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| Conception results in a Being: Parenting ensures the wellness of Being. |
May 17, 2015
#Begetting_vs_Nurturing
The begetting of Being, and Parenting for Wellbeing
A friend said:
It is mind-boggling to hear men talk of
salvation by grace and in the same breath speak of progressive sanctification.
The two are contradictory and cannot be joined together. Ye are complete in
Christ. We are completely saved, made completely holy, sanctified, and made
righteous by imputation.
Are you trying to add to Christ's completed
work?
I commented:
With all due respect Esquire, it is equally
mind-boggling that you fail to understand the biblical distinction between the
Definitive Sanctification, and the Ongoing Sanctification, both of which are
plainly taught in the Scriptures.
The Definitive Sanctification is by the
Divine activities of the Triune God once for all, effectually calling an elect
out of his native state of sin and death to that state of grace and salvation.
This sanctification is definitive, once for all, complete and eternal,
unrepeatable, and un-improvable. This is the point you have stated correctly.
The Scriptures most certainly speaks of
another distinct sanctification that is CONDITIONED upon the activities of
those already definitively sanctified, and this is often termed as
progressive/ongoing/farther sanctification. The 1689 CoF uses the last term, 13:1 "They
who are united to Christ, effectually called, and regenerated, having a new
heart and a new spirit created in them through the virtue of Christ's death and
resurrection, are also farther sanctified..." It is on-going until a man
breathes his last.
There is the ETERNAL salvation which is
purposed by God, completed by Christ, and applied by the Holy Spirit to each
individual elect personally.
There is the TEMPORAL salvation that God's
children (those already bestowed with eternal salvation by God's free grace)
must work out for themselves, in obedience to the will of their Father for
them.
The two are not contradictory, they are
distinct; the former being the cause, and the latter being effect and evidence
of the former.
The biblical distinction is the essence of
sound theology.
