This article will investigate the biblical teaching of the sanctification of the believer in light of current spiritual formation teaching. Research will be presented showing that the historic Christian theistic understanding and teaching concerning sanctification has been obfuscated today by the so-called spirituality of spiritual formation teaching. Part one will offer an analysis of the importance of the biblical teaching on sanctification. Part two will present the ways that sanctification has been understood in the church historically. Part three will detail the recent re-interpretations of sanctification from within the spiritual formation perspective. Part four will suggest a corrective to the current path of teaching on spirituality and suggest a return to biblical sanctification. Part five will present a summation of what is at stake for the church if it does not heed this call.
This effort will rely primarily on an article written by Steven L. Porter that appeared in the September 2002 issue of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. In his article Porter suggests that what is needed today is a more robust systematic theology related to the doctrine of sanctification. It is the position of this writer that what is needed today is much more than a systematic treatment of spiritual formation. Instead of seeking a bigger tent to encompass all the expressions of evangelical spiritual formation and disciplines today, an evaluation of the practices themselves will reveal a need to return to the biblical teaching on sanctification.
The Importance of Teaching Biblical Sanctification
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians to exhort readers to continue their Christian life and thereby their sanctification by faith. His question to the Galatians then and to readers of this article today is equally appropriate: “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the Law, or by hearing with faith.”[1] In other words did you gain life in Christ by your efforts or by the Holy Spirit? Clearly, we are saved by grace[2] and the Scriptures teach that we are sanctified in the same manner.
Addressing an age-old issue is at the heart of this question by the apostle to the Galatians. Mankind has a demonstrated tendency to stray from the path of divine instruction and end up on a path of its own making and choosing. Paul’s letter to the Colossians provides a ready example of this truth. The apostle asked the Colossians a question similar to the one he asked of the Galatians: “If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, ‘do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!’” The point the apostle makes here is that the types of activities the Colossians were submitting themselves to could not secure the grace of sanctification being touted by the false teachers of the day and was in fact without warrant based on the teachings of Jesus Christ.
It is important to understand the biblical teaching on sanctification precisely because there has developed a plethora of methods suggesting that sanctification is predominantly the responsibility of the individual believer to achieve by whatever means the individual deems experientially satisfying.[3] While it is true that sanctification has an experiential aspect, i.e., we are called to “work out our salvation,” it cannot be maintained that individuals are free to subscribe to any method of their choosing. That does not stop many professing Christians from attempting self-sanctification through extra-biblical means though. Witness for instance the variety of Purpose Driven emphases, the myriad spiritual, marriage, and youth retreats, self-help study groups, recovery groups, care groups, healing and dealing with specific issues of life groups, and the thousands of books on the so-called spiritual formation techniques of contemplative prayer, mystical silence and solitude of the soul, labyrinth walking, chanting, and visualization. The sincerity of the creators and authors of these techniques and the eagerness of practitioners to indulge themselves in these techniques is not being questioned in this paper. The validity of what they are practicing and urging others to engage in under the guise of spiritual growth, formation, and discipline is being questioned however. This concern underscores the urgent need to speak directly to the evangelical Church of its need to understand and teach as a core doctrine the subject of the biblical method for the sanctification of the believer.
We are instructed in Scripture to discipline ourselves as a means to godliness.[4] Therefore being holy is a goal of every Christian. Does it follow that whatever technique or process deemed useful by a Christian is acceptable to God? Following that practice has surely led Christians outside the boundaries of how God has determined He will be approached and how His people will grow in sanctification. Mystical experiences and pragmatic techniques are nowhere called for in the Scriptures as a means to godliness. One of the reasons the Reformers advocated Sola Scriptura was to evaluate and eliminate those teachings outside the warrant of Scripture. It appears the modern Protestant evangelical Church has forgotten this principle.
IN THE NEXT POST I WILL EXAMINE SANCTIFICATION FROM AN HISTORICAL AND EVANGELICAL PERSPECTIVE
Read part Two here.
[1]Galatians 3:2. Unless otherwise stated all Scripture references are from The New American Standard Bible, Updated 1995, The Lockman Foundation (Chicago: Moody Press, 1995).
[2]Ephesians 2:8.
[3]Dallas Willard for example states that spirituality/sanctification is achieved by emulating the lifestyle of Jesus. He refers to this as the “easy yoke” of Christ and asserts that in “this truth lies the secret of the easy yoke: the secret involves living as He lived in the entirety of His life – adopting His overall lifestyle . . . We have to discover how to enter into his disciplines from where we stand today – and no doubt, how to extend and amplify them to suit our needy cases.” The Spirit of the Disciplines, (HarperCollins: New York, NY: 1991), 5, 9.
[4]1 Timothy 4:7.
Photo credit Young Nak Celebration Church
I’m looking forward to read the next article. I think I’m tracking with what your saying, but I need to hear more. Obviously, God has placed a burden on year heart for this subject and I’m glad your writing out your thoughts in length and not just giving us an abbreviated version.
Hi Josh:
Yes it is an issue of high importance for me as I survey the church today and see many folks getting off base in their efforts to live sanctified lives. As you’ll see through the series of posts sanctification as I understand it is all about accepting God’s grace – the same grace that saved us while simultaneously understanding that means we can get off the “performance treadmill” of attempting to earn God’s favor. I hope I do the subject justice and value your feedback brother. God bless you today.
Mike
Very good. I look forward to learning more about sanctification. Living for Jesus Christ is about daily growth and learning about His expectations from His Word.
Hi Kim:
Thank you for taking the time to read the post and give encouraging feedback. God bless you today.
Mike
Dear Dr. Spaulding,
I don’t know you, and I know little about you except what I have seen briefly on your site here. However, the article on spiritual formation or contemplative spirituality concerns me. I would like to see the other articles on this issue before I comment but I could not find them. I’m sure you are a Spirit filled person and I’m sure you have the best of intentions. I would say though that when you confront Dallas Willard you better have your ducks in a row. First of all you are confronting a world class philosopher, secondly you are confronting someone whose life exalts Christ. You will know them by their fruit. Now this is quite foolish of me to defend him and his theology because I know he would likely leave God to make his defense for him. So I would simply say this, in my experience Dallas is right. The Christian spirituality of the past 60 or so years has, in my opinion, been insufficient for the believers life. In other words our Christian culture has born the fruit of this insufficiency and we look generally no different from the rest of the world. Besides this how do we interpret great passages like Romans 8:12-15 or Col. 3:1-17 or Gal.5:16-25. “Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with it’s passions and desires.” What does Paul mean by the actions on our part to act with God in our sanctification? Surely you believe we must resist sin in some way. The problem from my own experience is that simply resisting or willing to not do wrong doesn’t work very often, neither does simply praying. Sin takes on a life of it’s own in or bodies, our members as Paul calls it. I would encourage everyone who reads this who is discouraged in their walk, and defeated, to take the steps that Dallas encourages. They are not works, they are wisdom and submission to God. They get our self will and illusion of control out of the way so that God can do in us what we cannot do on our own. I would encourage you to revisit, Dallas’ books Divine Conspiracy and Renovation of The Heart, swallow your pride and drink deeply.
Sincerely, Aaron
Hi Aaorn:
Thank you for reading the article and taking the time to write. The remaining articles are not published yet and I can’t say when they will be. I am a bi-vocational pastor so my time to read, research, and write articles for this blog is limited. This particular article came out of a paper I wrote while in seminary. Interestingly enough, my professor for this particular course was a Dallas Willard fan as well.
It appears to me that you are confusing your feelings/emotions for Willard’s writings for Scriptural support of the same. Personal experience is a wonderful thing most times but it is hardly a barometer for what is true. Nothing follows from the fact that you believe Willard’s writings helped you. Many people say the same thing about Oprah’s writings. There is no evidence in the Scriptures to support the unhealthy practices that contemplatives such as Dallas Willard advocate. There is however, much similarity between the Roman Catholic medieval mystics and monastics and the modern day contemplatives. That is because Willard and others have borrowed deeply from Roman Catholicism. Reformation Christians rejected those practices then and we should do the same now. Instead of encouraging people to follow Willard’s view of sanctification I would instead encourage people to listen to the Holy Spirit as they read, study, and meditate on the Word of God.
I appreciate your passion for Willard’s writings but at the end of the day they amount to your opinions about his opinions. My article is my opinion about why he and others are wrong on this subject. Swallow my pride? Am I to understand that you believe my pride is keeping me from understanding the deep truths Willard illuminates for his readers? Sounds like you’ve already passed judgment on me, the very thing you caution me not to do with Dallas Willard.
The article is not about Dallas Willard the man or any other mystic/contemplative as an individual. It is about his ideas, his theology, his philosophies. Those are open to critique as you would agree, otherwise you wouldn’t be writing to critique my ideas. There should not be a hierarchy of saints Aaorn. Dallas Willard is not more treasured, valued, or loved by God than a nobody like me so I don’t really need to have all my ducks in a row before I disagree with his writings. I only need to be filled with the Holy Spirit and prompted to speak out.
Regardless of our disagreement on this subject, we are brothers if you name the name of Christ as Savior and Lord. I will respectfully disagree with your view of the contemplatives and their beliefs and pray God’s blessings upon you today as I hope you will do for me.
Grace and peace,
Mike
Thanks Mike for your return comment. I appreciate the grace in your answer. I appreciate your opinion but obviously disagree. I understand that I may have been a little to personal in my critique and I didn’t mean any offense. Anyone can critique anyone and that is your right as an American and as a believer when you think it is edifying. I have a relatively good background in apologetics and it suprised me that you being an apologist yourself have such a problem with Willard’s work. Obviously you have had some experience with others who agree with his teaching because you mentioned your professor. I would also mention that William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland have both said, in so many words, that Dallas is their mentor, also it was a person on Ravi Zacharias’ ministry team who introduced me to Willard. But I understand that makes no difference to you because you believe he is wrong. My point is that maybe you should take pause and rethink your position.
You mentioned that my feelings/emotions may explain my misinterpretation for Willard’s work being Scriptural. I understand that assertion, however, you never addressed the Scriptural references that I noted. So, I ask again, how do you exegete many of Paul’s writings concerning the body and it’s role in being conformed to Christ without a solid somatology, aka “body theology?” I would encourage you to look at an article on Willard’s website called “Spiritual Formation and the Warfare between the Flesh and the Spirit.” It is one of my favorite articles because it is eye opening for understanding Paul’s theology of the body’s role in sanctification. What do you do with passages such as the one I quoted in my past post, “Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with it’s passions and desires.” or “I buffet my body and make it my slave.” or “All things are permissible but not all things are profitable, all things are permissible but I will let nothing rule over me. Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is for God and God for the body.” Are you telling me that just reading, memorizing and meditating scripture is the only profitable discipline for joining with God in our sanctification? Even Jesus said that when the bridegroom is gone then his disciples will fast.
I find often that people misunderstand, and misinterpret Willard. My feeling is that you misunderstand him because you have not read the full scope of his work and thought it through and then put it into practice. I think you have not exposed yourself to Willard’s full scope of sanctification theology and therefore you are presenting a “straw man” argument. Willard himself says that if he had to choose only one discipline it would be scripture memorization, he is in agreement with you on that. His thoughts on what you call contemplation or mysticism are simply to go into solitude and silence as a regular practice. Even Jesus did this. Solitude and silence simply remove our illusion that we are controlling outcomes. It fosters trust in God’s providence and forces us into a dependent position. You seem to have the idea that Willard promotes some kind of new age spirituality. This is false, he simply believes there are resources which God has made available to his people which allow us to make choices to participate with God in our sanctification. Hence Paul says “put on these things…and put off these things”, he expect us to be interactive in our sanctification. This is how God trains us to rule. I understand the Reformed position, in fact I am a member of a PCA church. But even Wayne Gruedem in his chapter on sanctification in his ST book says that it is a cooperative effort. Also do you really think that there has been no contribution to the Body of Christ by Catholics. I understand the problems in their theology. That doesn’t mean that their are not Catholics who have trusted and learned from God.
Do you ever listen to a sermon and then sit back an say “but how?,” How do I follow Christ the way I want?, How do I move from Rom. 7 to Rom. 8 in practical terms in my own life? The problem is that in the Church in the West our spiritual theology is week. Thank God that the Spirit is moving and people are beginning to understand the role of the Spirit and spiritual theology. Many of the Christian colleges are implementing curriculum in Spiritual Formation. I know these things not just theologically but practically in my own life and no it’s not emotion when desires change, when your body no longer controls you and your feelings are placed in submission to God. Maybe you’re one of those people who was born fairly nice but I have a strong will and the spirituality taught in the church is insufficient for real life, the statistics show it.
This is getting way to long and I really spend very little time on the computer and have done this maybe one other time. I originally got on your blog by accident trying to help a friend with this “Finger of God” video stuff. You had a good, informative article on that and she appreciated it. I think as fellow believers we are both in the business of helping others. That I guess is the main concern I have. When people are steered away from much of what is taught in the Spiritual Formation movement they are no better for it. They are left with shallow answers like just read scripture, go to church and pray and it will all work out, hey, it’s by grace anyway. But I asked for years, where are the great promises of walking in righteousness and not being a slave to sin, being fulfilled? I found the abundant life Jesus spoke of in learning some “new/old” things. People need victory, people want real answers, our shallow answers do not cohere with real life. Dallas and others are answering. You may disagree but please prayerfully consider what you say about these views, if nothing else in light of the weight of the respectable Christians on the other side of this issue. There are much greater “heresies” to confront than the one you think this one is. Don’t make people stumble in their desire to have a deeper relationship with God. Yes we are all equal Christians, we are all saved by grace but I think many of us desire by the Spirit that, “The righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” I personally will “press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.” We are in agreement on one thing as Reformed believers, God will work this out for our good. May your ministry prosper and God bless you, may he lead you by his Spirit.
Love in Christ, Aaron
P.S. We are both busy people. No problem if you don’t answer this it usually goes nowhere anyway, we’ve both obviously made up our minds.
Aaron:
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I will provide my understanding of the Scriptures you cited previously although can’t promise when. I appreciate the tone of your comments as well. I very seldom receive such balanced comments from those that disagree with my positions. Normally they are hostile and they never receive approval for posting 🙂
God bless you today.
Mike
It saddened me to read Aaron’s comments (2012) because it demonstrates the willingness of many Christians to look to Willard’s position in this world as the validation of his teachings. I first met Dallas Willard in the late seventies, knew him until the time of his death and I still visit with his wife, Jane, often. She still attends the same church as I do and is a member of the board, as I am.
I do not hold Dallas Willard nor Dallas Willard’s works in high regard. It has been my experience over the years that Dallas was an example of “knowledge puffeth up”. His life work was teaching the growing immaturity that we find in college classrooms. The mere fact that for decades his teachings have been found acceptable and laudable in a top secular university should give Christians pause. Schools do not tolerate Christianity unless that Christianity validates all religion or non-religion. And that word validate means that every student that walks out of the classroom can state unequivocally that they have been assured by their professor that all methods will get you there.
I do not, however, want to build an argument against Dallas. Those arguments are available by the dozens. But as someone raised in an Irish Catholic home, as someone who overthrew that Catholicism in the sixties for my hippie foray into eastern religion, I am stunned at the acceptance of the works of Dallas within the body of Christ. Eastern religions along with all of my Catholic upbringing, along with all of the trappings of both, left me the moment I was born again. If it were not for the true and valid impact on the eternity of every human life, I would laugh at both Catholicism and Eastern Religion. Having been in both, they represent childish silliness in my drug addled youth yet, it is because of my youthful involvement in them that I do not fall prey to them. The necessity to violate scripture in order to support the beliefs of Dallas is screamingly obvious. No scripture is of private interpretation and to accept the teachings of Dallas and all the rest, it is essential that scripture be abandoned wherever necessary.
Much has been written about the complexity of this issue but it is not complex at all. There is nothing new under Heaven and this issue is not exempt. God did not come only to the brilliant, that all the rest might follow them in their brilliance. God preserved his word that we might know truth. Dallas tells us that the church has been a miserable failure and that a return to the Catholic mystics and Desert Fathers of the dark ages is the answer. So I ask: was the reformation brought about by the act of Martin Luther a fraud? Or did God use Martin Luther to show the body of Christ how to be a miserable failure. If the religion in existence at that time is the solution to what the church is today, why has God not told anyone over the past six hundred years?
Come on, Aaron. The fallacy of Dallas’s, along with all the rest, teachings is plainly evident when exposed to the light of Gods Word. A Mormon friend of mine told me that i should be a Mormon because they believe the bible too. I asked him about those things that the book of Mormon holds holy that run afoul of the Bible and he told me that the Book of Mormon comes first. He is a nice guy and a long time friend. But if he dies in the rejection of Jesus Christ, he is going to hell. Dallas cannot find it within himself to let go of his “what kind of God would do that” belief. In his classroom, that Mormon will graduate feeling validated in his unbelief. And Dallas would have had many hours of that man’s focused attention to preach the truth that leads to eternal life. You can’t do that in today’s universities. Dallas would have been fired for preaching the truth. so, obviously, he was not teaching truth.
We can’t worship Dallas before God. I get along with everyone. Dallas and I did not agree but we did not discuss it. But I knew him. And when it came to the teachings that have made him famous, I am not impressed. His teachings were (and are) an example of the kind of deceptions that we should expect and be watching for. After all, bible prophecies for the last days are for the Church. Unbelievers are already deceived. But the intent of doctrines of deceptions is to tear down the faith of believers.
This has not been intended to be contentious with you, although we do know Paul contended with church leaders who were espousing deceptive ideas, but is intended as an attempt to open your eyes. If individual belief in violation of the bible is valid, there is no Christianity. Neither is there creation, flood, the nation of Israel, the death of the son of God, the resurrection of the Messiah or the infilling of the Holy Ghost, unless the individual chooses to believe them. There need be neither God nor Messiah unless I want to think there is. That cannot be supported by the bible and I choose the bible over Dallas.