Again, in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians it is clearly a question of practice. “This is the will of God, our sanctification.” “For God hath not called us to uncleanness but in holiness” or sanctification. Here it is plain that he is speaking of walking in holiness every day. And then again he prays that the God of peace Himself sanctify them wholly, and that their spirit, soul, and body should be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. In all he is looking at the practical work that goes on in the believer.
I particularly mention these passages; for we ought never, in asserting one side of the truth, to forget another. Only what has been already said proves that, besides the practical holiness of which we have been last treating, the New Testament speaks pointedly and plainly of the separating power of the Spirit of God in every man's soul who is born of God, and from its rudiments calls it “sanctification of the Spirit.” From the first motion of divine life in the soul right through, all that time a man is sanctified; and this, one may call absolute or personal sanctification, in order to distinguish it from what came next, that is, relative sanctification, which depends upon spiritual growth, submission to God, use of means, as the word of God, prayer, fasting, self-judgment, discipline. All these things help on the soul's practical growth in holiness.
Again, we must notice briefly such passages as Acts. 20:32, 26:18. It is impossible to apply these to progress in holiness but to the character and estate of all Christians. The structure of the word ἡγιασμένοι admits of no other meaning. Is it argued that this is only the condition of believers when they have arrived at the end of their course, if not of the world altogether? Rom. 15:16 and 1 Cor. 1:2 refute such a restriction; still more forcibly does Heb. 10:10. This is not at all weakened by the form of the word (ἁγια΄ζόμενοι) in verse 14, as in chap. 2:11. For the present participle may be used abstractedly apart from the question of the action or the passion. But the perfect tense could not be used as it is in verse 10 about the same persons at the same time, if the object were to define by ἁγιαζόμενοι that we are only under a process of sanctifying now going on, but as yet imperfect. For while the present may express either the actual time or the abstract character and object of the operation, the perfect necessarily gives the permanent result of a terminated action, and therefore affirms that we have been and are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. It is no question of God's counsel respecting us, but of a present abiding effect of Christ's finished work. Hence to lay stress on ἁγιαζόμενοι as if it must needs indicate a process going on is not only arbitrary, because the present participle does not always convey this force, but even negatived by ἡγιασμένοι which decides the time and excludes what is imperfect. It is not potentiality, but a present fact and a continuous character acquired by Christians through the accomplished and accepted sacrifice of Christ. To translate therefore in verse 14 τοὺς ἁγιαζομένους as “them who are being sanctified” is, under the appearance of literal precision, to prove that we have never seen the true spirit of the passage, and that we do not understand the apostle's doctrine on this great head; and the rather too as τετελείωκεν ("he hath perfected") in the same clause is irreconcilable with this effort to get rid of sanctification here as a standing condition, by denying the abstract force of the present participle as used in this case. It is interesting to observe that in the same chapter (ver. 29) the Spirit employs the aorist ἡγιάσθη to describe him who had once been a baptized confessor of Christ crucified, hut afterward turned out an apostate. That tense simply states the fact historically; whereas the perfect, adding to it the idea of an existing result, could not properly be used of one who had spurned Christ and counted the blood of the covenant a common thing. It is not true that he had advanced so. far in the spiritual life that this blood had been applied by faith, or that its hallowing or purifying effects were visible in his life. Such talk is merely imaginative, not only without scripture, but neglecting the obvious intimation of that which is said; for the passage says nothing of spiritual life, or of applying the blood by faith, or of purifying effects visible or invisible, but only of sinning willfullya after having received the knowledge of the truth. Be it ever so exact and full, this in no way implies in itself a divine work in the conscience so that the person was born again and converted to God, but such a clear full and certain knowledge as many unconverted men possess who nevertheless hold fast the truth in unrighteousness. Very different is the statement in Heb. 9:14 where the blood of Christ is said to purify the conscience from dead works in order to serve (i.e. religiously) the true God. Had there been any such language in chap. 10. used of the renegade's previous state, there would have been a scriptural basis for the idea of some; as it is, in what is really said here and in what is said not here but in chap. 9:14 is a twofold testimony of the most distinct kind against it. Hebrews 13:12 seems too general to decide the question before us in either way; but there is ample light where the language is strict to gather the sense with certainty.
These then are the two main senses in which “sanctification” is used of believers; for I do not here go into the setting apart of the Son by the Father (John 10:36), nor of praying that the Father's name be hallowed (Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2), nor of the relation of marriage with a believer (1 Cor. 7:14), nor of food no longer taken in mere nature but set apart for godly use of the faithful. The first is what the apostles Paul and Peter have laid down, where, as we have observed, sanctification is expressly shown to be before justification. To apply this to the practical work would destroy all truth: there can be no proper Christian holiness of heart and ways before the soul is justified. Tridentine doctrine is ignorance of scripture: “to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”
Since therefore both emphatically introduce it before justification, it is plain that the “sanctification” of the Spirit intended has another sense than the practical one; and that it means the setting apart in principle to God, which is true of the believer from first to last. So it is used in 2 Thessalonians 13: “But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” “Sanctification of the Spirit” evidently here accompanies “belief of the truth,” and this “from the beginning.” It is not growth in holiness afterward. Yet assuredly growth comes when the soul, finding rest in the work of Christ, identifies itself by the working of the Spirit practically with Christ as an object before the heart. “As ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity, even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness” or sanctification. Hence “being now made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” There it is and thus that the Christian enters into what the Lord Jesus set out so fully, which, as we have seen, contemplates Christian sanctification and its specific means without drawing attention to time one way or the other. Its object is a deeper one, showing that we are set apart unto the Father according to what was revealed by His word and in the Son on high. “We all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Lord the Spirit.”
May the Lord then grant that this rich and grave subject may be estimated better—a subject so easily obscured to the loss of the children of God, and so easily forgotten to the injury not only of those that are beginning their career (depriving them of the comfort of the knowledge that they are sanctified), but also of those that may be longest in the way. May they be continually stimulated, knowing that if they are thus sanctified, they are called on to walk according to no less a measure than Christ revealed by the Father's word. May they profit not by fragments of the truth only, but by the whole revelation of God, acting by the power of the Spirit of God in renewed affections, ever judged, ever deepened, by these divine communications, but also concentrated on the person of the Lord Jesus. May He give us thus to prove more and more how precious it is that we are sanctified by the Father's word, and that the Son has set Himself apart for our sakes that we might be according to such a model. Amen.
W. K.
(Concluded from page 316)