I conclude that there is really not a substantive difference among most of us in both camps. It is a difference of emphasis. The truth will be distorted to some degree, but that happens from both sides. We are all sinners. I would hope that our mutual love for the Gospel would bring us together in a loving process of learning rather than rancorous factionalism.

I very hesitantly add my two cents worth in this ongoing controversy over sanctification. I know I tread on ground that many great minds down through the ages have trod. I enter this because I am disturbed by several things. First, I am disturbed by the tone coming from both sides of the argument. We have become like armed camps warring against “heresy”, when in effect what I see is simply a difference of emphasis. Too often those we argue against are paper enemies. They do not exist except on the fringes of our family. They do not describe the bulk of those who preach faithfully and passionately the Gospel of the Kingdom.

I am also disturbed in the way we talk past one another. We ALL have filters through which we see, coloring and distorting what is actually there. We are in different ministry circumstances that require a slightly contextualized approach. Because of our experience and temperament, we are bent in many ways we are not aware of. Therefore, when someone from the “opposition” uses a certain word or phrase, we automatically recoil and pounce without really inquiring exactly what the other person means. Too often we read something into the words others use that is not actually there.

I want to attempt to clarify some things about what many in the “grace movement” believe that I think have been caricatured wrongly. My desire is to clarify ideas that drive many within the grace movement, ideas that are not being heard nor understood, maybe due to our lack of precision of language or our propensity to imbalance. Maybe it is also due to defensive premature recoil. I want to make four points that I believe lie at the heart of the issue: 1) how we define sin, 2) what is the motivation for obedience, 3) what role the law plays, and 4) how we understand God’s pleasure.

How Do We Define Sin? This might be the crux of the debate. Can I, as a redeemed believer in Christ, rightly obey? This is not a black and white, all or nothing issue. It is a matter of degree. If I look at the Law of God as a series of commands for particular behaviors, then I am able to comply with the requirements of the Law. I can refrain from stealing. I can keep my anger from boiling over into murder. I can worship according to the regulations. Yet, as Jesus teaches us in the Sermon on the Mount, keeping the Law goes MUCH farther than that. It is a matter of the heart. Sin is more about what we desire and love. What we do outwardly is the fruit of we love inwardly. Our outward actions are symptoms of an inward brokenness. Richard Lovelace writes in his book Dynamics of the Spiritual Life, “Sin cannot be isolated instances or patterns of wrongdoing: it is…an organic network of compulsive attitudes, beliefs, and behavior deeply rooted in our alienation from God.” (Dynamics, p.88) It is a much bigger problem than we all realize.

We also have to hear Jesus’ summation of the Law in Matt.22 where He equates obedience with loving God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength; and, we are to love our neighbor with the same passion and determination by which we love ourselves. That is the bar for true obedience. Unless I achieve that bar, I cannot say I have rightly or fully obeyed. Personally, I have never known a moment in my life when my heart was 100% dependent on Jesus, 100% devoted to the glory and praise of God, or 100% committed to the good of my brother/sister in Christ, let alone my enemies. At my very best, I present to God something so polluted with self-interest that I cannot glory in the slightest way. Therefore, I have a COMPLETE inability to keep fully the commands of God, and that failure constantly drives me towards the Savior for grace and mercy.

Now, to be clear, this does not in any way negate progress. Here is the problem many have within the grace movement. To say that all of our works are polluted does not mean that I do not progress. I love people better today than I did years ago. I am quicker to repent of offense. I have a much more tender heart towards others. I am growing. The righteousness that has been granted to me through faith in Christ is making itself outwardly visible. What I cannot say, though, is that at any point in this progress I can claim that my obedience has reached the level of holiness the Law of love demands. So we have these two truths that are very compatible: I can never fully obey what the Law demands, yet I am constantly making progress in living out my new identity in Christ.

Neither does this negate the positive aspect of “doing our duty.” The Law is good, and what it commands is good. It is given to us in love. Yet, we cannot equate doing our duty in a particular situation with full obedience, because what God demands is love from the heart. This was the error of the elder brother in Jesus’ parable of the two sons (Luke 15). The father did not rebuke him for doing his duty. He rebuked him for his lack of love, which made an outward fulfillment of his duty incomplete. Thus he was really no better than the licentious brother. Neither truly loved the father. Neither truly obeyed.

What is the proper motivation for obedience? If obedience to the Law means that we love God and our brother with a whole heart, how then is love produced? I can be motivated to keep behavioral standards by compulsion and by threat. Fear of punishment will keep me in line to a degree. Warnings can awaken God’s people to a wayward direction of life, and that going astray will present dangerous consequences. Warnings will never produce the kind of love that God’s Law demands.

Let me describe it like this. If someone is going in a direction that will be destructive, there are two things that must happen. The first is that he must stop his destructive path. This is where the warnings and threats of Scripture come in. The wayward son heeds the warning and stops. Is that enough? Not at all. He needs to head in a better direction. Repentance is not complete until he returns in love to his true love, who is Jesus alone. What draws him back home to his true love is a greater love. Threats are never going to be enough to bring about obedience of love. Only love begets love. This is why there must be a strong emphasis on identity in Christ, our union with Christ, and the free gift of God’s unconditional justifying love that brings that about. Justification is not the only thing, but it is the groundwork for everything.

What role does the Law play? I really do not think that most within the grace movement would throw out the third use of the Law. We know the Law describes for us what love is. Apart from the Law we would not know what God is like or what He expects. At the same time we also know it is often not “used lawfully.” (1 Tim.1:8) The Law is often pressed upon the believer to bring about a changed life, but the Law cannot produce the kind of obedience required for us. It can describe it. It can restrain and warn against evil. It does not have the power to make us righteous. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. Instead of throwing out the Law for the Christian, we in the grace movement make it more demanding. We are not looking for the performance of outward duties. The Law demands the conformity of the heart’s affections. Only faith can produce that, faith that rests in the work of Christ, the love of God, and the power of His Spirit. As Paul says in Gal.3:3,5, “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?…Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith.” The Galatian heresy was not a denial of justification. It was adding religious duties to justification to produce holiness, and in so doing denied the reality of what justification is. Galatians is about sanctification that is built solidly on the foundation of justification, and how true transformation happens through the dependence of faith, not performance of duty.

How Do We Understand God’s Pleasure? As a believer, one who is now identified “in Christ”, can I experience God’s displeasure and anger over sin? Can I expect His correcting discipline? To answer the first question, we have to be clear on a couple of things. First, the pervasiveness of sin in the human heart, and second the degree of God’s wrath/anger over sin. Let’s turn this around. If sin is as pervasive as noted above, and if God does become angry with us when we sin, how can we ever in this life be free from His anger? The more I grow in Christ, the deeper I see the roots of idolatry entangling my heart. How can I ever escape His anger over sin? Sin is not simply a momentary fall into lusting over a scantily dressed woman. It is an attitude of self-gratification, self-determination, and self-sufficiency deeply rooted inside the heart that produces the fruit of sin. God is not only angry with the fruit. He is fiercely angry with the corruption that produces it. This is what Paul speaks of in Romans 7. So, if this is the case, how can I ever know “Peace with God” (Rom.5:1), unless Jesus has borne it all?

Secondly, how angry does God get over my sin? God does not show irritation at sin, nor does He simply become disappointed. His wrath is so intense and full that He slew His own Son on the cross to vent His wrath. That wrath was also FULLY vented there. There is none left for me, which is a good thing, because I am not able to bear it. There is no double jeopardy in God’s Kingdom. Jesus’ work on the cross of bearing the full wrath of God does not simply tone it down so that I can handle it. He satisfies it completely. This is the good news of the Gospel!

Then, where does that leave discipline for sin? Discipline, as we are taught by Hebrews 12 and Proverbs 3, flows from love and delight, not anger. Yes we still sin, and yes there are consequences of our sin that are painful, but the punishment for sin was finished in Christ. God now comes as a loving Father, delighted in His child, to wean him/her from the dead end of this world, and to grow in them a hunger for Himself alone. What we experience feels like wrath and anger. What we actually get is delight and passionate love. It is like the jealous lover of Hosea 2 pursuing his bride that he would have her all to himself, that he could then love her without interference.

I conclude that there is really not a substantive difference among most of us in both camps. It is a difference of emphasis. The truth will be distorted to some degree, but that happens from both sides. We are all sinners. I would hope that our mutual love for the Gospel would bring us together in a loving process of learning rather than rancorous factionalism.

Ron Clegg is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and serves as Pastor of Parkview Church PCA in Lilburn, Ga.