Systematic Theology, by Louis Berkhof - New Leaven

it is based on justification, in which the free grace of God stands out with the greatest
prominence, excludes the idea that we can ever merit anything in sanctification. The
Roman Catholic idea that justification enables man to perform meritorious works is
contrary to Scripture. Justification as such does not effect a change in our inner being
and therefore needs sanctification as its complement. It is not sufficient that the sinner
stands righteous before God; he must also be holy in his inmost life. Barth has a rather
unusual representation of the relation between justification and sanctification. In order
to ward off all self-righteousness, he insists on it that the two always be considered
jointly. They go together and should not be considered quantitatively, as if the one
followed the other. Justification is not a station which one passes, an accomplished fact
on the basis of which one next proceeds to the highway of sanctification. It is not a
completed fact to which one can look back with definite assurance, but occurs ever
anew whenever man has reached the point of complete despair, and then goes hand in
hand with sanctification. And just as man remains a sinner even after justification, so he
also remains a sinner in sanctification, even his best deeds continue to be sins.
Sanctification does not engender a holy disposition, and does not gradually purify man.
It does not put him in possession of any personal holiness, does not make him a saint,
but leaves him a sinner. It really becomes a declarative act like justification.
McConnachie, who is a very sympathetic interpreter of Barth, says: “Justification and
sanctification are, therefore, to Barth, two sides of one act of God upon men.
Justification is the pardon of the sinner (justificatio impii), by which God declares the
sinner righteous. Sanctification is the sanctification of the sinner (sanctificatio impii), by
which God declares the sinner ‘holy’.” However laudable the desire of Barth to destroy
every vestige of work-righteousness, he certainly goes to an unwarranted extreme, in
which he virtually confuses justification and sanctification, negatives the Christian life,
and rules out the possibility of confident assurance.
3. TO FAITH. Faith is the mediate or instrumental cause of sanctification as well as of
justification. It does not merit sanctification any more than it does justification, but it
unites us to Christ and keeps us in touch with Him as the Head of the new humanity,
who is the source of the new life within us, and also of our progressive sanctification,
through the operation of the Holy Spirit. The consciousness of the fact that sanctification
is based on justification, and is impossible on any other basis, and that the constant
exercise of faith is necessary, in order to advance in the way of holiness, will guard us
against all self-righteousness in our striving to advance in godliness and holiness of life.
It deserves particular attention that, while even the weakest faith mediates a perfect
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