The power of it is the Holy Ghost (1 Pet. 1:1, 21Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied. (1 Peter 1:1‑2)).
Sanctification is both positional and practical.
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. 4:3-123For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: 4That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor; 5Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: 6That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. 7For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. 8He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit. 9But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. 10And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more; 11And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; 12That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing. (1 Thessalonians 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 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.
Chapters 1,2, and 3:1,2 show them to be sanctified brethren in association with the Son of God.
Chapters 7, 9, and 10 show them to be sanctified worshipers in association with Christ the glorified High Priest, the center of worship.
In chapter 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.
Exhortation—chapter 13:13.
Let us go to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.
My reader, 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 is now fully separated to God. Do you belong to Adam, or to Christ?
A. P. C.