Bullinger on Justification and Sanctification

Is Fesko (see the reference to his article on Bullinger and union with Christ in an earlier post) correctly reflecting Bullinger in concluding: “Though Bullinger prioritizes justification over sanctification, he does not render them asunder. Both justification and sanctification are aspects of union with Christ. He also shows that they are united but distinct: ‘But grace or faith and works, justification also and sanctification, are so joined together, that they cannot be severed one from another…. I verily neither dare nor do in any ease gainsay, that faith and works do cleave together.’ So for Bullinger, justification and sanctification are inseparably joined together, but neither are they confused.” (the quotation is from the Decades 3ix).

The previous post noted that Fesko makes no reference to Burrows’celebrated article “‘Christus intra nos Vivens’ The Peculiar Genius of Bullinger’s Doctrine of Sancification” in Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, vol.98(no.1), pp48-69. The following is part of footnote 2 from this article.

“The theme of the union of justification and sanctification, and the parallel established by the Church’s Christological language, emerges as a central argument in Calvin’s 1559 edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion: ‘As Christ cannot be torn into parts, so these two which we perceive in him together and conjointly are inseparable – namely, righteousness [or, justification which results from God’s ‘free acceptance’] and sanctification’. III.xi.6…..W. Niesel rightly concludes, in respect of Calvin’s argument, that ‘the two things – justification and sanctification – are one in [Christ], but only in Him’. W.Niesel, The Theology of Calvin p138. Alfred Goehler reaches the same conclusion regarding Calvin: ‘Die Einheitlichkeit des göttlichen Gnadenwirkens kommt darin zum Ausdruck, daß Rechtfertigung unf Heiligung immer gleichzetig vom Menschen ergriffen warden können… Da Gott beide Gnadengaben gleichzeitig schenken will, ist es unmöglich, die Heiligung zeitlich oder genetisch der Rechfertigung nachfolgen zu lassen… Gott [heiligt und rechfertigt] in völliger Parallelität’. Alfred Goehler, Calvins Lehre von der Heiligung. Dargestellt auf Grund der Institutio, exegetischer und homiletischer Schriften (1934) pp87-88. Clearly, the parallel development of this theme in Bullinger and Calvin is more than accidental, for we have here come upon a distinct identity of argument and even terminological distinctions. In this case, moreover, Bullinger’s contribution antedates that of Calvin, a fact which supports our contention that Bullinger is a constructive and original theologian in his own right”.

Burrows comes to the following analysis:

“In the Decades, the early emphases we have noted from Bullinger’s commentaries become even more pronounced. In this collection of sermons, Bullinger introduces what must be seen as a characteristic theme in this theology: namely, his fusion of the justification and sanctification doctrines. As he argues in a sermon from the First Decade, Paul ‘doth expound justification by sanctification, and sanctification by remission of sins… The question of justification containeth nothing else but the manner and reason of sanctification’. And as he goes on to argue in a manner strikingly reminiscent of Melanchthon’s insistence that the justified person can and must do good works, we hear Bullinger affirming the necessity with which faith brings forth good works:

‘…whereas we say that the faithful are justified by faith alone, or else by faith without works, we do not say, as many think we do, that faith is post alone, or utterly destitute of good works: for wheresoever faith is, there also it sheweth itself by good works, because the righteous cannot but work righteousness’.”

This quotation from the Decades can be found in the Parker ed p118. The Latin is:

Praeterea cum dicimus sola fide aut fide absque operibus iustificari credentes, non hoc dicimus, quod multi intelligunt, fidem esse solam aut destitutam bonis operibus. Nam ubicunque fides est, ibi se se exerit per bona opera. Iustus enim non potest non operari iustitiam. (Peter Opitz, Sermonum Decades, p76)

The modern German is:

Wenn ich sage, dass die Gläubigen allein durch den Glauben oder durch den Glauben ohne Werke gerechtgesprochen werden, so meine ich damit nicht, wie viele annehmen, dass der Glaube getrennt und entblößt von guten Werken sei. Denn wo immer Glaube ist, da äußert er sich auch durch gute Werke. Denn ein Gerechter kann nicht anders als gerecht handeln. (Heinrich Bullinger Schriften, TVZ 2006, p142)