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Christian Chronicles, January 2000 - Volume 3, Issue 50
| The
Editor's Pen | Perspectives: Only Truth Sanctifies | Mid-East Update |
| Fruit of the Vine | Total
Sanctification | Your Sanctification | The Liberty of Sanctification |
| The Goal of Sanctification | Separating Time and Eternity | Spiritual Maturity and Sanctification |
Change is not an event; it is a process. And processes take time. They don’t happen all at once, but progressively. They unfold over a period of time.
Too often do we suppose that a new Christian ought to become a model citizen from the moment of his salvation, dropping his old habits and immediately wearing some sort of golden halo.
Sanctification is both a process and an event. When we are saved, we are completely sanctified in God’s eyes in that instant when we believe the gospel. However, despite our positional sanctification, the experience of the Christian in life is one of progressive sanctification.
It seems to be a common belief that once a person becomes a Christian he ought to live up to his calling as a saint. In all my years of ministry, I have never known a single individual who managed to do that. But as I have watched young Christians mature with the passage of years, I have also never known one not to grow increasingly separated from worldly things to heavenly. That is sanctification.
Perspectives: Only Truth Sanctifies
Sanctify them by Your Word.(Jn 17:17)
The first issue of the new millennium? No. Actually, every issue of Christian Chronicles that has been published has been published in the new millennium. The New Testament clearly states that Herod was King when Jesus was born (Mt 2:1). Secular history undeniably proves that Herod died in 4 B.C., so that Jesus was not born in 0 A.D., but some years prior to that. Most theologians and historians put the range between 4 - 6 B.C. for His birth. Thus, if our calendar is supposed to be based upon the year of our Lord, it is wrong. The new millennium actually began between 1994 - 1996. All the millennial fever that gripped the world was based on false premises. How silly.So? What’s the point? The point is this: The systems of the world are all based upon lies. The world is the devil’s kingdom until he is supplanted by our Lord, and he is the father of lies (Jn 8:44). We have before shown that Christmas has nothing to do with the birth of Christ, but that it is an extension of the pagan festival of Brumalia, worshipping the winter solstice; that Easter is from the pagan Eostra, the spring fertility rites of the pagans (hence, the rabbit and the egg). The devil must laugh to see how easily Christians are fooled by these pseudo-Christian holidays. All the religions of the world, with the sole exception of real Christianity, celebrate the glory of man and not of God. Our calendar, our holidays, our values, our standards, our religions, our hopes — virtually everything that the world holds dear — are based upon false premises. Lies. Not ours, my friends, but the world’s. And the world is but a planet. It is water and earth, stone and air. It has no values or standards. All of the things the human race lusts after are the products of the devil.
It is easy then to understand why God has separated us from all this. It is easy to understand why we have been sanctified. We are in the world, but we are not to become stained by it. Let’s not get any of it on us.
When Jesus was praying that wonderful prayer in John seventeen, He certainly understood the wickedness of the world that was about to crucify Him. He understood everything about it. He knew its heart, deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. And He prayed, "Sanctify them by Your truth. Your Word is truth."
And here is the essence of sanctification: Separation from the world. We have already been sanctified (Heb 10:10), and we are being sanctified (Heb 10:14). God separated us from the world to Himself in the moment of our salvation, and as we go through our lives, reading and studying the Word of God, our minds and hearts become more and more separated from the world to God. But the key to sanctification is the truth, and the only truth by which we can establish our heavenly values and standards is found in the Word of God.
The door to Christian bliss is framed in sanctification. Every heart that is sanctified is a heart that is well steeped in the Word of God. There is no truth in the world, but illusion, leading to disillusionment. If you would be happy, be sanctified by the truth, your heart ever dwelling in the Word of God.
Because of its potential importance in prophetic themes, the progress of Middle East peace talks will be reported in this space on a semi-regular basis. Of course, the situation in the Middle East is fluid, and changes rapidly from day to day. Nevertheless, the trend has been continuing toward peace for some time.
The election of Ehud Barak marked a return to "Rabin-ism" insofar as he shows the same willingness to trade land for peace. Before Yitshak Rabin was assassinated, Israel was on a fast track toward peace. His death, and the election of Benyamin Netanyahu, slowed the process considerably. Now, however, things are picking up speed again as Israel moves incrementally closer to a final agreement with the Palestinians.
At the same time, negotiations with Syria have begun anew, brokered by the United States in talks held in Shepardsville, West Virginia. High level officials of the Syrian government are meeting at the time of this writing with Prime Minister Barak, joined in those talks by both U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright and President Bill Clinton. There is hope on all sides that these negotiations will culminate in a final resolution of the differences that divide the parties.
There is already mention being made on several fronts of a comprehensive agreement between Israel and her contiguous neighbors following the individual treaties that Israel has signed and hopes to sign soon. It is this comprehensive treaty that has Christians’ hopes soaring.
Among Christians, the hope is that this comprehensive agreement will be that treaty spoken of in Daniel 9: 27. The ratification of the treaty mentioned in Daniel marks the beginning of the seven year tribulation period, and will be preceded by the rapture of the Church, lending great significance to the present negotiations, and offering renewed optimism to those who hope to live until the rapture of the Church.
With all the other signs pointing toward the looming end of the Age, the mere fact that there are negotiations proceeding rapidly in the Middle East is profound.
When we lead a person to the Lord, the job is just beginning. Too often do Christians seek to evangelize, but, when fruitful, leave the new Christian to fend for himself in the world. To be sure, God is able and willing to provide for all His children, and so He does. But the new Christian who has a Christian mentor will grow and mature much faster than one who does not. When we are fruitful in evangelism, it is incumbent upon us to give those converts a good start in their own Christian education. When we give a new Christian a start toward practical sanctification, we give them a start toward fruitfulness. Let us never lose sight of the fact that, as our own fruit becomes fruitful, so also does our heavenly treasure grow. It is good to be moved by love to mentor others, but it is also quite the practical occupation for the one whose treasure is in heaven. Pray not only for your own sanctification, but also, and more especially, for those to whom you minister. For their fruit is also your fruit.
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be
(1 Th 5: 23-24)
While we are positionally sanctified at the moment of our salvation, and while our earthly experience is one of progressive sanctification, there is a third aspect of sanctification that bears mentioning in this issue. We have already been eternally separated by God to Himself, and our hearts are gradually learning to turn ever more toward Him. But we have not yet achieved that end. None of us are yet perfect in our devotion to God or our service to Him. There is, however, a day coming in which every Christian will serve God perfectly, never once being drawn away by the enticements of the flesh or the lusts of the world.At the rapture of the Church, our sanctification will be perfected, both positionally and experientially. We will at that time know the wonders of perfect obedience, even as we also stand in the brilliant glow of the glory of God and see His face with our own eyes. Our wills shall be wholly conformed to His will, and His wisdom shall be our unfailing beacon. It is already, but we lack the experiential sanctification to adhere to His wisdom as we ought today.
One of the reasons why the rapture of the Church is ever held before us as "that blessed hope" is that we shall finally shed these sinful natures and have the ability to serve God sinlessly and perfectly. It is as our hearts draw near that goal that we learn sanctification.
For this is the will of God,
(1 Th 4:3)
Those words evoke a tiny fear in the breasts of many Christians. Immediately, our hearts condemn us, for we know that we are not truly the sorts of people we ought to be. It is as if the word sanctification has to do with morality, or obedience, or some essential goodness that we realize we do not have in any great abundance. We know that we are yet sinners, and so we do not like to think very deeply about sanctification. We could not be more wrong. Our sanctification does not depend upon ourselves, or anything that we do or do not do, but upon a wise Father who separates us from the world unto Himself. When we fail to meditate upon the blessings of sanctification, we rob ourselves of many of the great joys of Christianity.
When one is born again, he is placed immediately into the body of Christ. Our presence in Christ assures us of many blessings. Consider Paul’s words to the church at Corinth, that body of sinners unparalleled in the epistles. "But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God; and righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1 Cor 1: 30). Volumes could be written concerning the wisdom that is in us on account of our presence in Christ. Were we not in Him, no righteousness could be charged to our accounts (see Rom 4: 1-12), but since we are in Christ, His righteousness is charged to our accounts. In like manner, when our heavenly Father looks upon His children, he does not see our sin at all, but he sees us already as sanctified as Christ Himself, for we are in Him. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews said, "By that will (God’s will - see context) we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Heb 10: 10). Past tense. We have already been sanctified fully and completely, and thus does our heavenly Father view us. Our heavenly citizenship is secure, for we are already sanctified.
But what does that mean? What exactly is sanctification? If it does not mean moral behavior and personal goodness above the ordinary fellow’s, what does it really mean to be sanctified? Actually, sanctification ultimately will lead to those virtues, but not in this life. We grow progressively more "holy" as the years pass and our relationship with God becomes more sure for having seen His hand in our affairs. But sanctification is not about those things. It results in an increasing level of spiritual maturity, but it is not about how we act at all.
Sanctification is more about how we think. It is about attitudes. It is about how we view ourselves. It is about our attitudes toward the world and all that is in it. More, oh, so much more, sanctification is about how we see ourselves in relationship to God. It is about how we see God.
There are several words in our language that derive from the root of the Greek "hagios." Sanctification is one of them. "Holy," "separate," "devout," "saint" all spring from this common root. Essentially, what God does when He sanctifies someone is to separate that person from the world unto Himself. Positionally, it is done completely in the moment we are saved. When we are chosen by God for salvation, he separates us to Himself. Every saved person is a saint, for each of us is sanctified. We are all holy, whether we choose to apply that word to ourselves or not. What a marvelous thing to be called to sainthood, not because of any merit on our part, but because of the inestimable grace of God (See Rom 1: 7, where the words "to be" have been added for clarification). Likewise, in his first letter to Corinth, Paul addressed the epistle to, "the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called (to be) saints..." (1: 2). Every sanctified person is already a saint, and all Christians are already sanctified. Sainthood does not depend upon the righteousness of the believer, but upon the righteousness of Christ, in whom we stand.
A saint, or a sanctified person has been separated from the world by God. But his experience in this life is one of progressive separation, as he begins more and more to realize that he is not of this world, but his home is in his Father’s house, where his citizenship is also, in heaven. The writer to the Hebrews also said, "For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified" (Heb 10:15). Thus, in the same passage we see that we have been sanctified, and are being sanctified. The first is positional. It is as God sees us. The second is experiential. It is the experience of our lives.
Spiritual maturity leads one to a greater degree of understanding of his separation from the world. We begin to see ourselves more and more as eternal creatures, with goals and aspirations that are vastly different from those of the world. Our values begin to shift toward eternal concerns. It is natural enough that we should walk with increasing godliness as we mature spiritually. Well, it is supernatural enough. But this increasing godliness does not come from our own volition. It is worked in us by the Holy Spirit. If we were able to reform our flesh ourselves, then our salvation would be effected by an increasing morality rather than by the grace of God. Even the saved person lacks the strength of character to make himself one iota better than he was prior to his salvation. Any improvement in a Christian’s walk is the work of God, who works in us both to will and to do for His good pleasure (see Phil 2:13).
The thing is, a Christian ought not even think of sanctification in terms of behavioral improvement. When we think about sanctification, our hearts should appreciate the widening gulf between the values of the world and the values that we hold. Sanctification is more about an eternal perspective than it is about self-help. As we begin to view ourselves as heavenly creatures and not earthly, as eternal beings and not temporal, our values and priorities shift, and moral improvement takes care of itself. Sanctification is not about getting "better," but about becoming more separated in our hearts from the world as our relationship with God grows and develops.
The writer to the Hebrews did not say, "...we sanctify ourselves..." He said, "...we are being sanctified..." We are in the world, but we are not of the world. Nevertheless, being in the world, we lack the strength to separate ourselves from the world. But our Father, who is eternal, has the power to separate us, and has done so. Ours is to recognize that separation, and to yield to it, adjusting our hopes and attitudes and goals from earthly to heavenly, from temporal to eternal. From physical to spiritual.
Easy enough to say, eh? Somewhat more difficult to do. Not really. Sanctification occurs as we grow spiritually. It happens to us as we mature. It is not a thing that we do, but a thing that happens to us. It is not difficult for us to do; it is impossible
There are, however, things that we can do to speed the process along a bit. Those things do not have to do with dropping old habits of sin, but establishing new habits of prayer and Bible study. God will remove the old habits as we grow and increase in the knowledge of Him. The desire for sinful activity diminishes as our relationship with God strengthens. Our sanctification is assured by the Word of God, but our experience in sanctification will be determined by our conformity to the Word. This does not mean that we become sinless, but that we begin more and more to see ourselves as those creatures that God has made us. When we become those children of God in our hearts that our Father has made us in fact, then our hearts see the folly of things worldly and the wisdom of serving as we wait for Him. When we begin to understand the depth and breadth of the blessings that are promised to God’s children, and to appropriate those blessings for ourselves, we care much less for worldly pleasures. Worldly goals lose their significance in the face of heavenly rewards. And how do we cause our hearts to become those children of God? And how do we begin to understand the depth and breadth of God’s promises? Ah, Christians, we talk with God. We develop a relationship with Him. We trust Him rather than our reason in difficult circumstances. And we learn of the promises of God through studying His Word.
Many is the Christian who says, "Well, I’ve read all those epistles ten times. What more can I learn from them?" A zillion years from now, when we have studied God’s Word for all that time, we still shall not have scratched the surface. If it is your desire to be sanctified, and to know the fullness of God’s blessing in this life, then the answer is to draw closer to God through study of His Word and prayer. If you wish that small knot of fear to fade away when you think of sanctification, dwell on the promises of God. Do you know where that knot of fear comes from? It comes from the fear that earthly goals and lusts will not be fulfilled. It arises in the frustration of earthly desire. It is not fear of the judgment of God, as many suppose, but the fear that darkens our hearts when we think of sanctification is the fear of the loss of earthly pleasures. And the way to make that fear diminish is not through self reformation, but by replacing earthly goals and desires with heavenly ones. It is by thinking of ourselves as we really are, eternal, already in the heavenly places with God, citizens of heaven and members of the household of the great God. But when the things of the earth are larger in our hearts than our God is, then we seek to preserve those lesser goals in favor of those which we understand too poorly. Do you want to be sanctified? Talk with God and hear His Word. Begin to lay up heavenly treasure and your heart will shift heavenward, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
"For to will is present with
(Rom. 7:18)
The Apostle Paul’s struggle in the seventh of Romans was concluded with this testimony – "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:2), not a New Year’s resolution, or a deeper hold on himself, or more prayer. Defeated by the power of self, he is victorious by the power of the Spirit within Him. He instead is drawing upon the provisions of God and not on the provisions of the self which cannot cease to sin.Miles J. Stanford writes, "Law applies to the fleshly life, but there is no good thing in that nature; it is neither subject to the law, nor can it be (Rom. 7:18; 8:7). The carnal believer is depending upon fleshly means for deliverance from fleshly failure; he is looking for strength from the very source from which he is seeking deliverance." When the flesh dominates our lives we are the basest of slaves and it was into a world of slaves that Christ came. We were not only slaves but slaves who stood condemned. Christ’s great redemptive work on the cross set us free from the penalty of sin and the great redemptive processes which work in the sphere of the inner life, the work of sanctification, delivers us from the dominion of sin.
This process begins with and consists of a new relationship. We have not become merely a pardoned criminal before God but a child and a son before our Father. In this relationship is true freedom. C.I. Scofield describes this freedom when he writes: "Christian freedom is not anarchy, which is the mere riot of self-will, but it is to be so joined to God the Father; so vitally one with Christ the Son; so yielded to the gentle sway of the Holy Spirit, that the human will is blended into the divine will, and so made one with the absolutely free and sovereign will of God Himself.
Again Stanford writes, "Our Lord Jesus Christ, seated at the Father's right hand in glory, is not under law of any kind. His life is subject neither to commands nor to the principle of law. It is holy by nature. We, having been born into Him, now share His life. ‘For to me to live is Christ’" (Phil. 1:21)." When we see our deliverance from the old nature, we can begin to walk in the freedom of the new and "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (11 Cor. 3:17).
It is this liberty, this new life in Christ Jesus that sanctifies us completely. "If Christ shall make you free, you shall be free indeed!"
While personal morality does not produce sanctification, the end of being sanctified is Christ-likeness. We are predestined to be conformed to the image of God’s Son, and so shall we be. There were many in Paul’s day who had a form of godliness, but who denied its power. There are many today as well. These are those who are very religious, but who do not accept God’s grace as the means of their salvation. Just as Jesus was in the world, but not of the world, so are God’s children. The Pharisees were among the most moral of people who ever lived, but they were not sanctified. While morality does not produce sanctification, sanctification does produce an ever-growing morality.
However, it is not morality that is the end of sanctification. Even though a saint may become more moral, the thing that makes him like Christ is not his personal goodness, but his eternal character, his new estate as a heavenly creature and not an earthly one. Just as Christ is eternal (Mic 5:2), so is every born-again believer. While our eternal life is secured in Christ, our temporal lives are made to conform more and more to that in us which is eternal, which is Christ. Sanctification is the process by which we become eternal in experience as well as in fact. We become Christ-like.
He has made everything beautiful in its time.
(Eccl 3: 11)
Sanctification is the process whereby we learn to understand that our lives are not temporal, but eternal. It is the process by which we grow to view life from a different perspective. The unsaved never like to think "beyond the grave," for their prospects are not pleasant. But for the saved, death is not an end of anything except the travails of this sinful life. For the believer, death is the beginning of an eternity so blessed that we cannot even conceive in our minds or hearts of the grandeur of it. The last thoughts of the unsaved are fears of the unknown. The last thoughts of the Christian are focused on the blessed hope of the rapture of the Church and the resurrection of the saints.
Sanctification is the gradual process of rearranging our priorities so that heavenly goals are fulfilled rather than earthly. It is learning to view our lives, and all about us, from an eternal perspective rather than a temporal. Sanctification is the setting apart of the person — body, soul and spirit — from earthly things to heavenly things. We participate in the process only insofar as we pray and study God’s Word, but it is God who works in us that wonderful process. The sanctified are not necessarily more "moral" than others, but their outlooks are vastly different. Earthly circumstances matter less and less to the saints, because they realize more and more that their citizenship is in heaven and they are members of the household of God. While we become eternal creatures the moment we are saved, as we read and pray, our hearts move inexorably from time to eternity.
Spiritual Maturity and Sanctification
There’s something about old Christians who have spent many years studying the Bible. It has been said that God gives a special repose to His children as they approach death, but it is never quite so true as it is in the case of those who have spent long years in close relationship with Him, both in prayer and study. Many Christians go through their entire lives turning to God only in time of crisis or peril, but many spend their lives from the time of their illumination forward in diligent study, praying fervently for themselves and others. The former do not face death with the equanimity of the latter, for, though they might be emotionally mature, they lack the spiritual maturity that comes from trusting God over long periods.It is not always, but often, the case that the spiritually mature are also the poor and downtrodden, those whose lives have been characterized by a lack of creature comfort and luxury. Those who lack little have little need to trust God, or at least so they perceive their state of affairs. It is never wise to generalize, but generally, the affluent tend to trust their own wisdom and find their security in their riches. The poor often find themselves with their backs to the wall, unable to fend for themselves, and forced to trust God. These find that they have a God whom they can trust, and are often amazed at His methods. Thus, they spend more time in the Bible and in prayer, and reach plateaus of spirituality that stand them in good stead in their latter years.
Despite their privations, there is a sparkle in the eyes of many older Christians that belies their desperate estate. There is often a joy and a sense of humor that stands in stark contrast to the bitterness that is frequently found in the eyes of the very wealthy.
This is so primarily because the poor have never had much hope in the things of the earth, and their sanctification has grown rapidly and deeply, whereas the very rich have long been concerned with that which they are about to leave to others at their deaths. We do not own the things we possess; they own us. It is very hard for a rich person to spend the time in study that is essential to spiritual maturity, and it is often very difficult for them to separate themselves from the responsibilities of their earthly treasures to the point that they are able to focus much attention on the laying up of heavenly treasures. The closer they come to the end of their lives, the more futile their lives appear, whereas the spiritually mature see not the end of their lives but the beginning of a blessed eternal future.
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