I. THE MEANING OF SANCTIFICATION

Sanctification has to do with our character and conduct. In justification we are declared righteous in order that, in sanctification, you may become righteous. Justification is what God does for us, while sanctification is what God does in us. Justification puts us into a right relationship with God, while sanctification exhibits the fruit of that relationship; a life separated from a sinful world and dedicated unto God. Two thoughts come to mind in sanctification: separation from evil, and dedication unto God and His service.

1. Separation From Evil

Leviticus 11:44 says: “For I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy…..” The apostle Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:3: “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication.” It is evident from the 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. Dedication unto God

In this sense whatever is set apart from a profane to a sacred use and is devoted exclusively to the service of God, 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 parts of the field of his possession” (Leviticus 27:14, 16). So also the firstborn of all the children were sanctified unto the Lord (Numbers 8:17). Even the Son of God Himself, in so far as He was set apart by the father and sent into the world to do God’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 God.

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

II. THE TIME OF SANCTIFICATION

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

1. Instantaneous Sanctification

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 God. For this reason all through the New Testament believers are called saints (1 Corinthians 1:2; Romans 1:7,). If a man is not a saint he is not a Christian; if he is a Christian he is a saint.

In some denominations people are canonized after they are dead, the New Testament canonizes believers while they are alive. Note that in 1 Corinthians 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 or woman. The same act that ushers them into the state of justification admits them at once into the state of sanctification, in which they grow until they reach the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ.

2. Progressive Sanctification

Justification differs from sanctification, in that justification is an instantaneous act with no progression; while sanctification is the act with a view to a process: an act, which is instantaneous and which at the same time carries with it the idea of growth into completion. 2 Peter 3:18 says: “…but grow in (the) grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” 2 Corinthians 3:18 says: We “are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Spirit of the Lord.” It is important to notice in this verse that ‘we are being‘ transformed from one degree of character, or glory, to another.

It is because sanctification is progressive, a growth, that we are encouraged to “increase and abound” (1Thessalonians 3:12), and to “abound more and more” (4:1, 10) in the graces of the Christian life. The fact that there is always the 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 Corinthians 7:1). God’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 fullness of the divine standard, even Jesus Christ (Ephesians 4:11- 15). Holiness is not a mushroom growth; it does not happen in an hour; it grows as the coral reef grows: little by little, degree by degree.

3. Complete and Final Sanctification

1 Thessalonians 5:23 says: “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto 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. Someday the believer is to be complete in all departments of Christian character with no Christian grace missing. Complete in the “spirit” which links him with heaven; in the “body” which links him with the earth; in the “soul”as being that on which heaven and earth play. Maturity in each separate element of the Christian character: body, soul, and spirit.

This blessing of entire and complete sanctification is to take place when Jesus comes. 1 Thessalonians 3:13 says: “to the end that he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.” It is when we shall see Him that we shall be like Him (1 John 3:2).

III. THE MEANS OF SANCTIFICATION

How are men sanctified? What means are used, and what agencies are employed to make men holy and conform them into the likeness of Christ? The agencies and means are both divine and human: both God and man contributing and cooperating towards this desired end.

1. From the Divine Side: It is the Work of the Triune God

a) GOD THE FATHER

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 says: “And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly. . . . Faithful is He that calleth you, who will also do it.” God’s work here is contrasted with human efforts to achieve the following: Hebrews 12:2, and Philippians 1:6, the beginner of faith is also the finisher; so it is here; consequently the end and the aim of every encouragement is but to strengthen faith in God who is able to accomplish these things for us. Of course, there is a sense in which the believer is responsible for his progress in the Christian life (Philippians 3:12-13), yet it is nevertheless true that, after all, it is the divine grace which works all in him (Philippians 2:12-13). We cannot purify ourselves, but we can yield to God and then the purity will come. The “God of peace,” He who reconciles us is the One who sanctifies us. It is as if the apostle said: “God, by His mighty power will do for you what I, by my admonition, and by your own efforts, cannot do.” John 17:17 says “Sanctify them through thy truth.” Christ addresses the issue clearly by stating that God is the one who is to sanctify the disciples.

b) JESUS CHRIST THE SON

The death of Jesus Christ separates the believer from sin and the world, and sets him apart as redeemed and dedicated to the service of God. Hebrew 10:10 says: “By which God’s will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.” This same truth, namely, the sanctification of the church is based on the sacrificial death of Christ is set forth. Ephesians 5:25, 27 says “Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it.” Christ is “made unto us…… sanctification” (1 Corinthians 1:30).

c) THE HOLY SPIRIT SANCTIFIES

The Holy Spirit seals, attests and confirms the work of grace in the soul by producing the fruits of righteousness in the believer. 1 Peter 1:2 says: “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the spirit.” Also, 2 Thessalonians 2:13 says: “…Because God had from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth.” It is the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ who gives us freedom from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2). He is called the Holy Spirit, not only because He is absolutely holy Himself, but also because He produces that quality of soul-character in the believer. The Spirit is the executive of the Godhead for this very purpose. It is the Spirit’s work to war against the lust of the flesh and enable us to bring forth fruit unto holiness (Galatians 5:17-22).

2. From the Human Side

a) FAITH IN THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST

1 Corinthians 1:30 says: “But of Him are ye in Jesus Christ, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” Christ ends indeed all these things to us, but in reality, He becomes such only as we appropriate Him for ourselves. Only as the believer, daily, even momentarily, takes by faith the holiness of Jesus, His faith, His patients, His love, his grace, to be his own for the need of that very moment, can Christ, who by His death was made unto him sanctification in the instantaneous sense, become unto him sanctification in the progressive sense, producing in the believer His own life moment by moment. Herein lies the secret of a holy life, the momentary appropriation of Jesus Christ and all the riches of His grace for every need as it arises.

The degree of our sanctification is the proportion of our appropriation of Christ. Jesus says in Acts 26:18 “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.” Wow !!

b) THE STUDY OF THE SCRIPTURES AND THE OBEDIENCE TO THEM

In John 17:17 Jesus said: “sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” He also says in John 15:3 “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.” The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus saying “…that He might sanctify and cleanse it (the church) with the washing of water by the word.” Our sanctification is limited by our limitation in the knowledge of and our lack of obedience to the word of God. How does the word of God sanctify? By revealing sin; by awakening consciousness; by revealing the character of Christ; by showing the example of Christ; by offering the influences and powers of the Holy Spirit, and by setting forth spiritual motives and ideals. There is no power like that of the word of God for detaching a man from the world, the flesh and the devil.

c) VARIOUS OTHER AGENCIES

Hebrews 12:14 says; “Follow after……… the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord.” Two “follow after” means to pursue, to seek out, as Saul of Tarsus pursued and followed the early Christians. One cannot become a saint in his sleep. Holiness must be the object of his pursuit. The lazy man will not be the holy man.

Hebrews 12:10-11 explains that God chastens us “…for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.” Chastisement oftentimes is intended to “…produce the peaceable fruit of righteousness.”

Romans 6:19-22; 2 Corinthians 6:17; 7:1 tells us that sanctification is brought about in the life of the believer by his/her separating themselves deliberately from all that is unclean and, and by presenting, continually and constantly, the members of their bodies as holy instruments unto God for the accomplishment of His holy purposes. Thus by these single acts of surrender, holiness and sanctification soon become the habit of their lives. Thank You God !!!

By William Evans. Copyright 1974 – The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, IL