Introduction
In the last blog I wrote on the subject of godly love as being what distinguishes biblical Christians from all others here on earth. As I was completing that article, a whole series of stressful events within my family were swirling around my wife and me. While none of these “bad things” has been fixed, we do have peace. Now, as we are affected by the spreading COVID-19 pandemic, through God’s blessing, that peace remains in our home as we, along with the whole nation and world, deal with the impact of the coronavirus that is affecting so many around us. It is my prayer that the content of this blog brings peace to your hearts.
Only God has the ability to measure how I’ve been growing in sanctification. I simply know I’m not the same person I was a few weeks ago since writing of God’s love.
One thing I do know from personal experience is that living the life of being a follower of Jesus Christ isn’t a process that gets any easier as I get older. Instead, our faith in the promises of God means we have peace even as the challenges of our daily life increase.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb. 12:1-2).
Biblical personal sanctification simply means to be set apart for and living as intended by God. Since sanctification is closely related to a person’s salvation—it is the fruit of being saved—we must understand that sanctification is impossible for anyone who is not born again. Therefore, it is critically important to know and respond to the one and only biblical gospel.
Paul was outspoken with the Galatians about the need to know and embrace the pure biblical gospel:
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed (Gal. 1:6-9).
Sanctification defined
Once we have believed in the gospel of God and trusted Jesus and His finished work, our sanctification begins. Paul defines sanctification for us in 1 Thessalonians 4:1–8:
Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. (1 Thess. 4:1-8)
Importantly, sanctification has to do with both our new character and our new conduct. It is an exhibit of the fruit of the Holy Spirit who now indwells sinners who have responded to the gospel message of Jesus Christ. Sanctification has to do with our separating or turning away from the sins that once defiled us. In other words, sanctification is an ongoing change that occurs in people who are now dedicated to serving God.
Instantaneous sanctification
Sanctification in a redeemed sinner comes in three parts or phases. When I or any other sinner first believes and surrenders to the Savior Jesus Christ, we are declared sanctified by his shed blood. In other words, we are set apart at that moment for holy use, for the purposes of God. In fact, in the epistle of First Corinthians, after condemning certain practices of ‘Brothers in the Lord’ in the city of Corinth, the Apostle Paul links being set apart for God with being justified and washed clean:
And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor. 6:11)
By His own death and obedience to His Father in dying for our sins, our Savior has sanctified us. The author of Hebrews says it this way:
When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Heb. 10:8-10).
In other words, at the moment our salvation, even though there is much more to the Lord’s ongoing work of teaching us to trust Him in our new life in the kingdom of God, He views our sanctification as a completed reality because of the finished “once for all” work of Jesus Christ.
“Thanks” to the false doctrine of the investigative judgment, an Adventist has no way of grasping this foundational concept of being considered fully sanctified when he believes and trusts Jesus. Adventism does not teach that redeemed sinners are declared sanctified while still living in “the body of flesh”. God, however, views the guaranteed end result of our future hope because it is founded upon the shed blood of the Savior, not on any work of our own.
Ongoing progressive sanctification
“Progressive” implies ongoing change as we become increasingly Christ-like as we grow spiritually. In fact, progressive sanctification is what the Apostle Peter was describing in this passage:
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. (1 Peter 2:1-3)
A person who has “tasted that the Lord is good” is someone who has responded the the gospel message of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:1-5).
Our reality is that in this body of flesh we sin daily (1 John 1:9-10). In this life of the flesh, sanctification is ongoing and progressive, a fact which Paul addresses in Romans 7:16-25. We know we are not to sin, yet the power to obey is not in me or in any other sinner. Even though we are accounted fully sanctified in Jesus Christ when we believe, we are concurrently learning to trust Jesus and respond in reference to Him instead of to the demands of our flesh as we grow in Him. This ongoing work of spiritual growth, or “progressive sanctification”, is also the work of Jesus Christ:
Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness (1 Thess. 4:1-7).
Sanctification is where the saints of God grow in their holiness, yet this growth is never done in our own strength or power. The Apostle Paul in Phil. 4:13 said, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” The Apostle Peter, while uplifting Apostle Paul’s written words as being “Scripture”, says; “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). “Growing in grace” is also expressed as “being transformed”:
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18).
Our progressive sanctification is further related to the fact that God has created us for good works which He planned in advance for us to do. Just as our faith and salvation are entirely the gifts of God, so is our being prepared for His work which He gives us. In the arena of this work, we learn to trust God and to lean on His strength in deep ways. Importantly, the work God prepares for us is not the means of our sanctification; rather, it is the arena in which God sanctifies us:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Eph. 2:8-10).
Adventism teaches a false gospel that confuses sanctification with doing good works. Adventist doctrine has been turned the definitions of these words backwards; they do not understand that biblical good works are the result of sanctification, not the cause. Without first having responded to the biblical gospel, there can be no sanctification.
Completed sanctification
Finally, God’s work of sanctification culminates and is completed at the coming of the Lord:
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 5:23).
The word “advent” means “a coming”. In Christian theology, the first advent refers to Jesus the Son of God being born in Bethlehem as the Messiah. That first advent of the Messiah was first prophesied and promised in Gen. 3:15. Following Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection three days later, He then ascended into heaven proclaiming, by sitting down at the Father’s side, that the atonement for the sins of the world was now and forever complete.
His second advent defines His return, a time only known to the Father, to claim the saints—both the living and the dead.
Since Adventism includes the word “advent” in its official name, we could translate that name to read “Seventh-day Second Coming Church”. What Adventism does not explain, however, is how a person becomes ready for the coming second advent of the Lord. The lie of Adventism is that we must work to achieve our own perfection—that is, to be free of any sin instead of addressing the real meaning of sanctification.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us (1 John 1:5-10).
SUMMARY
- Galatians 5:16-25 focuses upon “walking in the Spirit”. In other words, sanctification is an ongoing work of our Savior’s gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
- Sanctification leads to fruit of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
- Even though sanctification produces “action” on our part , our action is not accomplishing sanctification. Rather, our good works are are the fruit of our being saved. Our sanctification is truly a work of God in our lives.
- God’s sanctification is reckoned complete at our spiritual birth, and it is unrelated to whether we are alive or not at the Lord’s return, His second advent.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:23 declares that the saints are blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
- Therefore, the saint are obviously in the Book of Life; otherwise, they would not be caught up to meet the Savior in the air.
- It is another lie of Adventism that the saints of God must later appear before their Creator at the Great White Throne judgment. According to Revelation 20, that is the judgment of the wicked. No saints will be there to learn whether they are saved or lost. Those who trust Jesus already know they are saved. People that do appear at the Great White Throne judgment will be cast eternally into the Lake of Fire along with all that is evil.
- Those who desperately attempt to perfect their works, pursuing their own self-improvement, are working on a false sanctification. They have much to fear concerning the coming Great White Throne judgment.
(All biblical quotes taken from the ESV)
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