We continue with our discussion of the elements of salvation to our lives. Here again is the complete list of the elements:
“The Order of Salvation”
- Election (God’s choice of people to be saved) Posted March 19, 2017
- The gospel call (proclaiming the message of the gospel) Posted March 26, 2017
- Regeneration (being born again) Posted April 2, 2017
- Conversion (faith and repentance) Posted April 9, 2017
- Justification (right legal standing) Posted April 16, 2017
- Adoption (membership in God’s family) Posted April 23, 2017
- Sanctification (right conduct of life) This week.
- Perseverance (remaining a Christian)
- Death (going to be with the Lord)
- Glorification (receiving a resurrection body)
We should note here that items 2-6 and part of 7 are all involved in “becoming a Christian.” Numbers 7 and 8 work themselves out in this life, number 9 occurs at the end of this life, and number 10 occurs when Christ returns.
We have discussed several acts of God that occur at the beginning of our Christian lives: the gospel call (which God addresses to us), regeneration (by which God imparts new life to us), justification (by which God gives us right legal standing before him), and adoption (in which God makes us members of his family). We have also discussed conversion (in which we repent of sins and trust in Christ for salvation). These events all occur at the beginning of our Christian lives.
But now we come to a part of the application of redemption that is a progressive work that continues throughout our earthly lives. It is also a work in which God and man cooperate, each playing distinct roles. This part of the application of redemption is called sanctification: Sanctification is a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives.
Sanctification Has a Definite Beginning at Regeneration. A definite moral change occurs in our lives at the point of regeneration, for Paul talks about the “washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). Once we have been born again we cannot continue to sin as a habit or a pattern of life (1 John 3:9), because the power of new spiritual life within us keeps us from yielding to a life of sin.
This initial moral change is the first stage in sanctification. In this sense, there is some overlap between regeneration and sanctification, for this moral change is actually a part of regeneration. But when we view it from the standpoint of moral change within us, we can also see it as the first stage in sanctification. Paul looks back on a completed event when he says to the Corinthians, “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). Similarly, in Acts 20:32 Paul can refer to Christians as “all those who are sanctified.”
In practical terms, this means that we must affirm two things to be true. On the one hand, we will never be able to say, “I am completely free from sin,” because our sanctification will never be completed (see below). But on the other hand, a Christian should never say (for example), “This sin has defeated me. I give up. I have had a bad temper for thirty-seven years, and I will have one until the day I die, and people are just going to have to put up with me the way I am!” To say this is to say that sin has gained dominion. It is to allow sin to reign in our bodies. It is to admit defeat. It is to deny the truth of Scripture, which tells us, “You also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). It is to deny the truth of Scripture that tells us that “sin will have no dominion over you” (Romans 6:14).
This initial break with sin, then, involves a reorientation of our desires so that we no longer have a dominant love for sin in our lives. Paul knows that his readers were formerly slaves to sin (as all unbelievers are), but he says that they are enslaved no longer. “You who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:17 – 18). This change of one’s primary love and primary desires occurs at the beginning of sanctification.
Sanctification Increases Throughout Life. Even though the New Testament speaks about a definite beginning to sanctification, it also sees it as a process that continues throughout our Christian lives. This is the primary sense in which sanctification is used in systematic theology and in Christian conversation generally today. Although Paul says that his readers have been set free from sin (Romans 6:18) and that they are “dead to sin and alive to God” (Romans 6:11), he nonetheless recognizes that sin remains in their lives, so he tells them not to let it reign and not to yield to it (Romans 6:12 – 13). Their task, therefore, as Christians is to grow more and more in sanctification, just as they previously grew more and more in sin: “Just as you once yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness for sanctification” (Romans 6:19).
Paul says that throughout the Christian life “we all … are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). We are progressively becoming more and more like Christ as we go on in the Christian life. Therefore he says, “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13 – 14), this is in the context of saying that he is not already perfect but he presses on to achieve all of the purposes for which Christ has saved him (verses 9 – 12).
It is not necessary to list multiple additional quotations, because much of the New Testament is taken up with instructing believers in various churches on how they should grow in likeness to Christ. All of the moral exhortations and commands in the New Testament epistles apply here, because they all exhort believers to one aspect or another of greater sanctification in their lives. It is the expectation of all the New Testament authors that our sanctification will increase throughout our Christian lives.
Sanctification Is Completed at Death (for Our Souls) and When the Lord Returns (for Our Bodies). Because there is sin that still remains in our hearts even though we have become Christians (Romans 6:12 – 13; 1 John 1:8), our sanctification will never be completed in this life (see below). But once we die and go to be with the Lord, then our sanctification is completed in one sense, for our souls are set free from indwelling sin and are made perfect. The author of Hebrews says that when we come into the presence of God to worship we come “to the spirits of just men made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23). This is only appropriate because it is in anticipation of the fact that “nothing unclean shall enter” into the presence of God, the heavenly city (Revelation 21:27).
However, when we appreciate that sanctification involves the whole person, including our bodies, then we realize that sanctification will not be entirely completed until the Lord returns and we receive new resurrection bodies. We await the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ from heaven, and he “will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21). It is “at his coming” (1 Corinthians 15:23) that we will be made alive with a resurrection body and then we shall fully “bear the image of the Man of heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:49).
Sanctification Is Never Completed in This Life. There have always been some in the history of the church who have taken commands such as Matthew 5:48 (“You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”) or 2 Corinthians 7:1 (“let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God”) and reasoned that since God gives us these commands, he must also give us the ability to obey them perfectly. Therefore, they have concluded, it is possible for us to attain a state of sinless perfection in this life. They point to Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians, “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly” (1 Thessalonians 5:23), and infer that Paul’s prayer may well have been fulfilled for some of the Thessalonian Christians. In fact, John even says, “No one who abides in him sins” (1 John 3:6)! Do these verses not point to the possibility of sinless perfection in the life of some Christians?
On closer inspection, these passages do not support the perfectionist position. First, it is simply not taught in Scripture that when God gives a command, he also gives the ability to obey it in every case.” God commands all people everywhere to obey all of his moral laws and holds them accountable for failing to obey them, even though unredeemed people are sinners and, as such, dead in trespasses and sins, and thus unable to obey God’s commands. When Jesus commands us to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48), this simply shows that God’s own absolute moral purity is the standard toward which we are to aim and the standard for which God holds us accountable. The fact that we are unable to attain that standard does not mean that it will be lowered; rather, it means that we need God’s grace and forgiveness to overcome our remaining sin. Similarly, when Paul commands the Corinthians to make holiness perfect in the fear of the Lord (2 Corinthians 7:1), or prays that God would sanctify the Thessalonians wholly (1 Thessalonians 5:23), he is pointing to the goal that he desires them to reach. He does not imply that any reach it, but only that this is the high moral standard toward which God wants all believers to aspire.
John’s statement that “No one who abides in him sins” (1 John 3:6) does not teach that some of us attain perfection, because the present-tense Greek verbs are better translated as indicating continual or habitual activity: “No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him” (1 John 3:6). This is similar to John’s statement a few verses later, “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:9). If these verses were taken to prove sinless perfection, they would have to prove it for all Christians, because they talk about what is true of everyone born of God, and everyone who has seen Christ and known him?
Therefore, there do not seem to be any convincing verses in Scripture that teach that it is possible for anyone to be completely free of sin in this life. On the other hand, there are passages in both the Old and New Testaments that clearly teach that we cannot be morally perfect in this life. In Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple, he says, “If they sin against you—for there is no man who does not sin” (1 Kings 8:46). Similarly, we read a rhetorical question with an implied negative answer in Proverbs 20:9: “Who can say, ‘I have made my heart clean; I am pure from my sin’?” And we read the explicit statement in Ecclesiastes 7:20, “Surely there is not a righteous man On earth who does good and never sins.”
In the New Testament, we find Jesus commanding his disciples to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our sins, as we also have forgiven those who sin against us” (Matthew 6:11 – 12). Just as the prayer for daily bread provides a model for a prayer that should be repeated each day, so the prayer for the forgiveness of sins is included in the type of prayer that should be made each day in a believer’s life.
As we noted above, when Paul talks about the new power over sin that is given to a Christian, he does not say that there will be no sin in the Christian’s life, but simply tells the believers not to let sin “reign” in their bodies nor to “yield” their members to sin (Romans 6:12 – 13). He does not say that they will not sin, but says that sin will not dominate or “have … dominion” over them (Romans 6:14). The very fact that he issues these directions shows his realization that sin will continue to be present in the lives of believers throughout their time on earth. Even James the brother of our Lord could say, “We all make many mistakes” (James 3:2), and if James himself can say this, then we certainly should be willing to say it as well. Finally, in the same letter in which John declares so frequently that a child of God will not continue in a pattern of sinful behavior, he also says clearly, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Here John explicitly excludes the possibility of being completely free from sin in our lives. In fact, he says that anyone who claims to be free from sin is simply deceiving himself, and the truth is not in him.’
But once we have concluded that sanctification will never be completed in this life, we must exercise pastoral wisdom and caution in the way we use this truth. Some may take this fact and use it as an excuse not to strive for holiness or grow in sanctification, a procedure exactly contrary to dozens of New Testament commands. Others may think about the fact that we cannot be perfect in this life and lose hope of making any progress in the Christian life; an attitude that is also contrary to the clear teaching of Romans 6 and other passages about the resurrection power of Christ in our lives enabling us to overcome sin. Therefore, although sanctification will never be completed in this life, we must also emphasize that it should never stop increasing in this life.
Since sanctification is primarily a work of God, it is appropriate that Paul prays, “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). One specific role of God the Father in this sanctification is his process of disciplining us as his children. Paul tells the Philippians, “God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13), thus indicating something of the way in which God sanctifies them, both by causing them to want his will and by giving them power to do it. The author of Hebrews speaks of the role of the Father and the role of the Son in a familiar benediction: “Now may the God of peace … equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in you that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever” (Hebrews 13:20 – 21).
The role of God the Son, Jesus Christ, in sanctification is, first, that he earned our sanctification for us. Therefore Paul could say that God made Christ to be “our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). In the process of sanctification, Jesus is also our example, for we are to run the race of life “looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). Peter tells his readers, “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21). And John says, “He who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6).
But it is specifically God the Holy Spirit who works within us to change us and sanctify us, giving us greater holiness of life. Peter speaks of the “sanctification of the Spirit” (1 Peter 1:2), and Paul speaks of “sanctification by the Spirit” (2 Thessalonians 2:13). It is the Holy Spirit who produces in us the “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22 – 23), those character traits that are part of greater and greater sanctification. If we grow in sanctification we “walk by the Spirit” and are “led by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16 – 18), that is, we are more and more responsive to the desires and promptings of the Holy Spirit in our life and character. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of holiness, and he produces holiness within us.
The role that we play in sanctification is both a passive one in which we depend on God to sanctify us, and an active one in which we strive to obey God and take steps that will increase our sanctification. We can now consider both of these aspects of our role in sanctification.
First, what may be called the “passive” role that we play in sanctification is seen in texts that encourage us to trust God or to pray and ask that he sanctify us. Paul tells his readers, “Yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life” (Romans 6:13), and he tells the Roman Christians, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1). Paul realizes that we are dependent on the Holy Spirit’s work to grow in sanctification, because he says, “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live” (Romans 8:13).
Unfortunately, today, this “passive” role in sanctification, this idea of yielding to God and trusting him to work in us “to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13), is sometimes so strongly emphasized that it is the only thing people are told about the path of sanctification. Sometimes the popular phrase “let go and let God” is given as a summary of how to live the Christian life. But this is a tragic distortion of the doctrine of sanctification, for it only speaks of one half of the part we must play, and, by itself, will lead Christians to become lazy and to neglect the active role that Scripture commands them to play in their own sanctification.
That active role which we are to play is indicated by Romans 8:13, where Paul says, “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.” Here Paul acknowledges that it is “by the Spirit” that we are able to do this. But he also says we must do it! It is not the Holy Spirit who is commanded to put to death the deeds of the flesh, but Christians! Similarly, Paul tells the Philippians, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12 – 13). Paul encourages them to obey even more than they did when he was present. He says that obedience is the way in which they “work out [their] own salvation,” meaning that they will “work out” the further realization of the benefits of salvation in their Christian life. The Philippians are to work at this growth in sanctification, and to do it solemnly and with reverence (“with fear and trembling”), for they are doing it in the presence of God himself. But there is more: the reason why they are to work and to expect that their work will yield positive results is that “God is at work in you”, the prior and foundational work of God in sanctification means that their own work is empowered by God; therefore it will be worthwhile and will bear positive results.
The New Testament does not suggest any short-cuts by which we can grow in sanctification, but simply encourages us repeatedly to give ourselves to the old-fashioned, time-honored means of Bible reading and meditation (Psalm 1:2; Matthew 4:4; John 17:17), prayer (Ephesians 6:18; Philippians 4:6), worship (Ephesians 5:18 – 20), witnessing (Matthew 28:19 – 20), Christian fellowship (Hebrews 10:24 – 25), and self-discipline or self-control (Galatians 5:23; Titus 1:8).
We see that sanctification affects our intellect and our knowledge when Paul says that we have put on the new nature “which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:10). He prays that the Philippians may see their love “abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment” (Philippians 1:9). And he urges the Roman Christians to be “transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Although our knowledge of God is more than intellectual knowledge, there is certainly an intellectual component to it, and Paul says that this knowledge of God should keep increasing throughout our lives: a life “worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him” is one that is continually “increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10). The sanctification of our intellects will involve growth in wisdom and knowledge as we increasingly “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5) and find that our thoughts are more and more the thoughts that God himself imparts to us in his Word.
Moreover, growth in sanctification will affect our emotions. We will see increasingly in our lives emotions such as “love, joy, peace, patience” (Galatians 5:22). We will be able increasingly to obey Peter’s command “to abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). We will find it increasingly true that we do not “love the world or things in the world” (1 John 2:15), but that we, like our Savior, delight to do God’s will. In ever-increasing measure, we will become “obedient from the heart” (Romans 6:17), and we will “put away” the negative emotions involved in “bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander” (Ephesians 4:31). Sanctification will have an effect on our will, our decision-making faculty, because God is at work in us, “to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). As we grow in sanctification, our will, will be more and more conformed to the will of our heavenly Father.
Sanctification will also affect our spirit, the nonphysical part of our beings. We are to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1), and Paul says that a concern about the affairs of the Lord will mean taking thought for “how to be holy in body and spirit” (1 Corinthians 7:34).
Finally, sanctification affects our physical bodies. Paul says, “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Moreover, Paul encourages the Corinthians, “Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1). As we become more sanctified in our bodies, our bodies become more and more useful servants of God, more and more responsive to the will of God and the desires of the Holy Spirit. We will not let sin reign in our bodies (Romans 6:12) nor allow our bodies to participate in any way in immorality (1 Corinthians 6:13), but will treat our bodies with care and will recognize that they are the means by which the Holy Spirit works through us in this life. Therefore, they are not to be recklessly abused or mistreated, but are to be made useful and able to respond to God’s will: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19 – 20).
It would not be right to end our discussion without noting that sanctification brings great joy to us. The more we grow in likeness to Christ, the more we will personally experience the “joy” and “peace” that are part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22), and the more we will draw near to the kind of life that we will have in heaven. Paul says that as we become more and more obedient to God, “the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life” (Romans 6:22). He realizes that this is the source of our true joy. “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). As we grow in holiness we grow in conformity to the image of Christ, and more and more of the beauty of his character is seen in our own lives. This is the goal of perfect sanctification which we hope and long for, and which will be ours when Christ returns. “And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:3).