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The Difference Between Justification & Sanctification;

Or, Righteousness Imputed & Grace Imparted

by Ralph Erskine (1685-1752)

The following selection is taken from Erkine's Gospel Sonnets as found in "The Sermons and Practical Works of Ralph Erskine" (Glasgow: W. Smith and J. Bryce Booksellers, 1778) vol. 10, pp. 283-290. The original title appears as follows: "The Believer's Principles concerning Justification and Sanctification, their Difference and Harmony" (this material is presented in two sections and only Section One is available here). The electronic edition of this text has been newly type set and edited by Shane Rosenthal. In numerous cases antiquated characters have been replaced and the spelling has been modernized. In some instances sections have been edited for clarity. This particular version therefore is not in the public domain. It may be copied and distributed only for personal or educational use.

 

Note, that Justification is sometimes here expressed by the words, imputed grace, justifying grace, righteousness, etc. Sanctification by the names, imparted grace, grace, graces, holiness, sanctity, etc.; which the judicious will easily understand (This preface is in the orginal text).

 

Kind Jesus spent his life to spin

My robe of perfect righteousness;

But by his Spirit's work within

He forms my gracious holy dress.

 

He as a Priest me justifies,

His blood does roaring conscience still;

But as a King he sanctifies,

And subjugates my stubborn will.

 

He justifying by his merit,

Imputes to me his righteousness;

But sanctifying by his Spirit,

Infuses in me saving grace.

 

My justifying righteousness

Can merit by condignity;

But nothing with my strongest grace

Can be deserv'd by naughty me.

 

This justifying favour sets,

The guilt of all my sin remote:

But sanctifying grace delets

The filth and blackness of its blot.

 

The former is my Judge's act

Of condonation full and free:

The latter his commenced fact,

And gradual work advanc'd in me.

 

The former's instantaneous,

The moment that I first believe:

The latter is, as Heav'n allows,

Progressive while on earth I live.

 

The former pardons ev'ry sin,

And counts me righteous, free, and just:

The latter quickens grace within,

And mortifies my sin and lust.

 

My righteousness is infinite,

Both subjectively and in kind;

My holiness most incomplete,

And daily wavers like the wind.

 

So lasting is my outer dress,

It never wears nor waxes old;

My inner garb of grace decays

And fades, if Heav'n do not uphold.

 

My righteousness and pardon is

At once most perfect and complete;

But sanctity admits degrees,

Does vary, fluctuate, and fleet.

 

Hence fix'd, my righteousness divine

No real change can undergo;

But all my graces wax and wane,

By various turnings ebb and flow.

 

I'm by the first as righteous now,

As e'er hereafter I can be:

The last will to perfection grow,

Heav'n only is the full degree.

 

The first is equal, wholly giv'n,

And still the same in ev'ry saint;

The last unequal and unev'n,

While some enjoy what others want.

 

My righteousness divine is fresh,

For ever pure and heav'nly both;

My sanctity is partly flesh,

And justly term'd a menstrual cloth.

 

My righteousness I magnify,

'Tis my triumphant lofty flag;

But, pois'd with this, my sanctity

Is nothing but a filthy rag.

 

I glory in my righteousness,

And loud extol it with my tongue;

But all my grace, compar'd with this,

I under-rate as loss and dung.

 

By justifying grace I'm apt

Of divine favour free to boast;

By holiness I'm partly shap'd

Into his image I had lost.

 

The first to divine justice pays

A rent to still the furious storm;

The last to divine holiness

Instructs me duly to perform.

 

The first does quench the fiery law,

Its rigor cov'nant fully stay;

The last its rule embroider'd draw,

To deck my heart, and gild my way.

 

Though all my graces precious are,

Yea, perfect also in desire;

They cannot stand before the bar

Where awful justice is umpire:

 

But, in the robe that Christ did spin,

They are of great and hight request;

They have acceptance wrapt within

My elder Brother's bloody vest.

 

My righteousness proclaims me great

And fair, even in the sight of God;

But sanctity's my main off-set

Before the gazing world abroad.

 

More justify'd I cannot be

By all my most religious acts;

But these increase my sanctity,

That's still attended with defects.

 

My righteousness the safest ark

'Midst ev'ry threat'ning flood will be;

My graces but a leaking bark

Upon a stormy raging sea.

 

My righteousness is that which draws

My thankful heart to this respect:

The former then is first the cause,

The latter is the sweet effect.

 

Christ is in justifying me,

By name, The Lord my righteousness:

But as he comes to sanctify,

The Lord my strength and help he is.

 

The former does annul my woe,

By God's judicial sentence past;

The latter makes my graces grow,

Faith, love, repentance, and the rest.

 

The first does divine pard'ning love

Most freely manifest to me;

The last makes shining graces prove

Mine int'rest in the pardon free.

 

My soul in justifying grace

Does full and free acceptance gain;

In sanctity I heav'nward press

By sweet assistance I obtain.

 

The first declares I'm free of debt,

And nothing left for me to pay;

The last makes me a debtor yet,

But helps to pay it ev'ry day.

 

My righteousness with wounds and blood

Discharg'd both law and justice' score;

Hence with the debt of gratitude

I'll charge myself for evermore.

 

 

 

More on the Difference Between Justification and Sanctification
The following selection is taken from "The Beaties of Erskine" (1745), and it appears below as it was orginally printed. An additional selection is presented below under the title, "The Baxterian Scheme opposite to the Gospel Doctrine," and refers to the views of Richard Baxter and his followers. This brief paragraph includes the original footnote (a selection from "Marshall" on the subject of Sanctification).


 

1. In Justification, God loves us, and shows his love in Christ; in sanctification we love God, and show our love to him: for the sum of active holiness is love, which is the fulfilling of the law.

 

2. In justification, we have the favour of God; in sanctification, we have the image of God and the special part of his image is love.

 

3. In justification, we are passive, as when God set his love upon us; but in sanctification, we are active, while his love causes us to act in loving him.

 

4. Justification is God's act of love without us, in and through the merit and righteousness of Christ imputed to us; sanctification is God's work of grace within us, by the Spirit of Christ imparted to us as a Spirit of love, as well as of other graces.

 

5. Justification is perfect, equal, and always the same, like the love of God the original cause, and the righteousness of Christ the meritorious cause of it; but sanctification is imperfect, unequal, and changeable, for the love of the saints is up and down.

 

6. Justification is the cause, sanctification is the effect; even as God's love is the cause of our love.


7. Faith in justification is an instrument, receiving Christ as the Lord our righteousness, and apprehending the love and mercy of God in him; but faith in sanctification is an agent, employing Christ as the Lord our strength, to enable us to manifest our love to, him.

 

Thus we see the priority of divine love and favour, and acceptation and justification, before any work of ours; and so how any can maintain that actual gospel repentance, which must be a work of ours, and a piece of sanctification at least, doth go before and is necessary in order to justification, let the judicious reader consider, without receding from our standards, and binding their faith to the belt of any fallible creatures, councils, or acts. That legal repentance, or humiliation and conviction, and sense of sin, do go before justification, in order of divine operation, is plain; and that habitual sanctification or regeneration is also precious, is not denied but that gospel repentance, or any part of actual sanctification, is necessary in order to justification and pardon, I do not see how it is possible to maintain that, without running into the Roman camp, and fighting with Popish weapons, and inverting the order of our text, making any part of our love to God necessary first, in order to God's loving us. But sure God's method of doing will stand in spite of earth and hell; "We love him. because he first loved us."

 

 

 

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The Baxterian Scheme Opposite to the Gospel Doctrine

 

The Baxterians tell us that God hath made a new law with mankind, and, that obedience to this new law and its commands is our righteousness; and that, this obedience gives us a title to heaven, and a title to Christ's blood, and to pardon; and that the act of faith is our righteousness, not as it accepts of Christ's righteousness, but as it is an obedience to this new law. The very act and work of faith is, according to them, the righteousness itself and this faith includes all kinds of works, namely, repentance, love, obedience, and ten or twelve duties of that sort; and all these together are our righteousness for justification. Really as one says upon this very head, if the Apostle Paul were alive he would excommunicate such ministers.*

 

*Those that endeavour to perform sincere obedience to all the commands of Christ, as the condition whereby they are to procure for themselves a right and title to salvation, and a good ground to trust on him for the same, do seek their salvation by the works of the law, and not by the faith of Christ as he is, revealed in the gospel and they shall never be able to perform sincerely any true holy obedience by all such endeavours. For,

 

First, All that seek salvation by the sincere performance of good works, as the procuring condition, are condemned by the apostle Paul, for seeking righteousness by the works of the law, and not by faith, Rom. ix. 32. and for seeking to be justified by the law, and falling from the grace of Christ, Gal. v. 4. This one assertion, if it can be proved, is enough to pluck off the fallacious vizard from the condition of sincere obedience, and to make man abhor it as a damning legal doctrine, that bereaveth its followers of all salvation by Christ. And the proof of it is not difficult. The Jews and Judaizing Christians, against whom the apostle chiefly disputed in his whole controversy, did not profess any hope of being justified by perfect obedience, according to the rigour of the law, but only by such obedience as they accounted to be sincere and not hypocritical. And they might as readily judge sincere obedience to be the condition of justification under the law, as we can judge it to be the condition under the gospel. And the apostle evidently condemns them for seeking salvation by their own works. And they could as well acknowledge their salvation to be by faith as the assertors of salvation by sincere obedience can in these days; for they accounted that their sincere obedience was wrought in them by believing the word of God, which contained gospel as well as legal doctrine in it, and therfore it must be included in the nature of faith, if faith were taken for the condition of their whole salvation. Let the assertors of the condition of sincere obedience learn from hence that they are building again that Judaism which the apostle Paul destroyed, whereby the Jews stumbled at Christ, Rom. ix. 32. and the Galatians were in danger of falling from Christ and grace, Gal. v.2, 4. and let them beware of falling under the curse which he hath denounced, on this very occasion, against any man or angel that shall preach any other gospel than that which he hath preached.

 

Secondly, The difference between the law and the gospel doth not all consist in this, that the one requireth perfect doing, the other only sincere doing, but in this, that the one requireth doing, the other not doing but believing, for life and salvation. Their terms are different, not only in degree, but in their whole nature.

 

Thirdly, Christ or his apostles never taught a gospel that requireth such a condition of works for salvation as they plead for. The texts of scripture which they usually allege for their purpose, are either contrary to it or widely distant from it. I shall instance briefly only in a few of these texts. That obedience of faith mentioned by the apostle Paul, as the great design of gospel preaching, Rom. i. 5. is as contrary to their condition of sincere obedience for salvation as the law of faith is to the law of works, Rom. iii. 23. It is an obedience that consisteth in believing the report of the gospel, as the apostle explaineth himself, Rom. x. 16. They have not all obeyed the gospel, for Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? Faith is to be imputed for righteousness, not because it is a work of righteousness itself, but because we do by it renounce all confidence in any righteous works whatsoever, and trust on him that justifieth the ungodly, as is clear by that very text which they usually pervert for their purpose, Rom. iv. 5. They grossly pervert these words of Paul, Rom. ii. 6, 7. "Who will render to every man according to his deeds; to them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality, eternal life;" where they will have Paul to be declaring the terms of the gospel, when be is evidently declaring the terms of the law, to prove that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, and that no flesh can be justified by the works of the law, as appeareth by the tenor of his following discourse, Rom. iii. 9, 10. They join evidently with the Papists, against the concurrent judgment of the best Protestant divines, in the interpretation of the text, James ii. 24. "You see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only;" where they will have James to deliver the doctrine of justification in more proper expressions than the apostle Paul, who teacheth justification by faith without works, though Paul treated on this doctrine as his principal subject, and James doth only speak of it occasionally as a motive to the practice of good works, whereby we may easily judge which of their expressions are to be taken for the most proper. Protestants have showed sufficiently, that James speaketh not of a true saving faith, but of such a dead faith as devils have; not of justification in a proper sense, but of the declaration and manifestation of it by its fruits. Besides he speaks of justification by works as commanded in the law given by Moses, as appeareth by his citing the commandments of the law, ver. 8, 11. which our contrivers of the new divinity would have nothing to do with in their model of the doctrine of justification. Another text alleged by them, is, Rev. xxii. 14. "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." But the Greek word which is here translated right, is translated power or privilege, John 1. 12. It signifieth here, a rightful possession of the fruit of the tree of life, and not a mere title to it. So this text proveth no more than what the Protestants generally aknowledge that good works are the way wherein we are to walk to the enjoyment and possession of the glory of Christ; though a title to Christ and his glorious salvation be freely [given] without any procuring condition of works. They account also, that when the happiness of heaven is called a reward, it must needs imply a procuring condition of words, as Rev. xxii. 12. Mat. v. 12. But though it be called a reward, because it is given after the doing of good works, and because it recompenseth good works better than any wages on earth can recompense the labourer, yet it is a reward of grace, not of debt, Rom. iv. 4. It is no proper wages, but a free gift, Rom. vi. 24. "For the wages of sin, is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." --Marshall on Sanctification.