NEW OR NUANCED PERSPECTIVE ON CALVIN?
A REPLY TO THOMAS WENGER
marcus johnson*
...The primary evidence Wenger presents for these claims is Calvin’s refutation
of Osiander in Book 3 of the Institutes. Having already warned his
readers of the problem of “erratic readings” and “proof-texting,” I am a bit
surprised that Wenger chose the dispute with Osiander to prove his point.
As the texts that Wenger selected show quite clearly, Calvin’s problem with
Osiander was that his understanding of justification destroyed the foundation
for the believer’s assurance of salvation. By asserting that Christ is our
righteousness according to his divine nature—in a “mixing of essences—
Osiander construes justification as both forgiveness and renewal unto holiness.
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Osiander’s understanding of union with Christ resulted in a commingling of
justification and sanctification which Calvin flatly rejected.
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Calvin’s concern with Osiander is not that he has inseparably bound together
justification and sanctification;
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Calvin’s concern is that Osiander has included sanctification within justification
and thus destroyed the foundation
on which a believer’s assurance rests. The assurance of one’s reconciliation
with God, the peace that quiets the soul, is grounded in justification, not in
one’s inherent holiness (sanctification).
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Thus, Calvin’s point is not thatsanctification must be grounded in justification,
but that the assurance of salvation must be grounded in justification.
As Calvin stated repeatedly, justification and sanctification are benefits
that are to be distinguished but never separated (distinctio sed non separatio).
In this respect, the importance of 1 Cor 1:30 for Calvin could hardly be over-
stressed as a paradigm for understanding the relationship between the two
benefits.
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From this also, we infer, that we cannot be justified freely through faith alone
without at the same time living holily. For these fruits of grace are connected
together, as it were, by an indissoluble tie, so that he who attempts to sever
them does in a manner tear Christ in pieces. Let therefore the man who seeks
to be justified through Christ, by God’s unmerited goodness, consider that this
cannot be attained without his taking him at the same time for sanctification
or, in other words, being renewed to innocence and purity of life.
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The “indissoluble bond” by which justification and sanctification are connected
is Christ himself. To sever these benefits is to “tear Christ in pieces.”
Sanctification, as much as justification, proceeds from the person of Christ
who is grasped in faith. Justification no more “grounds” sanctification than
sanctification grounds justification: both are grounded in, and proceed from,
the believer’s union with Christ:
Why, then, are we justified by faith? Because by faith we grasp Christ’s righteousness,
by which alone we are reconciled to God. Yet you could not grasp
this without at the same time grasping sanctification also. For he ‘is given
unto us for righteousness, wisdom, sanctification, and redemption’ (I Cor.1:30).
Therefore Christ justifies no one whom he does not sanctify. These benefits are
joined together by an everlasting and indissoluble bond, so that those whom he
illumines by his wisdom, he redeems; those whom he redeems, he justifies; those
whom he justifies, he sanctifies. . . . Although we may distinguish them, Christ
contains both of them inseparably in himself. Do you wish, then, to attain
righteousness in Christ? You must first possess Christ; but you cannot possess him
without being made partaker in his sanctification, because he cannot be divided
into pieces (I Cor.1:13). Since, therefore, it is solely by expending himself that
the Lord gives us these benefits to enjoy. He bestows both of them at the same
time, the one never without the other.
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