EQ 84.

3 (2012), 234–252

Definitive sanctification: a response

to John Fesko
Ralph Cunnington
Ralph Cunnington is a ThM student at Westminster Theological Seminary, London, and
an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham
KEY WORDS: Definitive sanctification, justification, union with Christ, John Fesko, John
Murray
In a recent review of Mark Garcia’s monograph, Life in Christ,1 John Fesko
claimed that a ‘Gaffin-school’ reading of Calvin had developed which mistak-
enly co-ordinated the duplex gratia of justification and sanctification without
properly recognising the priority of justification.2 In a reply, published in the
same volume, Richard Gaffin observed that all of the material cited by Fesko
concerned progressive rather than definitive sanctification. The logical and
temporal priority of justification over progressive sanctification has never been
in dispute, Gaffin urged, but rather it is the place of definitive sanctification (the
decisive and definitive break with the enslaving power of sin that occurs at the
inception of the Christian life) in the ordo salutis.3 Gaffin’s reply constituted a
challenge to Fesko to articulate what place he saw for definitive sanctification
in the ordo salutis.4
Fesko responded (although not directly addressing Gaffin’s challenge) in an
article published in last year’s Evangelical Quarterly.5 The article addressed the
relationship between union, justification and sanctification. In so doing, it help-
fully distinguished between the ordo salutis and historia salutis, noting that jus-
tification and sanctification are distinct yet inseparable benefits flowing from
our union with Christ. The article also stressed the importance of recognising
that sanctification is grounded in Christ’s work in us through the Spirit, rather
than in our own works to be holy.6 All this was good, important and cogently

1 Mark A Garcia, Life in Christ: Union with Christ and Twofold Grace in Calvin’s
Theology (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2008).
2 J. V. Fesko, ‘A Tale of Two Calvins: A Review Article,’ Ordained Servant, March 2009,
103-104. Along with Garcia, Fesko also critiques Craig B. Carpenter, ‘A Question
of Union with Christ? Calvin and Trent on Justiication,’ Westminster Theological
Journal 64, no. 2 (2002): 363-386; Richard B. Gafin Jr., ‘Biblical theology and the
Westminster Standards,’ Westminster Theological Journal 65, no. 2 (2003): 165-179.
3 Richard B. Gafin Jr., ‘A Response to John Fesko’s Review,’ Ordained Servant, March
2009, 107.
4 Ibid., 111.
5 J. V. Fesko, ‘Sanctiication and union with Christ: a Reformed perspective,’ Evangelical
Quarterly 82, no. 3 (2010): 197-214.
6 Ibid., 214.
 Deinitive sanctiication: a response to John Fesko EQ • 235

argued. Unfortunately, the tack changed in the final section of the article, where
Fesko proceeded to argue for the jettisoning of the doctrine of definitive sanc-
tification on the grounds that it ‘muddies the waters’ of the duplex gratia.7 This
paper seeks to challenge that view.
It is important to note at the outset the limits of the paper. It is primarily
a critical review of Fesko’s article as it bears upon definitive sanctification. As
such, it will not address the other important issues raised by Fesko. Nor will it
seek to construct a positive case for definitive sanctification; that has already
been ably undertaken elsewhere.8 Instead, the paper will identify and critique
what this author perceives to be the key flaws in Fesko’s argument. The paper
roughly follows the structure of Fesko’s argument. Fesko considers John Murray
to be the originator of the doctrine.9 While this is highly contentious, at least
as regards the substance of the doctrine,10 it is important for us to note since it
leads Fesko to focus upon the texts cited by Murray.11

I. The sense of hagiazo- in 1 Corinthians 1:2

The first such text is 1 Cor. 1:2. Fesko argues that Murray’s reliance on the text
constitutes an exegetical fallacy. Citing D. A. Carson’s work, he accuses Murray
of imposing a meaning derived from his own systematic theology onto the text.12
Murray has mistakenly assumed that ‘Paul has in view the doctrine of sanctifica-
tion… when the apostle actually has something else other than the ordo salutis
in mind.’13 That something else according to Fesko is the consecration of the
church at Corinth as a corporate body. Murray’s mistake was to read 1 Cor. 1:2
through an individualistic lens rather than recognising the ecclesial focus of the

7 Ibid., 197-214.
8 See in particular: John Murray, ‘Deinitive Sanctiication,’ in Collected writings of John
Murray Vol.2 Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1977), 277-284;
John Murray, ‘The Agency in Deinitive Sanctiication,’ in Collected writings of John
Murray Vol.2 Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1977), 285-293;
David Peterson, Possessed by God: A New Testament Theology of Sanctiication and
Holiness, New Studies in Biblical Theology 1 (Leicester: Apollos, 1995); Sinclair B
Ferguson, ‘The Reformed View,’ in Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctiication,
ed. Donald Alexander (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 47-60; Anthony
A. Hoekema, ‘Reformed View,’ in Five Views on Sanctiication (Counterpoints:
Exploring Theology), ed. Stanley N. Gundry (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1987),
72-75.
9 Fesko, ‘Sanctiication and union with Christ,’ 207.
10 See the historical discussion in section II.
11 While Fesko cites David Peterson’s work once (‘Sanctiication and union with Christ,’
207), he does not fully engage with the case for deinitive sanctiication presented by
Peterson. This is regrettable since Peterson has provided the fullest recent treatment
of the topic.
12 Ibid., 208. Citing D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, 2nd ed. (Carlisle: Paternoster,
1996), 45.
13 Fesko, ‘Sanctiication and union with Christ,’ 208.
236 • EQ Ralph Cunnington

verse. Fesko suggests such a misreading may have been due to Murray’s rejec-
tion of the distinction between the visible and invisible church.
A number of observations are apposite. Firstly, a grammatical point; Fesko
suggests that the perfect participle of the verb hagiazo- (‘I sanctify’) ‘indicates
that this sanctification has already taken place.’14 This is a vague and inadequate
observation. Although older Greek grammars claimed that the perfect tense-form
communicates a punctiliar past event with continuing present consequences
this view has now been largely discredited.15 More modern treatments recognise
that the perfect depicts a current state of affairs, typically that of the verbal
subject, either because the perfect belongs to a stative aspectual category,16
or because it expresses a stative kind of action (Aktionsart).17 Thus, Fesko’s
suggestion that the perfect indicates a past action is inadequate. Rather it depicts
the current state of believers in Corinth: by virtue of their union with Christ they
are now in a state of sanctification.18 This understanding of the perfect participle
clearly lends support to Murray’s reading rather than Fesko’s.
Secondly, Fesko appears to have misread Carson. In the passage he cites, the
target of Carson’s criticism are those theologians who assume that hagiazo- and
its cognates always or nearly always refer to the progressive purifying of believ-
ers. Carson insists that sanctification ‘commonly refers to the initial setting
aside of an individual for God at his conversion.’19 Fesko’s account of Carson’s
argument may mislead since it gives the impression that Carson is critical of
Murray’s reading of 1 Cor. 1:2 or of definitive sanctification generally. In fact, the
exact opposite is true. Elsewhere Carson writes: ‘Most of the places where Paul
talks about being “holy” or “sanctified” fall into this positional or definitional
camp. That is certainly the case in 1 Corinthians 1:2… The Corinthians already

14 Ibid., 207.
15 For examples of the older view see: Nigel Turner, A Grammar of New Testament
Greek. Vol 3, Syntax (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1963), 81-83; Maximilian Zerwick,
Biblical Greek. Illustrated by Examples… English Edition Adapted from the Fourth
Latin Edition by Joseph Smith (Rome: Scripta Pontiicii Instituti Biblici, 1963), 96.
16 Stanley E Porter, Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the New Testament, with Reference to
Tense and Mood (New York: P. Lang, 1993), 251-259; K. L. McKay, A New Syntax of the
Verb in New Testament Greek: an Aspectual Approach (New York: Peter Lang, 1994).
17 Buist M Fanning, Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1990), 114-117; Constantine R. Campbell, Verbal Aspect, the Indicative Mood, and
Narrative: Soundings in the Greek of the New Testament (Peter Lang Pub Inc, 2007),
166-175.
18 For a very helpful recent treatment of the signiicance of the perfect tense-form here,
see: Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians, The Pillar
New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B Eerdmans Publishing
Co, 2010), 55. Otto Procksch maintains that ‘sanctiication is not a moral action on
the part of man, but a divinely effected state’ (Procksch in Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey
William Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, eds., Theological Dictionary of the New
Testament, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 112).
19 Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, 45.
 Deinitive sanctiication: a response to John Fesko EQ • 237

are sanctified; they have been set apart for God.’20 The irony is that, in insisting
that sanctification can only refer to the progressive transformation of believers,
Fesko has himself fallen into the very exegetical fallacy that Carson was seeking
to expose. Murray did not make such a mistake. He recognised that hagiazo- and
its cognates have a broad semantic range including sanctification in both its de-
finitive and progressive senses.21
Of course Fesko does not contend for a progressive sense of he-giasmenois in
1 Cor. 1:2 – this would be implausible in view of the perfective or stative aspect
of the verb. Instead his contention is that the participle stands in apposition to
te- ekkle-sia tou theou te- ouse- en Korintho- (‘the church of God which is at Cor-
inth’) and describes the church as a corporate body, having no bearing on the
application of redemption to the individual. Fesko is surely right to highlight
the corporate emphases of Paul’s letter as a whole, but his rigid contrast be-
tween the church as a corporate body and the status of its individual members
is a false disjunction. Moreover, he fails to observe the significance of the shift
in number and gender of the participle. te- ekkle-sia (a feminine singular noun)
is initially qualified by a dative feminine singular participle (te- ouse-) agreeing
in gender and number. It is then followed by a dative masculine plural partici-
ple (he-giasmenois), functioning epexegetically in relation to the earlier singular
noun. This shift in gender and number is significant. Paul initially stresses the
corporate solidarity of the one church in Corinth but then notes the consecrat-
ed status of each individual believer.22 The Corinthian Christians have been set
apart as holy and distinct and this carries with it particular responsibilities as
Paul will go on to show. The point is further reinforced by Paul’s designation of
the readers as hagiois (‘holy ones’ or ‘saints’), again a masculine plural noun.
As Peterson observes, this is shorthand for those who have been sanctified in
Christ.23 So, far from addressing the church in Corinth as an abstract corporate
body, hagiazo- and its cognates in 1 Cor. 1:2 describe the individuals who make
up that corporate body. They have been sanctified, set apart as holy, when they
were incorporated into Christ at their conversion.24

20 D. A. Carson, For the Love of God (Leicester: IVP, 1998), August 27 entry (emphasis
in original). Note also Carson’s comments in the series preface to Possessed by
God: ‘[Peterson’s] aim is to show that much of the New Testament treatment of
sanctiication stresses what used to be called ‘positional sanctiication’ or the like –
and that much godly living, Christian assurance, stable faith and Christian maturity
stem from a irm grasp of what the Bible says in this regard’ (Possessed by God, 7).
21 See for example: John Murray, ‘Progressive Sanctiication,’ in Collected writings of
John Murray Vol.2 Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1977),
294-304; John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1955), 141-150.
22 See Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, The New International
Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 2000), 76-77;
Ciampa and Rosner, First Corinthians, 56.
23 Peterson, Possessed by God, 41.
24 Gordon D. Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians, The New International Commentary
on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1995), 32.
238 • EQ Ralph Cunnington

Fourthly, Fesko opines that Murray’s rejection of the distinction between the
visible and invisible church is likely ‘a contributing factor in his appeal to 1 Cor.
1:2 in support of definitive sanctification.’25 This is a red herring fallacy at best.
Murray rejected the distinction because, in his view, ‘“the church” in the New
Testament never appears as an invisible entity and therefore may never be de-
fined in terms of invisibility.’26 Murray’s rejection was indeed controversial but
few can doubt the purity of his motives – he was seeking to counter the use of
the distinction as a basis for refusing to pursue unity and fellowship in the vis-
ible church.27 One is at a loss to understand what this has to do with his exegesis
of 1 Cor. 1:2 and Fesko does not explain. Perhaps he has in mind Murray’s claim
that the church should not be defined so widely as to include those who are not
really members of Christ’s body.28 If so, Fesko has to defend the view that 1 Cor.
1:2 refers to the church so broadly defined. It will not do simply to refer to 1 Cor.
5:11-13 since it is by no means clear that Paul considers such false professors to
be part of the church described in 1:2.29 Indeed, his command to disassociate
and judge those individuals suggests just the contrary. Fesko seems to be using
one of the more controversial points in Murray’s theology to ‘poison the well’
and discredit Murray’s position on definitive sanctification.
Fifthly, Fesko does not fairly represent Murray’s use of 1 Cor. 1:2. For Mur-
ray, 1 Cor. 1:2 must be read alongside 1 Cor. 6:11 since in conjunction the verses
show that Paul ‘co-ordinated their sanctification with effectual calling, with their
identity as saints, with regeneration, and with justification.’30 This co-ordination
implies that all four soteriological benefits may be viewed as ‘once-for-all defini-
tive acts’.31 The case is strengthened once the further connection with 1 Cor. 1:30
is recognised.32 There the apostle Paul observes that, by virtue of his death and
resurrection, Christ has become ‘to us wisdom from God’.33 As Fee has shown,
the nominatives that follow, ‘righteousness’, ‘sanctification’ and ‘redemption’,

25 Fesko, ‘Sanctiication and union with Christ,’ 208.

26 John Murray, ‘The Church: Its Deinition in Terms of ‘Visible’ and ‘Invisible’ Invalid,’
in Collected writings of John Murray Vol.1 The Claims of Truth (Edinburgh: Banner of
Truth Trust, 1976), 234.
27 Ibid., 235.
28 Murray makes this point in relation to 1 Cor. 1:2 in John Murray, ‘The Nature and
Unity of the Church,’ in Collected writings of John Murray Vol.2 Systematic Theology
(Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1977), 326-327.
29 Fesko cites 1 Cor. 6:11-13 but presumably he had chapter 5 in mind (‘Sanctiication
and union with Christ,’ 208).
30 Murray, ‘Deinitive Sanctiication,’ 277.
31 Ibid. This is not to discount the progressive sense of sanctiication elsewhere, see
Murray, ‘Progressive Sanctiication.’
32 See Peterson, Possessed by God, 42-44.
33 This is probably an inceptive use of the aorist passive egene-the-. It seems that here
there is a parallel with 1 Cor. 15:45: ho eschatos Adam eis pneuma zo-opoioun (‘the last
Adam became life-giving Spirit’), where the egeneto is inferred from context. If so, 1
Cor. 1:30 may provide a preview of the argument in 1 Cor. 15:45, thus conirming that
Paul has both Christ’s death and resurrection in view as the episode in the historia
salutis by which Christ has become for us wisdom from God.
 Deinitive sanctiication: a response to John Fesko EQ • 239

stand in apposition to the noun ‘wisdom’.34 It is not that Christ has been made
these four things for believers. Rather, in his death and resurrection God has
made him to become wisdom, which is itself righteousness, sanctification and
redemption. Moreover, these benefits are received by the believer by virtue of
their union with Christ: ‘of him you are in Christ Jesus who has become to us wis-
dom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.’ It is wrong
to characterise these as steps in a sequence by which God saves – justification,
followed by sanctification, followed by redemption. Rather, as Fee observes,
they are ‘three different metaphors for the same event (our salvation that was
effected in Christ), each taken from a different sphere and each emphasizing a
different aspect of the one reality (cf. 6:11).’35 The three are distinct yet insepara-
ble benefits received through the believer’s union with Christ.36
At this juncture, a brief excursus is necessary to consider the meaning of hagi-
asmos (‘sanctification’) in 1 Cor. 1:30.37 In an influential article, Otto Proksch
claimed that hagiasmos is a nomen actionis (a noun expressing action) derived
from the verb hagiazein. Thus it signifies ‘sanctifying’ as a process rather than
‘sanctification’ as a state. Peterson has shown that the rare LXX usage cited by
Proksch does not support this dynamic sense.38 Moreover, while it is a gener-
al rule that nouns ending in –mos which are derived from verbs typically refer
to the process while nouns ending in –ma typically refer to the result, this is only
a general rule and by no means universally accepted.39 Numerous exceptions
exist as the entries for hagiasmos in the major lexicons confirm.40 Furthermore,

34 Fee, 1 Corinthians, 85-86. See also Peterson, Possessed by God, 42.

35 Fee, 1 Corinthians, 86.
36 As Calvin observes, commenting on this passage, ‘Christ justiies no one whom he
does not at the same time sanctify. These beneits are joined together by an everlasting
and indissoluble bond’(Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. McNeill, John
T., trans. Battles, Ford Lewis, The Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia, Pa.: The
Westminster Press, 1960), 3.16.1).
37 The noun is used on ten occasions in the NT: Rom. 6:19, 22; 1 Cor. 1:30; 1 Thess. 4:3,
4, 7; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Tim. 2:15; Heb. 12:14; 1 Pet. 1:2.
38 Peterson writes: ‘the noun means sanctiication or consecration in a deinitive,
cultic sense (e.g. Judg. 17:3; Ezek. 45:4; Amos 2:11; Sir. 7:31; 2 Macc. 2:17) or it is used
adjectivally in a Hebraic construction like “name of holiness” = “holy name” (Sir.
17:10; cf. 2 Macc. 14:36; Rom. 1:14)’ (Possessed by God, 140).
39 For an example of the rule, see: A. T. Robertson, Grammar of the Greek New Testament
in Light of Historical Research, 3rd ed. (Leicester: Hodder & Stoughton, 1919), 151.
James H. Moulton adopts a quite different approach, claiming that –sis expresses the
verbal abstract, –mos generally indicates the state and –ma the result of the action
(A Grammar of New Testament Greek Vol. 2, accidence and word-formation with an
appendix on semitisms in the New Testament (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1929), 355).
40 The entry in BDAG states: ‘personal dedication to the interests of the deity, holiness,
consecration, sanctiication; the use in a moral sense for a process or, more often, its
result (the state of being made holy) is peculiar to our lit.’ (William Arndt, Frederick
W Danker, and Walter Bauer, eds., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and
Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000),
10). See also T. Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint (Louvain: Peeters,
2009), 5.
240 • EQ Ralph Cunnington

the resultative cognate hagiasma appears to be used specifically in the LXX in a

concrete sense to refer to sanctified objects and places and not for the abstract
resultant state of sanctification.41 This may explain why hagiasmos does not
follow the general rule and is often used to describe the abstract result / state.
Whatever the reason, it seems clear from the context of 1 Cor. 1:30 that hagias-
mos is not referring to a process of moral change, but rather to a sanctified state
resultant of the reader’s union with Christ.42
Returning to 1 Cor. 1:2, one final point ought to be made in light of Fesko’s
claim that the doctrine of definitive sanctification lacks historical support.
Calvin certainly did not share with Fesko his ecclesial interpretation of the verse.
He writes:
[A]ll who wish to be reckoned among the people of God must be sanc-
tified in Christ… This takes place in us when, by the Spirit, we are born
again into newness of life, to serve, not the world, but God. For since we
are by nature unholy the Spirit sets us apart to God. Because this really
takes place when we are ingrafted into the body of Christ, outside of which
there is only defilement, and since the Spirit is given to us from Christ only,
and not from any other source, Paul rightly says that we are sanctified in
Christ, when, through Him, we cleave to God, and in Him are made ‘new
creations’ (2 Cor. 5:17).43
For Calvin, he-giasmenois refers to the individual believers at Corinth not to
the church as a corporate body. Moreover, the sanctification in view is both
transformative and definitive. It occurs at the moment at which they are united
to Christ and ‘in Him are made ‘new creations’.’

II. The historical support for the doctrine of deinitive

sanctiication
Fesko cites passages from the commentaries of Charles Hodge and Calvin as
well as from the Westminster Standards to support his claim that the doctrine
of definitive sanctification lacks support in the historic witness of the Reformed
tradition. We will consider each of these sources in turn.

1. Charles Hodge
Although in places Hodge appears to affirm the doctrine of definitive sanctifica-
tion,44 it is clear from a broader survey of his work that Hodge did indeed view

41 Of the 67 uses of hagiasma in the BGM all but one (Ps 131:18) are in the concrete,
usually rendered ‘sanctuary’.
42 See Peterson, Possessed by God, 44.
43 John Calvin, The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, ed. David
W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance, trans. Johnston, William B., Calvin’s New
Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1996), 18.
44 For example Hodge wrote that we are delivered from slavery to sin ‘in no other way
than by the death of the inward principle or evil which possesses our nature… and
 Deinitive sanctiication: a response to John Fesko EQ • 241

sanctification as entirely ‘a progressive work’; an ‘effect of the divine efficiency’

to be contrasted with the forensic ‘act’ of justification.45 Moreover, he insisted
upon both the logical and causal priority of justification over sanctification.
For Hodge, justification secures not only delivery from the penalty of sin but
delivery from its subjective power as well.46 Hence Hodge does indeed provide
significant support for Fesko’s position, asserting both the priority of justifica-
tion in the ordo salutis and implying that sanctification arises from gratitude for
justification.47
But that is not to say that Hodge faithfully represents the historic witness of
the Reformed tradition as a whole. It is well established that Hodge and his nine-
teenth century contemporaries departed in significant ways from the concep-
tion of union with Christ articulated by Calvin.48 In place of Calvin’s doctrine
of a mystical, real and spiritual union with Christ’s humanity, Hodge adopted a
bifurcated conception of union in which he distinguished a forensic and justify-
ing union from a spiritual and sanctifying union.49 This impacted his discussion
of sanctification where he spoke about union having two consequences. Firstly,

which can be destroyed only by union with Christ in his death’ (A commentary on the
Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1886), 191).
45 Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. III (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers
Inc, 2003), 213.
46 Hodge, Romans, 199.
47 All this is tied to larger questions about the soteriological continuity of the Reformed
and Lutheran traditions. For Fesko’s view see: Fesko, ‘Two Calvins,’ 98-104; J. V.
Fesko, ‘Luther on Union with Christ,’ Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 28,
no. 2 (2010): 172-176. For similar views emanating from Westminster California and
emphasising the priority of justiication, see: Michael Scott Horton, Covenant and
Salvation: Union with Christ (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007),
139-148; Scott Clark, R., ‘The Beneits of Christ: Double Justiication in Protestant
Theology before the Westminster Assembly,’ in The Faith Once Delivered: Essays
in Honor of Dr. Wayne R. Spear, ed. Anthony T. Selvaggio (Phillipsburg, N.J.:
Presbyterian & Reformed, 2007), 133; David VanDrunen, ‘The Two Kingdoms and the
Ordo Salutis: Life Beyond Judgment and the Question of a Dual Ethic,’ Westminster
Theological Journal 70, no. 2 (2008): 214-220. For an interesting comparison of
the current divisions on Reformed soteriology with those in the 19th century, see
William B. Evans, ‘Déjà vu all over again? The contemporary Reformed soteriological
controversy in historical perspective,’ Westminster Theological Journal 72, no. 1
(2010): 135-151.
48 See in particular: William B Evans, Imputation and Impartation: Union with Christ
in American Reformed Theology (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2008), 188-227. At the
time, see: John Williamson Nevin, ‘Doctrine of the Reformed Church on the Lord’s
Supper,’ The Mercersburg Review 2 (1850): 421-548.; John Williamson Nevin, The
Mystical Presence; or a Vindication of the Reformed or Calvinistic Doctrine of the
Holy Eucharist (La Vergne, Tenn.: Kessinger Publishing, 2009); John Adger, ‘Calvin
Defended against Drs Cunningham and Hodge,’ The Southern Presbyterian Review
27 (1876): 133-166.
49 Hodge, Systematic Theology, III:105-106; Robert Lewis Dabney, Lectures in Systematic
Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1972), 613-614.
242 • EQ Ralph Cunnington

it enables participation in Christ’s merits; the imputation of Christ’s righteous-

ness for justification which Hodge described as ‘the essential preliminary con-
dition of sanctification.’50 Secondly, it secures the indwelling of the Spirit who
‘becomes the source of new spiritual life’.51 For Hodge, ‘the indwelling of the
Spirit is the indwelling of Christ’,52 so whereas the work of Christ in his cross
and resurrection lies at the heart of justification, it only provides the ‘essential
preliminary condition’ for sanctification which is itself the subsequent work of
the Spirit in the believer. This bifurcation of union with a truncated concep-
tion of the significance of union with Christ in sanctification is not, as we shall
see, a view that Calvin would have been comfortable with. Moreover, it led to
an exegetical slip in Hodge’s treatment of Rom. 6:6. Hodge rendered the verse:
‘knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him’,53 and treated it as if it were
addressing the believer’s current experience of being crucified with Christ with
the concomitant Christian duty of daily putting away sin.54 The context, howev-
er, indicates that the ‘old man’ in view is not the ‘old nature’ of the believer but
rather the believer’s solidarity with Adam in the realm of sin.55 The ‘old man’ is
a redemptive-historical designation rather than an ontological one. Moreover,
the aorist passive indicative verb, synestauro-the- (‘crucified’), conveys the sense
that the event of ‘crucifixion’ is a complete whole rather than an ongoing proc-
ess as Hodge suggests.56 Unfortunately, at this point Hodge allowed his soteri-
ological presuppositions to obscure the plain meaning of the text.

2. John Calvin
Fesko cites a single sentence from Calvin’s commentary on Rom. 6:2 to support
his own position that sanctification is the progressive purifying of Christians
grounded in justification.57 While it is true that this sentence taken in isolation
supports Fesko’s thesis, it does not do justice to the breadth of Calvin’s teach-
ing on sanctification. Earlier in the same paragraph, Calvin writes: ‘The truth is
rather that believers are never reconciled to God without the gift of regenera-
tion.’ For Calvin, ‘regeneration’ describes what we would today call ‘sanctifica-

50 Hodge, Systematic Theology, III:227.

51 Ibid., III:229.
52 Ibid., III:106.
53 Hodge, Romans, 196.
54 Hodge writes: ‘What was thus done, as it were, out of ourselves, is attended by an
analogous spiritual experience’ (Hodge, Romans, 197). He then cites the exhortations
to put off the old man and put on the new in Eph. 4:22, 24 and Col. 3:8-9.
55 Thomas R Schreiner, Romans, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament
6 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1998), 315-316; Douglas J Moo, The Epistle to
the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1996), 373-374.
56 On the aorist tense form, see McKay, Syntax, 30-31.
57 ‘Paul shows the kind of change which ought to follow justiication’ (The Epistles of
Paul the Apostle to the Romans and to the Thessalonians, ed. David W. Torrance and
Thomas F. Torrance, trans. Ross Mackenzie, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1973), 122). Cited at Fesko, ‘Sanctiication and
union with Christ,’ 209.
 Deinitive sanctiication: a response to John Fesko EQ • 243

tion’ (the two were only distinguished in the 17th century with the development
of the ordo salutis).58 This is uncontroversial as Fesko himself recognises that ‘for
Calvin regeneration is the term that contemporary theologians now call sanctifi-
cation’.59 Thus for Calvin, sanctification is a gift that is received simultaneously
with the believer’s reconciliation to God, i.e. at the inception of the Christian
life. Calvin is even clearer on the nature of and distinction between the defini-
tive and progressive aspects of sanctification later in his commentary: ‘Although
spiritual death makes continual headway within us [progressive sanctification],
yet we are properly said to die once, when Christ reconciles us by his blood to
the Father, and regenerates us [definitive sanctification] also at the same time by
the power of His Spirit.’60 Similarly, Calvin writes that Christians have ‘died once
in order that in the future [they] may cease from sin.’61 So Calvin incorporates
under the one head sanctification in its definitive, progressive and consummate
senses. While the form of words adopted by Calvin may differ from those used
by Murray, the substance is virtually the same.
This is confirmed when we turn to Calvin’s teaching on sanctification in the
Institutes. He writes that both mortification and vivification ‘happen to us by
participation in Christ.’ In our regeneration (read sanctification) we have died
with Christ so ‘that the corruption of original nature may no longer thrive.’62 The
co-ordination of both justification and sanctification as definitive and settled
realities is perhaps most clearly expressed in Calvin’s famous summary of the
duplex gratia at 3.11.1:
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.
As Gaffin has remarked, both the parallel syntax of justification and sanctifi-
cation, as well as Calvin’s insistence upon sanctification being the antecedent
ground for progressive growth demonstrate that he has sanctification as a de-
finitive state in view.63
We must make one further comment on Fesko’s supplemental claim con-
cerning the priority of justification over sanctification.64 This area has already

58 In Calvin and many other sixteenth century Reformers sanctiication, regeneration

and repentance were used synonymously (Calvin, Institutes, 3.3.9; Calvin, Romans
and Thessalonians, 7-8). See discussion in: Garcia, Life in Christ, 4, fn. 7; Louis
Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1958), 466-467.
59 Fesko, ‘Two Calvins,’ 100 (emphasis in original).
60 Calvin, Romans and Thessalonians, 127.
61 Ibid., 128.
62 Calvin, Institutes, 3.3.9.
63 Gafin Jr., ‘Response to Fesko,’ 111.
64 Implicit in Fesko, ‘Sanctiication and union with Christ,’ 221, and explicit in Fesko,
‘Two Calvins,’ 98-104.
244 • EQ Ralph Cunnington

been well worked over in recent years and the debate continues to rage on.65 It
is sufficient to note that the texts from Calvin that Fesko cites all concern pro-
gressive sanctification and, as Gaffin observes, the logical and temporal priority
of justification to progressive sanctification has never been in dispute.66 What
is disputed is whether justification is the antecedent ground for sanctification
or whether it is union that is the antecedent ground for both justification and
(definitive) sanctification, which are themselves received simultaneously and
inseparably.67 It is beyond the scope of this paper to enter into a full discussion
of the relevant material but it suffices to note that Calvin’s comments on the
priority of union in 3.1.1, 3.11.1, 3.11.10 and 3.16.1 take structural precedence
over his famous justification is “the main hinge on which religion turns” com-
ment in 3.11.1.68

3. The Reformed Confessions

Fesko notes that the Westminster Standards refer to justification as an ‘act’
(SC 33; LC 70) and describe sanctification as a ‘work’ of God (SC 35; LC 75). He
reasons from this that the decisive and definitive breach with the power of sin

65 See Thomas L. Wenger, ‘The new perspective on Calvin: responding to recent Calvin
interpretations,’ Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 50, no. 2 (2007): 311-
328; Marcus P. Johnson, ‘New or nuanced perspective on Calvin? A reply to Thomas
Wenger,’ Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 51, no. 3 (2008): 543-558;
Thomas L. Wenger, ‘Theological spectacles and a paradigm of centrality: a reply to
Marcus Johnson,’ Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 51, no. 3 (2008): 559-
572; Bruce L. McCormack, ‘What’s at Stake in the Current Debates over Justiication?
The Crisis of Protestantism in the West,’ in Justiication: what’s at stake in the current
debates, ed. Mark Husbands and Daniel J Treier (Nottingham: IVP, 2004), 81-117;
Richard B. Gafin Jr., ‘Justiication and Union with Christ,’ in A Theological Guide
to Calvin’s Institutes: Essays and Analysis, ed. David W. Hall, and Peter A. Lillback
(Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2008), 252-260; Gafin Jr., ‘Biblical
theology and the Westminster Standards,’ 173-179; Lee Gatiss, ‘The Inexhaustible
Fountain of All Good Things: Union with Christ in Calvin on Ephesians,’ Themelios
34, no. 2 (2009): 194-206.
66 Gafin Jr., ‘Justiication and Union with Christ,’ 256; Gafin Jr., ‘Response to Fesko,’
107.
67 Fesko’s schema of justiication and sanctiication is dificult to distinguish from
the classical Post-Reformation Lutheran arrangement (John Theodore Mueller,
Christian Dogmatics: a handbook of doctrinal theology for pastors, teachers, and
laymen (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, 1934), 319-320; Franz August
Otto Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, Vol. II (Saint Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing
House, 1951), 419-420). See further Tipton’s discussion of union and imputation
in Post-Reformation Lutheran Theology (“Union with Christ and Justiication,” in
Justiied in Christ God’s Plan for us in Justiication (Fearn: Mentor, 2007), 42-45).
Fesko’s response rather misses the mark since he does not directly engage with the
Post-Reformation Lutheran sources noted by Tipton and Gafin (Fesko, “Luther on
Union with Christ,” 161-176).
68 See in particular: Garcia, Life in Christ, 11-46, 149-252; Gafin Jr., ‘Justiication and
Union with Christ,’ 252-260; Tipton, ‘Union with Christ,’ 39-42.
 Deinitive sanctiication: a response to John Fesko EQ • 245

‘according to the historic witness of the Reformed tradition comes in justifica-

tion.’69 The problem with this line of reasoning is that Fesko tries to make the
act / work distinction do too much. WCF 13.1 actually describes sanctification
in both its definitive and progressive senses. In sanctification ‘the whole body
of sin is destroyed [definitive sanctification] and the several lusts thereof are
more and more weakened and mortified [progressive sanctification]’. The de-
struction of the body of sin is an instant, decisive act. The proof texts cited by
the Assembly (Rom 6:6, 14) refer to something that has already happened in the
past by virtue of the believer’s union with Christ in his death and resurrection.70
They have died to the ruling power of sin; they are no longer under the law but
under grace. As Robert Letham observes: ‘The picture painted’ by chapter 13 of
the Confession ‘is thoroughly realistic, yet also triumphant in the best sense…
It does not hold out false or unrealistic prospects. Yet it displays the hope and
promise of growth in grace, and it points back to a decisive change that occurred
in union with Christ.’71
This exposition of both the definitive and progressive aspects of sanctifica-
tion is also found in the sixteenth century Reformed confessions. Article 8 of the
Geneva Confession 1536 on regeneration (sanctification) states that ‘we are by
him delivered from servitude to sin, under whose power we were of ourselves
held captive, and by this deliverance we are made capable and able to do good
works and not otherwise.’72 Consistent with Calvin’s soteriology elsewhere,
progressive sanctification is predicated upon a prior definitive breach with the
ruling power of sin. Definitive sanctification is also materially (if not formally)
present in Article 24 of the Belgic Confession 1561: ‘We believe that this true
faith, being wrought in man by the hearing of the Word of God and the opera-
tion of the Holy Ghost, doth regenerate and make him a new man, causing him
to live a new life, and freeing him from bondage to sin.’73 Once again Rom. 6 is
cited as a proof text for this release ‘from bondage to sin’.
Our brief review of the historic witness of the Reformed Church has shown
that Fesko’s accusation of historical illegitimacy cannot be sustained.

III. Freedom from the power of sin

The third point that Fesko raises concerns Murray’s reliance on Rom. 6 and his
claim that it is sanctification rather than justification that frees the believer from
the realm of sin.74 Fesko advances his case on two fronts. Firstly, he questions
Murray’s exegesis of Rom. 6, in particular his treatment of dedikaio-tai (‘justi-

69 Fesko, ‘Sanctiication and union with Christ,’ 209.

70 The texts are examined in more detail in section III.
71 Robert Letham, The Westminster Assembly: Reading its Theology in Historical Context
(Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2009), 279.
72 Arthur C Cochrane, Reformed Confessions of the 16th Century (Louisville, Ky.:
Westminster John Knox, 2003), 122.
73 Ibid., 205.
74 Fesko, ‘Sanctiication and union with Christ,’ 211.
246 • EQ Ralph Cunnington

fied’) at 6:7. Secondly, he seeks to establish, from elsewhere in the New Testa-
ment, that it is justification rather than sanctification which frees the believer
from the power of sin.

1. Romans 6
It is not the purpose of this paper to establish a case for definitive sanctification
either from Rom. 6 or elsewhere. Rather, the intention is to defend the doctrine
against the specific objections raised by Fesko. While Murray and others have
relied heavily upon Rom. 6, Peterson has expounded the doctrine of definitive
sanctification while maintaining a very similar exegesis of Rom. 6 to that of Fes-
ko.75 This is mentioned only to point out that the case for definitive sanctifica-
tion does not stand or fall on one’s exegesis of Rom. 6. Fesko’s article might in
places appear to suggest otherwise.
Fesko does not dispute that Paul deals with sanctification in Rom. 6:1–7:6;76
nor does he deny that ‘union with Christ affects a definitive breach with the
world of sin.’77 His argument is rather that Murray was mistaken in locating this
breach in sanctification. He notes that Murray insisted upon the forensic import
of dikaioo- in 6:7 and, in view of the transformative category being discussed in
Rom. 6 (deliverance from the power of sin), he concluded that ‘the forensic is
present not only in justification but also in that which lies at the basis of sanc-
tification.’78 Fesko writes that Murray ‘moves the forensic into sanctification’.79
This position is compared with that of Thomas Schreiner who, in his commen-
tary on Rom. 6:7, claims that ‘the use of [dikaioo-] in this context… suggests that
righteousness is more than forensic in Paul.’80 Schreiner, it is urged, makes the
opposite mistake of merging sanctification into the forensic. Both, according to
Fesko, fail to see that ‘Paul’s reference is to justification, not sanctification.’81
The problem with Fesko’s analysis is that he is falling into the very fallacy
that he accused Murray of earlier in the article: importing a technical meaning
of the verb dikaioo- into the text without due regard to its surrounding context.

75 Peterson writes: ‘At one level, Romans 6:2-11 is a restatement of the doctrine of
justiication’(Possessed by God, 97) and in relation to Rom. 6:7 he writes: ‘The fact
that God has “justiied” us… is the basis of a new freedom to live as those who have
“died to sin”, with the possibility of resisting sin in our lives’(Possessed by God, 99).
(Possessed by God, 99). Perhaps his reading of the chapter has been inluenced by his
reliance upon Cranield’s commentary (acknowledged at Possessed by God, 163 fn
11). In particular, this is apparent in his adoption of Cranield’s four senses of death
to sin, his handling of dedikaio-tai and his treatment of the future tense of esometha
in v. 5. While Peterson does not follow Cranield uncritically, the insights of Moo are
to be preferred.
76 Fesko, ‘Sanctiication and union with Christ,’ 210.
77 Ibid., 209.
78 John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, The New London Commentary on the New
Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1967), 222.
79 Fesko, ‘Sanctiication and union with Christ,’ 210.
80 Schreiner, Romans, 319.
81 Fesko, ‘Sanctiication and union with Christ,’ 211.
 Deinitive sanctiication: a response to John Fesko EQ • 247

It is an example of what James Barr called ‘illegitimate totality transfer’: ‘when

the “meaning” of a word (understood as the total series of relations in which it
is used in the literature) is read into a particular case as its sense and implica-
tion there.’82 Fesko assumes that dikaioo- in 6:7 must bear the same sense and
implication of the doctrine of justification more generally. This is wrong on a
number of grounds.
Firstly, justification and sanctification are often distinguished on the basis
that the former is forensic while the latter is transformative. This is an important
distinction and it was crucial at the time of the Reformation. But when forensic
and transformative are contrasted in this context the contrast is between a legal
status grounded upon the imputation of righteousness (justification) and an in-
ternal transformation based upon the infusion of righteousness (sanctification).
The category of the forensic (which simply means legal) includes justification
but is not exhausted by it. Adoption and redemption are also forensic categories
in the sense that they are predicated upon a change of legal status. Thus it is
quite possible for the forensic to be present in sanctification without abandon-
ing the traditional distinction between the forensic category of justification and
the transformative category of sanctification.
Secondly, the rendering of dikaioo- in 6:7 has long puzzled bible translators
and commentators. Fesko asserts that Murray is correct to translate it as ‘justi-
fied’ but the NASB, ESV, KJV, NIV, RSV and NET have all rendered it ‘freed’ or ‘set
free’. This is supported by the major lexicons. For example, BDAG lists 6:7 under
its third sense: ‘to cause someone to be released from personal or institutional
claims that are no longer to be considered pertinent or valid, make free/pure.’83
This may be forensic, in that the personal or institutional claims may be legal
(as in redemption or adoption), but it does not carry the forensic import of the
doctrine of justification. In other words, as Murray suggests, the forensic may
lie at the basis of sanctification while sanctification remains fundamentally a
transformative category.
Those commentators who argue for dikaioo- to be understood in its so-called
‘genuine Pauline sense’ in 6:7,84 meaning ‘justify, acquit’, are left to argue that it
is our justification ‘that is the firm basis of that new freedom to resist the bond-
age of sin in our practical living.’85 In other words, justification – our freedom
from the guilt and penalty of sin – acts as a psychological spur in the pursuit of
holiness. John Piper exemplifies this approach: ‘In wakening hope for accept-

82 James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language. (London: Oxford University Press,
1961), 218. See also Moisés Silva, Biblical Words and their Meaning: an Introduction
to Lexical Semantics, Rev. and expanded ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1994),
25.
83 Arndt, Danker, and Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other
Early Christian Literature, 249.
84 Joseph A Fitzmyer, Romans, Anchor Bible Commentaries (London: G. Chapman,
1993), 437.
85 C. E. B Cranield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans,
vol. 1, 6th ed., International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: Clark, 1975), 311.
248 • EQ Ralph Cunnington

ance with God by faith alone, it creates the very possibility and foundation for
fighting against the bondage of sin that enslaves us.’86
This reading is confronted by two difficulties. Firstly, it links justification with
the death of the believer – a connection that is drawn nowhere else by Paul.87
Secondly, it emasculates the teaching of the passage. Paul has been writing
about sin as an enslaving realm (note that te- hamartia (‘sin’) is always in the sin-
gular and accompanied by the definite article).88 The previous verse (v.6) has de-
scribed how the ‘old man’, the man in solidarity with Adam, has been crucified
with Christ. As a consequence (note the hina purpose clause), the body of sin,
the mode of existence associated with the Adamic order, has been done away
with, and the believer has been freed from slavery to the realm of sin. In Moo’s
words, there has been a ‘realm transfer’.89 Believers have been transferred out of
the old era of slavery to sin to which they were bound by virtue of their corporate
solidarity with Adam, and into the new era of freedom from the power of sin by
virtue of their corporate solidarity with the Second Adam, Christ.
The connective, gar (6:7) indicates that v. 7 provides offline material that
strengthens or supports the material that precedes it.90 It is extremely difficult
to see how the interpretation offered by Cranfield, Piper and others can do this.
Piper suggests his reading supports v.6 because the most insidious and powerful
way in which sin enslaves is by its guilt.91 While it is true that the despair induced
by guilt is a constituent part of the enslaving power of sin, that despair is by no
means its totality. Moreover, there is a real danger that Piper’s interpretation
might lead to a psychological re-casting of total depravity in which corruption is
said to be located in the guilt that sin induces.92 Reformed theology has consist-
ently taught that the corruption inherited from Adam is so much more serious
and pervasive than this.93 People don’t merely need to be rescued from the guilt

86 John Piper, Counted Righteous in Christ (Leicester: IVP, 2003), 79.

87 Moo, Romans, 376.
88 Ibid., 350-352.
89 Ibid., 354.
90 See Steven E. Runge, Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament: A Practical
Introduction for Teaching and Exegesis (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers Inc,
2010), 52.
91 Piper, Counted Righteous, 78.
92 No doubt Piper would not endorse such a re-casting but I struggle to see how his line
of reasoning could lead anywhere else.
93 This is not to suggest that sanctiication is prior to or more basic than justiication.
As Calvin maintained, justiication and sanctiication are distinct yet inseparable
beneits of union with Christ received at one and the same time (Institutes, 3.11.6).
My point is simply that justiication cannot do the job of sanctiication. Justiication
addresses the judicial problem of God’s righteous wrath against sin. Sanctiication
addresses the moral problem of inherited corruption. Of course, since justiication
covers the sins and imperfections of sanctiication, I would agree with Fesko, Billings
and Gafin that ‘a forensic notion of pardon is the necessary prerequisite for… a life
of sanctiication’ (J. Todd Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift: the Activity of
Believers in Union with Christ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 58; Fesko,
‘Two Calvins,’ 101; Gafin Jr., ‘Response to Fesko,’ 107).
 Deinitive sanctiication: a response to John Fesko EQ • 249

of sin, they need to be rescued from its all-controlling power and this can only
be effected through the believer’s union with Christ in his death to sin and resur-
rection to new life (vv. 8-11).94
Paul’s comments in v. 18 confirm that it is this freedom from sin that is the
specific aspect of union with Christ that Paul has in mind: ‘and having been
freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.’ As Sinclair Ferguson has
noted, ‘the context is clearly one of deliverance from bondage, not alleviation of
guilt.’95 The participle (eleuthero-thentes) implies such freedom and the passive
voice confirms that the believer is the one being acted upon.
In summary, there is little to commend Fesko’s reading of Rom. 6:7 as it relies
upon the imposition of a technical meaning of dikaioo- which is difficult, if not
impossible, to sustain in the context.

2. Justiication as a deinitive break with the power of sin

Fesko introduces a number of further texts in support of his view that it is justi-
fication rather than sanctification which affects a definitive break with the rul-
ing power of sin. Firstly he notes Rom. 5:18: ‘Therefore, as one trespass led to
condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and
life for all men.’ Fesko writes, ‘Paul undoubtedly deals with justification, the fo-
rensic declaration that “leads to… life.”’ Moreover, he insists that this life is not
merely a proleptic reference to eternal life but an inaugurated eternal life which
begins the moment that the believer is united to Christ by faith.96 There are two
problems with this exegesis. Firstly it is by no means clear that Paul is dealing
with justification ‘that leads to life’. It is the ‘one act of righteousness’ (di' he-
nos dikaio-matos – Christ’s righteous work)97 that leads to (eis) ‘justification’ and
‘life’ (dikaio-sin zo-e-s). The genitive zo-e-s may be functioning epexegetically rather
than as a genitive of result.98 If so, ‘life’ would be explanatory of the forensic state
of justification. Even if zo-e-s is a genitive of result, which is probably more likely
in view of the contrast between ‘justification’ and ‘life’ in v. 21, there is no reason
to read ‘life’ in the way that Fesko suggests.99 The immediate context is 5:9-10,
where the emphasis is upon justification as a present reality leading to salvation
from God’s wrath on the last day – ‘life’.100 If so, the ‘life’ to which ‘justification’
leads in v. 18 is both eschatological and forensic – it is salvation from the penalty
of sin at the last judgment. As such it has nothing to do with sanctification or

94 The ordo salutis of the application of sanctiication is rooted in the historia salutis of
Christ’s own death to sin and resurrection to life.
95 Ferguson, ‘The Reformed View,’ 56.
96 Fesko, ‘Sanctiication and union with Christ,’ 211.
97 See Cranield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans,
1:289.
98 Turner, Syntax, 214; Zerwick, Biblical Greek, 45; Moo, Romans, 341.
99 Fesko resorts to a paraphrase of Eph 2:6 to support his reading with apparently little
sensitivity to the different uses of ‘life’ in Paul (‘Sanctiication and union with Christ,’
211).
100 Moo, Romans, 341. See also Schreiner, Romans, 286-287.
250 • EQ Ralph Cunnington

release from the enslaving power of sin.

Fesko next constructs a highly condensed argument from Rom. 3:21, 24 and
6:14-15 leading to the conclusion that ‘the believer’s justification frees her from
bondage to the law and brings her into the realm of grace.’101 The first and sec-
ond texts state that righteousness has been manifested apart from the law and
that justification is a gift. They do not touch upon the question of whether it is
justification that has secured release from the law. It is therefore Rom. 6:14-15
that proves to be fundamental for Fesko. His reading of this depends, of course,
upon his importation of justification in 6:7, but if that is excluded (as we have
urged it should be) his conclusion, concerning the function of justification, is
undermined. Fesko next contends that Rom. 3 helps us to understand Paul’s
teaching in Rom. 7:4. It is ‘through justification [that] the believer’s marriage to
the law as a covenant of works is broken, and with it comes the definitive break
from the world of sin.’102 Having earlier been so emphatic about the need to dis-
tinguish the historia salutis and the ordo salutis, Fesko now confuses them.103 It
is our union with Christ in his death and resurrection with its realm transferring
implications that secures release from the law, not justification.
The second set of texts that Fesko marshals are other occurrences of the syn-
tagma dikaioo- and apo. The primary text is Acts 13:38-39: ‘by him everyone who
believes is freed (dikaioutai) from everything from which you could not be freed
(dikaio-the-nai) by the law of Moses.’ The rendering of dikaioo- in this verse is no-
toriously difficult. The ESV, NASB, and RSV have ‘freed’ while the KJV, NIV and
NET have ‘justified’ or ‘justify’. BDAG lists it alongside Rom. 6:7 as an example of
the verb carrying the sense of ‘make free’.104 Fesko’s argument is a little strange.
If dikaioo- carries the sense of ‘justification’ here, meaning declared righteous,
then the verse has no bearing upon the doctrine of sanctification. It solely ad-
dresses justification from the penalty of sin. Fesko’s reference to 1 Cor. 15:56
does not help because the context there is the penalty of sin, death. If, on the
other hand, dikaioo- carries the sense of ‘freed’ then the doctrine of justification
is not in view anyway.
The third set of texts is Rom. 1:4 and 1 Tim. 3:16 from which Fesko argues that
‘Christ’s resurrection is wrapped in forensic significance’. This is uncontrover-
sial as is his further claim that ‘the Spirit is involved not only in the transforma-
tive but also in the forensic elements of our union with Christ.’105 That is exactly
right although one would want to add that the flesh / Spirit contrast in view is
the aeonic contrast between the sarkic order of weakness and frailty, and the
pneumatic order of glory, power and life.106 As Lane Tipton has observed: ‘To

101 Fesko, ‘Sanctiication and union with Christ,’ 211.

102 Ibid.
103 Ibid., 198-200, 203-207.
104 BDAG, 249.
105 Fesko, ‘Sanctiication and union with Christ,’ 212.
106 Richard B. Gafin Jr., Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology,
2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1987), 120-121.
 Deinitive sanctiication: a response to John Fesko EQ • 251

speak of Christ as justified in the Spirit invokes his relation to the Spirit-wrought
eschatological act of re-creation that dawns in his own resurrection.’107 Christ’s
justification by the Spirit in his resurrection is ‘the eschatological demonstration
and the judicial declaration that the Son of God has been vindicated as right-
eous.’108 Fesko starts to get himself into difficulty when he takes the forensic
significance of Christ’s resurrection in Rom. 1:4 and 1 Tim. 3:16 and reads that
into the entirely different context of Christ’s resurrection in Rom. 6:4; 8:11. The
forensic is an important (indeed absolutely crucial) aspect of the eschatological
significance of Christ’s resurrection but it does not exhaust that significance.
As we observed in our brief study of 1 Cor. 1:30, Christ as crucified and resur-
rected is in himself ‘righteousness’, ‘sanctification’ and ‘redemption’.109 These
soteriological benefits are received by the believer distinctly, inseparably and
simultaneously in their union with Christ.110 Fesko commits a serious category
error when he insists that the benefits of Christ’s resurrection are ‘irrefragably
tied to our justification, not our sanctification’.111 Receipt of those benefits are
irrefragably tied to our union with Christ in his death and resurrection, not to
any one particular aspect of that union.
The final argument that Fesko advances in support of justification being
foundational to Rom. 6:1-7:6 is Paul’s reference to baptism in vv. 3-4. This can
be dealt with fairly briefly since the argument is based upon a premise that has
already been dismissed – namely that justification exhausts the eschatological
significance of Christ’s death and resurrection. It is clear that Paul uses the ref-
erence to Christian baptism as a reminder of the Christian’s union with Christ;
they were baptised ‘into Christ Jesus’ (eis Christon Ie-soun) in a spatial sense – in
their union with him.112 Moreover, as 6:3b makes clear, they were baptised into
his death (eis ton thanaton autou). In other words, what is in view is the partici-
pation of the believer in Christ’s death by virtue of their union with him. Verse 4
is connected by oun (an inferential particle) making clear that there is close con-
tinuity between the two clauses.113 Since v. 4 introduces participation in Christ’s
resurrection as the purpose (hina) of participating with Christ in his death and
burial, it is clear that Paul is using baptism to point to the Christian’s union with
Christ in his death and resurrection. To claim as Fesko does that ‘baptism, when
joined to the preaching of the word, visibly preach[es] the sinner’s death and

107 Tipton, ‘Union with Christ,’ 29.

108 Ibid., 30.
109 After discussing Christ’s resurrection as ‘justiication’, Gafin immediately proceeds
to discuss it as ‘sanctiication’ and ‘gloriication’ (Resurrection and Redemption,
124-127). Fesko’s failure to do this is a serious omission.
110 Calvin, Institutes, 3.16.1; Tipton, ‘Union with Christ,’ 32.
111 Fesko, ‘Sanctiication and union with Christ,’ 212.
112 As Moo points out, the closest parallel to the language is Gal. 3:27 where a spatial
sense is clearly intended (Romans, 360). Also see Schreiner, Romans, 307; Herman
N Ridderbos, Paul An Outline of his Theology, trans. John Richard De Witt (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1975), 401-404.
113 See Runge, Discourse Grammar, 43-48.
252 • EQ Ralph Cunnington

justification through union with Christ’ is merely to state a conclusion.114 It rests

on the premise that justification exhausts the significance of union with Christ
in his death and resurrection. As we have seen, however, that is not the case in
Rom. 6, 1 Tim. 3:16, 1 Cor. 1:30 or elsewhere.

Conclusion
Fesko claims that definitive sanctification ‘confuses the forensic and trans-
formative categories by taking a statement about justification and moving it
under the doctrine of sanctification.’115 It is a serious accusation and this paper
has sought to show that it cannot be sustained. Fesko errs in his interpretation
of 1 Cor. 1:2 and Rom. 6:1-7:6, and he lacks the historical support that he claims
for his view. At root, Fesko is unable to accommodate the conceptual similarity
of a settled forensic state and a settled transformative condition even though
both are taught in Scripture. His insistence upon justification securing subjec-
tive deliverance from the power of sin is itself a confusion of the forensic and
transformative categories. Moreover, a denial of definitive sanctification has
both pastoral and theological implications. On the pastoral side, it removes the
crucial foundation for holiness: we pursue holiness (progressive sanctification)
because we already are holy in Christ (1 Cor. 1:2 – definitive sanctification). On
the theological side, as Murray noted, the definitive and decisive nature of sanc-
tification is inextricably tied to the definitive and decisive nature of Christ’s own
death and resurrection.116 We cannot deny the former without also undermining
the latter and for that reason the stakes in this debate could not be higher.

Abstract
This article responds to the criticisms of definitive sanctification raised by John
Fesko in a recent issue of the Evangelical Quarterly. It seeks to demonstrate that
1 Cor 1:2, 30, and 6:1 all describe sanctification as a settled definitive state. It
further contends that, contrary to Fesko, the doctrine of definitive sanctifica-
tion has good attestation in the historic witness of the Reformed tradition. In the
final part, the article addresses Fesko’s claim that it is justification rather than
sanctification which frees the believer from the power of sin. It is suggested that
this itself is a confusion of the forensic and transformative categories in soteriol-
ogy and has serious pastoral and theological implications.

114 Fesko, ‘Sanctiication and union with Christ,’ 213.

115 Ibid.
116 Murray, ‘The Agency in Deinitive Sanctiication,’ 293.