Sanctification: What Is It?

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 10
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Sanctification signifies, literally, a setting apart to God — like a vessel for the use of God in His temple. (See 2 Timothy 2:21.)
The measure of it is the person of Christ (1 Cor. 1:30).
The power of it is the Holy Spirit (1 Peter 1:12).
Positional and Practical
Sanctification is both positional and practical.
As to position, all believers are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once (Heb. 10:1010By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:10)).
To all believers, Christ is made unto them sanctification (1 Cor. 1:30).
All believers have sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:2).
As to practice, the Apostle desires that the God of peace may sanctify believers wholly (oloteleis), that is, entirely to the end (1 Thess. 5:23).
The will of God was their sanctification, which is divided into four parts:
1. Abstaining from fornication and uncleanness.
2. Positive practical holiness, which is the same word as sanctification in the original language.
3. Love to one another.
4. Orderly walk and working with their own hands (1 Thess. 4:3-12).
The Lord also prays for the believers as to practical sanctification. “Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth” (John 17:1717Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. (John 17:17)).
The Sanctification Epistle
The Epistle to the Hebrews is the great epistle on sanctification.
The object of the Apostle in writing the epistle was to separate or sanctify the Hebrew Christians from everything to Christ. They were still clinging to Judaism, the Jewish religion, which had just crucified the Lord.
Hebrews chapters 1, 2 and 3:12 shows them to be sanctified brethren in association with the Son of God. Hebrews 810 shows them to be sanctified worshippers in association with Christ the glorified High Priest, the center of worship.
In Hebrews 12, they are disciplined to become partakers of the Father’s holiness, because they were settling down in the world and clinging to the earthly religion.
In Hebrews 13:1313Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. (Hebrews 13:13) they are exhorted, “Let us go forth .   .   . unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.”
If a man purge himself from these (that is, vessels of dishonor), he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the master’s use (2 Tim. 2:21).
The first Adam and his descendants have set themselves apart to evil and the rejection of Christ. Christ, the last Adam, set Himself apart from all evil to God, and by His death and resurrection He is now fully separated to God. Do you belong to Adam or to Christ?
A. P. Cecil