. Imagine Really Not Cooperating
  C. Are You Sure There’s No Change?
    1. The Greek Word: Primarily, “to make just”
    2. “Making Just” Fits in Romans
    3. The Catholic View: God’s Declarations Work!
    4. Two Analogies: Saving Drowners, Educating Illiterates
    5. But the Bible Says: There’s a Change!
      a. Verses About Change
      b. Analysis
    6. The Bible’s Strange ;-) Use of “Justified”
  D. The Testimony of the Negative
  E. A Note on Love and Fear
IV. Let’s Give Horton (and all Protestants) Their Due
V. A Backward Glance: How I Saw It As A Protestant
VI. Conclusion
Codae:
 1. Free Will
 2. Faith as a Voyage
 3. “Snow Falling on Dunghills:” A Meditation
 4. Rewards, Accolades, and Crowns


I. Intro: The Protestant Critique: Catholicism Teaches a False Gospel


 A. Birth, and Life


 A word of explanation. I became a Christian as a Protestant, and recently joined the Catholic Church. One thing always struck me, as a Calvinist, as strange about other branches of Protestantism (especially the Baptists!): there seemed to be a strange focus or emphasis on the new birth over the new life. It seemed to be essential to continue to talk about birth endlessly, and to maintain the strictest division, a kind of iron wall, between birth and life. For what is Christian life without good works? Nonexistent. Nonetheless, it was essential to realize and focus on the total difference between spiritual life (which has a lot to do with works, or what we do) and spiritual birth (which is by faith alone). Strange! For you are born in a brief period of time, but then the whole point of natural birth is to move into LIFE. Shouldn’t spiritual birth be the same? Birth is important, but isn’t life the bigger issue?


 B. The Reformation as Context


 Of course, it was not so strange. It had to do with “the article by which the Reformation stands or falls,” according to Luther: Justification by faith alone. Sola fide. There are no works involved in justification! This is the essential difference between Protestants and Catholics, so it had to be emphasized (by Calvinists too!). And, of course, St. Paul emphasized in Romans that we are saved by faith, not works—but it should be said that according to many scholars I have read, if anyone before Luther ever understood those passages in Romans the way Luther did, he didn’t say so in writing! (Robert Sungenis quotes Alister McGrath as saying Luther’s teaching was a “theological novum,” something completely new.) I stand open to correction on this claim—show me the pre-Lutheran writer who understood Romans this way, and I will stand corrected.


 C. Catholics Say Grace Completes Nature


 Catholicism has always said salvation is completely by grace (sola gratia), but to be saved, you must cooperate with grace. You do have free will. Everything you do you choose to do (within bounds—sometimes we are compelled to do things.) Catholics say that as part of being saved you must repent, fear God, resolve to do good, etc. You must do good works as part of “working out your salvation,” and you must repent and do penance if you sin again after being saved.


 D. Introducing the Critique


 Protestant writers condemned Catholic teaching on justification from the beginning. Luther and Calvin were searing in their critiques of Catholic theology, especially on this question of justification, and their main points have remained in use among many Protestants who contrast the two systems and ways. I’ve chosen a representative sample, I think, of a modern Protestant critiquing Catholic theology: Michael S. Horton, in an essay entitled “What Still Keeps Us Apart?” in the book Roman Catholicism. I think Horton’s understanding seems to mesh very nicely with the Westminster Confession of Faith definitions of justification, thus placing Horton in the mainstream of old-line Calvinist thinking. I’d be curious to hear if it differs from Luther. Here are Horton’s accusations:


II. Horton: A Modern Protestant’s Protest


 A. The Problem With Catholicism (beginning with some Canons of Trent)


 As part of his discussion, (below), Horton quotes the following canons from the Council of Trent, “canons concerning justification” (in the Sixth Session of the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent:


 9, which implies that repentance is necessary for justification,
11, which anathematizes anyone who “says that men are justified…by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ…to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost (Rom. 5:5), and remains in them…” [Trent defined this outpouring of love (=charity) in Romans 5:5 as part of justification.]
12, which again implies that repentance is necessary,
24, which anathematizes “anyone [who] says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works (ibid, ch. 10), but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained…”[note: Trent quotes Rev. 22:11, James 2:24, Rom. 6:13, 19 and other verses in support of this canon. The issue revolves around the definition of justification, see below.], (and 2 more canons I’m ignoring for now)


  1. Catholics Say You Must Cooperate With Grace


 Catholicism teaches that everyone must cooperate with grace to be saved. “To suggest that we are accepted by God on the basis of Christ’s righteousness and our cooperation—be it free will, obedience, love, charity, prayer, a good heart, whatever—is to deny the gospel.” (p. 256.) Horton condemns the Council of Trent because it stated “a person…can and must cooperate with grace” in justification. (p. 256, 257) “In other words, [in Catholic theology] men and women are accepted before God on the basis of their cooperation with God’s grace over the course of their lives, rather than on the basis of Christ’s finished work alone, received through faith alone, to the glory of God alone.” (p. 258)


  2. Catholics Say You Are Changed in Justification


 Catholicism teaches that justification changes sinners. When “Rome…combined the two concepts [of justification and sanctification] into one,” “this…rejects Paul’s whole point in Romans 4:1-5, that justification comes only to those who (a) are wicked and (b) stop working for it. God justifies the wicked as wicked, the sinner as sinner [emphasis in original]. That is the good news of the gospel, and the scandal of the Cross!” (p. 257) (As Luther said, after one is saved he is “simul iustus et peccator,” at once just and a sinner. He is also said to have compared us after salvation to “dunghills covered with snow.” Christ’s righteousness is just a white robe over our own filth. (I am not sure this is actually Luther's idea, although it is not an unusual image for most Protestants today.) God chooses to see Christ’s righteousness covering us, because of His sacrifice, and accepts it as ours, instead of our actual filth—but we are not changed until later, gradually, in the separate process of sanctification.) (A note on the Catholic position: the Catholic teaching is that “initial justification” occurs at baptism (by the water and the Spirit!), which actually cleanses us from original sin and, if adult, sins committed since birth. The verses that support this view are listed below. But it is important to note that this cleansing does not remove our tendency to sin—that is left in our hearts for us to struggle with. The technical term for that is concupiscence. I think of the heart as a cracked teacup that gets a complete scrubbing (at baptism), (and an infusion of Christ’s righteousness!) but the cracks are still there, and tend to gather dirt. Not only do we have to keep cleaning, but we are also meant to be developing good habits that, in effect, fill in some of the cracks, making it easier to do things in a holy way. (Virtues are good habits, according to St. Thomas Aquinas. What’s a Protestant definition of virtue?) Thus, when we sin we need to repent in order to be cleansed again. Growing in grace, usually by our efforts in the power of the Holy Spirit, enables us not only to be “clean” but also to live more and more in love, joy, peace etc. in our actual lives—perhaps you could say, serving refreshing tea to others, more often. The lifelong process of growth in Christ is also seen by Catholics as part of “continuing justification:” becoming more righteous, by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Also known as sanctification by Catholics.)


  3. Cooperation + Change = False Gospel


 Catholicism, because of the above two beliefs, has rejected the true Gospel. “But when the Council of Trent repeatedly declared that those who believed their only hope for salvation was faith in Christ now fell under the church’s ban, Rome became a schismatic body.” P. 264 Rome needs “a repudiation of its anathema on the gospel.”


 III. Response to Horton


A. The Tenses of Salvation


 Let me begin my critique of Horton with a proposition: Scripture actually speaks of salvation in at least three tenses, a fact Protestants rarely focus on. (All Scripture quotations are from the NIV.) The tenses of salvation are very relevant to this discussion. 


  1. Past


First, Scripture often says that people “were saved,” or “have been saved.” This is the typical Protestant way to look at things, so I will only cite the Lord Jesus’ statement, “your faith has saved you.” There are many similar verses.


  2. Ongoing


 But other verses either state or imply that salvation is ongoing during our life on earth. I Cor. 15:2 “By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.” This is a meaningless sentence if salvation is simply a one-time event in the past. In that case, Paul would have said: “By this gospel you were saved, if you indeed believed truly in the word I preached to you. And in that case, you cannot fall.” I Cor. 1:18 “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.” Clear enough. Those who have not accepted have not yet utterly perished (they could still repent), but are in the process, and in parallel fashion, those under the cross “are being saved.” It’s not final yet. II Cor. 2:15 “…we are…the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved.” Here are some more verses that refer to “salvation” as something ongoing. Phil. 2:12, 13 “…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” Just as God is working in us, continuously, so we are to continue to “work out our salvation.” Our salvation is in one sense something that is continuing to take place. (Note: I suppose you could argue that Paul means “work out the results of your salvation,” but I think he certainly could have said that if he really meant it. He seems to be actually saying, “keep cooperating with your ongoing salvation.”) I Pet. 1:9 “…for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”


  3. Future


 There are still more verses that state, of Christians, that they will be saved, in the future: Matt. 10:22 “…but he who stands firm [in some translations, “perseveres”] to the end will be saved.” Rom. 5:9 “…How much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” (Note: you could say this is just a part of salvation that lies in the future, but in that case, you have split salvation into parts. That means that total salvation lies ahead. Or you could say, this is a different thing, Paul just happens to use the same word, “saved.” But there, to be fair, you must admit that you are using a “theological dictionary,” you are interpreting. What it says is “shall be saved.”) Note that in the next verse Paul says we “have been reconciled,” and we “shall be saved.” The reconciliation is past, the salvation, in this perspective, is future. I Cor. 3:15 “…he himself will be saved [on “the Day,”], but only as one escaping through the flames.” This is a Christian who builds with wood, hay, and stubble. I Cor. 5:5 “so that…his spirit [may be] saved on the day of the Lord.” This is a backslidden Christian, and Paul hopes he will be saved. Phil. 1:28 “…but that you will be saved—and that by God.” And more on “salvation” as future: Rom. 13:11 “…our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” I Thess. 5:8 “…and the hope of salvation as a helmet.” As Paul says elsewhere, you can’t hope for what you already have. Hebrews 9:28 “…he will appear a second time…to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” I Pet. 1:5 “…until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”


  4. Analysis


 What is the point of this tense discussion? Simple: if salvation is in some sense past, and in some sense ongoing, and in some sense future, clearly from Scripture we have much to do with the part of salvation that is ongoing and the part that is future. Paul constantly exhorts Christians to live in a certain way, walk in a certain way, and he also exhorts Christians and himself to persevere to the end. To be saved means not just one act of faith, but to finish the race. (As Jesus said in Matthew 24:13, “but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.”) Yet if our salvation is in part ongoing, and in part future, then surely those actions that Paul constantly warns and exhorts us to do are part of that ongoing process of salvation, and if we persevere to the end, that perseverance is part of our eventual salvation. So, I say it is clear that, in the sense that we MUST participate in the ongoing part of our salvation, in order to get to the future part of our salvation, in that limited sense, our actions have a role to play in our salvation. (Are you with me here?) But if THAT is true, then any criticism of Catholicism for saying our works play a part “in our salvation” must carefully distinguish whether Catholicism is saying what I have said above, or whether it is saying we can “do enough good works to get to heaven.” Many critiques of Catholicism do not bother to try to distinguish between these two aspects of salvation: our initial forgiveness, and the ongoing working out of our salvation and perseverance to the end. Catholicism actually teaches that you have to participate in the ongoing part of your salvation, and you have to persevere, but you cannot “earn your way to heaven,” because grace helps you see the truth and accept salvation, Christ’s forgiveness is freely given and cannot be earned, and grace is necessary for all our participation and perseverance. (Official Catholic teaching is actually quite clear on all these points in that last sentence.)


 B. Imagine Really Not Cooperating


 Let’s take a big step backwards to Horton’s three points against Catholicism. Start with II.A.1, Catholicism believes humans must cooperate with grace. Let’s apply that to the initial moment of salvation. I ask, is it possible for us to be accepted by God without our cooperating? Is faith something that happens to us, without any choice on our part? Does God plant faith in our hearts regardless of our desires, and are we saved by the presence of that faith alone? (Or, in fact, is faith belief against our will? I suppose the devils have that!) Francis Schaeffer called faith “opening our empty hands” to receive God’s gift. Surely you can’t write a more minimal description of faith, and yet surely even that is a work of the will! It is an act of the person. Does the consistent Protestant say that the “I” in me does not (indeed must not) say yes to God? For if the real me says yes, make no mistake, that is a work, of the will, and it is, most undoubtedly, cooperation! Surely all these anathemas on the “false gospel of Rome” must be revised! I conclude that it is impossible even to have normal faith without cooperating with grace, and yes, that is a “work,” in the ordinary sense of the word. I can’t believe Paul means “do absolutely nothing, and in no way cooperate” in those famous verses in Romans 4:1-5. He must mean something a bit different, as I discuss below. But let me acknowledge one point: Horton is right that to suggest that we are accepted by God “on the basis of Christ’s righteousness and our cooperation” would be to teach another gospel. The basis of our acceptance by God is Christ’s righteousness alone. Where Horton goes wrong is his logic. He interprets “we must cooperate” as “we are saved on the basis of Christ’s righteousness and our cooperation.” But in fact, the Catholic Church teaches that God’s free grace is based entirely on Christ’s righteousness. To teach that our cooperation with that grace is necessary does not make it the basis of salvation! Analogy—if an (admittedly peculiar) rich Beatles fan were to agree to pay New York City for a time for the subway fares of all riders who wore Beatles shirts, the basis of the free ride for New Yorkers would be, entirely, the rich man’s gift—nonetheless, it would only be available to those who chose to accept it by wearing a Beatles shirt. It would be necessary to wear a Beatles shirt in order to take advantage of the freely offered ride, which would be based entirely on the gift. In the same way, in the Catholic view it is necessary to cooperate with God’s grace in order to receive salvation, which is based entirely on Christ’s righteousness.


 C. Are You Sure There’s No Change?


  1. The Greek Word: Primarily, “to make just”


 Now let’s look at point II.A.2. Catholicism believes justification changes sinners. Please look again at Horton’s points. No Christian would argue with his point that justification comes to the wicked—no one else needs it. I dealt with “stop working” above, and will say more on that later. My focus here will be on God justifying “the wicked as wicked, the sinner as sinner. That is the good news of the gospel.” I respond first that this interpretation of justification ignores the possibility that word “justify” actually means not merely “declare just,” but “make just.” This latter, in fact, was Jerome’s translation of the Greek for “justify,” as Horton notes (p. 255). Horton says Jerome “mistranslated.” That is a bit misleading, as if scholars were now unanimous that it means only “declare righteous.” There were no dictionaries in those days, and every word’s meaning in an ancient document has to be deduced from the context and from other texts and their contexts. Solid scholarship must do this. As I understand it, the word “to justify” in Greek (“dikaioo”) is in fact parallel in form to many other Greek words that mean “to make X,” just as English “justify” is formed like “glorify” (to make glorious), “beautify” (to make beautiful), “sanctify” (to make holy), etc. You can read a careful discussion in Westminster grad Robert Sungenis’ book Not By Faith Alone. Young’s Analytical Concordance (you can see I’m not a real Greek scholar!) says it means “to make or declare right,” and that seems to fit the various contexts. Note, however, that in ordinary usage (outside of Reformation theology) it’s rare to use “justify” in the sense of “declaring righteous something that is not righteous”—except, on rare occasions, to condemn it, as in “you must not justify the guilty!” “How can you justify that?” means “how can you show that it is really right?” not “how can you say it is right when it isn’t.” When someone tries to “declare right” what isn’t, we say “she tried to justify what she did, but it just didn’t work.” Yet this rarely used definition is the one Protestants typically say God more or less exclusively uses. Milton is far more typical: he wanted to “justify the ways of God to man.” They really are just, and he wanted to declare them just, and explain it.


 2. “Making Just” Fits in Romans


 Let me first make the limited point that it is easy grammatically and in terms of sense to say “make righteous” in the key verses where Paul uses “justify.” The sentences will still make sense. Try it, carefully. Read Romans 3 and 4, and say “make righteous” for justify. It will sound strange to a Protestant, but it is linguistically justifiable ;-) and it “works”—it still makes sense. In addition, I believe you can never find Paul, nor any NT writer, saying, “God showed his love for you by justifying you, but that did not make you righteous, you remained sinners afterwards.” If he had, then from the early church onwards, everyone would have read “justified” as “declared just,” and Jerome would have translated it thus. I think the reason Protestants assume that meaning now is, frankly, they’ve always been told that’s what it means, and their whole theology is built on that definition.


  3. The Catholic View: God’s Declarations Work!


 For Catholics, justification is a gift to a sinner, an act of mercy, based on faith in Christ’s redeeming sacrifice. Paul insists that nothing we have done before we receive the gift makes us worthy of it. When someone is justified, he is declared just, no doubt. But there is nothing in Romans 3 or 4 that rules out the primary, very natural meaning “make just.” Catholics believe God’s justification combines both meanings: it is a real gift at the same time as it is a declaration: we actually receive the righteousness of Christ. It’s a bit like “Let there be light.” God's declarations, because they are God's, create a reality. Note Romans 4:13: “It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.” After being justified, Abraham had more than a declaration, more than a bookkeeping adjustment in heaven, he had righteousness. Consider a parallel in Romans 5:12-21. God did not just declare Adam’s sin to be that of all his offspring, the sinfulness was communicated to them. (Surely “original sin” does not mean that God declares each person a sinner, even though in reality we remain innocent! That would make newborn babies “snowballs covered in dung!”) In the same way, Christ’s righteousness is communicated to us who believe. Rom 5:19 “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” (The word “righteous” is the same word in Greek as “just.”)


  4. Two Analogies: Saving Drowners, Educating Illiterates


 Two parallels for “saving sinners”: if you save a drowning man, as you lift his head up out of the water he is, by your act, no longer drowning. Yet you have certainly “saved a drowning man.” If you educate an illiterate, your act of education takes away his illiteracy. Yet you have “educated an illiterate.” Shouldn’t the act of saving a sinner change him? I offer a challenge: Never in the NT is there a hint of a story of a person’s salvation that does not involve an inner change—a change of heart (and an outer change!—a change of life!) as well as a change in God’s viewpoint and verdict. In every story of salvation, both are changed. That includes Paul’s examples in Romans of Abraham and David.


  5. But the Bible Says: There’s a Change!


 a. Verses About Change


 But there is one more problem with the idea that when God “justifies” it means he “declares us just” while we actually remain unchanged. Somehow or other Paul, and every other NT writer, most assuredly finds us, from the moment of initial salvation, not just declared to be something new, but really changed. In a big way! Examples:


 i. I Cor 6:11 “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (WASHED. SANCTIFIED. (both words seem to mean an actual change. Cleansed, made holy.) And “washed” sounds like baptism. Paul also appears to be talking to all the Christians in Corinth, of all places. All of them were washed, and made holy, and “justified” at some point in the past. Note: this is the only place “justified” and “sanctified” are used in the same sentence in the NT, yet poor Paul has them backwards! (Or, do we misunderstand?))


 ii. Rom 5:5 “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” (LOVE came in. Really. At a certain time. Note Paul doesn’t say “whom he has given some of us, gradually, a long time after we became Christians.” Instead, he says in Romans 8:9 “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.” Clearly this occurs at the time we begin to belong to Christ.)


 iii. Eze 11:19 “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.” (That’s a COMPLETELY CHANGED heart. Suddenly changed too, I would say.)


 iv. Rom 6:2,3 “…we died to sin.” (REAL CHANGE) “…all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.”


 v. Rom 6:6,7 “…our old self was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”


 vi. Rom 6:22 “but now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God…” (is this not real? Is it only on the heavenly ledger?) (Note that these last three statements are all part of an extended discussion of dying with Christ, and rising again in newness of life, in baptism.)


 vii. John 3:5,7 “no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit…you must be born again.” (Sounds like a new person? A renewed inner man? Looking closely at these verses, they are clearly about baptism—not just water, but water AND the Spirit.)


 viii. John 4:14 “whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (from a desert, to someone with a spring inside. Quite a change.)


 ix. John 7:37,38: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.” (Ahh! That’s more clear! The streams of water within refers to the Spirit, who is given to those who believe. Just as Paul says in Rom. 5:5)


 x. Rom 8:15 “…but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, father.’” (sounds like adoption into God’s family, and receiving the Spirit, are aspects of the same thing. Doesn’t it?)


 xi. And my new favorite passage on this topic, Titus 3:4-7 “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.” (Here “justified” seems to sum up the change being discussed. See below.)


  b. Analysis


 Putting together these verses, there is a picture of salvation (in the initial “act of God” sense): it includes belief (and those who believe receive the Holy Spirit), baptism (by water and the Spirit), washing (same, but the inner washing is by the Spirit), dying or being crucified with Christ followed by new birth (Paul says this happens in baptism), a pouring of love into our hearts (by the Spirit), and being justified (which Paul ties to faith, or belief in Christ). In Titus, “justified” clearly sums up the change. My question is, what gives Protestant theologians the right to call justification something separate from the rest of these acts of God, when in Titus Paul uses it to summarize them? They appear to me, because of the way they are tied together, to be part of a single event or transformation that involves “becoming righteous” (justification). The transformation, the washing, the love of the Spirit poured out in us, the righteousness, are all completely unmerited gifts—or, better, one completely unmerited gift. By this transformation, we are launched into a new life. We are reborn. Then, we must live. And in a mysterious way, all these things, except the physical act of baptism, need to be either deepened or repeated throughout our lives, and that is part of the “ongoing” picture of “being saved” I discussed above. We should die with Christ each day, we should repent and be washed if we fall into sin, we should seek an ever-greater outpouring of the love that is the fruit of the Spirit, an ever greater righteousness, etc.) (In fact, this is the Catholic picture, as explained in the Catechism, the Council of Trent, etc.). This new life can be diminished through sin and carelessness, and then it must be built up again. It can even be lost through major sin, and then it must be renewed as if from scratch. Note the seriousness with which Paul treats the Christian man who began to live with his father’s wife in I. Cor. The new life can be lost by living like the heathen (if you live like this, “you will die,” or “you will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (See the long set of verses below, under “the Testimony of the Negative.” The very verses of Paul’s that explain salvation are often followed by warnings to Christians that they can “DIE” if they live a certain way.)


  6. The Bible’s Strange ;-) Use of “Justified”


 One more note under II.B.3, “Justification = change.” As I noted above under “e” in my parentheses about a number of verses, many seem to use “justification” in a way that doesn’t fit the standard Protestant definition. That is particularly true of I Cor. 6:11 and Titus 3:4-7. I Cor. 6:11 is downright weird from a Protestant point of view. He reverses the process! But which is definitive, the verse or the later theology? Here are some more verses that don’t “fit” the Protestant usage. Rom. 4:25 “…us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” What? He died for our justification, right? Through his death, he paid the penalty, so that we might be counted righteous, right? But here, it says he rose “for our justification.” “So that we might become righteous” fits, I believe. I love the note in the Catholic Jerusalem Bible for this verse: “Paul never thinks of the death of Jesus in isolation from his resurrection. ‘Justification’ is the entering into the life of the risen Christ, Rom. 6:4; 8:10.” (And at the same time, it is that life entering us.) Rom. 8:10 “But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.” What on earth does that last bit mean? Because of righteousness? The Catholic Jerusalem bible translates it “…when Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is alive because you have been justified.” The Greek word “righteousness” here is “diakosune,” obviously a form of “dikaioo” to justify. While it is translated “righteousness” in many places, in the NIV it is translated “justice” in Romans 3:25 and 26, I think because of the obvious continuity between “justice” and “justify” which in the Greek are different forms of the same word. Again, you would naturally expect that something that makes your spirit alive is a real change. And what about Rom. 8:30! “…those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” No mention of sanctification, which in the classic Protestant view is the whole stage from initial faith and justification clear up to death and heaven. Instead, we get “justified” used to cover the entire middle from “called,” presumably foreknowledge in eternity, all the way to glorification in heaven. The whole part of salvation that takes place between calling and getting to heaven is summed up as “justification.” This is the Catholic view, of course. After the call is our faith, and God’s next act after that is his active declaration that both calls us and makes us righteous—and then continues that work throughout our lives (with our cooperation—empowered by the Spirit!). Titus 3:4-7 also, if you knew no theology and had to interpret it, would seem to say that salvation, washing, and renewal by the Holy Spirit can all be summed up in the word “justification.”


 D. The Testimony of the Negative


 Still under the rubric of III, a response to Horton, I add that the many verses of warning to Christians, from Paul especially, give added weight to the idea that Paul sees salvation in a very important sense as something incomplete until we get to heaven, so that our perseverance ought to be seen as part of the whole work of salvation. Paul, and other New Testament writers, tells Christians if they act like the world, “you will die,” or “you will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Each of the books below, except, in part, Romans, is addressed to Christians.) Here is a list:


 Rom. 8:13, “For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live…”


 I Cor. 6:9, “ Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified…”


 Gal. 5:19-21, “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”


 Eph. 5:5 and 6, “For of this you can be sure: no immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.”


 Phil. 3:18 and 19 “For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven.”


 Heb. 6:8, But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.”


 II Pet. 2:20, “If they escape the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.”


 Rev. 22:14,15, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.”


 I’m sure there are many more, especially in the gospels—I leave others to find them. But to me they very clearly make the point that there is no sense in the New Testament as a whole that one act of faith is a ticket that, if made of solid gold (saving faith) is absolutely enough, all alone, to get you to heaven—no matter what else you do. Instead, faith must be a living, ongoing reality in your life, and if it isn’t, you have no grounds for confidence. (You may make it somehow, but you should have no assurance in such a case!)


  E. A Note on Love and Fear


 The point I am attempting to make, and I think it is also clear in Catholic theology, is NOT that God means us to live in fear, without a sense that we are part of His family. It's more that we should not live in a kind of fool's paradise, with a firm belief that NO MATTER WHAT WE DO, everything will be all right. Married readers, compare your relationship with God to that with your spouse. There is no fear at all, I hope, for most of us, that our spouses will wake up tomorrow and start chasing other people. Not that they couldn't, but they wouldn't. But don't you think you could wreck the marriage if you started heading in the wrong direction? The very first steps on the road to marriage destruction hardly seem so terrible: flirting a bit much, or indulging a little fantasy. Yet I think many suddenly realize that if they keep going down that path, one step at a time, their marriages could be utterly destroyed. If they have shaken their heads, so to speak, at such (rare) times, and smacked their faces and woken up, it's more because they realize their marriages are ALIVE, and like all living things, they can't be put in an airless glass case and prosper. Living things are killable, in this world. That's not so much fear as common sense. I think many people suddenly realize that they've taken a bad step in the wrong direction, and have suddenly felt a twinge of fear--whoa! Don't want to go there! It’s a bit like when you're driving down the road and you stop paying attention for a second and you wake up and swerve back into the center of the lane. You don't want to drive down the road trembling--but neither do you want to completely forget that you could kill yourself, and others, if you are careless. If you do become careless, you need to remind yourself: wow, death is a real possibility here! Does this ruin a marriage, or the experience of driving? More the other way around—the totally fearless are the dangerous ones! The point is for many people a kind of theoretical one--if your relationship with God is alive, of course you want to nurture it, and you don't want to ignore it. But when certain Protestants loudly proclaimed that NO MATTER WHAT I do, all will be well (various forms of “assurance”), Catholics responded, not so. While fear is far from the dominant note in the New Testament, it doesn't quite go away, either. Doesn't "I will spit you out of my mouth" make you wonder "am I lukewarm? Lord, help me not to be lukewarm!"


IV. Let’s Give Horton (and all Protestants) Their Due


 I want to give Protestantism its due. Paul does state “who does not work.” What does this mean? The literal meaning “does not act” simply does not make sense. Try “not working” for the rest of your life—just have faith! I mean that very seriously. If you are going to insist that “not working” means no act of the will whatsoever, then be consistent! After all, salvation will come to the one who “does not work, but trusts God who justifies the wicked.” I really think, from the context, that Paul means something much more like “does not rely on his works for righteousness before God.” The context is the Jewish law, and an attitude that abuses that law. If you think by keeping every jot and tittle of the law (or, perhaps, by piling up a large heap of good works) you will somehow get God to say, “well I owe you something, you did it” you are completely missing the point. (I note that Catholics are often accused of understanding Christianity in this way. No doubt some do.) You are living in arrogance, not faith, and not in trust, as David did, in the mercy of God. Paul himself, before conversion, apparently thought that by rigorous effort he was keeping the law, whereas his heart was a mess of coveting and judging of others. He was “working” hard, though, for sure. He found that he had to stop “working” in that sense. He had to accept salvation by faith as a gift, and “work” in a whole new way (Rom. 8:4), not just out of gratitude, as Luther taught (apparently—someone correct me if I’m wrong), but because the Divine Life is at work in us, the Holy Spirit has brought faith, hope, and love into our hearts, and all three of those work. (Gal: faith working thru love). (As in this entire essay, I am heavily indebted to Robert Sungenis, Not By Faith Alone, in the preceding paragraph.) There are quite a number of sayings of our Lord about good works and how they lead to eternal life (see below), just as Paul says in verses like Romans 2:6-11. Of course, like a good Protestant, I believe we are saved by real faith, the kind that leads to good works. It seems to me in a way that real faith and the kind of good works God is truly pleased with, the kind humbly (or even unknowingly!) offered to Him, not presented to Him for credit, as if we were asking for frequent flyer miles or a salary we have earned, are almost different aspects of the same thing—in both cases, we understand the free gift of God and the love behind it, and we respond with love. Whereas good works of the wrong kind, the kind that try to obligate God, the kind Paul was doing before his salvation, could not proceed from or accompany the right kind of faith, but only a dry belief that has no real understanding of who He is. Again, I’m strongly influenced by Sungenis here. 


I’ll give Horton his due too, along with all Protestants. On p. 260-1 he discusses Romans 5:5, saying it was “thoroughly exegeted by Luther, Calvin, and other Reformers…They did not ignore it; they included it in the category of sanctification rather then justification. If Paul had said, ‘We are justified by the love of God being poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit,’ that would have presented difficulties, but the Reformers never denied or even downplayed the reality that both actions of God take place in a person’s salvation: justification by a righteousness external to us, and sanctification by the Holy Spirit’s transforming work within us.” May I point out that the problem is, in Romans 5:5 Paul did not say, “I speak of sanctification here.” Nor did he say, for example, “we are sanctified by the love of God being poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” Nor, as I noted above, does Paul ever say that the “righteousness external to us” remains external to us, but for Horton that is one of two key differences with Catholic theology. You can only find this last idea in Paul’s writings if you define justification as Horton and the Reformers do, but as I have noted above, there are many verses that don’t seem to fit that definition at all, and in all the verses that speak of justification, the meaning make righteous also works. I don’t think Horton can see this, because I think whenever he looks at the word “justification” in the New Testament, he sees the Reformation definition, rather than asking himself what it means in the context. Again, there is no dictionary in the Bible. All meanings must be deduced from their use in context. I have not yet found a Protestant writer willing to do the hard work of setting out contextual evidence for the Reformation definition of justification. (But that doesn’t mean there isn’t one—please inform me so I can read his work!)


Finally, note Horton’s hypothetical verse above, “if Paul had said, ‘We are justified by the love of God being poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.’” I think the connection I made in B.3.e.i between the verses about belief, baptism (by water and the Spirit), death with Christ, and justification, as summed up in Titus 3:4-7, makes it clear that this is in fact what Paul meant. When the love of God pours into our hearts as the Spirit comes in, we are saved, we are justified. But even if someone does not accept that connection, I think it is clear from a careful look at the context: Romans 5:1-10 is all about justification and its ramifications. Note that Romans 5:1 starts out with justification. Romans 5:6 returns to the topic of Christ dying for us. Verse 9 hits the same topic explicitly again: “since we have now been justified by his blood.” Romans 5 begins with “…having been justified through faith,” leading us into “this grace in which we now stand.” In the next few verses he talks about the results of justification (rejoicing, perseverance, hope) and in 5:5 he looks backwards again and says this chain of grand results has occurred because “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” When was the giving of the Holy Spirit to us? Looking at the verses I mentioned in B.3.e.i (from Ezekiel, John’s gospel, and Paul’s letters), I say it is at our justification, and in fact, our justification is when the external righteousness of Christ is applied to us internally. Paul doesn’t have to say “this was at our justification” because that is what Romans 5:1-10 is all about.


  V. A Backward Glance: How I Saw It As A Protestant


 As a Protestant, like Horton I believed I had two main things happening to me, justification and sanctification, separated, as I noted above, by a conceptual “iron wall.” But I was never sure where regeneration, rebirth, washing, etc. fit in. Unlike everything else, justification was a purely legal act. In it, God declared me righteous even though I was not (though this is never explicitly stated in scripture), because I accepted Christ’s righteousness. But then, ENTIRELY SEPARATELY, the Spirit did…something to me. We die, we become alive, we get new hearts, we get a fountain of living water inside us, we are adopted, the Spirit lives in us. But I was never taught to tie these wonderful events together, the way I now believe, following Catholic teaching, the Bible does.


 VI. Conclusion (at Last!)


 “Denying the gospel” is the key charge the Reformers threw at the Catholic Church. The Reformers believed in hierarchies, and as leaders, they thought they should be obeyed and followed. They explained that they did not leave the Church, the Church left the gospel. They were not schismatics, but Catholics denied the gospel. They could not follow the pope, for he taught another gospel. They did not split the Church: no, the Roman part of the church was unfaithful, for it left the Gospel. If this charge is false, as I believe a careful Bible study shows, the Reformation does not have much of a foundation. After much study, I have decided that Paul never meant to rule out, by the word “work” in Romans 3-5, any act of the will in the faith that “opens its hands to receive God’s free gift.” (In a similar way, “the flesh” in the New Testament does not mean “our physical bodies,” but something more like “our fallen nature,” and “the world” in a negative sense in the New Testament, does not mean the world as God created it, but the world groaning under spiritual corruption.) I also simply don’t see that the Reformation refusal to see justification as an act that changes our hearts and souls is a good way to interpret those chapters. If instead you see justification, like “let there be light,” as a declaration that enacts what it states, then Romans 3-5 fits the rest of Romans, and the rest of Paul’s letters and the words of the Lord. Then, instead of being a strange, bizarre set of verses, Titus 3:4-7, just like other Pauline verses, sums up the gospel—my new birth in Christ and transformation by the Holy Spirit, accepted by faith in Christ and his sacrifice—it is completely unmerited, completely a gift—but, prompted by grace, I have to repent and accept the gift. And, empowered by grace, I am called to LIVE it. THIS, I believe, is the gospel—and the Catholic Church officially teaches it, and has always done so. Most Protestant churches, in practice, teach something very similar. But occasionally, to prove they are not Catholic, some will insist that one word, “justified,” does not have its natural meaning, but must (without good internal or external evidence) be seen as a purely legal term for a change in God’s attitude without any real change in us. There is a whole range of other beliefs that go with this one—absolute assurance, for example, instead of the confidence mingled with a little holy fear that Paul usually evidenced and preached. (Then there are the related Calvinist totems: “Total depravity,” “unconditional election,” and “irresistible grace” seem to me to hinge on this same idea that we must do NOTHING in our salvation. (Fallen) Nature is filth, 100% corrupted by sin. See addendum below on “snow falling on dunghills.”) On the basis of such theology, these Protestants deny that Catholics “preach the gospel.” If the Catholic Church in fact was not guilty of this dreadful sin of preaching a false gospel, then perhaps the “Reformers” were wrong to leave the Church. If the Catholic Church indeed taught the true gospel, then despite the sins of members of that church (and the terrific confusion of some members!), perhaps the Reformers had no right to start a lot of new ones (which hardly turned out sinless! And as a group, are as confused as any group on earth.). If it had the true gospel, which I believe it did, then did it not also have the promise of Christ to “guide you into all truth,” and that “the gates of Hell would not prevail against it”?


 Codae: 1. Free Will


 Yes, God is at work in us through grace, but I say, and the Bible says, that we are persons, and we act. It is Christians who must walk by the Spirit, put to death the deeds of the flesh, and persevere, not God—although, mysteriously, it is also “God at work in us.” (Phil. 2:13) Indeed, if we are robots with no wills, then all Paul’s exhortations to do this and not do that are the random clanging of cymbals and gongs in the night. We might as well have these parts of his letters, and Christ’s preaching in the gospels, in Mongolian. (I learned, after I first wrote this, that this is St. Thomas Aquinas’ short defense, in the Summa, of the existence of free will—it’s great to unknowingly echo the Angelic Doctor!)


 2. Faith as a Voyage


 Faith is a voyage, something we live by, not just a single moment of belief that we then depend on. If you look carefully at Paul’s examples of faith, Abraham and David, the moments Paul cites are in the midst of long lives of faith. Abraham “believed God, [that he would have a natural son] and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” after long years of faith. He had left his home many years before that in trusting obedience to God, i.e. in faith. David, when Paul quotes him in Rom. 4:7, has just repented, in Psalm 32. But this was in the middle of David’s long life of (for the most part) faith and obedience, it was not the beginning of his life of faith. Similarly, Paul quotes Habbakuk with “the just shall live by faith” in Romans 1. This is not Habbakuk’s conversion, he is exercising his ongoing faith in the middle of his life despite the real world difficulty—God was allowing the wicked Babylonians to be used in judgment against Judah. This was belief exercised in the long term. Similarly, when the Lord says the tax collector but not the Pharisee “went home justified,” it is most natural to see the prayers of the two men as their habitual Saturday prayers. On the theme of faith as a voyage, note that Paul describes those who have lost faith, in I Tim 1:19 as having “shipwrecked their faith.” Like Paul, we all have a “heavenward call” (Phil 3:14). We must, like him, “strain toward what is ahead,” “press on toward the goal to win the prize.” And all the power to strain and press, using our own “legs,” comes from God, from beginning to end. In heaven, where I trust I will be one day (I have the “hope of salvation”), I will throw my puny crown at Jesus feet—because he indeed deserves it, since God’s grace is the real power behind all good deeds.


 3. “Snow Falling On Dunghills:” A Meditation


 I was thinking about Luther’s supposed supposed  “dunghill covered with snow” analogy for a saved person (I don't believe it is actually Luther's: perhaps Charles Hodges. Apparently German farmers who were doing well piled up the manure near the road (before spreading it) in a kind of showoff way—a statement of their wealth. When the snow fell on it, it was beautiful, but still a dunghill. Luther used the image to say that when we are saved, Christ’s righteousness is like the snow on a dunghill. It covers us, but we are just as before. But I see a dreadful problem with the image. If you wash a dunghill, there’s nothing left. It’s similar to the Calvinistic idea of “total depravity.” There’s no good there to be “saved,” God has to create it. But the Lord speaks of lost sheep, not lost dunghills, or snakes. He says, Luke 13:16, “this woman, a daughter of Abraham…” He speaks of lost silver coins, not lost stones or trash. Luke 19:9 “Today salvation has come to this house, for this man too is a son of Abraham.” So even if Martin Luther said he saw the gates of Paradise open when he realized that God saved sinners and left them sinners, I do not believe he got it right. Concerning “at once just and a sinner,” why is this not stated in the Bible? Paul in a very ambiguous passage in Romans (Rom. 7:7-25) MIGHT be saying this. But I think, instead, this passage is about the experience of someone trying to please God without the sacrifice of Christ, and without the Holy Spirit. Note that the person in the passage is “a prisoner to the law of sin,” “a slave to the law of sin,” but in Chapter 8, we read “…through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” Paul nowhere says we are at once slaves of Christ and slaves to sin! But at any rate far the most typical Pauline point is “and such were some of you! But you were washed, you were sanctified…” He doesn’t say “such are all of you! But now, God looks at you and only sees Christ’s righteousness covering you rather than the real sin you continue to wallow in, and out of gratitude, you are slowly beginning to acquire a pathetic tiny holiness of your own.”


 4. Rewards, Accolades, and Crowns


 From the point of view of Catholic theology, these verses show that God will graciously count good works done in faith as if they were completely ours. The response of God’s children to this gracious “reckoning” of God’s will be to humbly reckon the opposite: that the good works were all done through God’s grace, and to “lay [our] crowns before the throne” (Rev. 4:10). (Luke 17:10 makes the same point—but must not be considered in isolation from all the “well done!” parables.) “…Christ Jesus himself, as the head into the members and as the vine into the branches, continually infuses strength into those justified, which strength always precedes, accompanies, and follows their good works, and without which they could not in any manner be pleasing to and meritorious before God…nevertheless, far be it that a Christian should either trust or glory in himself and not in the Lord, whose bounty toward all men is so great that He wishes the things that are His gifts to be their merits.” Council of Trent, Ch. XVI, “THE FRUITS OF JUSTIFICATION…” (emphasis mine) (All those who write about Catholic concepts of merit would do well to understand and never forget these words.) Well done! Matthew 25:21 (repeated in v. 23) “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” Luke 19:17 “’Well done, my good servant!’ his master replied. ‘Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.’”


 Reward (μισθοσ)


 Matt. 5:12 “…great is your reward in heaven…”


Matt. 5:46 “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?”


Matt. 6:1 “If you do [your acts of righteousness before men] you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”


Matt. 6:2, 5, 16 “I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.”


Matt. 10:41 “Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.”


Matt. 10:42 (=Mk 9:41)“And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”


Luke 6:23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven.”


Luke 6:35 “But love your enemies, do good to them…Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High…”


I. Cor. 3:8 “…each one will be rewarded according to his own labor.”


I. Cor. 3:14 “If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward.”


I. Cor. 9:17 “If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward.”


2 John 8: “Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully.”


Rev. 11:18 “…The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets/ and your saints and those who reverence your name…”


Rev. 22:12 “Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done.”


 To Reward (αποδιδωμι)


 Matt. 6:4 (and 6) “your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”


Matt. 16:27 “For the Son of Man…will reward each person according to what he has done.”


 To reward (μισθαποδοτησ)


 Heb. 11:6 “to please God…must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”


 A crown (στεθανοσ) 


I. Cor. 9:25 “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.”


II. Tim. 4:8 “Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearing.”


James 1:12 “Blessed is the man who perseveres…when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”


I. Pet. 5:4 “And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.”


Rev. 2:10 “Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.”


Rev. 3:11 “Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.”


Rev. 4:10 “They lay their crowns before the throne, and say…”


 Generally!


 Rev. 2:7 “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”


Rev. 2:11 “He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.”


Rev. 2:17 “To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.”


Rev. 2:26 “To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations…”


Rev. 3:4 “Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.”


Rev. 3:12 “Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem…and I will also write on him my new name.”


Rev. 3:21 “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.”


Rev. 19:9 “(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)”


Rev. 22:14,15: “blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers,…”


 Craig M. White Last revised, November 6, 2003


 Some Practical conclusions:


 1. Make sure you’re baptized. It’s not a guarantee of heaven, but it’s God’s command. And just as God created a material world for his glory and our enjoyment, and took on a human body to save us, so he uses material means now to apply that salvation to us.


 2. Sanctification is not a separate thing from justification, it’s about the increase of holiness in people who, if Christians, are already meant to be holy—that doesn’t mean perfectly, but should mean at the least people who confess sins as soon as they are aware of them, whose motto is “death before sin!” (St. Dominic Savio), and whose daily prayer to the Holy God is “make me holy!” Regarding absolute perfection, John’s epistles are clear that it is out of reach in this life. He makes a clear distinction in his first epistle between sins that lead to death, and sins that do not. While we cannot avoid every tiny sin, we can avoid more and more even of these, and we can and are expected to avoid the mortal ones. Wallowing in the little ones, unrepented, leads to mortal ones. Serious struggle against all sins leads, if done in the right way, relying on God’s grace and avoiding pride and condemnation of others, to real holiness. Let’s struggle, and go on struggling, and go on repenting when needed, by God’s grace!