SIMPLE PAPERS FOR YOUNG CHRISTIANS BY H. A. IRONSIDE
" Fear not, Paul; . . . lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee."-Acts 27:24.
SANCTIFICATION
None who sail with Paul need be confused as to the teaching of Scripture on Sanctification, if they will but carefully weigh the many luminous passages in his epistles on the subject.
I can only briefly outline them in this paper, referring any who desire a more exhaustive consideration of it to what I have elsewhere written.* *See "Holiness:the False and the True." Same writer and publishers.*
It should be plain to any thoughtful person that the great apostle of the Church never divides believers into two classes, some of whom are "only justified" and the others possessing a "second blessing, "or sanctified. On the contrary he addresses all Christians as "sanctified in Christ Jesus." Nor does this mean that they are morally perfect, or sinless. Surely no one could so speak of the Corinthian assembly. All kinds of evils had to be corrected among them; they are called carnal in chapter 3:yet he addresses them as " sanctified" in the and verse of chapter i, and in verse 30 he writes, "Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us … sanctification." They were in Christ, so they were sanctified though their ways were far from being all that God would have them.
There need be no difficulty here if it be known and held in mind that sanctification means separation to God. All believers have been set apart to God in Christ, and are no longer of the world even as He is not of the world.
In harmony with other New Testament writers Paul presents sanctification as three-fold:
We are sanctified by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 15:16; i Cor. 6:11; 2 Thess. 2:13).
We are sanctified by the blood of Christ, and His one all-sufficient offering upon the cross (Heb. 2:10,11; 9:11-14; 10:10, 14, 29; 13:12.)* *I take it for granted that Paul wrote Hebrews. I see no valid reason for questioning it.*
We are sanctified by the word of God (Eph. 5:25, 26). Compare this with the words of our Lord Jesus Christ in John 17:17-19.
The sanctification by the Holy Spirit is the beginning of the work of God in one's soul, separating him from the world and follies he once loved, turning his heart to God, exercising him about his sin-fulness, and leading him to personal faith in Christ. To this agree the words of the apostle Peter in i Pet. i:2. Sanctification of the Spirit is there shown to be the divine means used to lead the guilty soul to the blood of sprinkling. The work of Christ trusted in, henceforth the Spirit dwells personally in the believer and it is His blessed work to lead the soul on in the ways that be in Christ.
Sanctification by the blood, or the one offering of the Son of God, is positional. That is, it has to do with the new position into which the saved one is brought. His sins are purged; his conscience is free; he stands before God in all the value of the work of His Son. Thus he is forever perfected as to his conscience, and set apart from a world that lies in the wicked one, under the judgment of God. The believer can never again become part of that world. The work of Christ has come in between his soul and the judgment his sins deserved. Thus in the fullest possible sense he is sanctified by the blood of the everlasting covenant. If the profession be unreal (as contemplated in Heb. 10:29), there is, of course, no abiding sanctification; but where faith is genuine he is sanctified eternally. Note verse 14 of the same chapter.
Sanctification by the word of God is the practical outcome of the work of Christ and the Spirit's work within. Daily the Word is applied to heart and conscience by the Lord Himself, as we saw in a former paper when animadverting on John 13. He keeps the feet of His saints, cleansing them from defilement contracted while passing through this polluted scene, with the washing of water by the Word. In this sense no saint is "wholly sanctified" till he no longer needs the word of God for cleansing and instruction. That will only be at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we get it in i Thess. 5:23. Then shall every Christian be presented blameless, his sanctification completed, and nothing for all eternity shall be permitted to come up that will again defile his feet or call for the application of the Word in cleansing.
There is a passage that is often greatly misunderstood, in Heb. 12:14:"Follow peace with all men and holiness (or sanctification), without which no man shall see the Lord." Observe that in this solemn and important verse "holiness," like "peace with all men," is put as the object before the soul. But no one should presume to say he has attained what he is distinctly directed to follow. Paul's own experience, as described in Phil. 3; 12-14, might well rebuke such a thought. He says, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing; forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus " (Oxford, 1911 Version).
Such may well be the settled purpose of each young Christian reading these lines. You have been called unto holiness, and holiness is simply Christ-likeness. If He be ever before you, and you daily seek to walk as He walked in the Spirit's power, guided by the unerring word of God, you shall know the blessedness of being sanctified by the truth. And if the great adversary of your soul taunts you with failure and weakness look not in, or around you, but up into the face of Christ Jesus, exalted in glory, and cry in faith," He is my sanctification. I am in Him, and that forever! "