Through the mercies of God in Christ, we may put off the old self, known as the world, and be renewed and transformed in Christ. Romans 6:6, Ephesians 4:22-32, Colossians 3:9 Through Christ, it is possible to stop sinning, which Romans 12:2 expresses as being renewed and transformed (through the Holy Spirit) and not conformed to the world.
In our study on 1 John, we saw this expressed in 1 John 3:9 as well. That verse does not mean that it is impossible to sin. Rather, sin is unnatural and out of character for the Christian, and this is because the Christian is born again and has overcome the sin nature.
But how? How does one overcome sin? In Scripture generally, the term for this is sanctification. That we are called to sanctification is plain in the Bible. Jesus Himself called us to perfection. Charles G. Finney in his book, Systematic Theology, writes, “It should never be forgotten that the faith that is the condition of justification, is the faith that works by love. It is the faith through and by which Christ sanctifies the soul. A sanctifying faith unites the believer to Christ as his justification; but be it always remembered, that no faith receives Christ as a justification, that does not receive him as a sanctification, to reign within the heart. We have seen that repentance, as well as faith, is a condition of justification. We shall see that perseverance in obedience to the end of life is also a condition of justification. Faith is often spoken of in scripture as if it were the sole condition of salvation, because, as we have seen, from its very nature it implies repentance and every virtue.”
Christianity is distinct from all other religious systems of belief in this regard, that we have the aid of the Holy Spirit in sanctifying our hearts and lives.
We understand that sanctification is a duty in the Bible. But what does it mean, and how do we obtain it? Sanctification means holy, purified, and consecrated. Holiness is an Old Testament concept which means to be set apart from. From what are we set apart? We are set apart from the world which represents sin, evil, rebellion, and everything opposed to God. Throughout both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, we understand this concept to be expressed as devoted, unmixed, and single-minded.
We understand purity to mean the absence of defect. Pure gold, for example, does not contain alloy or dirt. Thus, a pure heart does not contain unrighteousness. In other words, one cannot be both pure (righteous) and impure (sinful) at the same time. We cannot continue sinning while professing to be devoted to God. Bud Robinson once wrote a pamphlet entitled “My Objections to a Sinning Religion.” Righteousness and sin are incompatible, and one cannot be both at the same time.
Put simply, sanctification means to have a heart aligned with God, obedient to God’s law, and abstaining from sin and evil. Rather than being an instantaneous event, sanctification represents a way of life and daily practice. Verses such as 1 John 3:9 do not convey a state we receive in sanctification but a way of life developed through continued practice. We apply this daily through the aid of the Holy Spirit. There is no other way. There have been reports of individuals receiving instantaneous relief from temptation and desire for specific sinful habits. Such reports are not the common and ordinary means by which sanctification is worked out in our lives.
As for how we obtain sanctification, this has been the subject of a number of divergent views. One of the most common misconceptions is that we must be ascetic. Many sects within Christianity have developed their own unique approaches to practicing sanctification. The puritans, anabaptists, and others, as an example, believed in outward and physical separation from the world.
While this is not necessarily wrong, asceticism does not accurately represent Christ’s heart. In Matthew 28:19-20, Christ exhorts us in the Great Commission to preach the gospel in every nation. This is quite impossible to carry out if we are physically and literally separate from the world, and the Great Commission is but one example of the potential for error in asceticism.
Christ also prayed for Christians in John 17:14-19 that they would be sanctified, abstain from evil, and remain in the world. In the same prayer, Christ stated that we are not “of the world”.
We can here revisit Christ’s instruction on self-denial. Matthew 16:24 Once again, asceticism is a common interpretation in response to the instruction. However, this is not exactly what Christ has in mind. The first fulfillment of the instruction should first be denying sinful desires. Rather than rebel against God, obedience of God’s law fulfills the instruction.
Arguably, one could live as an ascetic and miss the point of the instruction on self-denial. Thus, asceticism alone is not the object of the self-denial envisioned by Christ. Asceticism by its nature also tends to be legalistic, which is strongly exhorted against in the New Testament.
Another common misconception about sanctification is that we can be entirely sanctified in a moment only through prayer. While there may be gains at the altar or through prayer, sanctification requires daily practice. Thus, any gains achieved through instantaneous prayer must be maintained in daily life. In other words, it is not one-and-done and once received cannot be lost. This is akin to eternal security – or shall we say, eternal sanctification, which is unbiblical. Apostasy is possible, and examples of apostasy in the Bible center around failing to maintain righteousness and perfection in daily practice.
There is no one size fits all prescription for how much we should be removed from the world. Suffice to say that we are to both take the gospel into the world but not be conformed to this world.
Extremism is all too easy to embrace on this point, yet God is not calling us to live in the extremes. He is calling us to have pure hearts while carrying out the command to reach others for Christ. This we can only do through the aid of the Holy Spirit.
Like this post? Subscribe to stay up to date on new posts.