Systematic Theology -- Salvation

Sanctification

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 14

Dictation Name: 14 Sanctification

Year: 1970’s

In Hebrews 12:14 we read, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” Our subject in this session is Sanctification, a very important and basic doctrine of scripture. The Shorter Catechism, No. 35 says, “Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.”

What the catechism tells us is that the divine priority in sanctification, or growth in our holiness is God’s free grace. 1 Peter 1:2, which is one of the texts the catechism cites, links and grounds sanctification and God’s election and foreknowledge. Ephesians 4:24 makes clear that sanctification follows from regeneration. Moreover, in sanctification, our nature is renewed and remade in all our being after the image of God in conformity to the last Adam, Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God then leads us into the holiness, which is required of this new human race, the new humanity in Jesus Christ. We are not perfectly sanctified in this life, but we die more and more to sin by the renewing of the Holy Spirit. Our growth is in terms of obedience to the law of God.

1 John 3:4 tells us, as it defines sin, sin is the transgression of the law. There you have sin defined by scripture. 1 John 3:4. Sin is the transgression of the law. Well, holiness means, therefore, obedience to the law. It is the obedience of faith, to God’s word. This is why John Murray, in a study of sanctification, titled it Sanctification (The Law). This is the way it should be.

Now, it is interesting when we study church history, to see how people viewed one another in the early church, and for some time thereafter. They did not regard birth, nor wealth, nor strength, nor power as the determining power in society. Rather, as Edith Simon, in her study has written, the apex of society was not the ruler, but the saint. Now, the implications of this are far-reaching. It means that wherever holiness is made the focal point of man, then you have a God-centered society. But when society becomes humanistic, then wealth, or birth, or power, or some other humanistic aspect takes priority, and holiness is not highly regarded.

Now, in the pagan societies of Antiquity, as Rome, the focus was not on the saint, or the holy, but on power, on the person who could exercise control over people. As a result, whenever we see the paganization of society, the goal of man becomes power rather than holiness, to be important in the eyes of men rather than to be righteous before God. It becomes more and more important then to get ahead in a humanistic sense.

It is interesting that the forms of civil government are usually defined in terms of the power structure, not in terms of holiness and righteousness or justice. Thus, when we talk about the forms of civil government, we talk about monarchy, autocracy, democracy, a republic, a dictatorship, fascism, socialism, communism. We’re defining them in terms of the focal points of power, not in terms of, Is this a godly society, a holy society, or an unjust one? What is the focal point of man in the society, and if we look at it that way, then we would have to say, the Soviet Union is indeed an ungodly society, but the focal point of man in the United States is also power, himself. So we are drifting in the same direction.

Last night I finished reading a very important study, a manuscript sent to me by a university professor, a sociologist. As far as I could determine, he makes no profession of faith. He is definitely not Reformed, but it is an analysis of the impact of Calvinism on society, and he says in recent centuries, all the progress in our culture has been a product of the Reformed faith, and he goes on to say how much the goals and the objectives of the Reformed faith have altered every other group, and he has a very interesting account of how the Catholic Church has become Puritan in its outlook, in many areas, but he said now that Puritanism is dying, and the result is our structure is dying, and it is no longer oriented to being productive, to being oriented to the future. It is present- and self-oriented, pleasure-oriented, and it’s destroying itself, and he feels there is no hope unless there is a return to such a faith, which he does not profess.

Moreover, even when, in a humanistic society, you will have a rebellion against the power emphasis of society, it’s in the name of something that’s just as bad, self-realization or self-fulfillment. Let’s break the power structure and give man the freedom to realize himself. Of course, wherever you had this, the power structure is ready to go along with it, because the more people become involved in self-realization, the more heedless they are of justice, and the more the power structure grows in its concentration of power. However, very much of history, this business of self-realization and self-fulfillment has had pretentious and self-righteous names. One of the most common is the rights of man, human rights. When people are talking about human rights, they’re not talking about right in the sense of right and wrong, of justice, righteousness. They’re talking about getting what’s mine, a very different fact.

Moreover, pietism is not holiness. The doctrine of sanctification, or holiness, because the two words are one and the same, they are translations in the New Testament of one and the same Greek word. Sanctification and holiness is grounded on justification and regeneration. Holiness stands on God’s objective work in Jesus Christ, whereas pietism rests on man’s subjective experience. Thus, there is a world of difference between holiness and pietism. In holiness, I rest wholly on Christ’s work, and I grow in terms of him and his word. In pietism, the emphasis is on my subjective experience and the cultivation of a higher sensitivity of feeling. Pietism, from the beginning, in the 18th century, stressed man’s experience. It down-graded the doctrine of imputation for experience. Imputation, of course, has reference to the imputation of our sins to Christ, the objective work of Christ, but what takes place outside of man does not interest the pietist, so that doctrine of scripture that deal with something beyond human experience, such as the doctrine of the trinity, the atonement, justification, creation, and so on, do not interest the pietist. Wherever we turn, we see pietism ready to surrender one doctrine of scripture after another as not important. We don’t want to fight about the non-essentials. The essentials are those that are experiential to them.

As I’ve traveled across country, I have been told of pietist churches which have refused to make a stand on homosexuality, on women’s ordination, on infallibility, on the doctrine of creation, on a wide variety of doctrines, as long as they can have an emphasis on their experientialism.

Now, pietism shifts thus the orientation from Christ’s work to man’s experience. From the glory of God to the salvation of man, and the result is a man-centered faith. The word piety appears only twice in the Bible. In 1 Timothy 5:4, it has reference to the duty of children and grandchildren towards elders. It means to show respect. It is used in Acts 17:23, but translated into English as “worship,” and this is its meaning there. The English word “piety” has a Latin derivation. It has an alien meaning to the biblical doctrine of sanctification and holiness. What God requires of us is holiness, not pietism. Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. We are told that we must not fail of the grace of God. We must not fail of the grace of God, as Hebrews goes on, that is, fall short of the grace which is required of us, and that grace manifests itself as peace, not bitterness. An obedience to God’s law, not fornication. Nor being profane as was Esau, and profanity means to be outside of the temple, literally, or outside of the Lord. Holiness is separation to God and active obedience by faith to his every word.

Too often, holiness, or sanctification, is defined as mere negation. The same is true of separation, a doctrine which is very closely related. When people talk about separation, too often they mean you separate yourself from a number of things. You don’t do this, and you don’t do that, you don’t do that. Now, it’s true that holiness, separation, mean among other things, such a separation, but in the doctrine of holiness, the first separation, the basic separation is within us. It’s from the old man, the old Adam in us, from our sin, unto Jesus Christ, the new man. From our old nature to our new nature, that’s at the heart of holiness and separation. Now, that separation then leads to an outer separation, but if we begin by speaking of holiness and separation in terms of things, we reverse the doctrine in its order, from external to internal, rather than from internal to outer. That leads to a very serious warping of the doctrine.

Moreover, when we stress the outer things, we reduce the doctrine of separation and holiness to mere negation. That is, separation from evil. Whenever you have this kind of doctrine, of holiness and separation, the result is the revival of an emphasis, whether it’s called that or not, on asceticism. You don’t do certain things. You develop an ascetic temperament, but the heart of holiness is a separation from the old man and the humanity of Adam to the new man and the new humanity of Jesus Christ. To be holy therefore, is to be, because we are a new creation in Jesus Christ, dedicated to his service and to obedience to him. It means, moreover, that because we live in terms of the new man, when we look out at the world, we see it as God’s world, and I’m going to use a simple illustration that is not mine.

Beginning in the early church and going on through the Middle Ages, although it was carried to allegorical extremism, nonetheless, at the heart it was a sound thing. When Christians looked at an apple, they did not see just an apple. They saw a fruit that was the work of God’s plan and creation from all eternity. They saw it as a part of a perfect creation, a marvelous order designed by God. During the Middle Ages, they would preach about the apple as symbolizing the tree in the Garden of Eden. They would also go on about the beauty of the apple, and the beauty of all things when they were taken from God and used under him, but whether it was an apple, or a tree, or a leaf, now granted, they allegorized very extensively, they always saw it as a part of a total unity with the rest of the world and God’s purpose, and whatever happened, they saw it in the same way. When they went somewhere and did something, they knew that all of creation, every act therein, came from the hand of God. Now, that’s holiness.

Granted, the most devout Catholic scholars are ready to grant they went to allegorical extremes. Granted all those things, what you have to say is, they at least saw the world as God’s world, and yet when we look out at what happens, we’re atheists. We may be Christians in the church, but when we read the paper, we read it like atheists. “So, what is the world coming to?” Well, the world is moving on track, and God’s plan is being unfolded, which will lead to the destruction of the enemies of God, and so we need to look at the world, whether it’s an apple or the events, or the daily paper, and say, “The Lord is on the throne. Let the people rejoice.” Now, that’s holiness, you see, because in holiness, we do not focus just on ourselves as pietism does. In holiness, our focus is God and his law, God and his word, and we recognize the totality of God’s purpose in all creation.

We recognize the truth of Romans 8:28, “For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose,” and the Bible makes equally clear that all things work together for evil to them that hate God. It’s a marvelous purpose there. When we cultivate holiness, sanctification, we see that, and Romans 8:28 becomes a part of our being, so that we do not fear. As the Psalmist said, “Though the earth be removed, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof, though heaven and earth are rent apart by storms, and disasters, and earthquakes, the Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge.” We see nothing in isolation from God. The framework of all events is the Lord.

When we are pietists, we see the world from man’s perspective, but the world does not move in terms of our plans or calculations, but in terms of the Lord. It is sin, not holiness, to view the world as though it were to revolve around us. This is our Father’s world, and he is {?}.

Are there any questions? Yes?

[Audience] When you first started this, this holiness, is a life, a new order of the kingdom, is that right? And then you said that we die more and more to sin by renewing the Holy Spirit. Can you amplify that? I mean, in an actual, you know, in practical applications?

[Rushdoony] People do not stand still. We either are growing in our depravity and sin, growing as children of the world of anti-God, of Satan, a society of Satan, or we are growing in grace. Growth is inescapable. We’re going to grow in one direction or another. Now, if the principle of life, Jesus Christ, is in us, we’re going to grow in terms of him. It’s been a fearful evil that it’s actually been developed as a theological doctrine a few times in the history of the church. I’m trying to think of the German scholar who developed it about a century ago, the most recent example of it, that there is no growth in sanctification, that your sanctification on the day of your salvation stays constant, so as far as the Lord chooses to take you, the moment he saves you is as far as you go. I recall some years ago hearing about a pastor who had an older member, a rather self-righteous character, testify that the Lord had saved him something like forty years ago, and filled the cup of his salvation to the brim, and hadn’t added a drop nor taken away a drop since them, and the minister said, “Brother, it’s pretty stagnant water by this time.” We grow, it’s inescapable, if we are alive in Christ.

[Audience] Paul said to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Now that growing in grace and the knowledge, grace means something received that we don’t deserve, and knowledge of him is the word of God, isn’t it?

[Rushdoony] Yes. Right.

[Audience] So, actually, that doesn’t mean we’re getting better all the time. It means we’re growing in the concept{?} Christ coming to know him, we’ll realize everything that is of Christ.

[Rushdoony] We grow better by grace. We improve as Christian soldiers {?}

[Audience] And that’s grace, too. {?} whatever we do is by the grace of God and his enablement, and his spirit, {?} And of course, the other thing is, we were thinking the other day, that we are new creations in Christ, as God doesn’t do this for us, that he’s asked us to obey him. So it isn’t him obeying for us. He says to obey me. “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” So, it’s our exercise of that grace which he’s given to us. To get the knowledge of him, and like you said, to go according to all his word, and whatever, “As a man thinketh in his heart, or in his mind, so is he.” Paul says I serve in my mind the law of God, in the flesh the law of sin. So, in the mind, is where having a word, if we meditate upon the word of God day and night, and I presume this is the means by which we will more obey the Lord than not obey the Lord, as we meditate by the word.

[Rushdoony] Psalm 119 is the classic on that kind of meditation. Yes?

[Audience] Can you give a biblical definition of pietism using the two examples that you referred to in scripture, as compared to the pietism which is prominent today?

[Rushdoony] The word piety, as it appears in the Bible, has reference to reverence and respect for those who are our elders, and also can mean worship. So, piety, in the Bible, means simply godly respect and reverence for those above us, and worship of the Lord, but pietism, as it has been historically used, is an entirely different thing. It means an emphasis on our experience to the key to our religious life, rather than an emphasis on the objective work of Jesus Christ.

[Audience] How did {?} historically?

[Rushdoony] How did it develop historically?

[Audience] {?} change of focus on {?} focus on me.

[Rushdoony] Yes. The question is how did the change develop historically. Well, very simply this. Humanism began to creep in to the churches in the 18th century. First of all, it crept in in the form of a rationalism in theology. Both Catholic and Protestant circles began to develop a highly rationalistic kind of theology. Well, that’s humanism. Then, the reaction against that barren rationalism was more humanism, only an emotional kind of humanism, and that was pietism. So that you had first, a humanistic emphasis in the form of an undue emphasis on reason, not reason under God, but reason playing judge over God and his word. And then, you had an emphasis on feeling and emotion, not under God, but in a sense, able to commend itself to God by its pseudo-holiness, its devotion. Yes?

[Audience] With the monastics and the monasteries in the Middle Ages, was that just perversion of like, the doctrine of separation?

[Rushdoony] There were elements of neo-Platonism in the monastics, so there definitely was an element of that there. However, the monastics also were the activists of the Medieval era. They were the missionaries who evangelized a good deal of Europe, and some of them were most remarkable men, very, very remarkable men. They were also pioneers in one area after another in the development of agriculture and technology. So that we are inclined to think of monasticism as a withdrawal from the world. Actually, many of the Medieval monks were the least withdrawn of people. I find that as I go back to the early Middle Ages, I find that I can see more to feel akin to in many of those {?}. Some of them were really remarkable men, delightful characters. They had a holy boldness and a courage that was really amazing.

[Audience] {?} don’t get that impression when you read {?} in literature {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Monasticism now is, in a sense, a withdrawal from the world. Then, they were the pioneers in the early Medieval period. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] There were two examples of pietism that I thought might be helpful. There’s the renewal of the old Puritan pietism that we see in the old Puritan movement, the Reformed Baptist being one group.

[Rushdoony] {?} spoke The Christian in Complete Armor is the classic of that type of false {?} or pietism.

[Audience] I attended one church where the pastor preached for thirteen Sundays on sin, and every Sunday {?} us to examine ourselves to see whether we be in the {?}. There was never a word victory {?}, or every a word of our objective stance on the basis of the word of Christ, and then you see a Wesleyan kind of pietism in the Pentecostal movement which, though it doesn’t have an “Eat your heart out to see whether you be in the faith,” yet it’s still a very subjective thing. It has more of a joyous element to it, but still, it’s the same old thing. Self-oriented.

[Rushdoony] Yes. I should tell all of you at this time that I hope, in a few years, we will have a very, very important work out on the subject of pietism, and its dangers to the church. It is being written by {?}. I’ve read the first draft of it and it is superb, so let’s hope and pray that he gets it done in the not-too-distant future, because I think it will have a great impact on the church. Yes?

[Audience] Did Arminianism come into the picture? {?} talking about.

[Rushdoony] Arminianism greatly increased the receptivity to pietism. Yes?

[Audience] Would the Pharisees of Jesus’ time be rightfully accused of pietism?

[Rushdoony] Good question. Would the Pharisees of our Lord’s time be rightfully accused of pietism? In a sense, yes. It was a related movement in that they substituted the traditions of men for the commandments of God as the way of holiness, and this is what pietism does, and it does lead to a self-righteousness. So, that’s a particularly good question. Yes?

[Audience] In the development of this humanism and pietism in the church, did the general membership realize what was happening?

[Rushdoony] Did the general membership realize in the church what was happening with pietism? Sometimes, yes. That’s a broad question and it covers a great deal of church history. There was, very often, an awareness and a resistance and many of the pietists did have very sharp critics who called attention very pointedly to their departures from the faith, which sometimes were very, very serious. However, there is an appeal to pietism. It puts the center of the faith in your own mind, and you see, that’s pleasing to the sin in all of us. It takes Christ our of the center and puts us right back in the center where the sinner wants to be. Yes?

[Audience] Also, along the same line, I’ve made comments, talking to those who were very experienced {?}, for example, the Pentecostals, and they {?} justification by faith, they will see experience, like a Catholic does, and stand around them instead of the objective work of Jesus Christ, and you start to talk to them and they get on a different wavelength, and you know, they’re off on their little experience again, you know. They put them in the center.

[Rushdoony] Yes. By and large, both Catholics and Protestants are saturated with pietism today, so their differences are minor. Pietism is the reigning position on both sides.

Well, if there are no further questions, let’s bow our heads for our concluding prayer.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee that thou art our Lord, that it is the work of Jesus Christ in terms of which we stand before thee. Give us grace to take hands off our lives and to commit ourselves into thy keeping, knowing that thou doest all things well. Bless us now in our homeward journeys. Give us a blessed night’s rest and joy on the morrow and always in thy service and in thy government. In Jesus name. Amen.

End of tape