Biblical Essays
SANCTIFICATION: WHAT IS IT?
To minister peace and comfort to those who, though truly converted, have not laid hold of a full Christ, and who, as a consequence, are not enjoying the liberty of the Gospel, is the object we have in view in considering the important and deeply-interesting subject of sanctification. We believe that some of those whose spiritual welfare we desire to promote suffer materially from defective or erroneous ideas on this vital question. Indeed, in a few cases, the doctrine of sanctification is so entirely misapprehended as to interfere with the truth of the believer’s perfect justification before God.
For example, we have frequently heard people speak of sanctification as a progressive work, in virtue of which our old nature is to be made gradually better; and, moreover, we are not fit for heaven until this process has reached its climax, until fallen and corrupt humanity has become completely sanctified.
So far as this view of the question is concerned, we have only to say that both Scripture and the truthful experience of true believers are against it. The Word of God never teaches that the improvement of our old nature is the object of the Holy Spirit, either gradual or otherwise – the inspired apostle expressly declares, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). This one passage is clear and conclusive on the point. If “the natural man” can neither “receive” nor “know” “the things of the Spirit of God,” then how can that “natural man” be sanctified by the Holy Spirit? It is plain that to speak of “the sanctification of our nature” is opposed to the direct teaching of 1 Corinthians 2:14. Other passages might be adduced to prove that the design of the Spirit’s operations is not to improve or sanctify the flesh, but there is no need to multiply quotations. An utterly ruined thing can never be sanctified. No matter what we do with it, still, it is ruined; and, the Holy Spirit did not come down to sanctify a ruin, but to lead the ruined one to Jesus. So far from any attempt to sanctify the flesh, we read that “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other” (Gal. 5:17). Could the Holy Spirit be represented as carrying on a warfare with that which He is gradually improving and sanctifying? Would not the conflict cease as soon as the process of improvement had reached its climax? But does the true believer’s conflict ever cease so long as he is in the body?
This leads us to the second objection: the erroneous theory of the progressive sanctification of our nature – the objection drawn from the truthful experience of all true believers. Is the reader a true believer? If so, has he found any improvement in his old nature? Is it a single whit better now than it was when he first started on his Christian course? Through grace, he may be able to subdue it more thoroughly; but it is nothing better. If it be not mortified, it is just as ever ready to spring up and show itself in all its vileness. “The flesh” in a believer is in no wise better than “the flesh” in an unbeliever. If this be forgotten, it would be hard to calculate the result. If the Christian does not bear in mind that self must be judged, he will soon learn by bitter experience that his old nature is as bad as ever; and, moreover, that it will be the same to the end.
It is difficult to conceive how anyone who is led to expect a gradual improvement of his nature can enjoy an hour’s peace. Why? because if he only looks at himself in the light of God’s Holy Word, he cannot help but see that there is not the smallest change in the true character of his own heart, that his heart is as deceitful and desperately wicked as when he walked in the moral darkness of his unconverted state. His own condition and character are greatly changed by the possession of a new, yea, a “divine nature,” and by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, to give effect to its desires. But the moment the old nature is at work, he finds it as opposed to God as ever. We are convinced that much of the gloom and despondency of which so many complain may be traced to misapprehension of this important point of sanctification. Many are looking for what they can never find. They are seeking for a ground of peace in a sanctified nature instead of in a perfect sacrifice – in a progressive work of holiness instead of in a finished work of atonement. They deem it presumptuous to believe that their sins are forgiven until their evil nature is completely sanctified, and, seeing that this end is not reached, they have no settled assurance of pardon, and are therefore miserable. In other words, they are seeking for “a foundation” totally different from that which Jehovah says He has laid, and, therefore, they have no certainty whatsoever. The only thing that ever seems to give them a ray of comfort is some apparently successful effort in the struggle for personal sanctity. If they have had a good day – if they are favored with a season of comfortable communion, if they happen to enjoy a peaceful devotional frame, they are ready to cry out, “Thou hast made my mountain to stand strong; I shall never be moved” (Ps. 30).
But, these things furnish a sorry foundation for the soul’s peace. They are not Christ; and, until we have Christ, we have nothing; but when we get Him we get all. The soul that has really got hold of Christ is desirous of holiness; but if intelligent of what Christ is to him, he has done with all thoughts about sanctified nature. He has found his all in Christ, and the paramount desire of his heart is to grow into His likeness. This is true, practical sanctification.
In speaking of sanctification, it frequently happens that persons mean a right thing, although they do not express themselves according to the teaching of Holy Scripture. Also, there are many who see one side of the truth regarding sanctification, but not the other; and, although we should be sorry to make anyone an offender for a word, yet, in speaking on any point of truth and especially of so vital a point as that of sanctification, it is always desirable to speak according to the divine integrity of the Word. Therefore, we shall proceed to quote a few of the leading passages from the New Testament in which this doctrine is unfolded. These passages teach two things: what sanctification is, and how it is effected.
The first passage to which we would call attention is 1 Corinthians 1:30, “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” Here we learn that Christ “is made unto us” all these four things. In Christ, God has given us a precious casket, and when we open that casket with the key of faith, the first gem that glitters in our view is “wisdom;” the second is “righteousness;” the third is “sanctification;” and the fourth is “redemption.” We have them all in Christ. As we get one so we get all. And how do we get one and all? By the faith of Jesus Christ. But why does the apostle name redemption last? Because it takes in the final deliverance of the body of the true believer from under the power of mortality, when the voice of the archangel and the trump of God shall either raise it from the tomb, or change it, in the twinkling of an eye. Will this act be progressive? Clearly not; it will be done “in the twinkling of an eye.” The body is in one state now, and “in a moment” it will be in another. In the brief point of time expressed by the rapid movement of the eyelash, the body will pass from corruption to incorruption; from dishonor to glory; from weakness to power. What a change. It will be immediate, complete, and eternal – divine.
But what are we to learn from the fact that “sanctification” is placed in the group with “redemption?” We learn that what redemption will be to the body, what sanctification is now to the soul. In other words, in the sense in which it is here used, sanctification is an immediate, complete, eternal, divine work. One is no more progressive than the other. One is as immediate as the other. One is as complete and independent of man as the other. No doubt, when the body shall have undergone the glorious change, there will be heights of glory to be trodden, depths of glory to be penetrated, wide fields of glory to be explored. All these things shall occupy us throughout eternity. But, then the work that is to fit us for such scenes will be done in a moment. So also it is in reference to sanctification, the practical results of the thing will be continually developing; but the thing itself, as spoken of in this passage, is done in a moment.
What an immense relief it would be to thousands of earnest, anxious, struggling souls to get a proper hold of Christ as their sanctification. Many are vainly endeavoring to personally work out sanctification. They have come to Christ for righteousness after many fruitless efforts to get a righteousness of their own; but they are seeking after sanctification in a different way altogether. They have gotten “righteousness without works,” but they imagine that they must get sanctification with works. By faith in the faith of Christ, they have gotten righteousness, but they imagine they must get sanctification by effort. Thus, they lose their peace. They do not see that we get sanctification in precisely the same way we get righteousness, because Christ “is made unto us” the one as well as the other. Do we get Christ by effort? No; by faith. It is; “to him that worketh not” (Rom. 4:5). This applies to all that we get in Christ. We have no warrant whatsoever to single out from 1 Corinthians 1:30 the matter of “sanctification,” and place it on a different footing from all the other blessings it unfolds. We have neither wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, nor redemption in ourselves; nor can we procure them by anything that we can do; but God has made Christ to be unto us all these things. In giving us Christ, He gave us all that is in Christ. The fullness of Christ is ours, and Christ is the fullness of God.
Again, in Acts 26:18, the converted Gentiles are spoken of as “receiving forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith.” Here, faith is the instrument by which we are said to be sanctified, because it connects us with Christ. The moment the sinner truly believes on the Lord Jesus Christ and obeys the Gospel, he becomes linked with Him. He is made one with Him, complete in Him, accepted in Him. This is true sanctification and justification. It is not a process. It is not a gradual work. It is not progressive. The word is very explicit. It says “them which are sanctified by faith which is in me.” It does not say “which shall be sanctified”, or “which are being sanctified.” If such were the doctrine it would have been so stated.
No doubt, the true believer grows in the knowledge of this sanctification, in his sense of its power and value, its practical influence and results, the experience and enjoyment of it. As “the truth” pours its divine light on his soul, he enters into a more profound apprehension of what is involved in being “set apart” for Christ, in the midst of this evil world. All this is blessedly true; but the more its truth is seen, the more clearly we shall understand that sanctification is not merely a progressive work, wrought in us by the Holy Spirit, but that it is one result of our being linked to Christ by faith, whereby we become partakers of all that He is. This is an immediate, a complete, and an eternal work. “Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it” (Eccl. 3:14). Whether He justifies or sanctifies, “it shall be for ever.” The stamp of eternity is fixed on every work of God’s hand: “nothing can be put to it,” and, blessed be His name, “nothing can be taken from it.”
There are passages that present the subject in another aspect; that may require a fuller consideration. In 1 Thessalonians 5:23 the apostle prays for the saints whom he addresses, “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.” Here, the Word is applied to a sanctification admitting of degrees. Along with all true believers, the Thessalonians had a perfect sanctification in Christ; but as to the practical enjoyment and display of this, it was only accomplished in part, and the apostle prays that they may be wholly sanctified.
In this passage, it is worthy of notice that nothing is said of “the flesh.” Our fallen, corrupt nature is always treated as a hopelessly ruined thing. It has been weighed in the balance, and found wanting. It has been measured by a divine rule and found short. It has been tried by a perfect plummet and proved crooked. God has set it aside – its “end has come before him.” He has condemned it and put it to death. It is crucified, dead, and buried. To adduce proofs would demand a volume. Are we, then, to imagine that God the Holy Spirit came down from heaven for the purpose of exhuming a condemned, crucified, and buried nature, so that He might sanctify it? The idea has only to be named to be abandoned for ever by everyone who bows to the authority of Scripture. The more closely we study the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms, and the entire New Testament, the more closely we shall see that the flesh is wholly unmendable. It is absolutely good for nothing. The Spirit does not sanctify it, but He enables the true believer to mortify it. We are told to “put off the old man.” This precept would never have been delivered to us if the object of the Holy Spirit were the sanctification of that “old man.”
We trust that no one will accuse us of entertaining a desire to lower the standard of personal holiness or to weaken the soul’s earnest aspirations for growth in that purity for which every true believer must ardently long. God forbid. If there is one thing above another that we desire to promote, it is intense personal purity – an elevated tone of practical sanctity – a whole-hearted separation from moral evil in every shape and form. For this we long, for this we pray, in this we desire to grow daily and hourly.
But, we are fully convinced that a superstructure of true, practical holiness can never be erected on a legal basis; and hence we shall consider 1 Corinthians 1:30. It is to be feared that many who, in some measure, have, in the matter of “righteousness,” abandoned the legal ground are yet lingering thereon for “sanctification.” We believe this to be the mistake of many, and we are anxious to see it corrected. If simply received into the heart by faith, the passage before us would entirely correct this serious mistake.
All intelligent Christians are agreed regarding the fundamental truth of “Righteousness without works.” All freely and fully admit that by any efforts of our own, we cannot work out righteousness for ourselves before God. But it is not so clearly seen that righteousness and sanctification are put on precisely the same ground in the Word of God. We can no more work out sanctification than we can work out righteousness. We may try it, but, sooner or later, we shall find out that it is utterly vain. We may vow and resolve; we may labor and struggle; we may cherish the fond hope of doing better tomorrow than we have done today; but, in the end, we must be constrained to see, feel, and accept that regarding the matter of sanctification, we are as completely “without strength” as we have already proved ourselves to be in the matter of righteousness.
And, what sweet relief to the one who has been stumbling along the path of personal holiness to find that after years of unsuccessful struggle, the very thing he longs for is treasured up in Christ and complete sanctification is readily at hand – to be enjoyed by faith. Such a one may have been battling with his habits, lusts, tempers, passions; he has been making the most laborious efforts to subdue his flesh and grow in inward holiness, but he has failed. To his deep sorrow, he finds that he is not holy, and yet he reads that “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12). Not without a certain measure or attainment in holiness but without the thing itself; which every Christian has whether he knows it or not. Perfect sanctification is as fully included in the word “salvation” as is “wisdom, righteousness, or redemption.” He did not get Christ by effort, but by faith; and when he obeyed the Gospel and laid hold on Christ he received all that is in Christ. Hence, therefore, he has only to look to Jesus by faith for the subjugation of his lusts, passions, tempers, habits, circumstances, and influences. He must look to Jesus for all. He can no more subdue a single lust than he could cancel the entire catalogue of his sins, work out a perfect righteousness, or raise the dead. “Christ is all and in all.” Salvation is a golden chain stretching from everlasting to everlasting, and every link of that chain is Christ. It is all Christ from first to last.
All this is as simple as possible. The true believer’s standing is in Christ and if in Christ for one thing, he is in Christ for all. We are not in Christ for righteousness, and out of Christ for sanctification. If we are a debtor to Christ for righteousness, we are equally debtor to Him for sanctification. We are not a debtor to legality for either the one or the other. We get both by grace, through faith, and all in Christ. Yes all – all in Christ. The moment the sinner comes to Christ, truly believes on Him and obeys the Gospel, he is taken completely off the old ground of nature; he loses his old level standing and all its belongings, and is looked at as in Christ. God only sees him in Christ, and as Christ. He becomes one with Christ forever. “As he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4). Such is the absolute standing, the settled and eternal position of the feeblest babe in the family of God. There is but one standing for every child of God, every member of Christ. Their knowledge, experience, power, gift, and intelligence may vary; but their standing is one. Whatever of righteousness or sanctification they possess, they owe it all to being in Christ; consequently, if they have not gotten a perfect sanctification, neither have they gotten a perfect righteousness. But 1 Corinthians 1:30 distinctly teaches that Christ “is made” both one and the other to all true believers. It does not say that we have righteousness and “a measure of sanctification.” We have just as much Scripture authority for putting the word “measure” before righteousness as before sanctification. The Spirit of God does not put it before either. Both are perfect, and we have both in Christ. God never does anything by halves. There is no such thing as half justification. Neither is there such a thing as half sanctification. The idea of a member of the family of God, or of the body of Christ, wholly justified, but only half sanctified – such is opposed to Scripture, and revolting to the sensibilities of divine nature.
It is not improbable that much of the misapprehension that prevails regarding sanctification is traceable to the habit of confounding two things that differ materially: standing and walk, or position and condition. The true believer’s standing is perfect, eternal, unchangeable, and divine. His walk is imperfect, fluctuating, and marked with personal infirmity. His position is absolute and unalterable. His practical condition may exhibit manifold imperfections, because he is still in the body, and surrounded by various hostile influences that affect his moral condition from day to day. If then his standing be measured by his walk, his position by his condition, what he is in God’s view by what he is in man’s, the result must be false. If we reason from what we are in ourselves, instead of from what we are in Christ, we must, of necessity, arrive at a wrong conclusion.
We should carefully consider this. We are too much disposed to reason upwards from ourselves to God, instead of downwards from God to us. We should bear in mind that “Far as heaven’s resplendent orbs Beyond earth’s spot extend, As far my thoughts, as far my ways, Your ways and thoughts transcend.”
God can only think and speak of His people, and act toward them, too, according to their standing in Christ. He has given them this standing. He has made them what they are. They are His workmanship. Therefore, to speak of them as half justified would be a dishonor cast on God; and to speak of them as half sanctified would be the same.
This train of thought conducts us to another weighty proof drawn from the authoritative and conclusive page of Inspiration – 1 Corinthians 6:11. In the verses preceding, the apostle draws a fearful picture of fallen humanity, and he plainly tells the Corinthian saints that they had been like that: “such were some of you.” This is plain dealing. These are no flattering words – no daubing with untempered mortar – no keeping back the full truth regarding nature’s total and irretrievable ruin. “Such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”
What a striking contrast between the two sides of the apostle’s “but.” On one side, we have all the moral degradation of man's condition; and, on the other, we have all the absolute perfectness of the true believer's standing before God. What a marvelous contrast; and let us never forget that the soul passes, in the twinkling of an eye, from one side to the other of this “but.” “Such were some of you: but ye are,” now, something quite different. The moment, in which they received and obeyed Paul’s Gospel, they were “washed, sanctified, and justified.” They were fit for heaven; and had they not been so, it would have been a slur on the divine workmanship. “Clean every whit; thou saidst it, Lord; Shall one suspicion lurk? Thine, surely, is a faithful word, And Thine a finished work.”
This is divinely true. The most inexperienced true believer is “clean every whit,” not as a matter of attainment, but as the necessary result of being in Christ. “We are in Him that is true” (1 John 5). Could anyone be in Christ, and at the same time be only half sanctified? Assuredly not. No doubt, he will grow in the knowledge and experience of what sanctification really is. He will enter into its practical power; its moral effects on his habits, thoughts, feelings, affections, and associations: in other words, he will understand and exhibit the mighty influence of divine sanctification on his entire course, conduct, and character. But, then, in God’s view he was as completely sanctified when he became linked to Christ by faith, as he will be when he comes to bask in the sunlight of the divine presence, and reflect back the concentrated beams of glory emanating from the throne of God and the Lamb. He is in Christ now; and he will be in Christ then. His sphere and circumstances will differ. His feet shall stand on the golden pavement of the upper sanctuary, instead of standing on the arid desert sand. He will be in a body of glory, instead of a body of humiliation. But as to his standing, acceptance, completeness, justification, and sanctification, all was settled the moment he obeyed the Gospel, truly believing on the name of the only-begotten Son of God – as settled as it will always be, because as settled as God could make it. All this seems to flow as a necessary and unanswerable inference from 1 Corinthians 6:11.
It is of the utmost importance to clearly apprehend the distinction between a truth and the practical application and result of a truth. This distinction is always maintained in the Word of God. “Ye are sanctified.” Here is the absolute truth pertaining to the true believer, as viewed in Christ, and as the fruit of an eternally-perfect work. “Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify it” (Eph. 5:25, 26). “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly” (1 Thess. 5:23). Here we have the practical application of the truth to the true believer, and its results in him.
But how is this application made, and this result reached? By the Holy Spirit through the written Word. Hence we read, “Sanctify them through thy truth” (John 17). And again, “God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” (2 Thess. 2:13). So also in Peter: “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit” (1 Pet. 1:2). The Holy Spirit carries on the true believer’s practical sanctification on the ground of Christ’s accomplished work; and the mode in which He does so is by applying to the heart and conscience the truth as it is in Jesus. He unfolds the truth as to our perfect standing before God in Christ, and by energizing the new man in us, He enables us to put away everything incompatible with the perfect standing. A man who is “washed, sanctified, and justified,” should not indulge in any unhallowed temper, lust, or passion. He should “cleanse himself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit.” It is his holy and happy privilege to breathe after the loftiest heights of personal sanctity. His heart and habits should be brought and held under the power of this grand truth: he is perfectly “washed, sanctified, and justified.”
This is true, practical sanctification. It is not any attempt at the improvement of our old nature. It is not a vain effort to reconstruct an irretrievable ruin. No; it is simply the Holy Spirit, enabling the new man to live, move, and have his being in that sphere to which he belongs. Here there will undoubtedly be progress. There will be growth in the moral power of this precious truth; growth in spiritual ability to subdue and keep under all that pertains to nature; a growing power of separation from the evil around us; a growing meetness for that heaven to which we belong, and toward which we are journeying; and a growing capacity for the enjoyment of its holy exercises. All this there will be, through the gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit, who uses the Word of God to unfold to our souls the truth regarding our standing in Christ, and regarding the walk which comports with that standing. But let it be clearly understood that the work of the Holy Spirit in practical day by day sanctification is founded on the fact that true believers “are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once” (Heb. 10:10). The object of the Holy Spirit is to lead us into the knowledge, experience, and practical exhibition of that which was true of us in Christ the moment we truly believed and obeyed the Gospel. Regarding this there is progress; but our standing in Christ is eternally complete.
“Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth” (John 17:17). And again, “The very God of peace sanctify you wholly” (1 Thess. 5:23). In these passages, we have the grand practical side of this question. Here we see sanctification presented, not merely as something absolutely and eternally true of us in Christ, but also as wrought out in us, daily and hourly, by the Holy Spirit through the Word. Looked at from this point of view, sanctification is obviously a progressive thing. Through grace, we should be advancing day by day in practical holiness. But what is this? What, but the working out in us of that which was true of us in Christ, the moment we obeyed the Gospel? The basis on which the Holy Spirit carries on the subjective work in the true believer is the objective truth of his eternal completeness in Christ.
Again “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). Here, holiness is presented as a thing to be “followed after” – to be attained by earnest pursuit; a thing every true believer will long to cultivate.
May the Lord lead us into the power of these things. May they not dwell as doctrines and dogmas in the region of our intellect, but enter into and abide in the heart, as sacred and powerfully influential realities. May we know the sanctifying power of the truth (John 17:17), the, sanctifying power of faith (Acts 26:18); the sanctifying power of the name of Jesus (1 Cor. 1:30; 6:11); the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit (1 Pet. 1:2); the sanctifying grace of the Father (Jude 1).
And, now, unto the Father, unto the Son, and unto the Holy Spirit be honor, glory, might, majesty, and dominion, world without end. Amen.
