TERMS OF SALVATION, #3 SANCTIFICATION
SANCTIFICATION means to be set apart unto holiness or holy use. In the Scriptures
people, objects or situations may be thus set apart. At salvation a believing
sinner is at once sanctified in Christ. He is our sanctification. This
is positional sanctification. “But
of Him (the Father) you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God
– and…..sanctification” (1 Corinthians 1:30,31). Again, in daily life the
Christian is being sanctified by Christ. This is called practical
or progressive sanctification. In praying for His disciples, Jesus said to His
Father, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17).
Christians, therefore, can say both, “I am sanctified” and “I am being
sanctified.”
1.
POSITIONAL (ONCE FOR ALL) SANCTIFICATION
The Holy Spirit authors
sanctification – 2 Thessalonians 2:13,14: “But we are bound to give thanks to
God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the
beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and
belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of
the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
When God saves a sinner, immediately he/she
is saved, justified and sanctified (to use the terms we’ve studied). The Holy
Spirit quickens us (Eph. 2:1) giving us new life (regeneration, new birth), a
perfect standing before God the Judge (justification), deliverance from the
penalty of sin (salvation) and now, SANCTIFICATION, a perfect standing in
Christ. All that Jesus is, is reckoned to us. An old chorus puts it this way:
“Jesus Christ is made to me, all I need, all I need. He alone is all my plea;
He is all I need” (Based upon 1 Corinthian 1:30,31).
In this regard, ALL TRUE CHRISTIANS
ARE SAINTS, RIGHT HERE AND NOW. So they are addressed as “saints” in the
letters of St. Paul (Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 2 Corinthians 1:1;
Ephesians 1:1, etc.)
2.
PRACTICAL (ONGOING OR DAILY)
SANCTIFICATION
Day by day, God continues to
“perform” (Phil 1:6) His work in the believer’s life – 1 Thessalonians 5:23,24
says: “Now may the God of peace Himself
sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved
blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful,
who also will do it.” 2 Peter 1:2-4 informs us that God has given all that is
needed to every believer in order to progress in holiness. “Grace and peace be
multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine
power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through
the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been
given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may
be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the
world through lust.”
Availing him/herself of these means
of daily growth in Jesus (Bible reading/study, prayer, the church, the
ever-present Holy Spirit, etc.), the believer progresses in sanctification,
becoming more and more like Jesus Himself. "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit" Corinthians 3:18).
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Dick Christen
