Justification is possible, therefore, because it is always accompanied by regeneration and union with Christ, and is followed by sanctification. But this is a very different thing from the Romanist confounding of justification and sanctification, as different stages of the same process of making the sinner actually holy. It holds fast to the Scripture distinction between justification as a declarative act of God, and regeneration and sanctification as those efficient acts of God by which justification is accompanied and followed.
Both history and our personal observation show that nothing can change the life and make men moral, like the gospel of free pardon in Jesus Christ. Mere preaching of morality will effect nothing of consequence. There never has been more insistence upon morality than in the most immoral times, like those of Seneca, and of the English deists. As to their moral fruits, we can safely compare Protestant with Roman Catholic systems and leaders and countries. We do not become right by doing right, for only those can do right who have become right. The prodigal son is forgiven before he actually confesses and amends (Luke 15:20, 21). Justification is always accompanied by regeneration, and is followed by sanctification; and all three are results of the death of Christ. But the sin-offering must precede the thank-offering. We must first be accepted ourselves before we can offer gifts; Heb. 11:4—“By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had witness borne to him that he was righteous, God bearing witness in respect of his gifts.”
Hence we read in Eph. 5:25, 26—“Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed = [after he had cleansed] it by the washing of water with the word” [= regeneration]; 1 Pet. 1:1, 2—“elect ... according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit [regeneration], unto obedience [conversion] and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ [justification]”; 1 John 1:7—“if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin”—here the “cleansing” refers primarily and mainly to [pg 864]justification, not to sanctification; for the apostle himself declares in verse 8—“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
Quenstedt says well, that “justification, since it is an act, outside of man, in God, cannot produce an intrinsic change in us.” And yet, he says, “although faith alone justifies, yet faith is not alone.” Melanchthon: “Sola fides justificat; sed fides non est sola.” With faith go all manner of gifts of the Spirit and internal graces of character. But we should let go all the doctrinal gains of the Reformation if we did not insist that these gifts and graces are accompaniments and consequences of justification, instead of being a part or a ground of justification. See Girdlestone, O. T. Synonyms, 104, note—“Justification is God's declaration that the individual sinner, on account of the faith which unites him to Christ, is taken up into the relation which Christ holds to the Father, and has applied to him personally the objective work accomplished for humanity by Christ.”
6. Relation of Justification to Faith.
A. We are justified by faith, rather than by love or by any other grace: (a) not because faith is itself a work of obedience by which we merit justification,—for this would be a doctrine of justification by works; (b) nor because faith is accepted as an equivalent of obedience,—for there is no equivalent except the perfect obedience of Christ; (c) nor because faith is the germ from which obedience may spring hereafter,—for it is not the faith which accepts, but the Christ who is accepted, that renders such obedience possible; but (d) because faith, and not repentance, or love, or hope, is the medium or instrument by which we receive Christ and are united to him. Hence we are never said to be justified διὰ πίστιν, = on account of faith, but only διὰ πίστεως, = through faith, or ἐκ πίστεως, = by faith. Or, to express the same truth in other words, while the grace of God is the efficient cause of justification, and the obedience and sufferings of Christ are the meritorious or procuring cause, faith is the mediate or instrumental cause.
Edwards, Works, 4:69-73—“Faith justifies, because faith includes the whole act of unition to Christ as a Savior. It is not the nature of any other graces or virtues directly to close with Christ as a mediator, any further than they enter into the constitution of justifying faith, and do belong to its nature”; Observations on Trinity, 64-67—“Salvation is not offered to us upon any condition, but freely and for nothing. We are to do nothing for it,—we are only to take it. This taking and receiving is faith.” H. B. Smith, System, 524—“An internal change is a sine qua non of justification, but not its meritorious ground.” Give a man a gold mine. It is his. He has not to work for it; he has only to work it. Working for life is one thing; working fromlife is quite another. The marriage of a poor girl to a wealthy proprietor makes her possessor of his riches despite her former poverty. Yet her acceptance has not purchasedwealth. It is hers, not because of what she is or has done, but because of what her husband is and has done. So faith is the condition of justification, only because through it Christ becomes ours, and with him his atonement and righteousness. Salvation comes not because our faith saves us, but because it links us to the Christ who saves; and believing is only the link. There is no more merit in it than in the beggar's stretching forth his hand to receive the offered purse, or the drowning man's grasping the rope that is thrown to him.
The Wesleyan scheme is inclined to make faith a work. See Dabney, Theology, 637. This is to make faith the cause and ground, or at least to add it to Christ's work as a joint cause and ground, of justification; as if justification were διὰ πίστιν, instead of διὰ πίστεως or ἐκ πίστεως. Since faith is never perfect, this is to go back to the Roman Catholic uncertainty of salvation. See Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:744, 745 (Syst. Doct., 4:206, 207). C. H. M. on Gen. 3:7—“They made themselves aprons of fig-leaves, before God made them coats of skin. Man ever tries to clothe himself in garments of his own righteousness, before he will take the robe of Christ's. But Adam felt himself naked when God visited him, even though he had his fig-leaves on him.”
We are justified efficiently by the grace of God, meritoriously by Christ, instrumentally by faith, evidentially by works. Faith justifies, as roots bring plant and soil together. Faith connects man with the source of life in Christ. “When the boatman with his hook grapples the rock, he does not pull the shore to the boat, but the boat to the shore; so, when we by faith lay hold on Christ, we do not pull Christ to us, but ourselves to him.” Faith is a coupling; the train is drawn, not by the coupling, but by the locomotive; yet without the coupling it would not be drawn. Faith is the trolley that reaches up to the electric wire; when the connection is sundered, not only does the car cease to move, but the heat dies and the lights go out. Dr. John Duncan: “I have married the Merchant and all his wealth is mine!”