Grace as Participation: Justification and Sanctification

The means by which Richard Hooker understands Christians to participate in the incarnate, crucified, risen and ascended Jesus Christ would seem to be a “real mission” of the Holy Spirit (as opposed to an “appropriation” in which the common work of all three divine persons is ascribed to the Spirit). The anointing by Jesus by the Holy Spirit (at his baptism?) was not for himself only but so that we ourselves through the Spirit might share in that anointing:

Thus much no Christian man will deny, that when Christ sanctified his own flesh, giving as God and taking as man the Holy Ghost, he did not this for himself only but for our sakes, that the grace of sanctification and life which was first received in him might pass from him to his whole race as malediction came from Adam unto all mankind. Howbeit, because the work of his Spirit to those effects is in us prevented by sin and death possessing us before, it is of necessity that as well our present sanctification unto newness of life, as the future restoration of our bodies should presuppose a participation of the grace, efficacy, merit or virtue of his body and blood, without which foundation first laid there is no place for those other operations of the Spirit of Christ to ensue. So that Christ imparteth plainly himself by degrees. (Laws V.56.10)

The “whole church” is united to the “whole Christ” (in his humanity and divinity). The risen Christ is in every part of the church, which lives by his life through “participation.” Hooker writes:

And because the divine substance of Christ is equally in all, his human substance equally distant from all, it appeareth that the participation of Christ wherein there are many degrees and differences, must needs consist in such effects as being derived from both natures of Christ really into us, are made our own, and we by having them in us are truly said to have him from whom they come, Christ also more or less to inhabit and impart himself as the graces are fewer or more, greater or smaller, which really flow into us from Christ.

Christ is whole with the whole Church, and whole with every part of the Church, as touching his Person, which can no way divide itself, or be possessed by degrees and portions. But the participation of Christ importeth, besides the presence of Christ’s Person, and besides the mystical copulation thereof with the parts and members of his whole Church, a true actual influence of grace whereby the life which we live according to godliness is his, and from him we receive those perfections wherein our eternal happiness consisteth. (Laws V.56.10)

There are two ways in which we participate in Christ, partly by imputation (justification), but also partly by infusion (sanctification). We are not only justified or accounted righteous by faith, we also share in the risen Christ’s resurrection life. “Thus we participate Christ partly by imputation, as when those things which he did and suffered for us are imputed unto us for righteousness; partly by habitual and real infusion, as when grace is inwardly bestowed while we are on earth, and afterwards more fully both our souls and bodies made like unto his in glory.” Hooker states that the first thing “infused” into our hearts is the “Spirit of Christ,” from which everything else follows. The Spirit unites us to Christ our head thus enabling the church to become Christ’s body:

From hence it is that they which belong to the mystical body of our Saviour Christ, and be in number as the stars of heaven, divided successively by reason of their mortal condition into many generations, are notwithstanding coupled every one to Christ their Head, and all unto every particular person amongst themselves, inasmuch as the same Spirit, which anointed the blessed soul of our Saviour Christ, doth so formalize, unite and actuate his whole race, as if both he and they were so many limbs compacted into one body, by being quickened all with one and the same soul. (Laws V.56.11)

Hooker makes a clear distinction between justification and sanctification that had not yet appeared in Thomas Cranmer’s theology. Cranmer instead distinguished between “lively faith” and a “dead faith.”¹ Hooker more helpfully uses the terminology that he found in John Calvin. He writes:

There is a glorifying righteousness of men in the world to come; and there is a justifying and a sanctifying righteousness here. The righteousness wherewith we shall be clothed in the world to come is both perfect and inherent. That whereby we are justified is perfect, but not inherent. That whereby we are sanctified, inherent, but not perfect. (Learned Discourse on Justification)

Hooker thus distinguishes between three kinds of righteousness. Eschatological righteousness, the righteousness of the world to come, will be perfect and inherent. When Jesus Christ returns and there is a new heaven and a new earth, we will be made inherently and completely righteous.

Concerning our present righteousness, Hooker distinguishes between justification and sanctification. The righteousness whereby we are justified by faith is perfect, but it is not an inherent righteousness because we continue to sin. The righteousness whereby we are sanctified is inherent, but it is not yet perfect. Sanctification thus involves a real ontological change, which is a progression in righteousness. We move forward, we fall back, we sin, we repent.

Concerning justification, Hooker writes:

Then, although in ourselves we be altogether sinful and unrighteous, yet even the man who in himself is impious, full of iniquity, full of sin, him being found in Christ through faith, and having his sin in hatred through repentance, him God beholdeth with a gracious eye, putteth away his sin by not imputing it, taketh quite away the punishment due thereunto, by pardoning it, and accepteth him in Jesus Christ as perfectly righteous, as if he had fulfilled all that is commanded him in the law: shall I say more perfectly righteous than if himself had fulfilled the whole law? I must take heed what I say; but the Apostle saith, “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” [2 Cor. 5:21]. (Learned Discourse on Justification)

This is a Reformation understanding of justification as imputation. Hooker is saying that in God’s sight, when we exercise faith in Christ, God accepts us and considers us as righteous even though we are not (inherently) righteous in ourselves.

Such we are in the sight of God the Father as is the very Son of God himself. Let it be counted folly, or phrensy, or fury, or whatsoever. It is our wisdom and our comfort; we care for no knowledge in the world but this: that man hath sinned and God hath suffered; that God hath made himself the sin of men, and that men are made the righteousness of God. (Learned Discourse on Justification)

This is Hooker’s way of saying that justification by faith is really about justification by Christ (alien righteousness).

But then Hooker adds concerning sanctification, which is a real and inherent infused righteousness:

Now concerning the righteousness of sanctification, we deny it not to be inherent; we grant that, unless we work, we have it not; only we distinguish it as a thing in nature different from the righteousness of justification: we are righteous the one way by the faith of Abraham, the other way, except we do the works of Abraham, we are not righteous. (Learned Discourse on Justification)

Martin Luther made a distinction between two kinds of righteousness, which is similar to the point Hooker makes here.² If justification is forensic alien righteousness, there nonetheless also an inherent transforming righteousness in sanctification. (more…)