Pastoral Position Paper - Ben Merkle

"For this is the will of God, your sanctification..." (1 Thess. 4:3a)

"Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, wherein we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness." -Westminster Shorter Catechism

The issue of sanctification is one of those topics that can lead to knock down, drag out fights between Christians. Or it can be flown under the radar and remain completely unnoticed by anyone. For instance, suppose you were to ask your Christian brother, "How is your walk going, brother? Are you bearing fruit? Are you loving the Lord?" Doing this, you would probably not be branded a pharisaic, legalistic ninny. However, if you were to ask him, "How is your sanctification coming along? Are you living in a holy way? Are you obeying God's laws?," there is a good chance that the response you get will be full of teeth gnashing. For various reasons, the blessing of sanctification is not well understood.

True Sainthood
Sanctification (hagiasmos), frequently translated "holy," means to be separated to God. The temples and altars of the Old Covenant were sanctified by animal blood in order to be used in the service of God. Likewise, believers of the New Covenant have been sanctified by the blood of Christ, in order to be separated to God. This is why they are called saints (hagia) throughout the New Testament. A saint is a sanctified one. A person cannot be a believer unless he is a saint. Because we have been set apart in Christ to serve God, there should be a corresponding transformation in our lives. Our sanctification should be working its way out into our day-to-day decisions.

The Westminster Confession put it this way: we are "...renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness."

In Scripture, Paul teaches us, "For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness (hagiasmos) (Rom. 6:19). Elsewhere we are told, "...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phi. 2:12).

In these verses we are commanded to do something, which, depending on how it is expressed, can rub modern Christians the wrong way. However, the command to work does not detract at all from salvation by faith alone. This sanctified work is the result of faith alone. Immediately after telling us that we are saved by grace, through faith, and with no credit going to ourselves, but to God alone, Paul tells us, "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:10). God renewed us in Christ in order that we could do good works. While we are not saved by our good works, Paul emphatically teaches that we are saved to good works.

After the Phillipians verse mentioned earlier, where we are told to work out our salvation, Paul gives us the basis for our working, which is this: "for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure" (Phi. 2:13). In other words, we are commanded to work out what God works in.

The modern evangelical church has carefully guarded itself against the Roman Catholic tendency towards a "works righteousness." Of course, this has been a wise thing for us to do, and we should continue it. However, an army that directs all of its attention to protecting the right flank will tend to leave its left flank vulnerable. In our fervor to squelch anything that would even hint of 'salvation via works,' we have forgotten that the Bible does, in one very plain sense, require us to work. In an effort to keep the horse in front of the cart, we've found it easiest to just cut the cart loose, and not even deal with works. It is easier to keep the cart and horse straight when all you have is a horse. Yet, whether you call it bearing fruit, living in a holy way, or following God's law, the Bible requires that our salvation effect us in such a way that we work. "Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead" (Jas. 2:17).

So Then...
Sanctification, then, is the change that happens in the believer's life. He begins to die to the sin that he was once a slave to, and live in the righteousness that he is now covered by, and all is done in Christ. This is a slow but noticeable process that will not be completed until we stand before God in our resurrected state--and that resurrected state is guaranteed to happen.

The problem is that as soon as we hear anything about "working," our sinful minds think of something that we can take credit for. The flesh loves to be autonomous from God. A twisting of what sanctification means then makes room for the fleshly mind to look at our works and say, like a selfish child, 'mine.' Credit for our justification is given to God, but somehow, in this twisted view, sanctification is then being manufactured by our own will, independent and autonomous of God. But our works are not really our own, for it is God who works in us both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

Divine Control
This paper was begun with a passage that tells us that our sanctification is the will of God. Elsewhere we are told about the final outworking of this will. "For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son..." (Rom. 8:29). Our sanctification, the process conforming our image to that of Christ, is both willed and predestined by God. Although sanctification requires us to work, our work can only be done by grace through faith in the Son of God and by the ongoing work of the Spirit (1 Pet. 1:2). Spurring someone on to good works without teaching them to work through faith in the perfect work of Christ is as hopeless as spurring them on to salvation without faith in the perfect work of Christ.

This error, attempting to obtain perfection apart from faith in Christ's blood, was the main topic of Paul's epistle to the Galatians. In the Galatian church a heresy had begun that taught that conversion was by faith, but then once 'in,' the believer was required to be circumcised and sanctify himself by means of the law. Galatians is Paul's polemic against this heresy. "O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?" (Gal. 3:1-3).

If we have entered salvation through faith in Christ and His perfect work, we must continue in this salvation by faith in the perfect work of Christ. As Paul puts it elsewhere, "As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him..." (Col. 2:6). Our obedience to God's requirements is only possible through faith.

The Place of the Law
After understanding sanctification in terms of the Holy Spirit working in us through faith, we can then be instructed by God's law on what God requires of us. Before we were Christians, the law stood as an enemy to us. Because we were enslaved by our sins, the perfect law only pointed out our unrighteousness and condemned us. "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them."' (Gal. 3:10). Though the law was good, holy and just, it was not able to save us.

Yet Christ, through His perfect obedience did save us, and we are no longer slaves to the law and under its condemnation. "For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Rom. 8:3-4).

We have been perfected, through faith in the Son of God, and the law is therefore no longer an enemy. Because of this, the law now instructs us in how we ought to live. The law, though having no power to sanctify us, does give us the standard for our sanctification. "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, 'You shall not covet."' (Rom. 7:7). "Therefore the law is holy and just and good." (Rom. 7:12).

If we ignore the law, we are ignoring the standard that God has given us for our sanctification. If we attempt to perfect ourselves by means of our obediance to the law, we are ignoring the power God has given us for our sanctification. Our sanctification is the work of God, that we receive through faith in Christ.

"Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it" (1 Thess. 5:23-4).