In part 1 we looked at some of the background behind and the structure of this question and answer. There is another piece to the back story, as they say in Hollywood. During the 1550s there were great struggles over how to express the doctrine of sanctification relation to the doctrine of justification. Prior to the 50s there had been questions. There had been those whom Luther labelled “antinomians” in the 1530s. This paragraph from his First Disputation against the Antinomians was used almost verbatim in the Heidelberg Catechism:
Likewise against those evils revealed and pointed out to us by the law, lest we despair, that other doctrine also has to be preserved in the Church, which teaches consolation against the accusation and terrors of the law, grace against God’s wrath, remission of sins and righteousness against sin, life against death. That doctrine is the gospel, which teaches that God through his word has locked up everyone under sin so that he might have mercy upon everyone; that he most certainly wants to remit the sins of all, liberate from death, and give righteousness and life to those who feel their misery, unrighteousness, and perdition, and certainly freely without any merit of ours, yet only in such a way that these benefits come upon believers because of Christ.
Here, to be sure, Luther was explaining the relation between the first use of the law and the gospel but this passage illustrates the degree to which the Reformed were dependent upon and influenced by Luther. He also defended what Melanchthon, the Lutheran orthodox, and the Reformed called the third use of the law (tertius usus legis):
The law, therefore, cannot be eliminated, but it remains, prior to Christ as not fulfilled, after Christ as to be fulfilled, although this does not happen perfectly in this life even by the justified. For it requires that we love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves (cf. Matt. 22:37, 39). This will happen perfectly first in the coming life.
No one who has actually read Luther with any care should think that he is an antinomian. Unfortunately, some Reformed folk, relying upon mainline Lutherans (from the USA, Germany, and elsewhere) conclude from the way liberal mainliners speak (and the claims they make about Luther) that he was essentially antinomian. That would be like looking at what some mainline Presbyterian (PCUSA) writers in this country say about Calvin and drawing conclusions that e.g., would support the self-described “Occupy” movement. Again, I doubt any serious Calvin scholar would think this way since Calvin’s greatest fear about society was represented by the Anabaptists in the (1534–35) Münster rebellion. There are too many Reformed folk (and others who identify with aspects of Calvin’s theology, e.g., his soteriology) who do not read those sources that shaped and influenced Calvin (and other Reformed writers) for themselves. Among those would be Luther.
Nevertheless, through the 1540s and 50s the question persisted among evangelicals (the word they used of themselves) or the magisterial Protestants how to relate sanctification and good works to justification. Some argued that we ought not speak of good works at all since that tends to lead Christians astray. It might tempt them to think once again that their good works, done in cooperation with grace, somehow contributed to their standing before God. It’s not as if there were no grounds for such a fear. There were some saying that good works were a condition of standing before God. Remember, the Roman doctrine, out of which the evangelicals had come, taught that we justified because we are sanctified and we are sanctified by grace and cooperation with grace. Then there were some who were arguing ingeniously that Christ dwells in us by virtue of our union with him and God looks at us and sees the indwelling Christ and we are justified on the basis of Christ’s indwelling (and not on the basis of Christ’s righteousness imputed). So, the evangelicals had been ping-ponging between forms of legalism and antinomianism before the 1560s.
In our time, of course, we’ve seen the same sort of ping-ponging. We have the self-described, so-called Federal Vision movement arguing essentially the Arminian doctrine of salvation and calling it Reformed. Among the evangelicals there are antinomians arguing that the moral law no longer applies to Christians and then there are moralists (nomists) who teach that we are justified and saved because we cooperate sufficiently with grace. So, we are not much better off in the early 21st century than we were in the mid-sixteenth century.
Thus, it is significant that the Reformed Churches confess:
86. Since then we are redeemed from our misery by grace through Christ, without any merit of ours, why should we do good works?
Because Christ, having redeemed us by His blood, also renews us by His Holy Spirit after His own image, that with our whole life we show ourselves thankful to God for His blessing, and also that He be glorified through us; then also, that we ourselves may be assured of our faith by the fruits thereof; and by our godly walk win also others to Christ (Heidelberg Catechism 86).
Notice that we say “because.” There are some today, who call themselves Reformed, who, not unlike those in the 16th century who said that God accepts us because were Christ indwells us, would say that the catechism’s way of speaking is inadequate. They want to say that it is because Christ dwells in us and we in Christ (union with Christ) that we are sanctified and that justification and sanctification are nothing but parallel fruits of that union. That is not the teaching of the Scriptures as understood and confessed by the Reformed Churches. There are, as mentioned last time, two benefits and sanctification is the second benefit of Christ. Here we thinking and speaking of the logical order of salvation. We are not talking about time or a temporal or chronological order. Think of it this way: it is the justified, i.e., those of whom God has declared “just,” that the Spirit is necessarily, graciously, and gradually sanctifying. It is the justified, who are being sanctified, who do good works. If we reverse the order, then we have become Romanists again. Thus, we should reject soundly those who would do away with, as they say, “ordo salutis thinking.” To do away with the logical order in which the Spirit works, as taught by Scripture (e.g., Romans 8) is to send the Reformed Churches right off the cliff to destruction.
We should also reject soundly and unreservedly that teaching that will not say that believers, who are united to Christ by the Spirit, through faith alone, who are justified freely (sola gratia), through faith alone (sola fide), have no moral obligation to be conformed to Christ and thus to do good works. That is antinomianism. No, the Spirit is conforming us to Christ’s image. Those who have been given new life (regenerated) will do good works. They want to do good works out of thankfulness. Gratitude is not, as some say, a second blessing any more than oranges are a second blessing on an orange tree (see Belgic Confession art. 24). This is the language of our Lord Jesus in John 15. Believers “show themselves to be thankful.” They manifest their new life by good works. They give evidence. That’s why the two words most often used by the classical Reformed writers and the Reformed confessions in this discussion are “fruit” and “evidence.” Anyone who is dissatisfied with this way of speaking is on the path to Rome, even if they do not realize it.
Next time: The role of sanctification in assurance.
Here are all the posts on the Heidelberg Catechism.