Many sincere believers are kept in a state of doubt and uncertainty because they make their salvation and peace with God more or less dependent on attaining a certain standard of holiness of life. They find they are constantly coming short of this standard, hence they are often uncertain and even despondent. Such are, in fact, looking within for holiness, and thus cast in upon themselves and their attainments; when what they really want is to know what it is to have a standing in divine righteousness: in other words, they have not yet laid hold of the fact that every true Christian is made “the righteousness of God” in Christ. But this is the unalterable standing of the youngest believer; and it remains unchanged whether his progress in divine things be much or little.
There are two ways in which sanctification is spoken of in Scripture, to which we desire briefly to draw the reader’s attention:
(1) Absolute and complete sanctification.
(2) What we may call progressive sanctification.
When any one receives Christ by faith he is “born again”; he receives a new and holy life and nature, and he is cleansed from his sins by the blood, and set apart to God. In this sense there is no progress in sanctification; the simplest Christian who only trusted the Savior yesterday is as truly accepted in Christ and set apart to God as the saint who has been on the road heavenward for fifty years. The youngest believer is accounted by God as a “saint,” a holy one; this is his relationship to God; and many of the epistles are addressed to saints – that is, to all Christians. Our attainments and advance on the path of true holiness are quite another matter. We find the Apostle Paul, addressing the Christians in Acts 20:3232And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. (Acts 20:32), and Acts 26:1818To 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. (Acts 26:18), speaks of all “them who are sanctified”; it was a present accomplished fact which admitted of no question. So also in the Epistle to the Corinthians he addresses them as “sanctified in Christ Jesus”; and he says, “ye are sanctified.” Remark, it is not a question here of what they ought to be; all this comes in quite rightly in its place; but let the young Christian first lay hold firmly of the fact that he is sanctified, or set apart to God. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of all true believers as “them which are sanctified,” and tells them also that they “are sanctified” by the will of God and the blood of Christ. Thus the Scripture testimony to the fact that all Christians are sanctified is most complete; it admits of no “may be’s,” uncertain “hopes,” doubts or misgivings; for it depends, not on our poor attainments, but on the will of God, and the unchanging value of the work of Christ.
Let us now turn to the second aspect of sanctification – that is what we may call progressive sanctification – and we need to insist upon the one just as much as on the other. We read in Hebrews 12, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness (sanctification).” Again, the apostle prays for the Thessalonians thus: “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly.” We ought to know more of these blessed truths, and to be more set apart to God every day. But then the question arises, How can this be brought about? We cannot improve the old nature, which is “enmity against God”; but we are responsible to hold it for dead, to reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin and alive to God. Christ sanctifies and cleanses the Church “by the washing of water by the Word”; it is by the application of the truth, of the Word of God by the Spirit, that holiness is produced in the believer. The true spring and power for sanctification, for holiness of life, is not to be found in a monkish effort to subdue the flesh by corporeal punishments. No! but we are dead, and we have a new and holy life and nature. It is occupation with an object outside ourselves which produces true holiness in the believer.
Our blessed Lord prayed to the Father in John 17, “Sanctify them through Thy truth. Thy word is truth”; and then He adds: “For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” He was ever and always the sanctified One here on earth, but now He was about to set Himself apart absolutely and entirely, as the risen Man in the glory, the true and perfect model of sanctification, the heavenly Object for the faith of His people, the power and spring of sanctification in them.
We find the same principle unfolded in the teaching of 2 Corinthians 3:1818But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Corinthians 3:18): “We all, with open face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Thus the eye is turned entirely away from self and our attainments and fixed upon Christ where He is as the risen and glorified Savior. It is this which delivers us from self, it is occupation of heart with Christ where He now is, in the power of the Spirit, which produces holiness, and which brings about a moral transformation in the Christian as he passes onward to the moment when he shall behold Him face to face in glory, and be actually changed, even bodily, into His likeness.
We would, in conclusion, earnestly appeal to the young Christian who reads these lines. Is Christ thus the Object of your heart and affections, or are your mind and thoughts absorbed with worldly things? Are you making progress in holiness – not so much by effort on your part; but the Spirit so free, so unhindered within you, that it is His delight to occupy you with a heavenly Christ, and thus produce a moral transformation in your life from day to day? May God grant that it may be so!