Thank you, James, for these warm words of welcome and thank you for coming here this evening to look at this important central topic to the Christian life, sanctification. Very much appreciated over the years, the RPCNA, the Northern Irish branch, the Scottish branch, and now the North American branch, and enjoyed many of your students and many of your ministers as well online and also in the flesh. So it's wonderful to be among you. I feel very much at home, especially with the old acapella Sam singing. It's good to hear again. This evening, though, we'd like to begin by reading a few verses in John chapter 14. John chapter 14. I'd like to read from verse 15. John chapter 14 at verse 15. If you love me, keep my commandments and I will pray the father and he will give you another helper that he may abide with you forever. The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you a little while longer, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me because I live, you will live also. At that day, you will know that I am in my father and you in me, and I in you. He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. Amen. Well, if there's anything that doesn't help sanctification, it's controversy. And yet that's the territory that we begin in tonight as we look at a controversy that's really plagued the church for many, many years. Passive sanctification. It's plagued the church and it's harmed many, many Christian lives. What is it? Well, it's the idea basically that holiness can be attained without really any effort, without any contribution from ourselves, without any sort of disciplined, systematic striving after it. Holiness is something that's received. The old way we used to hear it was let go and let God. The idea being that the more you manage to yield, give up, stop striving, relax, all these passive verbs. The more you manage to do that, the more holy you will become. The newest form of this error is something like this. The more you believe in your justification, the more you will be sanctified. Again, you notice believing there in terms more of reception. And both that old and new form of this error of passive sanctification really has this at its core. The more passive we can be, the more active God will be in our lives. The less we try to succeed in being holy, the more holy we will become. So really, there's no effort, no striving, apart from trying to believe more and more and more in your justification. And as you do that, then spiritual growth just kind of happens automatically. Well, this evening we'd like to look first of all at some examples of this new form of this error. Then I'd like to look at some attractions, why this is so appealing to so many in the church. And then I'd like to look at some dangers. So first of all, some examples, giving you a very broad general description of the new form of this error. What does it really sound like when it's fleshed out? I'd like to read you a number of examples from the writings of those who take this view in the Reformed world. Just bear with me in this initial stage as I try to read out to you some samples of this idea. I used to think that growing as a Christian meant I had to somehow go out and obtain the qualities and attitudes I was lacking. To really mature, I needed to find a way to get more joy, more patience, more faithfulness, and so on. Then, I came to the shattering realization that this isn't what the Bible teaches and it isn't the gospel. What the Bible teaches is that we mature as we come to a greater realization of what we already have in Christ. The gospel, in fact, transforms us precisely because it's not itself a message about internal transformation, but about Christ's external substitution. We desperately need an advocate, mediator and friend, but what we need most is a substitute. Someone who has done for us and secured for us what we could never do and secure for ourselves. There's a lot of good in that statement, isn't there? But there's some strange ideas sowed in amongst it. For example, the writer starts speaking of Christian growth. In other words, of sanctification. And that the writer took personal responsibility for pursuing this and he was active in seeking it. But then realized he was making a terrible mistake. Secondly, he said the Bible teaches that we mature or grow as we come to a greater realization of what we already have in Christ. Again, notice that word, realization. There's not an activity here. There's not really effort, at least externally. He says the gospel's not a message about internal transformation, but about external substitution. And it's certainly a message about external substitution, but the gospel is also about internal transformation. It came to save us from our sins, from our sinning. Let me give you another example. The hard work of Christian growth, therefore, is to think less of ourselves and our performance, and more of Jesus and his performance for us. The hard work is faith, receiving the gospel. Ironically, it says when we focus mostly on our need to get better, we actually get worse. We become neurotic and self-absorbed. So here hard work is mentioned, but again, it's really primarily about thinking, the hard work of thinking less about ourselves and more about Jesus. Christian growth, he says, is looking away from self to Christ and his performance for us. And that's certainly part of sanctification, but is it the whole? Does focusing on our need to get better make us worse? Let me give you another example. Sanctification is the daily hard work of going back to the reality of our justification. It's going back to the certainty of our objectively secured pardon in Christ and hitting the refresh button a thousand times a day. Again, hard work is mentioned, but it's faith he's speaking of again. The totality of sanctification here seems to be going back to our justification. That's confirmed in the following words from the same book. Our hard work therefore means coming to a greater understanding of His work. And so it is that we move further into the gospel, into a deeper, bigger, brighter understanding of all that God has already achieved for us in Christ. So again, the work we're called to is simply understanding more, believing more, trusting more. Another example, growth in the Christian life is the process of receiving Christ's it is finished into new and deeper parts of our being every day. And it happens, that's Christian growth, happens as the Holy Spirit daily carries God's good word of justification into our regions of unbelief. Again, you wonder, where is the shorter catechisms being enabled to die unto sin and to live unto righteousness? In another place, I like to remind myself and others that the only thing you contribute to your salvation and to your sanctification is the sin that makes it necessary. The only thing? Well, contribution to salvation for sure, nil. We contribute nothing, but contribution to sanctification, nil? No, we are enabled to die unto sin and to live unto righteousness. We are enabled to do and to not do. Sanctification consists, he says, of the daily realization. Again, notice that. The daily realization. That in Christ we have died and in Christ we have been raised. Life change happens. See this idea of as you get this justification, as you believe in it more, understand it more, realize it more, somehow growth, sanctification just kind of happens. Life change happens. See the passivity? As the heart daily grasps death and life. He says, I'm not saying the Christian life is effortless, okay? So he's obviously detecting us heresy hunters out here that are gonna give him a black eye. He says, I'm not saying the Christian life is effortless. The real question is, where are we focusing our efforts? Are we working hard to perform or are we working hard to rest in Christ's performance for us? The hard work of resting. Christian growth happens by working hard to daily swim in the reality of what we do have. Believing again and again the gospel of God's free, justifying grace every day and resting in His verdict is the hard work we're called to. Now, none of us would have any objections to this if this was slightly qualified. It's part of the hard work of our sanctification. But it's not the whole of it, which is what is being taught. He says, I think of it this way. The hard work of Christian growth consists primarily in being daily grasped by the fact that God's love for us isn't conditioned by anything we do or don't do. So by all means work, but the hard work is not what you think it is, your personal improvement and moral progress. The hard work is washing your hands of you and resting in Christ's finished work for you. That seems a wonderful gospel message, doesn't it? But he's talking about sanctification, not justification. He says, as we do this hard work of washing our hands of us, resting in Christ's finished work for you, it will, he says, inevitably produce personal improvement and moral progress. And this kind of passivity comes out in this further quote. It takes the loving act of our Christian brothers and sisters to remind us every day of the gospel that everything we need and everything we look for is already ours in Christ. When we do this, look to Christ, look to Christ, look to Christ. When we do this, the good stuff rises to the top. presume they are good stuff, means holiness, sanctification, growth, maturity. And he's saying basically, if we get this justification every hour, every minute, then that will inevitably, automatically produce growth and sanctification. So the key words here are words like remember, realize, recognize, rest, relax, and rejoice. The only time words like effort and work appear are in connection with believing, which is a receiving grace. So I hope you can see it's not identical to the let go and let God idea. I hope you can see here, this error of passive sanctification is still present, though in a slightly different form. So, let me move on. I hope that's made clear what we're talking about here tonight. It's a wee bit difficult to grasp, probably for most of us, we're not really familiar with this view of sanctification. It sounds quite appealing in some ways, and yet, There are really serious problems with it. So I want to try and explain why is it that this is proving so attractive? Why is it that when some Christians hear this idea, they really run to it and embrace it? Well, there are good reasons and bad reasons. One good reason is it keeps justification central in the Christian life. It keeps justification central in the Christian life. We are justified only once, of course, by our initial act of saving faith, but we can appropriate that justification more than once. We agree with these writers. We do need to understand justification better. We do want to study it more. We do want to rest in it more. We do want to swim in it more. Not just at the beginning of our Christian lives, but every day of our lives. There's no question that this idea, this view of sanctification, makes justification a present, living, powerful reality. in the Christian's everyday life. And who doesn't want that? This is an excellent, wonderful foundation for sanctification. So, yes, we love the words realize, recognize, remember, relax, rest, rejoice, we do. We want to do that every day of our lives when we get up in the morning. In the midst of the day, when we go to bed at night, we want justification central in our lives. It's not something we leave behind once we are brought to Christ. It is something that is to be a daily doctrine for us. So that's really appealing. I think we can all feel the power of this. If that was more of a reality, there would be more sanctification in our lives. It would fill us with much more energy. The sense of being forgiven and cleansed and justified and accepted. Well, that's just incredibly empowering and motivating. Secondly, the attraction of reducing the danger of legalism in the Christian life. And there's one thing that Books like this and other similar writings do. It certainly really helps to highlight the Pope in our own breasts, the incipient legalism that clings to the Christian throughout our lives, really. And some Christians in particular, they kind of think, well, I get saved by God's sovereign grace, but I get sanctified by my own efforts. I get in by grace, but I go on by myself. And that view, without question, produces a kind of just a ceaseless, endless round of doing and serving and trying and striving and working You're just continually trying to please this God who has saved you. You can't do enough, and churches are full of this. People with a wrong understanding of what it means to be a Christian that produces a legalism, and it's a drudge, isn't it? I mean, we've all been there to some extent. We slip away from the gospel, from justification. Somehow we begin to found our own Christian lives, our own joy, our own peace even on what we are able to do for God. And that becomes the basis for our confidence in prayer and even in preaching. And yet for all this, it's misery. There's no joy in it. There's no resting in it. It's endless. It's just a recipe for frustration and disappointment and defeat. And that's where legalism always leaves us, just worn out and with no joy. And so by bringing the Christian back continually to justification daily, then this danger of legalism is much reduced. And we're able to see it much more clearly for what it is. And justification's able to just keep pounding it down and keep us in peace and in the joy of the gospel. So that's attractive, isn't it? Who doesn't want that? Delivered from legalism every day. Third attraction is the way it reconnects justification and sanctification. Kind of touched on this already, but I think it's worth emphasizing. If we keep justification, in our daily lives, connecting it with our sanctification, what happens? Well, what happens is our obedience becomes love-fueled and faith-filled. Our sanctification, our growth, our maturity, our holiness, our service is growing out of a sense of love to the God who has justified us and brings that into our conscience every single day. Sanctification does not begin with I resolve or I will. It begins with I believe, it does. David Polison said, don't ever degenerate into giving advice unconnected to the good news of Jesus crucified, alive, present at work and returning. We do that again don't we? Preachers do it as well. We give all these do's, don'ts, do's, don'ts and yet Where is the gospel basis for it? So we go out laden with guilt, depressed, discouraged, demotivated and powerless. Whereas you reconnect justification with sanctification, you have fuel flowing from love. I think the fourth attraction is it relieves exhausted Christians. It relieves exhausted Christians. Many Christians I know, you know, maybe ourselves, we're on the road to spiritual burnout because we've got this legalist within, or maybe even legalists in our churches that just are continually driving us, driving us, driving us, onward, onward, onward. And it's like the whole Christian life becomes activism. It's all doing, doing, doing, or not doing, not doing, not doing. trying to be moral, trying not to be immoral. And to such Christian activists, this passivism is extremely attractive. You mean I don't need to try? Whoa, that sounds good to me. Even for a day I wouldn't mind believing this. Yeah, I would love to just relax a bit more and swim around in my justification. That just sounds wonderful. So I'm saved by faith. That was wonderful. I can be sanctified by faith too. Whoa. That just sounds really good to me. So I'm justified by receiving Christ. I'm sanctified by receiving Christ. I know how much I enjoyed that justification. Therefore, sanctification is gonna be equally enjoyable now. You're one of these exhausted, burned out Christians. This is cool water in a thirsty land. So you can understand the market, can't you, for this. And it's meeting a real, genuine spiritual need. But I don't believe with the right medicine, the right water, you might say. But let me give you one more attraction. I think these four that I've given you are good attractions, they're well motivated. We want justification in our daily life, we want to be delivered from legalism, we want to reconnect justification, sanctification, and we want to be relieved from our spiritual exhaustion. But here's a fifth reason which I don't think is so well motivated. It offers us a silver bullet for sanctification. A key, one simple solution. And if you look through the history of the Christian church, that pursuit for that silver bullet has been constant through church history. Especially for conscientious Christians who do want to please the Lord and do want to grow in holiness and do want to be pure, and yet this daily struggle, this daily battle, this daily defeat, You know, if there was a book, if there was a blog, if there was a preacher, if there was just a conference even, I mean, there must be something somewhere that's just gonna solve everything. And I'll just take this quantum leap, maybe not quite to perfection, but pretty close. And really, this is what's on offer here. It's new, and it sounds really appealing. It sounds easy. It sounds like the solution. I want that easy, quick answer to all the struggles I have against my own sins, against the world and against the devil. This seems to offer it. I don't think any of us should be seeking that silver bullet because the Bible doesn't offer it. It offers many, many, many strategies and helps for sanctification, but not one of them alone, and certainly not this one alone. So there are attractions. But I'd like to spend the rest of our time together considering the dangers And I hope you've noticed, I haven't called this a heresy, and I haven't called those who teach this heretics. I believe it's an error. And I hope you can see, I believe in some ways it's a well-motivated error. I believe it's a genuine desire to address problems in the church and in the Christian life, but the solution is extreme. it goes too far. And so here I'm speaking of dangers. And in doing so, I'm not saying this is actually happening as a result. In some cases it is. What I'm saying is, if this is pursued and followed, there's great danger of this happening. at least some way down the road if it's not happened already. And again, those who teach it, again, not saying they are doing this, but it's always the problem in the church that when an error is taught, when there's just a slight deviation, those who follow take it so much further and open the door so much wider. I think that's what we may well see, sadly, in the years ahead if we're not seeing it already. So the first danger is the danger of lost doctrine. The danger of lost doctrine. I hope you can see already there's a real danger of conflating and confusing justification and sanctification. They sound the same. When I read what is taught here about sanctification, I think, that's justification to me. And when you confuse two things and you conflate two things, you end up losing both of them. Because you've brought two things together that are different and now you've got something else all together and you've lost what you originally had. I believe... There's a really worthy desire here to exalt grace and to reconnect justification and sanctification, but the effect is going to be, if not already, that both justification and sanctification are lost through this confusion. Kevin DeYoung said, if in trying to honor justification by faith alone, we provide the same formula for sanctification, we are destroying the former as much as the latter. It's kind of like hot and cold water. If I want a shower, I want hot water. If I want a drink, I want some cold water. But if I mix both of these together, I'm gonna have a miserable shower and a disgusting cup of water. And that's what I think is the real danger here. You end up having two really beautiful, useful things, doctrines, that when confused in this way result in nothing useful or helpful. So there's a real danger of losing doctrines in the church, central doctrines. Second danger is the danger of lost law. I believe what happens here is we lose God's moral law from the Christian life. Again, I'm not saying the advocates of this are aiming for that, but that's the effect. The only imperative that seems to be left is believe in your justification. That seems to be the only imperative that is left. The only thing that the effort and activity is to be focused upon. So where is the moral law? Salvation is salvation from sin. Sin is transgression of the moral law. Therefore, if we're being saved, we're being saved from transgression of the moral law. And therefore we need imperatives to show us the kinds of sin to be delivered from and the kind of virtue to pursue. We need much, much more than this one law. Believe in your justification. We certainly need that. But we need all of God's moral law. And to obey the law is not legalism. To obey the law as a means of salvation for sure is legalism. But to obey the law out of love-filled, faith-fueled desire is gospel obedience. It's what's required of the Christian. And if all we focus on is this one imperative, then we're in grave danger of losing 10 imperatives. And you'll notice that often in discussions about this, the law comes in for a terrible time. It's like as if it's the worst thing that was ever revealed in the world. So I just don't know what people think being saved is all about. He shall save his people from their sins. Thirdly, there's the danger of lost effort. As we try to see, this view seems to focus all effort and all activity upon resting in Christ's effort and work for us. But there's an awful lot more work required if sanctification's going to happen. The classic book on holiness, J.C. Ryle's book, which will never date, Says, in justification the word to be addressed to man is believe, only believe. In sanctification the word must be watch, pray, fight. The very same apostle who says in one place, the life that I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God, justification. Says in another place, I fight, I run, I keep under my body. And in other places, let us cleanse ourselves, let us labor, let us lay aside every weight. I don't believe in these contexts the apostles saying, I fight to get more understanding of justification. I run in order to swim more in the pool of justification. It's much wider than that. The effort that's spoken of in this view is largely intellectual and spiritual. It's largely internal. It's a kind of emasculated sanctification, a disembodied sanctification. If you look at the sanctification the Bible speaks about, there's a muscularity about it. There's a flesh and bloodness about it. Again, Kevin de Young puts it like this, The mouth tells the truth and refuses to gossip, slander, or speak what is coarse or obscene. The muscles toil and strive after Christ-like virtue. The heart is full of joy instead of hopelessness, patience instead of irritability, thankfulness instead of envy. The sexual organs are pure, being reserved for the privacy of marriage between one man and one woman. The feet move toward the lowly and away from senseless conflict, divisions and wild parties. The hands are quick to help those in need and ready to fold in prayer. Kevin de Young says when he loses track of what holiness is, he simply scans his body. What have these to do? What have these to do? What have these to do? What have these to do? There's a physical effort to it. It's much more than just this internal, subjective, spiritual, intellectual effort. The fourth danger is the danger of lost motivation. Really, the motive for obedience is reduced to one item in this wrong view, and that is justification. I've been justified. Therefore, that's motive for holiness. But that seems to be the only motive. And there are innumerable motives to holiness in the Bible. Again, Kevin de Young, who has done so much excellent writing on this, said he started studying 2 Peter. And he found in that one little letter of three chapters, 20 motivations for holiness. 20 motivations in Peter, 2 Peter alone. Just give you a couple. We pursue holiness so that we might become partakers of the divine nature. We grow in grace so we will not be ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. We work hard at holiness in order to make our calling and election sure. We practice these godly qualities so they'll be richly provided for us in entrance into the eternal kingdom. And another long list. 20 in one letter. We need all the motives we can get. Justification is a wonderful motive. A powerful energy giving. I'm sorry, it's not enough for me. I need 20, I need 100. And man, that's hardly enough at times. and we can't afford to lose one of them in our pursuit of holiness. Fifth danger is the danger of a lost dimension. Think of it this way. If there's nothing that we can do or not do that influences our experience of God's love. There's nothing we can do after we're converted that either increases or decreases our nearness to God, our communion with God, our sense of God's love. If there's nothing we can do, then the focus of our Christian lives becomes horizontal, not vertical. we lose that vertical dimension. Good works are basically directed man works because, well, you know, it doesn't really impact God at all. In fact, this was actually said in a book. Forever freed from our need to pay God back or secure God's love and acceptance, we are now free to love and serve others, however, The Bible makes very clear that by God's grace we can do good works that both bless man and please God, after we are justified. You think of Philippians 4.16, speaks of, I am full having received from Epaphroditus the thing sent from you, a sweet smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. But do not forget to do good and to share for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. Hebrews 13, 16. Again in Hebrews 13, 21. He says, may God work in you what is well pleasing in his sight. In other words, there is a vertical dimension. There is an impact on God. there is a way of increasing the pleasure of God in us and conversely decreasing. In other words, our works on a horizontal level have a vertical impact. Our creature to creature relationship has an impact on our creature to creator. relationship. This is a vital dimension of the Christian life that we must not lose. Sixth danger is the danger of lost love. The danger of causing some believers to lose the sense and experience of God's love for them. Now let me give you some quotes here again. God's love for us does not depend on our progress in obedience. Legalism insists that my ongoing relationship with God is based on my ability to do good. Skip over a few there. Jesus fulfilled all of God's conditions on our behalf so that our relationship with God could be unconditional. It really sounds very plausible this, but it's not biblical. because there is a sense in which our relationship with God is conditional. After we're converted, not conditional in terms of being saved, but there is condition in the Christian life. That's why we read John 14. For example, in verse 15, if you love me, keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father, and he will give you another helper that he may abide with you forever. So here there's a link. between loving God, keeping his commandments, and the Father sending his Spirit, a helper, to stay with us. Then again in verse 21, he who has my commandments and keeps them, it's he who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and manifest myself to him. He's saying again, if your obedience is love stoked, love fueled, flowing out of love to God, not legalistic cold mechanical obedience, but a love that is based on justification, that is expressed in obedience, He says, God sees that, and God rewards it, and God blesses it. He says, if I see this, if I see this dear believer here, walking in holiness, seeking to strive after love-stoked obedience, said, I'm coming down there, and I'm gonna fill that heart in a way that other Christians might not know anything about, and I'm going to reveal myself, and I'm going to shed my love abroad in that heart. There's condition for sure in the Christian life. And if we don't go down this route, we're in great danger of losing this amazing spiritual experience of knowing more and more of the love of God shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Spirit. John Piper said, Jesus says that he and his Father in heaven will love us in response to our obedience. Now, in one sense, God's love for us never changes, never changes, never changes. But what does change is how much of that love he reveals to us and how much of that love we either block out or cultivate. Two dimensions to that. God may decide not to show and display and shed abroad that love, and we by disobedience can shutter the doors and padlock them saying, I don't want that. It's the danger of lost love. Seventh danger is the danger of lost chastisement. There's no link between our works and pleasing God, then there's no link between our disobedience and God's chastisement. Again, that is a theme that is encountered in these writings. Now we're not, we don't want to be Job's friends. We're not saying every suffering is the result of personal sin. We don't believe that. But God in his love and wisdom does chastise us. He does discipline us in response to what we do or don't do. Again, if we don't have that element in our Christian life, we're going to lose out on chastisement, the blessing of God's fatherly discipline. Eighth danger, the danger of lost spirituality. There's just so much more to the Christian life than this one-dimensional presentation of it. Let me again give you a quote. The Spirit's continuing subjective work in me consists of, okay, here's the Spirit's work, it consists of His constant daily driving me back to Christ completed objective work for me. That's the Spirit's work. Well, that's part of it. That's not all of it. That's a tiny part of it. That's a very impoverished, narrow view of the Christian life of spirituality. You read the Psalms. It's just the diversity and variety, multiplicity of spirituality. It's just vast. None of us will ever experience it all in this life. But certainly much more than just simply this. You think of the vast amount of Christian literature, especially Puritan literature. that paints this wide and deep and long vista of Christian spirituality. It's so much more than simply, though wonderfully, yet simply and solely being driven back to our justification. Very quickly, there's a danger of lost unity. It's polarizing God's people. It's dividing the church. J.C. Ryle said, I must deprecate, and I do it in love, the use of uncouth and newfangled terms and phrases in teaching sanctification. I plead that a movement in favor of holiness cannot be advanced by new-coined phraseology or by disproportioned and one-sided statements. or by overstraining and isolating particular texts, or by exalting one truth at the expense of another. Think he was a blogger, wouldn't you? The cause of true sanctification is not helped but hindered by such weapons as these. A movement in aid of holiness which produces strife and dispute among God's children is somewhat suspicious. Lastly, there's the danger of losing Christ. The gospel is not justification. The gospel is Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ does many things among which he justifies, he sanctifies, and so on. Christ is in danger of being pushed out here by an overemphasis on a doctrine. Rick Phillips says, Christ is himself the center of the gospel and through faith we are saved in union with him. Justification and sanctification are distinct benefits flowing through union with Christ by faith alone. Justification is a legal benefit of our union with Christ. Kim de Jong says similarly, does sanctification logically proceed from justification? Yes, but it finds its basis in our union with Christ. As strange as it sounds, because it's clearly not the intention of those advocating such, if we miss the fact that sanctification is a benefit which flows from union with Christ, we can end up missing Christ. God forbid that any of us do that. Amen, let's pray. Oh Lord, we confess our ignorance, we confess our proneness to stray, we confess our liability to err, and pray that you would keep us day by day, every step of the way. We pray for dear brothers and sisters in Christ to take a different view, we believe a wrong view on these things that you would bring them back to your truth. Using them along the way to sharpen your churches, your people's understanding of sanctification and above all, motivating us to pursue holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.