Sin, Sanctification, and Ultimate Salvation

        “For just one bite, the First Soul’s tears were spilt five thousand years and more, yearning for him who suffered in His own flesh for that guilt.”  (Purgatorio, 574, 33.61-63) So Beatrice wisely speaks the gospel into the mind of her humble follower, Dante Alighieri. Throughout his masterful Divine Comedy, Dante paints a picture of sin, sanctification, and ultimate salvation. Biblically and classically, these three words are defining concepts of the process by which humankind is transformed into holykind. From Aristotle to Dante to Lewis, the pattern of redemption is undeniable. This essay will seek to examine the three aforementioned s’s of purification, and walk through several examples of this, in classical, modern, and Biblical literature.

Dante Alighieri is going through midlife crisis.  “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood… Its very memory gives a shape to fear.” (Inferno, 16, 1.1-3, 1.5) At the height of his political and literary career, the pilgrim finds himself utterly lost and enveloped in darkness. All sorts of things have contributed to this, from pride to bitterness, envy to fear – many of which Dante is unaware. This isn’t the first time in literature that such darkness appears, however. In his nearly infamous work, The Republic, Plato gives an example of the darkness that all people – not just the politicians or gangsters – must plod through until they reach some kind of light. “Imagine an underground chamber like a cave… In this chamber are men who have been prisoners there since they were children, their legs and necks being so fastened that they can only look straight ahead of them and cannot turn their heads.” (241, book VII.7.514) Recognizing the problem that humans have, Plato defined the parameters of the crisis Dante would experience: while in darkness, man can only see shadows of reality. But, no diagnosis is complete without specification of the symptoms. Here, Aristotle appears on the scene, ready to tackle one of the biggest underlying issues in human disparity: lack of self-restraint. “For it is clear that the person who acts incontinently does not think that it is right before he finds himself in the situation.” (169, book VII.ii.30-32)  In context, what Aristotle is referring to is any person who sees an immoral act as wrong, then inches up to it until he is so far in, he cannot get out. This person, to put it in Plato’s terms, has bound himself up in his chains, and is utterly stuck, whether knowingly or not. Dante’s crisis is a sudden awareness of his total darkness and moral depravity, an awareness all men and women must face in the course of their lives.

The philosophers of the past were not the only people to see this problem. In his Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis reveals the way in which a certain young “patient” is kept in darkness, only just becoming aware that he is surrounded by it. An older demon writes to his nephew, “Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things.” (4, letter 1) Often, this is all it takes for humans, whether it is Dante or some modern figure, to become numb to the reality of a perpetually ensuing umbra. It is easy (in darkness, of course) to perceive this notion of a cave as something naïve. Yet the Bible itself preaches the truly depraved condition of mankind in several passages, both in the Old and New Testaments. A prime example of the former is found in Isaiah 55:2. In this verse, the Lord questions Israel on why she has chosen cheap replicas of his great goodness, rather than seeking Him. “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” (All Scripture references ESV). Again, in the New Testament, God speaks through Paul in Romans 7:10-11. “The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.”  Confirming Aristotle’s message about lack of self-restraint, Paul points all this darkness and disparity back to a single word: sin.

Fortunately, Dante isn’t going to be stuck in midlife crisis forever. With a heavenly mandate, Virgil appears, taking Dante through the pits of hell, and on up Mount Purgatory. At the top of purgatory, Virgil vanishes, leaving Beatrice, Dante’s constant love, to guide him through heaven. Before he can enter, however, Dante is drilled by Beatrice, and forced to come face-to-face with the reality of his sin problem. “Speak up! Speak up! Is it true? To such a charge your own confession must give evidence,” Beatrice demands. In terror and remorse, Dante whispers, “The things of the world’s day, false pleasures and enticements, turned my steps...” Condemningly and at the same time lovingly, Beatrice replies, “Had you been silent, or denied what you confess, your guilt would still be known to Him from Whom no guilt may hope to hide.” (Purgatorio, 554-555, canto 31.5-6, 34-39) Such is sin, and such is the process by which all sanctification must begin: confession of sins by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. From there, the Lord, already aware of what has been confessed, begins to purify. Once again, a parameter of this is defined by Plato’s cave. Speaking of the people in bondage, Plato begins, “Suppose one of them were let loose, and suddenly compelled to stand up and turn his head and look and walk towards the fire; all these actions would be painful and he would be too dazzled to see properly the objects of which he used to see the shadows.” (242, book VII.7.515d) Sanctification, that is the purification believers undergo through the Holy Spirit, is often painful and overwhelming. Yet, as God gradually does his work, man slowly loses his grime and become more Christ-like. Plato recognizes a similar process of step-by-step revelation in his cave analogy: “First he would find it easiest to look at shadows, next at the reflections of men and other objects in water, and later on at the objects themselves.” (242, book VII.7.516b) In his Ethics, Aristotle lists proper judgment as one of the “symptoms” of sanctification. “An indication of this [maturing] is the common view that the equitable [man will choose] to judge sympathetically in his judgments and that [it] is equitable to judge sympathetically in certain circumstances. And sympathetic judgment is a correct judgment that decides what is equitable; a correct judgment being one that arrives at the truth.” (160, book VI.xi.21-26) Sanctification produces a purified will, one wherein the conscience is more sensitive to right and wrong.

Lewis’ patient was last left in darkness, to be deceived by demons. Now, he has seen the light and the Holy Spirit is at work in him. Lewis paints a picture of this redeemed will and clarified sight, from the perspective of a horrified demon: “He [God] wants to kill their animal self-love as soon as possible; but it is His long-term policy, I fear, to restore to them a new kind of self-love – a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own; when they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbors.”  (71-72, letter 14) All these examples of transformational sanctification are glorious, and demonstrate the life-altering nature of God’s work in a believer’s heart. However, none can state it better than the Bible itself. Later in the Isaiah passage, God says this to Israel: “…let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” (55:7) Sanctification involves deep repentance, and deep grace, raising a battle cry against sin, as Romans 7:22-23 states clearly: “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” A battle goes on in the process of sanctification, but as Dante and countless other believers discovered, it doesn’t last forever.

“Then as a sweet soul gladly shapes its own good will to the will of others, without protest, as soon as any sign has made it know, so the sweet maid, taking me by the hand and saying in a modest voice to Statius, ‘Come you with him,’ obeyed the good command.” (Purgatorio, 576-577, 33.130-135) In some of the last lines of Purgatory, Dante is about to be led by Beatrice into the glorious realm of Heaven. Only now that his will has been conformed to the will of the Lord, and his sins have been purged, can he go forth to see this glory. Seeing glory isn’t something that only Dante described: as with sin and sanctification, Plato defines the borders of seeing glory, and gives a description of just what that might look like. “The thing he would be able to do last would be to look directly at the sun itself, and gaze at it without using reflections in water or any other medium, but as it is in itself.” (242-243, book VII.7.516b) Seeing God is the ultimate climax of all that sin’s suffering, and sanctification’s sanitizing power, end up in for the Christian believer. God is the single thing that must constantly be looked to, and yet the very thing that the human eye shall last see, praising him for all eternity. When men can do this, they have, by the grace of God, achieved Aristotle’s definition of prudence: “Thus prudence must be a true state, reasoned and capable of action in the sphere of human goods…Yet it is not merely a rational state, as is indicated by the fact that such a state can be forgotten, but prudence cannot.” (151, book VI.v.20-21,28-30) Prudence, and eternity with Yahweh, is ultimately where the Gospel leads us.

In the very end of Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, the “Patient” finally (to the angst of the demons) sees God. “He saw not only Them; he saw Him. This animal, this thing begotten in a bed, could look on Him. What is blinding, suffocating fire to you, is now cool light to him, is clarity itself, and wears the form of a Man.” (174.31) This image of clarifying, eternal salvation and peace in Christ is only made greater in the Holy Bible. Throughout Isaiah 55, much suffering and refinement is depicted by the Lord, but at the end of the passage, the final goal is revealed in such glorious words, they are undeniable: “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” (55:12-13) As if this wasn’t all exhilarating, the Lord speaks through Paul in the opening and closing words of Romans 8: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death…For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (8:1-2, 38-39)

Throughout Scripture and classical literature, three very clear stages are set forward in the process of being made holy: sin, sanctification, and ultimate salvation. Sin is that point at which man has a totally depraved nature; sanctification the place in which the Holy Spirit works to make the Christian believer more likened to Christ, with a purified will and a renewed ability to see the light. Ultimate salvation is the time at which the work of Christ is fully realized in the believer, made prudent through grace, who sees and experiences the fullness of the glory of God. When Dante hit midlife crisis, and became aware of his sin, readers can be thankful that Beatrice didn’t let him get stuck there. For, in a beautiful slur of poetry, Dante finishes his journey in Purgatory, being sanctified, with these words: “I came back from those holiest waters new, remade, reborn, like a sun-wakened tree that spreads new foliage to the Spring dew in sweetest freshness, healed of Winter’s scars; perfect, pure, and ready for the Stars.” (Purgatorio, 577, Book 33.142-146)

Works Cited

Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso. Ciardi, John (translator). New York, NY: New American Library, 2003.

Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. Thomson, J.A.K. (translator). London, England: Penguin Group, 2004

Lewis, C.S. The Screwtape Letters. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2001

Plato. The Republic. Lee, Desmond (translator). London, England: Penguin Group, 2007

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.