I read this wonderful passage on sanctification from J. C. Ryle’s book Holiness (a wonderful book in itself) and it set me to thinking:
Sanctification…is the only sure mark of God’s election. The names and number of the elect are a secret thing, no doubt, which God has wisely kept in His own power, and not revealed to man. It is not given to us in this world to study the pages of the Book of Life, and see if our names are there. But if there is one thing clearly and plainly laid down about election, it is this—that elect men and women may be known and distinguished by holy lives. It is expressly written that they are “elect through sanctification—chosen unto salvation through sanctification—predestined to be conformed to the image of God’s Son—and chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, that they should be holy.” Hence, when Saint Paul saw the working “faith” and laboring “love” and patient “hope” of the Thessalonian believers, he says, “I know your election of God” (1 Pet. 1:2; 2 Thes. 2:13; Rom 8:29; Eph. 1:4; 1 Thes. 1:3-4). He who boasts of being one of God’s elect, while he is willfully and habitually living in sin, is only deceiving himself, and talking wicked blasphemy. Of course it is hard to know what people really are, and many who make a fair show outwardly in religion may turn out at last to be rotten-hearted hypocrites. But where there is not, at least, some appearance of sanctification, we may be quite certain there is no election. The Church Catechism correctly and wisely teaches that the Holy Ghost “sanctifieth all the elect people of God.”
I have been confronted with accusations of hubris and narrow-mindedness for claiming to know the one way to God. My thoughts on this are always quite simple — “What if what I believe is actually…you know…true?” “Well,” the response may be, “there is no way of knowing that.”
Hopefully, I’ll cover that soon in a longer series, but for now, even if we were to make the assumption that I’m right, there’s always the problem of how we would know then who makes the cut. If we were to finally come to the conclusion that the way to God is through Jesus Christ, who then is successful in finding that way?
Let’s start, of course, with the fact that finding the way itself is not a thing which one does. This is the major problem I encounter when talking to people about this. They seem to think that the typical orthodox approach to God through Jesus Christ – that is, that Christ does all of the work and that there is nothing we ourselves can do for our salvation – stands in the way of their own truth: “What about all the really cool and good things that I do that make me better than other people and more likely to be ‘in’ when it comes to God?”
Now, before anyone claims that I’m putting words in their mouths, I want to remind everyone that most of us believe that Hitler is not in heaven (if such a place exists), so there has to be a line somewhere where someone’s deeds either condemn or save a person. It’s just that most people put that line closer to themselves somewhere on a spectrum of human standard of “goodness,” while in fact it should be a spectrum of God’s making.
So now look at Ryle’s statement. He’s not saying that a person’s deeds are doing the job. He’s saying that the way a person is living – that is, in a way in which the Holy Spirit is clearly working to make one more holy – is a sign that one is among God’s elect. This isn’t saying that we can determine a person’s standing before God just by looking at him. I mean, plenty of people do great things for others, putting on all appearances of holiness (Ryle notes that himself with the line “…it is hard to know what people really are, and many who make a fair show outwardly in religion may turn out at last to be rotten-hearted hypocrites”). But the way one lives is one of the things that serves as a clear indicator — a sort of “circumstantial evidence” that, when put together with other pieces of evidence, gives a broader and more accurate picture. We cannot be sure that someone who’s doing all of the right things is good with God, but we can be fairly certain that someone consistently and willfully doing the wrong things is not. As the Apostle John said, “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.” This is not to say that if you commit sins you’re not of God – John says in the very same letter, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” But that (and this goes along with the writing of Ryle) “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” It is Christ’s advocacy for us as the propitiation for our sins, and so the Holy Spirit’s subsequent work in our lives to sanctify us, that is one of the things that marks our position as true Christians.
But it all starts with the work of Christ, without which one cannot be continually sanctified. This is why I press the Gospel so much, for without it, all of the works one can do are meaningless in light of eternity.
A final note, and this can probably go on every piece I write like this: It should be obvious that I am not saying this is the whole of the Christian faith. It is only one small portion of the orthodox position that I put out here to explain what I believe. To me, it makes perfect sense, but that is because I am living in the worldview that what God has told us through creation and the Bible is true. To an unbeliever, it will still fall short because the unbeliever more than likely doesn’t believe that they need anyone’s help (i.e. Jesus or the Holy Spirit) to reach their ultimate destination. Or that there’s even an ultimate destination to be reached. By my own belief, I know I can’t change anyone’s mind, and so I only write to explain and not convince – more as a mental exercise to prepare myself for a defense of my faith…but with gentleness and respect (1 Pt 3:15). I leave the rest to God.