Part 26 (1/2)

3. MEANS USED.

F. SANCTIFICATION.

If Regeneration has to do with our nature, Justification with our standing, and Adoption with our position, then Sanctification has to do with our character and conduct. In Justification we are declared righteous in order that, in Sanctification, we may become righteous.

Justification is what G.o.d does for us, while Sanctification is what G.o.d does in us. Justification puts us into a right relations.h.i.+p with G.o.d, while Sanctification exhibits the fruit of that relations.h.i.+p--a life separated from a sinful world and dedicated unto G.o.d.

I. THE MEANING OF SANCTIFICATION.

Two thoughts are prominent in this definition: separation from evil, and dedication unto G.o.d and His service.

1. SEPARATION FROM EVIL.

2 Chron. 29:5, 15-18--”Sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the Lord G.o.d . . . . and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy places. . . . And the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord, to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness. . . .Then they went in to Hezekiah the king, and said, We have cleansed all the house of the Lord.” 1 Thess. 4:3--”For this is the will of G.o.d, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication.” See also Heb. 9:3; Exod. 19:20-22; Lev.

11:44.

It is evident from these scriptures that sanctification has to do with the turning away from all that is sinful and that is defiling to both soul and body.

2. SEPARATION OR DEDICATION UNTO G.o.d.

In this sense whatever is set apart from a profane to a sacred use, whatever is devoted exclusively to the service of G.o.d, is sanctified.

So it follows that a man may ”sanctify his house to be holy unto the Lord,” or he may ”sanctify unto the Lord some part of a field of his possession” (Lev. 27:14, 16). So also the first-born of all the children were sanctified unto the Lord (Num. 8:17). Even the Son of G.o.d Himself, in so far as He was set apart by the Father and sent into the world to do G.o.d's will, was sanctified (John 10:36).

Whenever a thing or person is separated from the common relations of life in order to be devoted to the sacred, such is said to be sanctified.

3. IT IS USED OF G.o.d.

Whenever the sacred writers desire to show that the Lord is absolutely removed from all that is sinful and unholy, and that He is absolutely holy in Himself they speak of Him as being sanctified: ”When I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes” (Ezek. 36:23).

II. THE TIME OF SANCTIFICATION.

Sanctification may be viewed as past, present, and future; or instantaneous, progressive, and complete.

1. INSTANTANEOUS SANCTIFICATION.

1 Cor. 6:11--”And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our G.o.d.” Heb. 10:10, 14--”By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. . . . For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” By the death of Jesus Christ the sanctification of the believer takes place at once. The very moment a man believes in Christ he is sanctified, that is, in this first sense: he is separated from sin and separated unto G.o.d. For this reason all through the New Testament believers are called saints (1 Cor. 1:2, R. V.; Rom. 1:7, R. V.). If a man is not a saint he is not a Christian; if he is a Christian he is a saint. In some quarters people are canonized after they are dead; the New Testament canonizes believers while they are alive. Note how that in 1 Cor.

6:11 ”sanctified” is put before ”justified.” The believer grows _in_ sanctification rather than _into_ sanctification out of something else. By a simple act of faith in Christ the believer is at once put into a state of sanctification. Every Christian is a sanctified man. The same act that ushers him into the state of justification admits him at once into the state of sanctification, in which he is to grow until he reaches the fulness of the measure of the stature of Christ.

2. PROGRESSIVE SANCTIFICATION.

Justification differs from Sanctification thus: the former is an instantaneous act with no progression; while the latter is a crisis with a view to a process--an act, which is instantaneous and which at the same time carries with it the idea of growth unto completion.

2 Pet. 3:18--”But grow in (the) grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” 2 Cor. 3:18--We ”are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.” The tense is interesting here: We are being transformed from one degree of character, or glory, to another. It is because sanctification is progressive, a growth, that we are exhorted to ”increase and abound” (1 Thess. 3:12), and to ”abound more and more” (4:1, 10) in the graces of the Christian life. The fact that there is always danger of contracting defilement by contact with a sinful world, and that there is, in the life of the true Christian, an ever increasing sense of duty and an ever-deepening consciousness of sin, necessitates a continual growth and development in the graces and virtues of the believer's life. There is such a thing as ”perfecting holiness” (2 Cor. 7:1). G.o.d's gift to the church of pastors and teachers is for the purpose of the perfecting of the saints in the likeness of Christ _until_, at last, they attain unto the fulness of the divine standard, even Jesus Christ (Eph.

4:11-15). Holiness is not a mushroom growth; it is not the thing of an hour; it grows as the coral reef grows: little by little, degree by degree. See also Phil. 3:10-15.

3. COMPLETE AND FINAL SANCTIFICATION.

1 Thess. 5:23, R. V.--”And the G.o.d of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” ”Wholly”

means complete in every part, perfect in every respect, whether it refers to the Church as a whole, or to the individual believer.

Some day the believer is to be complete in all departments of Christian character--no Christian grace missing. Complete in the ”spirit” which links him with heaven; in the ”body” which links him with earth; in the ”soul” as being that on which heaven and earth play. Maturity in each separate element of Christian character: body, soul, and spirit.