Through faith we are sanctified by Christ
As Calvin considers the role of faith in sanctification, he has a simple conclusion: sanctification is growth in faith, growth in faith is sanctification.67 It is as the Lord
55 Dowey, Knowledge of God, 164-65. 56 Commentary, 1 John 2:11.
57 Institutes 3.2.7. 58
Institutes 3.20.1. Cf. Lobstein, Die Ethik Calvins, 94.
59 Commentary, Ps. 140:6. Cf. Wallace, Christian Life, 272. 60 Wallace, Christian Life, 271.
61 Institutes 3.20.50; cf. E. A. McKee, “Spirituality,” The Calvin Handbook (ed. H. J. Selderhuis; Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2009) 467.
62 Wallace, Christian Life, 279. 63 Institutes 3.20.14.
64 McKee, “Spirituality,” 466. 65
Lobstein, Die Ethik Calvins, 94.
66 “Sermon on 1 Tim. 2:1-2,” CO 53:125. 67 Institutes 3.2.17.
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“breathes faith into us” that we have “newness of life.”68
Godfrey correctly
concludes, “True faith is also the fountain of sanctification, love, and repentance.”69 Every aspect of our new life, regeneration, forgiveness, repentance, is all “attained by us through faith.”70
All our progress in holiness is linked directly to our growth in faith,71 which is sanctification’s “subjective” cause.72
It is not that faith possesses some magical power to improve us, but rather that faith is the conduit through which Christ flows to us,73 and he does have the power to make us holy.74 “For since faith…receives Christ, it puts us in possession…of all his blessings.”75
The more faith we have, the more we are united to Christ,76 who
transforms us and advances us in holiness.77 “We conquer by faith, because we derive strength from Christ.”78
We must never think or act as though we could become holy by the effort of flesh and blood.79 While conformity to the law from the heart outward is God’s plan for us, he accomplishes this not by human power but through faith in Christ. “Faith achieves what the law commands.”80 Nor should we expect, as did Rome, that we must add to faith our love, rather it is faith which produces love.81 As we are justified by faith, so too are we sanctified by faith, the double grace given to us by Christ.82 Faith mortifies the old man and quickens the new,83 it leads us to humility,84 it obtains what we ask in prayer,85 and it quiets our mind with a “firm and steady conviction”86 so that we may boldly face any foe.87
68 Commentary, John 1:13.
69
Godfrey, “Faith Alone,” 274.
70 Institutes 3.3.1.
71 Selderhuis, “Faith Between God and the Devil,” 197; Marcel, “Justification and Sanctification,” 134. 72 Lobstein, Die Ethik Calvins, 28.
73
Kolfhaus, Christusgemeinschaft, 40. Cf. Wendel, Origins, 262.
74 Marcel, “Justification and Sanctification,” 139. 75 Commentary, John 1:13.
76 Kolfhaus, Christusgemeinschaft, 35-36. 77
Institutes 3.2.19.
78 Commentary, 1 John 5:5.
79 Institutes 3.1.4. Cf. Kolfhaus, Christusgemeinschaft, 52. 80 Institutes 2.5.7.
81
Godfrey, “Faith Alone,” 274.
82 Institutes 3.11.1. 83 Institutes 3.3.3. 84 Commentary, Ps. 37:7. 85 Institutes 3.20.11. 86 Commentary, Eph. 1:13. 87 Institutes 3.2.15.
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Sanctification is a struggle for growth in faith against unbelief
Faith does not exist in a placid pool in the heart of the believer. Rather faith is constantly engaged in a battle, a struggle in the human heart, always fighting against doubt and unbelief. Indeed, the Christian struggle is not primarily for outward morality but “the struggle between faith and doubt, certainty and fear, belief and unbelief.”88
We rightly aim for an increase in faith, but the increase itself is a struggle.89 “Our faith cannot and should not exist without battle.”90 This is not a struggle that we enter into episodically but a battle that must be fought each hour of each day.91
There is an apparent contradiction in Calvin,92 who asserts that faith is assurance yet acknowledges that all believers have a “perpetual conflict with their own unbelief”93 as they struggle for a “fuller confirmation.”94 “While we teach that faith ought to be certain and assured, we cannot imagine any certainty that is not tinged with doubt, or any assurance that is not assailed by some anxiety.”95
The contradiction is, however, only apparent. Calvin carefully defines faith as being comprised in its essence as certainty,96 yet he recognizes that the whole of the human soul is not possessed by faith, because unbelief, doubt, dwells right beside it.97 While faith possesses assurance by nature, man possesses doubt by his fallen nature. It is the presence of unbelief in the fleshly heart of man, not any defect in faith proper, that causes the struggle within us.98
This struggle between faith and doubt is a struggle between two world- views,99 one which doubts God’s goodness and one which believes in it.100 “In the struggle of faith there are internal conflicts.”101
Our flesh, the world and, in particular the devil, want to draw our attention to the hardships and disappointments of life to
88 Schreiner, “Certainty,” 119. 89 Commentary, John 2:11. 90 “Sermon on 1 Tim. 1:5,” CO 53:29. 91 Institutes 4.17.40. 92 Lane, “Assurance,” 33. 93 Institutes 3.2.17. 94 Commentary, 1 John 5:13. 95 Institutes 3.2.17. 96 Institutes 3.2.15. 97 Institutes 3.2.4.
98 Lane, “Assurance,” 33; Beeke, “Assurance,” 54. 99
Steinmetz, Context, 117.
100 Beeke, “Assurance,” 53-54. 101 Commentary, Jonah 2:4.
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convince us that God cannot be trusted.102 “Satan hunts for nothing more than to involve us in various and intricate disputes, and he is an acute disputant, yea, and a sophist.”103
Selderhuis explains this “theology from below.” “Satan takes advantage of such a theology and the feelings generated by it. We do not feel anything of God’s benefits, and so, we think, he has probably forgotten us.”104
Likewise those who prosper are tempted to think it is by their own hand and therefore discount God’s role.105 The Lord, however, wants to draw our attention to the promise of His Word, to assure us that he can be trusted despite any circumstance.106
We must struggle all our lives with doubt as part of the normal Christian life,107 yet unbelief “does not hold sway within believers’ hearts” but assails us, as it were, from outside.108 The simple struggle for faith is itself the victory, for when we strive for faith we are “already in large part victorious.”109
The struggle for faith against unbelief is necessary for faith to grow, just as exercise is necessary for an athlete, it is the very “struggle for faith that changes us.”110
Without the struggle faith would not only fail to advance but atrophy.111 While we always struggle for faith, we always triumph by faith in Christ.112
Growth in faith means an increase in two aspects of faith: we move from ignorance of God to knowledge of him and we move from uncertainty to certainty in that same knowledge.113 As we fight for more certainty, we fight for more of what is known by faith: that God will keep all of his promises to us.114 Even while in the struggle, the promises of God give us the repose of certainty. “As soon as the
promises have been embraced, souls that were restless and uneasy are made calm.”115 It is precisely at this point that Calvin faults the Roman doctrine of fides
implicita, even while acknowledging that faith is always imperfect and in some way
102 Commentary, Dan. 11:32; Rom. 1:21. Cf. Wallace, Christian Life, 256. 103 Commentary, Jer. 16:19.
104 Selderhuis, “Faith Between God and the Devil,” 200. 105
Selderhuis, “Faith Between God and the Devil,” 204-05.
106 Institutes 3.2.6. 107 Institutes 3.2.17. 108 Institutes 3.2.21. 109 Institutes 3.2.17. 110 Institutes 4.17.40.
111 Wallace, Christian Life, 252. 112 Institutes 3.2.18.
113
Commentary, Eph. 1:13. Cf. Wallace, Christian Life, 328.
114 Commentary, 1 John 5:13. 115 Commentary, Isa. 30:15.
83 “implicit.”116
Whereas fides implicita calls for faith in the Church and leaves faith stagnated in uncertainty, true faith, as distinguished from false,117 must be both placed in the right object—Christ—and growing in certainty118 that his promise applies to us.119 From this we derive our next principle concerning the struggle for faith.
Principle 6: Faith. Because God sanctifies by giving more faith, therefore struggle daily for more faith to become more holy. Holiness grows with
faith, and faith, as a gift of God, arises from hearing the Word of God while also ignoring the world, the flesh and the devil, which all bid us to doubt God by focusing on negative circumstances.