Berkouwer: Justification and Sanctification

The following sentence on justification in the reformers, while perusing Berkouwer's Faith and Justification on Google Books, sorely tempted me to immediately order a used copy from amazon. Berkouwer's Faith and Sanctification was critical for me this past spring in coming to understand how justification ignites holiness.

The basic issue is whether justification is the ground of sanctification so that sanctification is continually rooted in justification . . .

Justification . . . was not one specific phase among many on the way to salvation. It was the sweet word of pardon, which was and remained of all-embracing significance for the wholeness of life. Justification may never become a station along the way, a harbor which, once passed through, may be forgotten. On the contrary, only in intimate connection with justification does talk of sanctification make any real sense.

The Reformation, in its defense of the forensic, declarative justification that points us always to the free favor of God, has not endangered, but rescued the confession of true sanctification.

--G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Justification (Eerdmans 1954), 100

Thanks for pointing me to this book, Brian Martin.