There are hundreds of remarkable passages in the Bible. None more so than the one Paul included in his letter to the Ephesians: “Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ” (1:3). Christians don’t get most of His spiritual blessings, they get every single one. Nothing’s held back.
John Calvin elaborated on that verse’s significance. He wrote that it’s about duplex gratia. “Christ was given to us by God’s generosity, to be grasped and possessed by us in faith. By partaking of Him, we principally receive a double grace: namely that, being reconciled to God through Christ’s blamelessness, we may have in heaven instead of a Judge a gracious Father; and secondly, that sanctified by Christ’s spirit we may cultivate blamelessness and purity of life.”
Justification and sanctification. They certainly aren’t the same thing, yet they can never be separated. They’re a package deal. When the Holy Spirit turns a rock-hard heart into one of tender flesh the resulting “new creation” receives both blessings. Justification is instant and permanent reconciliation with God. Sanctification is the wherewithal to become more like Jesus every day.
The “double grace” concept helps Christians clear up any confusion stemming from James’ assertion that “…faith, if it doesn’t have works, is dead” (2:17). Paul emphasized that we’re not saved by what we do. Our so-called “righteous works” stem solely from our imitating Christ. They’re proof of our conversion. Ian Hamilton wrote, “Any professed justification by grace through faith that doesn’t manifest itself in true godliness is a complete sham.”
Think of justification as being, because of our glorious Redeemer’s death and resurrection, a non-revocable future declaration of “not guilty” in God’s courtroom. Sanctification, on the other hand, is the enlightenment that evolves and expands as we “…grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Justification and sanctification are two fundamental spiritual blessings every Christian gets.
The Son is the gift the Father never stops blessing His chosen people with. In Jesus we get everything. “The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we’re God’s children. And if children, then heirs (namely heirs of God and also fellow heirs with Christ)” (Romans 8:16-17). God can’t give us anything better than His only begotten Son because Jesus is the true Messiah, embodying every aspect of the miraculous, soul-saving gospel.
If we were only justified we’d be spiritually useless to God here on earth. But, due to sanctification being joined with it, we’ve been granted the necessary ambition and power to acquire an ever-increasing knowledge of the One who paid the debt our sins ran up. All glory goes to God, for “He’s the reason you have a relationship with Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30).
Pause a moment and contemplate the astounding implications of what the blessing of justification alone guarantees. “For it’s impossible in the case of those who’ve once been enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift, become partakers of the Holy Spirit, tasted the good word of God and the miracles of the coming age, and then have committed apostasy, to renew them again to repentance, since they’re crucifying the Son of God for themselves all over again and holding Him up to contempt” (Hebrews 6:4-6).
In other words, once justified always justified. The matter’s settled. Thus, other than keeping our eyes fixed squarely upon Jesus, our ongoing sanctification should be our core concern. Spurgeon preached, “The Christian life wasn’t intended to be a sitting still, but a race, a perpetual motion. The apostle [the writer of Hebrews], therefore, endeavors to urge the disciples forward and make them run with diligence the heavenly race, looking to Jesus.”
Spurgeon continued, “He tells them it’s not enough to have on a certain day passed through a glorious change, to have experienced at a certain time a wonderful operation of the Spirit. Rather, he teaches them it’s absolutely necessary they should have the Spirit all their lives, that they should, as long as they live, be progressing in the truth of God.”
Justification is the assurance that our salvation is a lock. It’s the “preservation of the saints” tenet of Reformed Theology. And that blessed assurance is vital to our sanctification’s growth. Spurgeon taught that a Christian can fall but never fall away. He argued, “He [a believer] had been saved once, yet it’s supposed that he’s gotten lost. How then can he now be saved? Is there supplementary salvation? Is there something that’ll overtop Christ and be a Christ where Jesus is defeated?” Perish the thought.
R.C. Sproul commented, “Even the regenerated person with a liberated will is still vulnerable to sin and temptation, and the residual power of sin is so strong that, without the aid of grace, the believer would, in all probability, fall away. But God’s decree is immutable. His sovereign purpose to save His elect from the foundation of the world isn’t frustrated by our weakness.”
Paul confirmed it. “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).
In light of my stubborn sinful nature, it’s sometimes hard for me to accept that verse’s truthfulness. Dane Ortlund wrote, “We all tend to have some small pocket of our life where we have difficulty believing the forgiveness of God reaches. …There’s that one deep, dark part of our lives, even our present lives, that seems so intractable, so ugly, so beyond recovery.”
He then adds, “Those crevices of sin are themselves the places where Christ loves us the most. His heart willingly goes there. …We cannot sin our way out of His tender care.” Justified and sanctified. Rejoice, sinners! Rejoice!
Even Christians Get the Blues 