Happy Birthday St. Augustine!
It’s a long, long road
Augustine of Hippo was baptized at the Easter Vigil, April 17, 387 by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. No theologian has impacted Christian theology more than St. Augustine. His biblical anthropology (understanding of Original Sin) and his high view of grace for salvation have been foundational for Christian thinking. Every theologian after Augustine has had to answer him in one way or another. This included the 16th century Protestant reformers who depended on his insights and quoted him more than any other church father. But the Protestant reformers departed from Augustine in at least one very important way.
Augustine understood the Christian life as a journey towards union with God, a life-long process begun by faith that will be completed by God in salvation. To have a relationship with God now is to be on the journey with hope of salvation, but salvation itself is kept for when we die and go to heaven. This understanding does away with any sense of “assurance” of salvation in this life; we are left to always wonder if we have attended enough masses or prayed enough “Hail Marys.” Augustine sees Christian living as a journey towards that goal - union with God. Protestants understand that we are justified (saved ) by faith “alone,” while, for Augustine, faith is just the beginning of the journey.
Protestant reformers, generally speaking, began with the "it-is-finished" of Cross and salvation, and see the Christian life as "living into" and "out of" the implications of the completed work of Christ for our full salvation and sanctification. They base their views on the fact and promise of our union with Christ (our baptism with him) in his death and resurrection (Rom 6). "You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God" (Col 3).
Thomas Cranmer and our historic formularies do not make the distinctions between justification and sanctification that Catholics and later Protestants do. Anglicans do not conflate and confuse the two as did the Medieval Catholics (salvation is by increments: we are saved when we are actually, intrinsically righteous enough to be saved by the grace doled out in the sacraments). Neither do we subscribe to the modern evangelical idea that grace alone will get us across the salvation line (with all heads bowed and eyes closed!), but that afterwards it is up to us to cooperate with the Holy Spirit to grow in holiness. The forensic justification of which Cranmer speaks is not just a pronouncement in some faraway courtroom, but this comes with faith which makes God’s imputed righteousness our own. And this faith comes with the power of the Holy Spirit for moral transformation. Explaining the mechanics and consequences of this in Cranmer’s “Homily for Salvation,” Ashley Null writes: “Christ’s death satisfied God’s justice and expressed his mercy; lively faith in Christ’s merits justified the believer, not faith itself; faith only justified, but the presence of such fruit of inner renovation as repentance and love was necessary in every justified person as well.” Grace saves and grace sanctifies! There will never be a time when we will need grace less; it is the motivation and cause of our growth in holiness. We are sanctified when we grow in our appreciation for our dire need and of Gods gracious provision. It is, at the same time, a growth in humility and in holiness.
For Augustine, the Christian life is a journey towards greater sanctification and personal holiness so that we will be presentable to God (justified) on the Day. For Protestants, our presentability is not dependent on our innate righteousness, but on God’s that he reckoned to be ours, motivated by a love that is undeserved. Augustine begins with "It's a long long road" (Neil Diamond, "He Ain’t Heavy"). Sixteenth century reformers and the classical Anglican position agree, but they are clear that Jesus Christ walked it for us.