Lesson 6

Question 1

1. What do the WS say about “infusing” relative to justification and sanctification?

Answer 1

• WS note that justification is a forensic act by God; includes both active and passive work
• The WS are implicitly arguing against a variety of bad views of justification, including RC view of “infusing Righteousness”

Question 2

2. According to WCF 11.5, why do Christians confess their post-conversion sins if justification forgives all our past and future sins?

Answer 2

1. a. Distinction between God as Judge and God as Father; “God’s fatherly displeasure” (WCF 11.5), “chastened by him as by a father” (WCF 12).
2. b. Canons of Dort 5.5 “sometimes [they] lose the sense of God’s favor, for a time, until on their returning into the right way by serious repentance, the light of God’s fatherly countenance again shines upon them
3. We are to “walk and please God” (1 Thess 4:1) as our Father, not as our Judge
4. These truths of relating to God as Father, not Judge, are tremendously useful for pastoral work.

Question 3

3. Briefly define definitive and progressive sanctification. Relate this in a nuanced way to the WS’ view of sanctification.

Answer 3

definitive sanctification =
1. the state of a Christian’s radical break from his non-Christian past and being deemed ‘holy’ (e.g., 1 Cor 6:11, Eph 5:26, Phil 1:1)
2.The “dominion” of sin is destroyed

**progressive sanctification **=
1. the process of becoming more and more holy throughout the Christian life (e.g., Rom 6:19-22, 1 Thess 5:23, 2 Cor 7:1)
2. grace being “quickened”

WS use “sanctification” primarily in the sense of “progressive” sanctification

Question 4

4. Which confession has in its preface, “Sire, why the executioners’ hands have been stained so often with the blood of your poor subjects, who, sparing not their lives to maintain this same Confession of Faith”?

Answer 4

French Confession of Faith

Question 5

5. Name one Reformed confession that explicitly includes the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds.

Answer 5

French Confession of Faith

Question 6

6. According to the French Confession 28, what is the relationship between (1) the RC church not being “the body of Christ,” but having “some trace of the [true] Church” and (2) whether RC who convert to Protestantism need to be re-baptized?

Answer 6

Nevertheless, as some trace of the Church is left in the
papacy, and the virtue and substance of baptism remain, and as the
efficacy of baptism does not depend upon the person who administers it,
we confess that those baptized in it do not need a second baptism. But, on
account of its corruptions, we can not present children to be baptized in it
without incurring pollution.