We now come to the question about which there has been the most
discussion, the most differences of opinion, the most controversy. When
does sanctification take place? If we will go to our Bibles to get the
answer to the question there need be no difference of opinion. There
are three parts to the answer.
1. The first part of the answer is found in I Cor. 1:2, +"Unto the
Church of God, which is at Corinth, even them that are sanctified in
Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that call upon the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, their Lord and ours."+ Here
the Holy Spirit speaking through the Apostle Paul, plainly declares
that _all the members of the church of God are already sanctified in
Christ Jesus_. Sanctification in this sense is not something that
we are to look for in the future, it is something that has already
taken place. The moment any one becomes a member of the Church of God
by simple faith in Christ Jesus, for all who have faith in Christ
Jesus are members of the Church of God, that moment that person _is_
sanctified. Every saved man and woman in this building this morning,
every one who has living faith in Jesus Christ, _is_ sanctified. Our
sanctification is involved in our salvation. But in what sense are we,
that is, all believers, already sanctified? The answer to this question
is found in a passage of Scripture to which we have already referred,
Heb. 10:10, 14, +"By which will we have been sanctified through
the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. . . . For by one
offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified."+ The
meaning is plain. By the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all on the Cross of Calvary as a perfect atonement for sin, every
believer is cleansed forever from the guilt of sin. We are _"perfected
forever" as far as our standing before God is concerned_, and are set
apart for God. The sacrifice of Christ does not need to be repeated
as were the Jewish sacrifices (V. I). The work is done once for all,
sin is put away, and forever put away (Heb. 9:26; cf. Gal. 3:13), and
we are set apart forever as God's peculiar and eternal possession. If
any one asks you if you are sanctified; if you are a believer in Jesus
Christ, i.e., if you have a living faith, in Jesus Christ, you have a
right to say, "I am." _Every believer in Christ is a saint_, a saint
not in the sense in which that word is oftentimes used in modern usage,
but in the Bible sense, as being set apart for God and belonging to
God and being God's peculiar property. But there is another sense in
which every believer may be fully sanctified to-day. This is found in
Rom. 12:1, +"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of
God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to
God, which is your spiritual service."+ In this passage we see that
_it is the believer's present and blessed privilege, and important and
solemn duty, to present his body to God a living sacrifice—not some
part or parts of the body, but the whole body with its every member
and every faculty. And when we do thus present our whole body to God a
living sacrifice, then we are wholly sanctified._ Such an offering is
well-pleasing to God. As God in the Old Testament showed His pleasure
in the offering by sending down fire to take it to Himself, so when the
whole body is thus offered to God, God will send down fire again, the
fire of the Holy Ghost, and take to Himself what is thus presented. The
moment a believer does thus present himself a living sacrifice to God,
then, so far as his will, the governing purpose of his life, the very
centre of his being, is concerned, he is wholly God's, or "_perfectly_
sanctified." He may still, and will still, daily discover, as he
studies the Word of God and is illumined by the Holy Spirit, acts of
his, habits of life, forms of feeling, speech and action, that are not
in conformity with this central purpose of his will, and these must be
confessed to God as blameworthy and put away, and this department of
his being and life brought, by God's Spirit and the indwelling Christ,
into conformity with God's will as revealed in His Word. The victory
in this newly discovered and unclaimed territory may be instantaneous.
For example, I may discover in myself an irritability of temper that is
manifestly displeasing to God. I can go to God, confess it, renounce
it and then instantly, not by my own strength, but by looking to Jesus
and claiming His patience and gentleness, overcome it and never have
another failure in that direction. And so it is with every other sin
and weakness in my life that I am brought to see is displeasing to God.
2. But this is not the whole answer to the question of when we are
sanctified. The second part of the answer is found in I Thess. 3:12,
+"And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward
another, and toward all men, even as we also do towards you."+
And the 4th chapter of this same epistle, the 1st and 10th verses,
+"Finally then, brethren, we beseech you and exhort you in the Lord
Jesus, that as you received of us how ye ought to walk and to please
God, even as ye do walk, that ye abound more and more. . . . For indeed
ye do it toward all the brethren that are in all Macedonia. But we
exhort you, brethren, that ye abound more and more."+ And in II Pet.
3:18, +"Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ."+ And II Cor. 3:18, R. V., +"But we all, with unveiled
face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed
into the same image from glory to glory, and even as from the Lord the
Spirit."+ And in Eph. 4:15, 16, +"But speaking truth in love, may
grow up in all things unto him, who is the head, even Christ; from
whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which
every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each
several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up
of itself in love."+ From these passages we see that _there is a
progressive work of Sanctification, an increasing in love, an abounding
more and more in a godly walk and in pleasing God, a growing in the
grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, a being
transformed into the image of our Lord from glory unto glory_, each new
gaze at Him making us more like Him; a _growing up_ into Christ in all
things, until we attain unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ. Here we see there is a progressive
work of Sanctification.
3. But we have not found the whole answer to the question of When
Men are Sanctified, even yet. We find the remainder of the answer to
the question in our text, 1 Thess. 5:23 accurately translated as it
is in the Revised Version, +"And the God of peace himself sanctify
you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire,
without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."+ Here we are
plainly told that _the complete sanctification of believers, complete
in the fullest sense, is something to be sought for in prayer and that
is to be accomplished by God in the future and perfected at the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ_. The same thought is found in this same book,
the 3rd chapter and 12th and 13th verses, +"And the Lord make you to
increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men,
even as we do toward you, to the end that he may establish your hearts
unblamable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our
Lord Jesus with his saints."+ It is "at the coming of our Lord Jesus
with all His saints" that He is to establish our hearts unblamable in
holiness before our God and Father and that our spirit and soul and
body are to be preserved entire without blame. The same thought is
found in I John 3:2, +"Beloved, now are we children of God, it is
not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he shall be
manifested, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."+
_It is not in the life that now is, and it is not at death, that we
are entirely sanctified, spirit, soul, and body. It is at the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ._ This is one of the many reasons why the
well-instructed believer constantly cries, "_Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
Come quickly._"