The Highway Forums Announcements What's New on The Highway website? "Sanctification" by Philip E. Hughes

“Deeds are the fruits of love; and love is the fruit of faith.” So wrote William Tyndale; and this saying of his sums up the attitude of the Reformers to the subject of sanctification. The believer’s love is the natural response to the prior love of God and it necessarily expresses itself in holy living. As we saw in the last chapter, so far from having no place for good works, the Reformers insisted on good works as an essential mark of the life that is truly Christian. What they consistently denied was that a man’s works could in any way contribute towards the achievement of his justification before God: only the unique redeeming work of Christ could avail for that.

With the continued assault upon the true Church of our Lord Jesus Christ by those who are promoting NPP, Federal Vision, etc., as well as the always-present teachings of the Roman State Church, this article by Dr. Hughes is most relevant for today. As the Reformers insisted, justification is by faith alone but not by a faith that is alone. This foundational truth must be maintained and defended with all fervor, especially in the present hour when there are those who are cleverly intermixing faith and works all the while claiming that they adhere to the teachings of Scripture as summarized in the great reformational Confessions.

Thus, it is incumbent upon all to understand properly the nature and role of sanctification in a believer's life and to be able to recognize those errors which would distort or even deny it.

You can read this article here: Sanctification.

For later reading, from The Highway Homepage, click on "Calvinism and the Reformed Faith" and then on the left, click on the "Praxis" button.

In His service and grace,