WALKING IN NEWNESS OF LIFE  ·  REFORMED VOICES ON SANCTIFICATION

Walter Marshall on the Gospel Mystery of Sanctification

Holiness by Faith, from Union with Christ — the Indicative-to-Imperative Logic

The Anchor Text  ·  Romans 6:4 (ESV)

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Key terms: περιπατήσωμεν (peripatēsōmen, “we might walk,” aorist active subjunctive, hortatory) and ἐν καινότητι ζωῆς (en kainotēti zōēs, “in newness of life”). καινότης (kainotēs) denotes newness of kind, not merely of time — a new order of existence, lived out as a manner of walking.

CENTRAL TRUTH

The “mystery” is that holiness is not produced by striving toward Christ but received from him. The believer must first be endowed, by faith and union, with a new nature and a settled assurance of God’s favor — and only then can he walk in true obedience.

SECTION 01

The Author

Walter Marshall (1628–1680) was an English Puritan minister, ejected from his living in 1662. His book grew out of a protracted personal struggle for assurance and holiness. Having read Richard Baxter and found his counsel too legalistic, he turned to Thomas Goodwin, confessing the sins that weighed on his conscience. Goodwin’s reply became the seed of the book: that Marshall had omitted his greatest sin — unbelief, the failure to trust Christ for both the pardon of sin and the sanctifying of his nature. From that breakthrough came his lifework.

SECTION 02

The Work

The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification was published in 1692, twelve years after Marshall’s death. Its full subtitle signals its pastoral aim: “opened, in sundry practical directions: suited especially to the case of those who labor under the guilt and power of indwelling sin.” The treatise unfolds in fourteen “Directions,” each building on the last. It is often set beside The Marrow of Modern Divinity as a defining account of the nature of the Christian life. A commendation widely attributed to John Murray ranks it among the most important books on sanctification ever written.

SECTION 03

The Argument