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sanctification. The Roman Catholic idea that justification enables man to perform meritorious
works is contrary to Scripture. Justification as such does not effect a change in our inner being
and therefore needs sanctification as its complement. It is not sufficient that the sinner stands
righteous before God; he must also be holy in his inmost life. Barth has a rather unusual
representation of the relation between justification and sanctification. In order to ward off all
self-righteousness, he insists on it that the two always be considered jointly. They go together
and should not be considered quantitatively, as if the one followed the other. Justification is
not a station which one passes, an accomplished fact on the basis of which one next proceeds
to the highway of sanctification. It is not a completed fact to which one can look back with
definite assurance, but occurs ever anew whenever man has reached the point of complete
despair, and then goes hand in hand with sanctification. And just as man remains a sinner even
after justification, so he also remains a sinner in sanctification, even his best deeds continue to
be sins. Sanctification does not engender a holy disposition, and does not gradually purify man.
It does not put him in possession of any personal holiness, does not make him a saint, but
leaves him a sinner. It really becomes a declarative act like justification. McConnachie, who is a
very sympathetic interpreter of Barth, says: “Justification and sanctification are, therefore, to
Barth, two sides of one act of God upon men. Justification is the pardon of the sinner
(justificatio impii), by which God declares the sinner righteous. Sanctification is the
sanctification of the sinner (sanctificatio impii), by which God declares the sinner ‘holy’.”
However laudable the desire of Barth to destroy every vestige of work-righteousness, he
certainly goes to an unwarranted extreme, in which he virtually confuses justification and
sanctification, negatives the Christian life, and rules out the possibility of confident assurance.
3. TO FAITH.
Faith is the mediate or instrumental cause of sanctification as well as of
justification. It does not merit sanctification any more than it does justification, but it unites us
to Christ and keeps us in touch with Him as the Head of the new humanity, who is the source of
the new life within us, and also of our progressive sanctification, through the operation of the
Holy Spirit. The consciousness of the fact that sanctification is based on justification, and is
impossible on any other basis, and that the constant exercise of faith is necessary, in order to
advance in the way of holiness, will guard us against all self-righteousness in our striving to
advance in godliness and holiness of life. It deserves particular attention that, while even the
weakest faith mediates a perfect justification, the degree of sanctification is commensurate
with the strength of the Christian’s faith and the persistence with which he apprehends Christ.
H. THE IMPERFECT CHARACTER OF SANCTIFICATION IN THIS LIFE.
1. SANCTIFICATION IMPERFECT IN DEGREE.
When we speak of sanctification as being imperfect
in this life, we do not mean to say that it is imperfect in parts, as if only a part of the holy man