Part 5:
The bullet points with the (g) at the end sound Gnostic. Knowledge does not bring sanctification and since sanctification in Forde's view is synonymous and never separate from or an addition to salvation and justification knowledge saves. That is Gnostic. I suspect Forde simply articulated the matter poorly because if he is orthodox Lutheran then he wholly rejects all Gnostic views. The bullet points with the (w) are points indicating works, and again, I suspect and hope this is simply poorly articulated because otherwise he has two problems: 1) he has contradicted his statements sanctification is by grace alone by faith alone and never by works and never a matter of piety, and 2) Lutherans do not believe in works that way. There are other internal contradictions in Forde's argument, such as the "we" not wanting and confronting sanctification and having knowledge grace directly contradicting sanctification is hidden. If it were truly hidden then we'd have absolutely no knowledge or experience of anything related to sanctification and if that is the case that is going to run into conflict with the purpose of sanctification being separation, divine purpose, and cleansing
and his beliefs we know something about it and do not want or like it.
So, in the end, I agree with Forde sanctification being a work of God by grace but not
by faith. Justification is by faith. Sanctification is through faith and occurs in the faithful, not the faithful-less. That's another subtle but critically important difference. Forde conflates "
by" and "
through" because he also conflates justification and sanctification (and salvation. He does not discriminate between faith and faithfulness and therefore does not entertain the effect of the latter. I'm not sure Luther would agree. However, I could be wrong. I did a little search this morning and had great difficulty finding any Lutheran expounding on the distinction between faith and faithfulness. I did find one author citing "
The Bondage of the Will" to say,
"Faith is the foundation for works, but what is faith for Luther? There is some level of ambiguity in Luther's understanding of faithfulness: On the one hand, Luther talks about faith as the gift of God who acts upon humans wholly from without. On the other hand, Luther speaks of faith as a concrete personal decision and commitment. How is this tension and ambiguity to be resolved? For Luther, the acknowledgment of God's sovereignty and the belief in God's accessibility can only be found in Christ and his Word."
I searched my collected works of Luther and did find very little by Luther about faith versus faithfulness of the saint. However, there is some. Two of his Protestant works, "
Concerning Christian Liberty," and "
The Freedom of the Christian," juxtapose the inability of the unregenerate sinner to will (being wholly enslaved) with that of the regenerate saint to be faithful to God by God's faithfulness to the saints. One of the stated benefits of God work in us is the ability to "
attain sure judgment and faithful discrimination between works and laws" and the ability to recognize those who teach falsely to the contrary. Luther gave that attribution to the saint. It was an effect of God's faithfulness to the saint but God's faithfulness to the bride or saint results in the saints faithful abilities the dead and enslaved sinner does not possess. It is, however, very apparent that for every one occasion where Luther may have explicitly or implicitly (and some of them are admittedly remote) written about the saint's faithfulness he wrote 99 mentions of God's faithfulness.
That alone might explain why the Reformers had to address the matter of sanctification further and differently. It may not be that Luther held different beliefs so much as he wrote very little on the matter.
The commentator of Luther's "
Treatise on Baptism," asserted "
the Protestant distinction between justification and sanctification is involved," but he does not elaborate on the distinctions specifically, and neither did Luther. In comparison we might conclude Luther saw distinctions between justification and sanctification where perhaps Forde does not.
In his work, "
On the Creed," Luther said, "I cannot relate better than to sanctification, that through the same Holy Ghost, with His office, is declared and depicted, namely, that He makes Holy." So, Luther considered sanctification synonymous with holiness (holiness in the sense of sacred separateness and purity, not the experientialist piety of modernity). Repeatedly in that tome and others Luther constantly attributed sanctification to God but he alluded to the sinner's inability to merit sanctification because he lacked the gospel, thereby implying a saint who possesses the gospel did merit salvation. "
Meanwhile, however, while sanctification has begun and is growing daily, we expect that our flesh will be destroyed and buried with its uncleanness, and will come forth gloriously and arise to entire and perfect holiness in a new eternal life." That certainly speaks of sanctification as an ongoing process but leaves out any beneficial temporal effect. In his commentary on 1 Peter Luther wrote of the saint knowing "
how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honor..." and then repeatedly speaks of the saint "
conducting himself" accordingly. This, in my view, speaks of a post-conversion synergism that is solely dependent upon the already-existing work of God.
So, I conclude Luther himself did not have sanctification sorted out completely but did hold to an already/not yet classic Reformed view and did expect God's work to have visible effect in the earthly life of the saint. Throughout my examination I founded repeated examples of Luther treating sanctification as synonymous with being holy, sacred, and clean. There were numerous examples coupling justification and sanctification but many of them spoke of distinctions, not their being synonymous or identical. When I found mentions of sanctification in Luther's works there was another hugely skewed ratio. "
Sanctified" was used a gazillion more times than "
sanctifying." Luther clearly saw sanctification as a process, but he overwhelmingly treated it as an accomplished fact. In his debate with Erasmus he called Erasmus an "
ignoramus" when it came to defining sanctification! On that occasion Luther does not himself define the term but speaks instead of the "
sanctity" of the God, of the Spirit, and not specifically the work of either in the saint. In that regard sanctity is synonymous with being holy, or sacred, purity.
That would explain both Forde's position and his method.
. Forde is correct if he means that tension or suffering the regenerate feels when being cleaned out/up is the old self - the old fleshly, sinful self - wanting to hang on to his old self, but he is wrong if he means the regenerate self fights with God and does not want change. I also agree with Forde's separating (no pun intended) sanctification from piety and Piety. Living well is the result of sanctification, not the sanctification itself. Forde therefore failed to make a distinction between sanctification and sanctified. That which is being sanctified is not yet sanctified. The sanctified do not need sanctification. False dichotomies are fallacious. A more holistic view of sanctification is necessary and scripture speaks of that more holistic view.
Tried to break it down into aspects that stand on their own. I'll read the critiques tonight and get to the other authors' views over the weekend.
