You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘sanctification’ tag.
When we speak of Christianese, “the Gospel” is one term that gets tossed around quite a bit. But what is it, exactly? And what does it do?
According to Romans 1: 16, the Gospel is the power of God:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Now this passage makes the Gospel sound like an event – the Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes; the Gospel is something that happens in a one-and-done fashion. But is that all?
We read in Colossians 1: 3-6 that the Gospel has an ongoing role as well:
We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints; because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth;
In reading here, we see that the Gospel also has an effect similar to a journey, there is an ongoing effect whereby the Gospel is bearing fruit and increasing as time transpires.
In Christianese, we can speak in terms of justification (event) and sanctification (journey). In justification, at the event of salvation – an individual recognizes his need for a savior, that his sin has made his entrance into the presence of God impossible.
Once the individual has received the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ as penalty for his sins, he begins a life of continual transformation, where the Holy Spirit is daily conforming him to the image of Christ; this is known as sanctification.
There is danger in viewing the Gospel exclusively as either a one one-time event or a journey on which we walk; to view it as the former is to see salvation as a get-out-hell-free-card that allows us to live our lives apart from obedience to God, and to view it as the latter is to ignore the real and pressing need that our sinful hearts actually be made new by the grace of God.
Life for the Christian is not “easier” or “better” in terms of earthly experience, but it is a life that finds fulfillment, completion, satisfaction, and purpose in the love, grace, and truth of Jesus Christ.
Praise God for both the opportunity to be made new through the blood of Jesus Christ in justification and for His ongoing faithfulness in providing the means by which we are conformed to His image in sanctification.
7“Furthermore, I withheld the rain from you
While there were still three months until harvest
Then I would send rain on one city
And on another city I would not send rain;
One part would be rained on,
While the part not rained on would dry up.
8“So two or three cities would stagger to another city to drink water,
But would not be satisfied;
Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the LORD.
9“I smote you with scorching wind and mildew;
And the caterpillar was devouring
Your many gardens and vineyards, fig trees and olive trees;
Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the LORD.
10“I sent a plague among you after the manner of Egypt;
I slew your young men by the sword along with your captured horses,
And I made the stench of your camp rise up in your nostrils;
Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the LORD.
11“I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
And you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze;
Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the LORD.
- Amos 4: 7-11
God speaks through the prophet Amos and proclaims to His people His desire that they would return to Him. He recalls times of trouble He allowed to come to pass, in hopes Israel would humble themselves and seek His face.
Through each hardship, however, they did not repent and they did not turn back to Him.
God desired Israel to return, and yet their hardened hearts and stubborn attitudes prevented them, and so God told of pain, angst, and suffering through the prophet Amos.
So often we do not understand God’s purposes and His plans, indeed it is impossible to do so.
Whether we are steeped in sin and need it stripped away through God’s sanctifying grace, or because God loves us enough to refine us that we would seek Him, only God knows His plans and His purposes.
For God is just that, God.
Infinite, incomprehensible, unsearchable, and always majestically and marvelously so.
John Chrysostom said it best when he said, “A God comprehended is no God at all.”
Whether because of our sin or because of God’s purposes (which are always far above us), God will have His way in our life.
Our circumstances are His design, and we have no ground from which to argue (just ask Job).
In all things, God will have His way, and our task is but to respond faithfully.
In the second chapter of the Gospel of John, we have the accounting of an event early in Christ’s ministry, when He is not yet well known. He is invited to a wedding with His mother and some of His disciples, and in the middle of the party, they run out of wine.
Now apparently Mary thinks it is time for Jesus to unveil Himself and begin His public ministry. While Christ doesn’t appear thrilled at the idea, He nonetheless gets involved.
Christ has the servants fill six stone jars with water, then draw a ladle from one and bring it to the wedding coordinator, who has been unaware of the situation until now.
Upon tasting the liquid in the ladle, the coordinator exclaims how wonderful that the groom had waited until late into the party to serve the best wine.
Apparently, tradition held that the best wine was to be served early, and once the guests were too drunk to realize the change, cheaper wine was brought in to save on costs. But from the coordinator’s perspective, the groom waited until all were drunk, then served the best wine! Amazing!
I cannot help but see a direct parallel between this parable and God’s offering a better* covenant through the blood of Christ Jesus.
I say better* covenant not because the Mosaic covenant was imperfect – not necessarily flawed, but perhaps more thoroughly described as immature and incomplete.
And so just as Christ offered the better wine second, so does He embody – in perfection and completeness – the new covenant God orchestrated and ordained between humanity and Himself, the new covenant which came as promised after the institution of the Mosaic Covenant.
Within the context of the new covenant, the individual becomes a new creation once and for all, the old passed away and the new come.
Sanctification is forever an ongoing process, but the individuals essence is forever changed, forever removed from the reaches of the penalty of sin and thrust into the open, waiting, caring arms of God almighty.
I praise God that He instituted the old covenant, foreshadowing the glorious new covenant. And I thank God daily that He fulfilled His plan and His promise by the sacrifice of His son, that we all might call on His name and be saved, and therefore be filled with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and live the power of the resurrection always.
Is the task of becoming a self ever completed?
When in a written examination the youth are allotted four hours to develop a theme, then it is neither here nor there if an individual student happens to finish before the time is up, or uses the entire time. Here, therefore, the task is one thing, the time another. But when the time itself is the task, it becomes a fault to finish before the time has transpired. Suppose a man were assigned the task of entertaining himself for an entire day, and he finishes this task of self-entertainment as early as noon, then his celerity would not be meritorious. So also when life constitutes the task. To be finished with life before life has finished with one, is precisely not to have finished the task.
His words ringing with ample amounts of both wit and wisdom, Kierkegaard warns that to be over-eager for “perfection” or “completion” is to result in perpetual immaturity.
Oswald Chambers says that the downfall of Christians comes when they place their desire for personal holiness and righteousness above their desire to know God.
We are instructed to, one day at a time, make it a goal to simply desire to know God; seek His face and stand under His glory and power.
Paul says in Philippians 1:6, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
This completion Paul speaks of will not come quickly, nor will it come easily, but it will come, for this is the promise of God.
What Kierkegaard is saying is that never, of our own accord, are we rendered capable of declaring, “I have arrived.”
We are, however, given the length of our life to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, to love and serve Him, to worship Him, and allow our lives to reflect His glory, and we embark on these tasks only through His empowering.
Such is the purpose of our lives: the glorification of God, as opposed to the betterment or perfection of the self.
The goal of life is holiness (as opposed to wholeness), and such heights are achieved solely through the process of sanctification – whereby God refines our faith, molding and shaping us for His glorious purposes.
Sanctification will be a theme running for duration of our life; in Kierkegaardian terms, it will not simply last the first part of the test or culminate during the early afternoon of the day. As long as there is breath in our lungs, sanctification will be an everyday reality for us.
