PURSUED BY LOVE
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6. Sanctification
Sanctification is one of the most precious gifts of grace that our Saviour bestows upon us. It must be made abundantly clear from the outset that sanctification does not consist of a human effort to make oneself holy. Many will say that what matters most in sanctification is that it is a life rather than a dogma. This is a mistake as before it is a life it is a dogma. Unsound doctrine can never lead to a sound spiritual life. This pathway first underestimates doctrine, then disapproves of it and may even deem it dangerous. It is folly and unbelief. In sanctification we confess an awesome power that works and effectually lives in us. It continues until we die and enter heaven when we are holy. There is no sanctification in heaven.
The commandment “be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16 & Leviticus 11:44) is not to be weakened, it stands. God has an absolute right to demand this of us. Within heaven where God gathers His redeemed, all unholiness is excluded and absolute holiness is a never-failing characteristic. As in heaven so should it be on earth. God has strictly forbidden the least unholiness on the penalty of death. It is God’s revealed will and commandment that all unholiness must end immediately and be replaced everywhere by that which is holy and good. God is of purer eyes than to behold evil (Habakkuk 1:13). This solemn truth is rarely mentioned and seldom considered as a manner of life. Iniquity is all too often excused or overlooked. Yet, he that has caused the hurt must put it right. He that has destroyed must restore the things destroyed. It is the duty of each of us to remove all unholiness and exchange it for that which is holy.
It should be immediately clear to us that God’s demand that we should sanctify ourselves is something of which we are again totally incapable. Divine holiness ought to affect us not so much with the fear of punishment or anguish because we owe a debt we cannot pay, but with an overwhelming dissatisfaction and abhorrence at our own uncleanness and contempt for our own righteousness which is as filthy rags. “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). God’s holiness should make us conscious not of our guilt, but our sin; not our condemnation, but our impurity. God’s holiness uncovers our unholiness and inward corruption.
We ought each to ask ourselves how much we examine whether our thoughts and deeds are holy in God’s sight. We have no choice in the matter; we cannot simply live life as we please. God demands we live holy lives; we cannot continue in a carefree way as though we decide how we live our lives.
Sanctification never implies human efforts and exertions to supplement what Christ has done. It is fully a work of grace creating a holy disposition in the believer supernaturally. This disposition can in no way spring from within us. The indwelling Spirit of God is the actual worker. He performs it in all saints, not partly but wholly both in life and death. "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." (Philippians 1:6)
Sanctification is closely related to Christ, not just in His work, but it is a grace inherent in His person and identified with Him.
“But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30).
Sanctification is linked with our mystical union with Christ. He is vitally in us and we are vitally in Him. He is the vine and we are the branches (See John 15 & Galatians 2:20). There is a vital union between the believer and the Mediator. What nonsense to think of sanctification as being in any part due to human effort.
Our sanctification is in Christ because He has obtained it. Christ did not obtain on the cross our righteousness only, leaving it to us by conflict and self-denial to obtain our sanctification. There is One who labours and we enter into His rest. The Holy Spirit is the Worker and what He imparts He takes directly from Christ. “He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” (John 16:14). The Bible says: “Be ye holy, for I am holy”. If only it said instead act in a holy way or become holy, this would give some hope. It doesn’t say that, it says BE holy and this is troublesome. Not that it bothers many who profess to follow Christ. They hardly think about it. As long as they see themselves as reconciled to God, their fleshly nature is quite satisfied with this. Others find it troubles them and they find no rest for their conscience until ‘be holy’is true of them.
Christ has obtained sanctification; the Holy Spirit imparts it. Christ guarantees it to us, not just once but forever. When we appear before God, we shall be actually holy in Christ. Christ Himself is our sanctification. Although our fallen nature is completely unholy, in the risen Christ we have this glorious guarantee that in Him we shall be entirely holy. This is the mystery of the Vine and the branches: “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you” (John 15:3). Our Surety assures us that the holy disposition once created in us and seemingly overwhelmed by sin can never be lost. As yet a small beginning, it shall obtain full perfection when we leave this world. Our Surety appears before the Father on our behalf having within Him all the merits we still lack.
In Romans chapter 7, the apostle Paul does not say that all his desires and inclinations are still wicked, quite the opposite. He grieves that whilst his desires are in sympathy with the divine will and holiness of God and he will the good, evil is still present with him. Man is inclined to evil so long as he is not born again, but now no longer. Interesting in this respect is Question 90 in our Reformed Heidelberg Catechism [my translation].
Question: What is the quickening of the new man?
Answer: Heartfelt joy in God through Christ (Romans 5:1; 14:17; Isaiah 57:15) causing us to have delight and desire to live according to the will of God in all good works (Romans 6:10-11; Galatians 2:20).
Sanctification works in us progressively and is perfected in death. Both Scriptures and the Reformed Confessions speak of being imperfect in degrees, perfect in parts. Although it has not yet attained its full growth, nevertheless there are no deformities. All that we do have from God is perfect. “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless” (1 Thessalonians 5:23)
Every member is internally animated and worked upon by one vital principle, the Holy Spirit, and in such a way that all parts are affected by it spontaneously. In this sense and on God’s part sanctification is perfect. God does not impart to us that which is lacking in any sense. Sanctification is not piecemeal, but embraces the whole new man at once. On the other hand, sanctification is imperfect in the degree of its development. If God has been working in us for ten years, holy desires will be much stronger in us than they were. This will have been a gradual increase. Question 114 of the Heidelberg Catechism:
Question: Can those whom God has converted keep His commandments perfectly?
Answer: No, even the holiest of men, while in this life, have made only a small beginning in this obedience (1 John 1:8-10; Romans 7:14 ff; Ecclesiastes 7:20). Yet with earnest purpose, they are beginning to live according to not just some, but all the commandments of God (Romans 7:22; James 2:10).
The old man, what we used to be without Christ, is not renewed but done away with, replaced. It is not patched up, but something entirely new implanted. The dying of the old man has nothing to do with our own activity. Once more the Heidelberg Catechism, Question 43:
Question: What further benefit do we receive from the sacrifice and death of Christ on the Cross?
Answer: That by His power out old man is crucified with Him, slain and buried (Romans 6:6-8, 11 ff; Colossians 2:12), so that the evil lusts of the flesh may no longer reign in us (Romans 6:12), but that we may offer ourselves unto Him as a sacrifice of thanksgiving (Romans 12:1).
Christ accomplishes this by virtue of His Cross through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit diverts our personal affections, inclinations, from the old to the new man. In the end we being to hate all that is of the old.
“For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection” (Romans 6:5)
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
These verses speak of the mystical union with Christ. There can be no regeneration without this. In this mystical union we possess all that can be desired, all that Christ is we are in Him.
“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)
We need nothing more, nothing additional, than that which we thereby already have in Christ. Those who suggest that we need more than that which we already have in Christ demean what God has given us in Christ.
NEXT HOW DO I KNOW I HAVE PASSED FROM DEATH TO LIFE
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