emphasis added.
The Certainty of Judgment
hen the Reformers rediscovered the great truth of justification by faith and began to articulate it in their writings, Rome's response was to argue that this doctrine rendered holy living superfluous. If the perfect righteous ness of Christ is imputed to sinners solely on the basis of faith, then those who have been justified can simply live any way they please yet be guaranteed of heaven. Being perfectly righ teous in God's eyes, they have no need of practical righ teous ness.
The Reformers answered that charge by showing that sanctification is inevitable in the experience of every true believer. John Calvin wrote, "By faith we apprehend the righ teous ness of Christ, which alone reconciles us to God. This faith, however, you cannot apprehend without at the same time apprehending sanctification; for Christ 'is made unto us wisdom, and righ teous ness, and sanctification, and redemption' (1 Cor. i.30). Christ, therefore, justifies no man without also sanctifying him."1
Contemporary Protestantism tends to forget those theological roots. In fact, those who decry lordship salvation as heresy have fallen into precisely the error Rome tried to pin on the early Reformers. Many of them explicitly teach that justification by faith makes holiness nonessential. They see practical sanctification as desirable, even pivotal, but nonetheless unrelated to the matter of justification and unnecessary for eternal salvation. As noted in a previous chapter, they tend to view the forensic element of justification as the sum total of God's saving work. Practical sanctification may or may not occur, they say, depending on the person's willingness to obey. While acknowledging that every believer is justified, they want to make room for believers who might not be sanctified.
But that view completely subverts Reformation theology. While justification and sanctification are distinct theological concepts, both are essential
1. John Calvin, Institutes of the Chris tian Religion, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1972), 2:99, emphasis added.