From the Protestant perspective.....
Justification.... Sanctification....
There are TWO DIFFERENT issue here: Justification and Sanctification (narrow sense, both). BOTH are essential..... BOTH are inseparable..... but they are not the same thing, and pretending they are, forcing them together has the product of destroying the Gospel and Christianity.
Let me use this analogy:
FIRST: On January 23, 1988, I was born. I was GIVEN life - the miracle, the wonderful, mysterious GIFT of life (we might agree that actually happened about 9 months earlier, but let's proceed). At that point, I became alive. I became a human being - with all that means, biologically and spiritually, all that means in terms of God and me. GIFT. G.I.F.T. This purely, solely, only, exclusively by mercy since prior to that, I did NOTHING. I thought nothing. I willed nothing. I sought nothing. I desired nothing. NO good works. GIFT. G.I.F.T. Mercy. M.E.R.C.Y. On January 23, 1988 - I was removed from my mother (C-Section) - unbreathing, unconscience - I had NOTHING to do with it. NOTHING. N.O.T.H.I.N.G. Gift. Mercy. No merits. No works. No will. Nothing in or from me. GIFT. MERCY. Someone ELSE is to be credited. Entirely. Wholly. Completely. MONERGISTIC. Life is mine - by grace, by mercy, from God, as a GIFT. I am a human being, with all that means - by grace, by mercy, from God, as a GIFT.
In the same way, God saved me (what Protestants mean here is justification - narrow sense). God GAVE me spiritual life, God caused me to be born AGAIN, now not only with physical life but with spiritual life, now I am not only the child of my parents but a child of God. This CHANGES my relationship to God, as a result solely, only, exclusively because of God's mercy, grace, favor; solely, only, exclusively because of what CHRIST has done as THE Savior; solely, only, exclusively because God GAVE me the GIFT of faith in Christ as my Savior: Sola Gratia - Solus Christus - Sola Fide. We believe this is MONERGISTIC, because CHRIST is the Savior - not me, not you. Protestants agree with the Ancient Creed that God is the GIVER of life (not Offerer but GIVER). I'm NOT the Savior, I've not the Life Giver - in whole or in part - because the job is taken and He didn't blow it. What makes me a CHRISTIAN is that God's merciful, gracious GIFT of faith means I'm looking to CHRIST as THE Savior, not in the mirror
Jesus is the Savior. "This is NOT your own doing but is the gift of God." Jesus is the Savior, not me. Life comes from the one on the Cross, not the one in the mirror. John 3:16. This, of course, was officially repudiated by the RC Denomination as apostate heresy, anathematized, repudiated so strongly as to justify the RCC splitting itself again and doing so over this idea. It is NOT a case of dead SELF, apart from God and without the Spirit, somehow taping into the "gas" God gives in order to slowly "save" self in a SYNERGISTIC process - almost never complete in one lifetime and so (as in Hinduism) more time is supplied to finish the job, justification being a JOINT EFFORT: Jesus doing what He can (perhaps) but it's insuffient, inadequate, He fails as a Savior - so we come to the rescue to help save Him from being a failure by supplying what He could not: Jesus does what He could (but it's inadequate) so WE help Him but adding the really important part, the part that actually results in justification. In the view of Protestants, AT THE VERY LEAST, popular Catholicism is confusing DIFFERENT ISSUES: man and God, law and gospel, santification and justification. OR perhaps Catholicism not speaking of Justification AT ALL, not knowning anything about it, and just talking about Sanctification (while calling it Justification).
SECOND: Almost immediately after being born (well, maybe some months later, lol), my parents, my society and yes God Himsef called me to GROW. To mature. To become more loving, more caring, more righteous, more ethical. Now alive, I am to LIVE. Now His own, I am to live as such. Now a part of His family, I am to live and serve as such. THIS is a process (unlike my conception). THIS is synergistic (unlike conception). GROWING to be more God like. GROWING in the directions that my parents, my society, my God call me: "Thou shalt be HOLY just as the Lord God is holy." "Thou shalt be PERFECT just as your Father in Heaven is perfect." "LOVE in exactly the same way as Christ loved us on the Cross." High callings! I'm not "there" yet. I'm still GROWING (well, I'd LIKE to say always growing..... sometimes I'm not, sometimes I even retreat). And I do so in large part because of God's EMPOWERING, not due to some innate homo sapien ability. Yes..... in a few cases, the Bible also calls this "grace" but the CONTEXT tells us this is different, here it means "strength" or "empowering". It is still ours by mercy (we don't DESIRE anything from Him), but here it means strength. This growing up, this discipleship, this CHRISTIAN-walk is something a CHRISTIAN does, not something that makes one a Christian; it is the RESULT of justification not the cause. My being nice to my neighbor is not what causes me to have physical life, having physical life enables me to be nice to my neighbor. What I do as a growing, maturing, developing man is not what makes me a homo sapien nor worthy of being given life.
The Living living is what Protestants refer to as "Sanctification." It is stressed in Protestantism at least as much as in Catholicism, but it is not looked to as what brings about life but what flows from it, not what renders Christ meaningless and void but what flows from Christ as we grow to become more like our Savior - REFLECTING His heart, His righteousness, His servanthood, His ministry. We don't love SO THAT God will love us and thus give us life.... God loved us and gave us life so that we will now love; "Blessed to a a blessing" to share the usual Protestant proverb. In Sanctification, Jesus is our Lord...and we progress because we HAVE the Holy Spirit (not trying to very slowly buy Him), empowering and directing us.
Mixing, entangling, blending, confusing these two things tends to lead to a destruction of the Gospel (and thus Christianity) where the Savior is not Jesus. Because Sanctification IS synergistic, blending this with Justification means this is then applied equally to Justification thus rendering Jesus irrelevant (or perhaps the Helper or Possibility-Maker rather than Savior). Because Sanctification IS progressive (and never fully achieved), blending this with Justification means this is applied equally to Justification so that Jesus doesn't actually save at all and we are left with uncertainty and the HOPE that someday (if we do our part good enough) we might come to life, gain faith and the Spirit, and have the possibility of living. It's this entangling that leads to the problems Protestants see.
Pax
- Josiah
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