Several years ago I was talking with a good and thoughtful Calvinist friend of mine–one who has had a lot of experience in understanding and applying Reformed Theology (Calv flavor, though he would probably also say Luthor’s and Augustine’s flavor and would certainly say Biblical flavor). In discussing my universalism, he was concerned about whether I basically thought that people were too good for God to condemn (not having really read me that much yet.)
I affirmed the doctrines of grace and total depravity (meaning as he did that all humanity is in need of God’s salvation), but I went on to apply it according to the typical universalist (and to some degree Arminian) understanding of Rom 11 as well as Rom 5: that just as all have sinned God has saving mercy on all. (Indeed that just as through the disobedience of one man the many were constituted as sinners, thus also through the obedience of the One the many shall be constituted as just. Rom 5:19.) Most Calv apologists are aware that if Rom 5 is interpreted to really mean “all” in parallel comparison, then universalism (and neither Calvinism nor Arminianism) must be being testified by Saint Paul at Romans 5.
Thus I said in regard to any sinner coherently imaginable (up to and including Satan): “I am no better than he, for I too am a sinner. The grace that I hope for myself, the chief of sinners, I better give to him.” (Meaning also that I had better expect it for him, too. I not only had in mind the parable of the tax-collector, as well as many related teachings from the Synoptic Gospels, but also Paul’s rebuke to his Roman congregation readers at the beginning of Rom 2.)
My friend agreed that so far as this went it seemed logical, but added, “The only difference I guess is that because of God’s grace I am counted righteous because by trusting in Christ alone I receive his righteousness.”
That was his emphasis, by the way (on ‘counted’); so I wanted to ensure that we both were agreeing that God is not merely counting us as righteous (in the sense of pretending we are righteous when we are not doing righteousness at all) but is judging us as actually righteous (even if only partially so in combination with remaining unrighteousness) when we by God’s grace and through His empowerment do righteousness (such as trusting in Christ and cooperating with the Holy Spirit).
At that time I was simply staying on the topic of God judging us in righteousness, and was not bringing up the question of technical distinctions (if any) between justification and sanctification (whether within ‘Reformation Theology’ or otherwise.)
So in my reply I wrote, “I would only add (or maybe just clarify) that trusting in Christ (as Abraham did) is in fact a righteous action–one we couldn’t do without the operation of the Spirit in us leading as well as empowering us to do so. True, my cooperation with the Spirit is righteousness, too (which again the Spirit leads us as well as empowers us to do), and so long as I refuse to receive His righteousness, I am not doing righteousness. But the point is that God (in any person) is hardly having to pretend I am doing righteousness when I trust in Christ thanks to the Spirit of the inheritance in my heart crying ‘Abba! Father!’ and interceding for me with words too deep for groans.
“God, fairly judging, accounts (or reckons) that as righteousness, because it is righteousness.”
And I went on to say that I didn’t think any of this would be rejected in Calvinist theology (having Calvin’s own comments from his remarks on 1 John in mind, though I don’t think I mentioned them specifically at that time. But they were in view because the topic was originally on the question of whether, and/or to what extent, God loves the “reprobate”–a topic obviously affected by how 1 John’s statement about God being love are interpreted.)
My friend’s next reply was, “The Reformed have traditionally not called the act of faith a righteous action, though we would agree that we cannot put our faith in God unless the Spirit empowers us to do so. This is a principle point in Reformation theology. We would deny that ‘my cooperation with the Spirit is righteousness.’ So, we would say that God counts the act of faith as righteousness not because it is righteousness, but because the object of the faith is righteousness. His righteousness is imputed to us, our sin and guilt to him on the cross. But there could be a nuance or definition I’m missing out on.”
Unfortunately, I’ve lost all the original emails we exchanged on the topic, so I’m working from a late email I saved where I traced back how we had gotten to the point where we were. From what I can tell, he had then made reference to Calvin’s commentary on 1 John (now bringing in the topics of justification compared to sanctification); and I replied (now lost) something about the content of Calvin’s commentary in relation to our topic; after which my friend asked for some clarification.
And that sets up the original context for the rest of my discussion after this point.
The first thing I noted, was that Calvin says nothing about justification per se in his comments on the relevant portions of 1 John (about the doing of righteousness); and his one remark about sanctification is not about the doing of any righteousness by man but rather about our old man being crucified in Christ and the Spirit mortifying the flesh by means of repentance. “This [destruction of the reigning power of sin] belongs to the sanctification of the Spirit.” But the place from Romans which Calvin is referencing by this remark, uses neither one nor the other term, but rather follows portions where the same action of God through, in and as Christ on the cross, has been called “justification”. (Rom 6:1-7)
The point was that what Calvin in his commentary on 1 John called “sanctification”, was actually called “justification” in the portion of Romans that Calvin was referring to as ground for his comment.
I was not (and transferring over to ‘current grammar’ now) am not meaning to say that justification (and/or sanctification) is irrelevant to the doing of righteousness; far from it. I am only noting that even Calvin (of all people!) could speak of the doing of righteousness (by the elect) and affirm (very strongly) that it is in fact the doing of righteousness, without speaking of technical distinctions between justification and sanctification per se. In fact, he can speak of something as sanctification in reference to a place where St. Paul calls the same thing justification.
Not that I expect Calvin, of all people, noticed this. But the irony is not only palpable; it is deeply instructive.
Leaving Calvin and his peculiar and inadvertently illustrative example behind: what do I find when I start looking through the New Testament?
I find there to be a verb-process of hallowing and a (noun) result of holiness; terms which are frequently translated ‘sanctify/ing’ and ‘sanctification’. I find this same distinction between process and result in the references to justification, too, although the interrelation may be more complex. Furthermore, the verb descriptions for justification (less often for sanctification) may have the judgment of God in view, or the action of God in leading sinners to be truly righteous (whether still mixed temporarily with unrighteousness or ultimately with no unrighteousness at all), or even both actions of God (the leading and the judging) in view.
Even conceptually, the term sets themselves (holy/hallow, and just/justify) don’t seem to be logically separate in any significant way. To hallow (sanctify) is to make or pronounce holy; to be holy (including by analogy from its root in dedication, to be faithfully dedicated–in this case to God) is to be just; to justify is to make or pronounce the object just. On this ground, we could expect the term sets to be talking about the same process, deed, state and judgment.
Now, I do find (and logically distinguish) some distinction between process, fact and verdict. The key difference between my position (being developed so far) and large branches of Reformation theology (with lead-ins from Roman Catholic theology), is that they regard there to be two processes (with attendant facts, and verdicts): first justification, then once that’s accomplished sanctification.
This concept of a double process may safely be regarded as the historical majority of Christian thought on the matter since at least the Reformation (and before then, too, although I don’t know how far back this thought on the topic goes.)
But there is no such double process in view for the elect in Acts 20:32.
Nor at Acts 26:18.
Nor at Rom 6:19-23.
Nor at Rom 15:16.
Nor at 1 Cor 1:2.
Nor at 1 Cor 1:30 (where the context would tend to indicate what my friend was calling ‘justification’ is instead called ‘sanctification’.)
Nor at 1 Cor 7:14.
Nor at 2 Cor 6:14-7:1.
Nor at Eph 1:3-12 (which has a lot to do with being designated and chosen beforehand to be presented holy and flawless).
Nor at Eph 5:25-27 (ditto).
Nor at Col 1:21-23.
Nor at 1 Thess 3:12-13.
Nor at 1 Thess 4:3-8.
Nor at 1 Thess 5:23.
Nor at 2 Thess 2:13-17 (which involves a preferential call from the beginning).
Nor at 1 Tim 2:15.
Nor at 2 Tim 2:21.
Nor at Heb 9:13 (where the context would tend to indicate that what my friend called ‘justification’ is being called ‘hallowing’ or ‘sanctification’).
Nor at Heb 10:10,14 (perhaps even more emphatically ditto by context).
Nor at Heb 10:29.
Nor in Heb 12 (which speaks of partaking of Christ’s holiness among many other things).
Nor at 1 Pet 1:1-9.
(I am willing to discuss any of these in much more detail as desired, by the way. But I am expecting that anyone making a tolerably close check will quickly see that no such double process is in view at any of these points. Anyway, I didn’t find them there. Detailed discussion, and even detailed correction if possible, is entirely welcome.)
It might be replied that even if no such double process is in view at any of those (numerous) points, they are still testifying to two different processes–it would just happen that they never testify to both processes at the same time.
Fortunately, there are a few times when NT authors talk about both justification and sanctification in close proximity. Even better, the two authors represent (slightly) different NT text-sets (Pauline and Johannine). So if we should have a doctrine of a double process, or a double action, justification and then sanctification (or vice versa?), these places ought to testify to it, and not to something else instead.
1 Cor 6:11 has three statements in triple repetition emphasis, “And some of you were these. But you were bathed off; but you were hallowed; but you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” The verb form for hallow and justify is the same in both cases; it would be proper to translate the verbs a little differently in each case (you are hallowed, you are justified; or you have been hallowed, you have been justified), but the tenses should be identical in each case either way. More importantly for our purposes, though, the emphatic {alla} or conjunctive ‘but’ in each case, shows that the phrases are intended as rhetorical equivalents: you were once one of these, but!–but!–but!
Admittedly, if justification comes first and then sanctification, the rhetorical construction wouldn’t necessarily have to reflect that order here. But for whatever it’s worth, the order of mention doesn’t reflect the theory of a justification first then sanctification as a processional order, either.
Rev 22:11: another case of poetic repetition of equivalents for emphasis. First “Let the injurer injure still; and let the filthy be filthy still.” Then “and let the just do righteousness still; and let the holy be hallowed still.” There is a distinction between action in one phrase and a state in the other (both for evil and for good), but no affirmation of an accomplishment of justification first and then an accomplishment of sanctification.
At none of these places so far, then, is God presented as first ‘justifying’ a sinner and then afterward ‘sanctifying’ the sinner (or vice versa, for that matter). In fact, the verb ‘justify’ rarely even shows up near the verb for ‘sanctify’.
Not at Matt 12:37, where Jesus declares as a principle, “For by your words shall you be justified, and by your words shall you be convicted.”
Nor at Luke 18:14, where the tax-collector who humbles himself is justified by God.
Nor in St. Paul’s sermon in Acts 13:39.
Nor at Rom 2:13, where the doers of the law (not merely the hearers) are justified by God.
Nor in the great declaration of justification from Rom 3:9-5:21. I strongly suspect that the mere switch from the term ‘justify’ to ‘sanctify’ afterward throughout the rest of the epistle, is what has given the impression there are two processes being described, one subsequent to the other. But the application of the two terms is still actually similar; which is why Calvin, speaking of what is called ‘justification’ prior to Rom 6:6, can call it ‘sanctification of the Holy Spirit’ in his comments on the doing of righteousness in 1 John. (It is not called by either term at or around Rom 6:6, remember.)
Nor at 1 Cor 4:4.
Nor in, oh, all of Galatians.
Nor at Titus 3:1-7 (which is expressly about salvation by the grace of God and not by works).
Nor at James 2:20-26.
A (relatively) fast but complete scan of the New Testament scriptures shows that if they teach such a “logical separation” (as my friend called it) between justification and sanctification, it is at least not a very obvious teaching. Rather, the two terms, and their cognates (where the cognates have some distinction of process, deed, state and judgment), are typically used interchangeably in the scriptures (at least in the NT; perhaps there is some sequentially occurring double-process testified to in the OT?) – as is demonstrated in the few places where the terms actually occur in close relation to one another.
It might of course be said that first there is the sacrifice of the Lamb, and then justification and sanctification of the sinner. However, the historical event of the crucifixion represents the slaying of the Lamb from the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8). The priority is still ontological, not (in any primary way) temporally sequential; the Son does not first begin to be self-sacrificial for sinners on the cross, or the Son would never have incarnated at all! And again, the scriptural testimony does not really have a strong logical distinction between justification and sanctification in the acceptance of Christ by faith.
Certainly, God declares us justified when we accept Him by faith, which acceptance is a historical action on our part; but this belongs to the category of judgmental reckoning: God vouches that we are doing what is just: the Righteous One declares we are indeed doing righteousness. Our own righteousness? No–there is no righteousness than God’s righteousness.
The “alien” righteousness mentioned by some Reformation theologians and apologists is not the righteousness of God, which is the only true righteousness, but rather any attempts of ours to be the standard of righteousness or to find righteousness anywhere other than from God. Thus we alienate ourselves from Him. But “let God be true though every man a liar” as St. Paul declares, and “if some do not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it? May it never be!”
that I’ve been preparing to start posting for a while. Although in another way I do actually intend it to be part of the Huger Project eventually. 
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), Abram still doubted enough two verses later (15:8) to ask for a supernatural sign that God would indeed fulfill this promise. (Which God gave.) That might not be a sin, but it wasn’t the solidified doubtlessness in God that you appear to be talking about. Almost immediately afterward (16:1ff) Abram listened to Sarai and tried to beget an heir through Hagar instead, leading to many hard feelings and grief, not only in the short term (between Sarai and Hagar) but in the very very long term (between the descendants of Isaac and the descendants of Ishmael).