0801049814 (N) by Robert Kolb

Author:Robert Kolb
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Tags: Lutheran Church—Doctrines, REL082000, REL093000, Reformed Church—Doctrines, Martin Luther (1483–1546), REL067000, Theology
ISBN: 9781493411450
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2017-08-18T21:00:00+00:00

Justification and Sanctification in the Reformed Tradition

For Protestants, the issue of justification and its connection to sanctification is of supreme importance in the dispute with Rome, because it connects to so many points of fundamental disagreement: authority, clarity of Scripture, the nature of God’s grace, and the sacraments, to name but the most obvious. It is also, from the Roman perspective, an obvious point at which to press the Protestants in polemic. If justification is by grace through faith on the basis of Christ’s imputed righteousness, then what is the place for good works? Is Protestantism not simply a license for antinomianism, for acting as one pleases without care for the consequences—precisely because there are no consequences? Thus the issue of justification and sanctification also lies at the heart of the practical theology of Protestantism.

Having said this, justification is a matter on which there is substantial agreement between the Lutherans and the Reformed. Luther is the watershed figure for the Reformed in this matter, as for Lutherans. Without Luther, the Reformed would not have developed their understanding of salvation as they did. Nevertheless, dependence does not mean identity on all matters, and there are some differences on the matter of sanctification.

We can see the importance of Luther on justification for the Reformed by glancing at his reputation among their foremost theologians. Thus, in the seventeenth century, the English congregational divine and Puritan John Owen makes numerous references to Luther in his writings. He cites him as an authority on the imputation of Christ’s righteousness,55 on faith as the sovereign gift of God,56 on justification by faith as central to the existence of the church,57 and on the limited authority of church councils and synods.58 At a number of points, Owen cites him as the great inceptor of the Reformation or as one of a number of illustrious leaders of a previous generation.59 At no point does Owen offer any direct criticism or make any pejorative comment about Luther. This diplomatic immunity that Owen grants is rooted in the facts that Luther is a hero of the Reformation as a whole for the Reformed and that this heroic stature connects doctrinally to his stand on justification.

Such is a commonplace among the Reformed. Direct criticism of Luther among the Reformed is muted and frequently nonexistent because of his heroic status as the man who confronted the Roman Catholic Church over its errors regarding salvation. Owen’s Reformed contemporary Thomas Goodwin refers to Luther repeatedly as the one who made the key breakthroughs on justification, both in terms of imputation of Christ’s righteousness and the instrumentality of faith.60 Such is Luther’s historical significance on this point that the question of the historical integrity of the doctrine is often posed by Owen and others in terms of where his church was before Luther, Luther being acknowledged as the historical watershed on the matter.61 Such was in fact a fairly typical periodization of church history; fundamental disagreements on sacraments and Christology were by and large passed

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