One nice aspect of the Anglican faith is the ecumenical opportunity it offers in study (not being as doctrinaly bound as many other traditions. Anglicanism does not claim to have all the answers, but rather believes that one day she will. This requires listening to others while on this journey to eschatological victory). This does not mean that we are tolerable to all the latest trends and relativistic concepts of others, but it means that we are not ashamed to congratulate non-Anglicans for helping us better understand ourselves and God. One non-Anglican that has in the past said and wrote many wonderful things is John Piper. He has been a great help in understanding the controversies of justification. In his book Future Grace (the 1995 edition) Piper lays out a biblical foundation as to just what justification looks like, without any fear, and probably offending both sides of the current debate (journalism says this is a sign of a great piece). Page 26-27 of Future Grace reads as follows:

The fist assumption is that justifying faith is persevering faith. As Jonathan Edwards explained with careful and nuanced language, “perseverance in faith is, in one sense, the condition of justification; that is, the promise of acceptance is made only to a perseverance sort of faith, and the proper evidence of it being that sort is its actual perseverance.” Thus it is proper to speak of the moral effectiveness of justifying faith not merely because it brings us into right standing with God at the first moment of its exercise, but also because it is a persevering sort of faith, whose effectiveness resides also in its daily embrace of all that God is for us in Jesus.  A second assumption is that justifying faith is not only a trusting in the past grace of God, but also trusting in the future grace of God, secured by the past grace of Christ’s death and resurrection…Or as John Calvin says in his sermon on Ephesians 3:14-19, “If we come to Christ, with belief in him, that is to say, if we receive the promises of the gospel, let us assume ourselves that he will dwell in our hearts, even by means of faith.

 

Sound familiar? Look at the recent post on NT Wright’s teaching of justification and you will find that both are touching on the fact that justification must relate to eschatology – time itself, and the fact that God’s justifying faith does not stop once one becomes a part of His kingdom. This faith carries on and takes on an even richer form. And in the end, when we are finally glorified, that justifying grace that God first imparted to us has ceased to exist and we are now with him in eternity.  To say that justifying faith/grace ceases to exist at some Baptistic point of (psychological) conversion is just another modern error of the Church. All throughout the Bible we can see that we are indeed sanctified by faith and that without the precious blood of Christ, we can do nothing. And since it is His blood that justifies us, it goes to say that this justification fuels our sanctification. While presupposing election, this makes perfect sense and should sit well with the Reformed and maybe even the Catholic.