This Jesus is no phantom but the Son of God with scarred hands and feet. He knows our struggles; he has felt our pains. He calls us to be holy as he is holy, set apart for a sacred purpose. Be sanctified. Christians have been thinking about sanctification for a long time. But the church has not yet entirely figured out sanctification theologically, and that is cause for some humility about the subject. While sanctification neither eradicates our sin nature nor merely counteracts our sinful behaviors, it does truly free us from our enslavement to sin by transforming us into more Christlike children of God.
So, paradoxically, our sanctification was accomplished once-for-all by Jesus on the cross, and our sanctification is accomplished by the Holy Spirit in our lives daily. The final end of our sanctification is the glory of God. But if you step back and look at how the Bible uses the term, it's a little different actually.
The New Testament, when it talks about sanctification, it just means being set apart. And that happens when a person becomes a Christian, God sets that person apart. The older translations call that being a saint.
Now, throughout the Christian life, you think of it as that past event, the Christian life, and the future. That past tense, I am saved, I am sanctified. Right now I am being saved, I am being sanctified. And future tense, I will be saved, I will be sanctified, that's glorification. So usually the term sanctification is talking about that middle progressive sanctification of gradual growth. And there are several major views on this, different models of sanctification. There's a Wesleyan view that says basically a Christian can live in a state of perfection, Christian perfection, not divine perfection, not angelic perfection, Christian perfection, where basically they live free from known sin.
That basically says when you become a Christian, there may be a state later where you become a better Christian, and there are different terms for it. We think of it like a second tier, a deeper life, a higher life, the Christ-life. All kinds of different terms where basically there are two stages, the first stage where there's the lower life, the second stage where there's a higher life.
The stage where you're not Spirit-filled, where you are Spirit-filled, where you're carnal, then spiritual, all these different dichotomies. Tabletalk Magazine. Gift Certificates. Ligonier Ministries. Supporting Ligonier. Renewing Your Mind. Ligonier Connect. Reformation Study Bible. Reformation Bible College. Stay in Touch. Christ died for a people. Apart from the body of Christ, sanctification is impossible.
This is the way God designed the Christian life. There is no such thing as a growing Christian apart from an active life in the body of Christ. This is so because a clear evidence of sanctification is that we are thinking of Christ and others more than ourselves. When we are not overly preoccupied with ourselves then we can rest assured that our sanctification is progressing.
Our sanctification is intimately bound up in our love for and service to others. And, we are in this together. Sanctification is a slow work. There are numerous reasons for this. I conclude with two. First, we can resist the work of the Spirit. Again, one factor of our sanctification is ourselves. Another way to say this is that through our stubbornness we effectively snuff out the flame of the Spirit in our lives.
Second, there is no part of our human existence unaffected by the fall. Our bodies, minds, emotions, relationships, and more have all been spoiled by the decay of sin. Thus, to find healing and restoration is a lifelong process.
Though slow, this process of sanctification is good, because it gives us numerous opportunities to lean upon God and see him consistently glorified in our lives. Like a spouse for whom our affection grows the more we see their beauty, so too is our relationship with God as we grow in our sanctification.
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