The reformation doctrine of “miserable sinners” is a doctrine of penitent sinners. It has no application to the indifferent or the secure. It offers itself only to those who, broken-hearted in repentance, look to Jesus alone as their compassionate Savior, and tells them that for them too Jesus alone is enough. It does not tell them that they are not sinners; that would not be true, and they know it is not true; no one know himself a sinner like a penitent sinner. It tells them that they are saved sinners–and that is the most glorious thing it could tell them.
- Benajamin B. Warfield, Perfectionism: Volume I (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books), 227.

 

Anyone who does not have a solid grasp of the distinction between justification and sanctification must read this! As Warfield says, it is the very essence of Protestantism, and if we fail to properly understand this we may as well go back to Rome:

We are not dealing here, however, with merely an apex logicus. We are dealing with the very essence of Protestantism. The progressive character of salvation lies at the very heart of Protestantism’s heart, because (among other things) the Protestant doctrine of justification and its effects takes to a considerable extent its form from it. A large part of the religious value of the Protestant doctrine of justification, in its distinction from sanctification, is lost, if sanctification be not a process, the completion of which occupies the whole of life; if, that is, the injunction, “Work out your own salvation,” does not apply to the whole of the Christian’s walk on earth, but ought to be addressed to men only at some particular stage of their Christian experience-say, only at its beginning. For a large part of the religious value of this distinction turns on this-that the Christian’s hope of salvation (his assurance) does not depend on the stage of sanctification to which he has already attained. Sanctification being a process, and a process which reaches its completion only when this life is over, the discovery of sin remaining in him at any point of his earthly life is no proof that the Christian may not nevertheless be in Christ. In proportion as it is made the Christian’s duty not so much to work out his salvation continuously but to enjoy it at once in its completeness, the believer, conscious of sin, loses his confidence that he is a believer at all. If this attainment of complete salvation is made coincident with justification, all sense of continued sinfulness is a clear disproof of present salvation. The matter is only mitigated, not changed, by separating the attainment of complete sanctification in time from justification. Salvation involving taking this second step, the continued sense of sinfulness becomes evidence of failure of such portentousness as to shatter our peace and assurance. If it belongs to the Christian to be without sin, and to be without sense of sin-in this sense of the statement-then the fact of experience that we are not without sin and not without the sense of sin is pretty clear proof that we are not Christians. It is not a matter of little importance, then, that we should settle it with ourselves whether the characteristic of the Christian walk in the world is constant advance towards sinlessness, or complete present enjoyment of sinlessness. If the latter, then, gloss it as we will, no one is entitled to think of himself as a Christian, no one is justified in regarding himself as saved, unless he is in the possession of complete sinlessness. In that case the whole religious gain of the Reformation doctrine of justification in distinction from sanctification is lost, and we are thrown back again into the despairing task of determining our religious state and our future hope on the ground of our own merits. [bold emphasis added]
- Benajamin B. Warfield, Perfectionism: Volume I (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books), 88-90. 

Following the exposition of the decalogue, the Heidelberg Cathechism asks the question that perhaps many (if not all) Christians ask when they realize that though sin’s power has been defeated by Christ, struggling with it (and often failing) remains a reality. The logic in our mind goes something like this: Christ defeated sin so that sin no longer has mastery therefore I should no longer sin. Such reasoning is sound, and true, but fails to take into consideration the aspect of the “already” and the “not yet” of Christian eschatology. The kingdom of heaven has arrived and yet is still coming, we have died and been raised with Christ, but have yet to die and be raised. In a similar way, sin has been defeated but we continue to fight with it. 

Question 114. But can those who are converted to God perfectly keep these commandments?

Answer: No: but even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience; (a) yet so, that with a sincere resolution they begin to live, not only according to some, but all the commandments of God. (b)

(a) 1 John 1:8; 1 John 1:9; 1 John 1:10; Rom.7:14;  Rom.7:15;  Eccl.7:20;  1 Cor.13:9; (b) Rom.7:22; Ps.1:2; James 2:10.

The writers of the HC understood that whether Christian or not, anyone under the Law of God is absolutely unable to keep it. Our best works are as filthy rags before a holy God. Only those ignorant of the law’s demands would ever think that they could keep it perfectly. 

Naturally, when we are told that we are unable to do something we wonder why it was ever commanded in the first place. This is the Arminian’s argument, namely, that God would not command what we cannot keep. And it is a valid point. It is not just for God to expect man to do what he is or was not able to do. Yet, those who believe that Adam was a federal head, know that man was originally created with the ability to obey. The HC addresses this very issue in question 9:

Question 9. Does not God then do injustice to man, by requiring from him in his law, that which he cannot perform?

Answer: Not at all; (a) for God made man capable of performing it; but man, by the instigation of the devil, (b) and his own wilful disobedience, (c) deprived himself and all his posterity of those divine gifts.

(a) Eph.4:24; Eccl.7:29; (b) John 8:44; 2 Cor.11:3; Gen.3:4; (c) Gen.3:6; Rom.5:1; Gen.3:13; 1 Tim.2:13; 1 Tim.2:14.

It’s settled then, those under the law cannot keep the law. God is just in his requirements and all men are under condemnation. For many Christians, though, this is insufficient. There are those who would maintain that since Christians are no longer under the law, it’s power being destroyed, they are now able to keep it. Christ was crucified so that “we might no longer be in bondage to sin,” God predestined and saved us for good works, didn’t he? These things are truly and really accomplished, and yet until we die we will struggle with sin. Until we are glorified we walk by faith, not by sight. The HC is clear that none, not even the converted, are able to keep the law perfectly and while it is tempting to assume an overrealized eschatology, we must trust that Christ’s work, apart from our own, in both justification as well as sanctification, is sufficient. Yes, we begin to live to all the commandments of God, but this is a “small beginning” according to the HC, and by no means a perfect keeping of the law.

Getting to the point, why are Christians commanded to keep the law? This question is especially pertinent because, for one, we acknowledge are inability to keep it and second, we are justified by faith in Christ. Question 115 addresses this issue:

Question 115. Why will God then have the ten commandments so strictly preached, since no man in this life can keep them?

Answer: First, that all our lifetime we may learn more and more to know (a) our sinful nature, and thus become the more earnest in seeking the remission of sin, and righteousness in Christ; (b) likewise, that we constantly endeavour and pray to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, that we may become more and more conformable to the image of God, till we arrive at the perfection proposed to us, in a life to come. (c)

(a) Rom.3:20; 1 John 1:9; Ps.32:5; (b) Matt.5:6; Rom.7:24; Rom.7:25; (c) 1 Cor.9:24; Philip.3:11; Philip.3:12; Philip.3:13; Philip.3:14.

Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?
 

Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, (a) am not my own, (b) but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; (c) who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, (d) and delivered me from all the power of the devil; (e) and so preserves me (f) that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; (g) yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, (h) and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, (i) and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him. (j)   

(a) Rom.14:7; Rom.14:8; (b) 1 Cor.6:19; (c) 1 Cor.3:23; Tit.2:14; (d) 1 Pet.1:18; 1 Pet.1:19; 1 John 1:7; 1 John 2:2; 1 John 2:12; (e) Heb.2:14; 1 John 3:8; John 8:34; John 8:35; John 8:36; (f) John 6:39; John 10:28; 2 Thess.3:3; 1 Pet.1:5; (g) Matt.10:29; Matt.10:30; Matt.10:31; Luke 21:18; (i) 2 Cor.1:20; 2 Cor.1:21; 2 Cor.1:22; 2 Cor.5:5; Eph.1:13; Eph.1:14; Rom.8:16; (j) Rom.8:14; 1 John 3:3.

If the law only was preached, it would, by its horrors, harden souls, driven to despair, into a hatred of God, as a severe avenger of sin. But by adding the gospel, which makes a bright hope of grace to shine, even on the most abandoned and wretched sinner, if displeased with himself, he heartily desires it: obstinate hearts come to relent, and to be melted down into a love of God and of his Christ. And therefore nothing ought to be more sweet and dear to us than the most delightful word of the Gospel, in which are brooks of honey and butter, Job xx. 17.
- Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed), 351. 

This exceeding trouble and agony did not arise only from the sympathy of the soul with the body, nor from the mere horror of impending death; it was something else that afflicted the soul of Christ, namely, his bearing the sins, not of one, but of all the elect; he had beheld the awful tribunal of God, before which he was presently to appear, in order to pay what he took not away; he saw the Judge himself, armed with all the terrors of his incomprehensible vengeance, the law brandishing all the thunders of its curses, the devil, and all the powers of darkness, with all the gates of hell just ready to pour in upon his soul: in a word, he saw justice itself, in all its inexorable rigour, to which he was now to make full satisfaction; he saw the face of his dearest Father, without darting a single ray of favour upon him, but rather burning with hot jealousy in all the terrors of his wrath against the sins of mankind, which he had undertaken to atone for. And whithersoever he turned, not the least glimpse of relief appeared for him, either in heaven or on earth, till with resolution and constancy he had acquitted himself in the combat. These, these are the things, which, not without reason, struck Christ with terror and amazement, forced from him his groans, his sighs, and his tears. And if all this was not for the expiation and satisfaction for our sins, what reason can be assigned, why the other sufferings of Christ, within the three hours of darkness, should be accounted so? [bold emphasis added]
- Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed), 218.

 

Underlying the Reformation, as evidenced in the five solas, was the renewed aspect of Scripture’s absolute authority over the Church. Rather than submit to Roman papacy, the Reformers desired to return to the doctrines authorized by Scripture and developed by the early Church. Yet, it was not against Rome alone that the magisterial Reformers fought. On the other extreme were the radical reformers, the anabaptists. Such groups, believing that the magisterial reformers had not gone far enough, sought to take nearly everything to the extreme. Thus, rather than seeking to be guided by Church history in their interpretation of Scripture, as the reformers sought, they did away with anything assembling authority or tradition save Scripture. Creeds and confessions were no longer of any value since these were not scripture. Like Charles Finney, they would view such creeds and confessions as “paper popes”.

Unfortunately, the anabaptist (mis)understanding of doctrines such as sola scriptura continues in our day. Evangelicalism has become a privatized religion, where, rather than believing the doctrines of Scripture (which are said to be man-made), people are turning to “scripture alone”. Any book that seeks to expound doctrines from Scripture are set at odds with the sacred book and are viewed as unimportant. The presupposition here is that anything that is not the Bible itself is in competition with it. The words of the bible themselves are seen as means of grace rather than the message of the bible. All that matters is that people read Scripture. Here we find the heartbeat of the radical reformers. They failed to see that the Reformation was not simply a set of principles to be followed (by which many claim to be heirs of the Reformation), but a Reformation of doctrine. The Magisterial Reformers did not deny the Trinity because it was “not explicitly in Scripture,” nor did they deny doctrines such as paedobaptism. The Westminster Confession of Faith states that Doctrines deduced from Scripture by “good and necessary consequence” are to be viewed as part of the “whole counsel of God.” 

It is not enough to be “biblical.” Nearly every cult claims to be scriptural, and they are quite able to demonstrate their knowledge of proof texts to support their heretical views. In fact, one of the chief claims of Jehovah’s Witnesses is that they don’t “interpret” Scripture, but that they let it speak for itself. Through this distorted idea of “scripture alone” the cults twist and utterly deform Biblical christianity. Are they able to prove their views from Scripture? If we adopt the view of the radical reformers we must accept what they claim. Yet if we turn to historic Christian creeds and confessions and witness the development of doctrine throughout Church history we are able to readily refute such cults and call them what they are, heretics. The Magisterial Reformers understood very well that against Rome’s interpretation they were arguing their own. The claim of the Reformers was not that they avoided interpretation but that theirs was the true interpretation. Yet they did not accomplish this by viewing Scripture as a magical book from which verses could be taken out of context; they understood the bible as an organic whole, and that any part of Scripture had to be viewed within the context of the entire canon. In this way they were able to come up with the biblical Law/Gospel contrast and harmonize Paul and James and their respective doctrines of justification (which are the same). 

In this light, the confessions and catechisms ought to be viewed. The Reformers did not set such things in opposition to Scripture, but viewed them as complementary. The creeds and confessions are called summaries of Scripture so that the Christian will be able to read Scripture and discern what is Law and what is Gospel. Creeds and confessions keep individual believers from their own privatized interpretations that often contradict that which is biblical. It is not difficult to take a passage from Scripture and come up with a thoroughly unbiblical idea, a thing we see everywhere- from the unguided Christian within the Church to Oprah. The last thing we need is to pit creeds against Christ. 

Here, then, is a plea. To forsake the presuppositions of the radical reformers, and to adopt a truly Reformed and biblical understanding of the Reformation doctrines. Dorothy Sayers is right in saying that we must choose between creeds or chaos. Which will it be? 

The White Horse Inn: How are we to think of remaining sin?

“You can still hold to eternal security and yet hold people in fear of never having been Christians, which amounts to the same thing… It’s not between whether you commit a sin once or eight-million times in your Christian life, the difference is whether you think you have a right to commit sins or not commit sins…”
- Michael Horton

Listen here.

…Another aspect of the discontinuity between them [Old and New Covenants] emerges when they are viewed as two stages in the fulfilling of the kingdom promise of the Abrahamic Covenant. The Old Covenant kingdom is only a temporary type, a provisional symbol, while the New Covenant kingdom is the permanent antitypical reality. Emphasizing this difference, the Book of Hebrews declares the discontinuity to be such that with the initiating of the New Covenant, the Old Covenant becomes obsolete and vanishes away (Heb. 8:13). To be sure, a certain continuity is involved in the typological relationship itself, the continuity of the earlier prototype to the later antitype of promise to fulfillment. Nevertheless, the New Covenant fulfillment entails the discontinuance of the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant is abrogated and replaced by the New Covenant (cf. Heb 7:18; John 1:17; Rom 10:4). At the same time, we recognize that there is solid continuity between the Old and New Covenants when the Old Covenant is viewed not as the overlay stratum to which the typological kingdom and works principle appertain but at the foundational gospel-grace layer. Indeed, from this perspective the New Covenant continues the Old Covenant.
- Meredith G. Kline, God, Heaven and Har Magedon (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock), 97-98.

Just as sound piety cannot be separated from its source in justification and adoption, personal piety cannot be separated from public activity. An evangelical shaped piety will inevitably turn one away from “forever gazing within” (Calvin), to look out onto a world in need. Medieval piety had not only emphasized merit; it pointed the energetic saint to a life of isolation from the world in meditation upon the eternal Good by transcending the world of appearances. But Reformation piety could not stand in greater contrast. First, it emphasized God’s redemptive activity in history and in the hearing of the gospel, sharply criticizing the Platonized elements of the medieval synthesis, shifting the emphasis from contemplation to action. Second, it emphasized free justification, which freed one from at least the theological motive for serving oneself by serving God and others. If justification before God is already accomplished, God and neighbors are not instrumental to one’s own salvation.
…Too much of [contemporary] Protestant theology has been formed in the womb of a type of pietism with an antitheological bias and a fascination with praxis merely as an interior experience of God and grace. Precisely its lack of concern for doctrine contributes to an individualistic and dualistic practice that is often shared by conservative evangelicals and liberals… Only a Biblical theology of grace and of covenant can produce this inner ambition that is far more powerful that guilt of sentimentalism. The church is called, like Athanasius, to be against the world for the world. [bold emphasis added]
- Michael S. Horton, Covenant and Eschatology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox), 254-60.

A theology of vision corresponds to a theologia gloriae, while a theology of promise corresponds to the theologia crucis. The former craves an unmediated encounter with the sacred in a realized eschatology, while the latter patiently and joyfully receives the medicated encounter with a personal God in the “already” and “not yet” tension that belongs to faith rather than sight.
- Michael S. Horton, Covenant and Eschatology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox), 145.

In the probation tree man found himself face to face with the claims of absolute lordship. Restricting man in the exercise of his royal authority and privileges, the probationary commandment compelled him to acknowledge that his own kingship was that of a vassal-king, that the world was his only in stewardship. It demanded that in the naming-interpretive task, the wise man role that was ancillary to man’s kingship, he must follow without question the direction of the Logos-Creator. Even when God addressed to him an apparently arbitrary word that constituted an exceptional instance within divine revelation, man must not assume an autonomous, critical stance over against his Lord, selecting for himself a canon within the canon of God’s word. He was rather held responsible to recognize the canonical word at every point, to grasp it, and submit his thought and life to all that God said. The effect of this special probationary prohibition was to confront man head-on simply and solely with God’s absolute authority and thus to face him inescapably with the demand for a clear-cut confession of his sovereign Lord. And in this way the test of man’s covenant loyalty was brought to its decisive issue.
- Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock), 105.

Paul’s argument from the covenant with Abraham hinges on the relationship between that and the Sinai Covenant. The first, Paul insists, does not stipulate conditions: the second he identifies altogether with the conditions it contains, usually calling it simply “the Law.” The Law, he argues, cannot condition the covenant with Abraham since it was communicated, by his reckoning, 430 years later. That is to say that the covenant which constitutes the chosen people of God is not conditional upon their performance. The conditions of the Sinai Covenant were communicated, paradoxically, in order to bring the people to a recognition that their covenant with God was unconditional; for until they recognized their radical inability to fulfill God’s conditions of righteousness they might imagine that they were chosen for doing so. Thus the Sinai Covenant is subordinated to the covenant with Abraham…. The main outline of this argument cannot be overlooked by any Christian exegete, whatever he may make of the various problems it gives rise to, and Luther and Calvin can hardly be said to have neglected it. They do not notice, however, or else do not care to exploit, the possibility of elucidating Paul’s argument by a simple adjustment of terminology. Paul’s denial that salvation comes by “the works of the Law” can be restated as a denial that it comes by the “Covenant of Works” expressed in the conditions of the Sinai Covenant. In contradistinction, the covenant with Abraham can be clearly stated in terms of contrasting covenants. It is this mere rephrasing of the argument which constitutes the point of departure of a distinctive Covenant or Federal Theology.
- John S. Coolidge, The Pauline Renaissance in England, quoted in Mark W. Karlberg, Covenant Theology in Reformed Perspective (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock), 78-79.

Regrettably, much of recent Reformed theology has openly denied the importance of the law-gospel distinction, substituting in its place the Barthian notion of “law in grace.”… Others within the Reformed tradition have been less open in their rejection of the law-gospel contrast, but nevertheless are sympathetic to Barth’s viewpoint. Repudiation of the law-gospel antithesis, however, immediately registers itself in other critical and related areas of Reformed exposition, particularly that of justification by faith and the atonement of Christ. The result is a radical reinterpretation of Reformation theology.
The central issue in this present debate in Reformed theology, both within and without confessional orthodoxy, as it turns out, is the interpretation of the Mosaic Covenant. It is our contention that within the historic Reformed tradition the hermeneutical key to this issue is the proper biblical assessment of the symbolic-typical aspect of OT revelation, and the recognition of the dual principles of law and grace operative in the Mosaic covenant administration. The Mosaic Covenant is to be viewed in some sense as a covenant of works. This has been the conviction of the vast majority of Reformed theologians in the early history of federalism (up to 1648).
- Mark W. Karlberg, Covenant Theology in Reformed Perspective (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock), 18.

Covenant Theology is completely biblical in its insistence on the Christological unity of the Covenant of Redemption as both law and gospel in its old and new administrations. But the old covenant is not the new covenant. The forms of government appointed in the old covenant is not the community polity for the church of the new covenant, its ritual legislation is not a directory for the church’s cultic practice, nor can the program of conquest it prescribes be equated with the evangelistic mission of the church in this world.
- Meredith G. Kline, The Structure of Biblical Authority (Eugene, OR: WIPF & Stock), 99.