Kelly M. Kapic - Sanctification: Explorations in Theology and Practice

While there is nothing new under the sun, different seasons do make us sensitive to changes in our environment. When winter dawns our attention turns to jackets, scarves and gloves; when spring arrives the renewed warmth of the sun beckons us outside. On cue, the seasons come and go and we would be foolish to treat them all the same. Each needs our attentiveness in due course, as each has a particular power over our lives and calls for us to respond accordingly.

Similarly, the church often lives through different doctrinal seasons. With the faith, we embrace the truth of God in all its varied theological realities, but inevitably there are periods when one truth requires our renewed consideration. At times we discover we have neglected or distorted a biblical truth, and the result is similar to realizing you are trying to live through winter in your shorts and T-shirt. Sure, it can be done, but it is certainly not a healthy way to exist.

In recent decades debates about justification have dominated the attention of many Protestants. While at times the cool winds of that season can still blow with great power, there are indications that a new season, with new challenges, is at hand. Evangelicals in particular demonstrate strong signs of a growing need to revisit the topic of sanctification. Fresh concern about this vital theological locus is surfacing, which is wonderful since this is where the church so often lives and breathes.

Set free from the dominion of sin, saints are set apart for kingdom purposes: as God is holy, so he has called his people holy and promises to renew them in the image of his Son. In a way this is a simple idea. Yet, as will become apparent in the essays that follow, the topic of sanctification is profoundly intertwined with all manner of other topics, beyond simply its contested relationship to justification. Although justification remains a key idea that can never be left behind, one must also learn to appreciate how sanctification relates to ethics, union with Christ, ecclesiology, adoption, eschatology and so on.

Evangelicalism appears to be in a season of struggling with how best to think about sanctification. What is the relationship between faith and human responsibility? How might human agency relate not only to questions of Gods saving grace but also to the way he sustains and preserves us by his grace? Does effort undermine the role of faith? How does all of this relate to our creaturely existence as it is fundamentally empowered by the Spirit? How do we understand the promises of God as we live in the eschatological tension of the now and the not yet?

At the more popular level we see mistrust and misunderstanding perpetuated. For some, the temptation is to reduce the gospel to moral improvement, while for others, human effort appears irrelevantif not downright antitheticalto the Christian life. On the one hand, a number of prominent voices have emphatically focused their message on the gospel, by which some tend to mean narrowly justification by faith alone. Such voices have at times appeared to provide balm to wounded souls; too many have labored under the suffocating weight of certain forms of rigid fundamentalism that reduced the gospel to a list of oppressive rules. To be told over and over of Gods unflinching love and grace, of your secure position as declared righteous because of Christs righteousness, can be both liberating and invigorating to such anguished listeners.

On the other hand, some raise the concern that such a perspective, if left undeveloped, might actually risk perverting grace rather than fully proclaiming it. They worry that if in the process of declaring the good news we end up belittling the significance of human will and agency, we are not ultimately liberating people; we might be undermining the fullness of gospel life. Not only is the believer set free from the condemning power of sin, but they are also set free to love and serve others, to grow and to flourish under Gods care. A growing multitude echoes this renewed emphasis on personal piety, holiness and justice concerns even as it has welcomed renewed exploration on the topic of human agency.

While many of the representative voices on both sides of this come from the Reformed tradition, this conversation is being engaged in by a much larger audience, including many across the spectrum of evangelicalism.

Unfortunately, much of the current conversation is only taking place at the more popular level. In this book, we offer something a bit different. It is not intended as a direct engagement with those particular popular authors, but rather provides some outside perspective from theologians who are nevertheless also deeply concerned with the Protestant doctrine of sanctification (and justification!). Representing a good portion of the breadth of the Reformed tradition, these scholars gathered in Edinburgh a number of years ago to offer extended reflections on sanctification. Most of the essays in this book grew out of that Edinburgh Dogmatics Conference.

No attempt has been made to provide a unified perspective on sanctification herewe are not presenting some new school of thought or anything like that, as some of the subtle disagreements even within this volume indicate. Instead, this is an opportunity to explore the doctrine of sanctification; offer various proposals that might stimulate further thought and discussion; and also hopefully encourage pastoral reflection that is biblically, theologically and historically informed. It is our great hope that these essays by ecclesial-minded scholars might stimulate and foster this growing discussion.