The Miracle of Salvation (Part Eight)

Sanctification
 

For this is the will of God, your sanctification. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. 1 Thessalonians 4:3a, 7 (ESV)

God continues the good work of salvation in you through sanctification. Our sanctification is therefore as important and necessary as our conversion in order to get to heaven. Strive … for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord (Heb 12:14). While everything we have considered so far has happened in a moment; this part of salvation takes up the rest of our lives. Sanctification means to be separated (set apart for Jesus) and different (from the world). It has two aspects. 

1. We are holy! We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Heb 10:10). For this reason, Christians can rightly be called saints (e.g. 1 Cor 1:2). Not practical sanctification (the second aspect) makes us saints, but the work of God through the new birth and justification. Through them the Lord has set us apart for Himself. “Sanctified”; this declaration indicates a Christian’s position before God.

    

2. We become holy! So now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification (Rom 6:19c). Sanctification is also a life-long process. The Holy Spirit works in us with the purpose of separating us from sin, renewing our minds and making us more like Jesus. I cannot change the fact that sin lives in me, but I can choose to not live in sin, as our verse teaches. I am called to be different from the world.

 “Sanctification is fundamentally a supernatural work of God done in the inner nature of man”.1 For it is God who works in you … (Phil 2:13). The Holy Spirit changes our will, our internal desires, the motives, and thoughts of our heart. Sanctification is above all right thinking! It does and should come out in our behavior! Fulfilling Christian duties only externally, for which there is no Godward, inner motive, is therefore not sanctification in the biblical sense. Like the branches bear fruit when they are rooted in the vine, so the Christian life brings fruit as a result of its vital union with Christ (cf. John 15:5).

In practice, sanctification involves making use of the means that God has provided. God has designed these means to work from the inside out and to strengthen our union with Christ. Three of them are especially important:

• God’s Word: All Scripture is … profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16f). Whoever strives for a pure life will not give his Bible a chance to gather dust!
• Prayer: Many of Paul’s prayers concern sanctification (cf. Col 1:9-10). Let’s follow his example and pray in the same way. The sincere confession of our sins should also be mentioned here. As a result, God not only forgives us, but also cleanses our unrighteous character (cf. 1 John 1:9).
• The local church: God uses the church to feed, correct, train and comfort us. There we grow, mature and serve one another (cf. Acts 2:42 and Heb 10:24f).

 Our salvation is a unique miracle of God, both in its individual parts and as a whole. Its purpose is to unite us with Christ forever and give glory to God for all eternity. 

1 Bible doctrine: A Systematic Summary of Bible Truth, by John MacArthur and Richard Mayhue, 2017, my emphasis.