THE DOCTRINE OF SANCTIFICATION

THE DOCTRINE OF SANCTIFICATION (Part 3)

THE PURSUIT OF HOLINESS
1 Peter 1:15-16

By Bill Parker

Ever since the Fall of man, religious men have been pursuing and seeking his own idea of holiness. All preachers who claim to be Christian want to promote what they call holiness. But there are many different ideas of holiness among religionists. Some believe that holiness has to do with morality, reformations, sincerity, abstinence (taste not, touch not). Some believe it has to do with faith, repentance, meditation. But all of these fall short of what true holiness is. To find out what true holiness is we must begin with God! Only God is essentially holy. God cannot accept less than perfect holiness as to the ground of salvation. He will not accept sincerity, works of benevolence, repentance, sacrifices, moral reformation, or even faith as a substitute for holiness. This is why sinners in their pursuit of holiness always come short.

This is why Christ said "unless your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees, you shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:20). The slightest deviation from perfect holiness AS TO THE GROUND OF SALVATION brings forth God's wrath. We by nature and by practice are unholy, and God alone can make unholy people perfectly holy. God justifies the ungodly in a way that is perfectly consistent with His holiness. He justifies them by His grace, based on the holiness of Christ, His righteousness imputed. Holiness, then, is much more than moral reformation, purity of life and uprightness of heart. Holiness is nothing less than the complete restoration of men to the image of God. Holiness is complete, not partial, but complete conformity to the image of God in Christ.

Men talk of practical holiness, living holy lives and being holy. They speak as if holiness has degrees. This is not so. Even faith does not produce holiness; faith receives and embraces righteousness and holiness in Christ. The whole purpose of God in the scheme of redemption and grace is to make his people perfectly holy for the glory of His own great name (Eph. 5:25-27). God makes His people holy by three distinct works of grace. None of this is conditioned on the sinner, but all on Christ.

1. Our persons are made holy positionally, before the law of God in justification and sanctification by the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us. This is the ground of all of salvation, our works and efforts totally excluded.

2. We are made holy experimentally, in the new birth, by the imparting of a new principle of holiness, which enables us to fear God, to believe God's promise of salvation in Christ, to repent of former idolatry and dead works, to love God and our brethren, and to obey God motivated by grace. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. The main evidence of this principle of holiness is when we see that Christ's righteousness imputed is the only ground of salvation. None of this work of the Holy Spirit in us forms any part of the ground of our salvation. This is not a progressive work by which the Holy Spirit enables us to become holier and holier by our works. None of our works or efforts at obedience make us holy.

3. We shall be made holy in our character and conduct when we are finally glorified by a miraculous conformity of our entire body, soul, and spirit to Christ in the resurrection.

The only way that we can truly say we are holy or ever will be holy in this life is in our persons as we are considered in Christ, united to Him by virtue of His righteousness and holiness imputed. In our character and conduct we are sinners! We are justified and sanctified sinners, all by the grace of God, not by works of righteousness which we have done. We are certain to be glorified based on the merits of Christ. What about Scriptures, then, that say we are already holy, sanctified, and complete, as compared to Scriptures that command us to strive to be holy, sanctified, and complete? In order to understand these truths, we must always keep in mind the distinction between our persons as already holy, sanctified, and complete in Christ, and our character and conduct as sinners. To understand this, I want us to look at several Scriptures where believers are said to be holy, sanctified, complete as compared to Scriptures which command us to pursue holiness.

Rom. 6:2,7,8,11; 7:4 - All these phrases show how believers are right now dead and freed from the guilt and defilement of sin, and how believers are dead to the curse of the law. This means that we who believe the Gospel are right now justified, sanctified, holy, not condemnable and without blame (Rom. 8:1,33-34), complete in Christ.

Rom. 6:12-13 - Why are we commanded not to let sin reign in our bodies, not to obey sinful lusts, and not to use our bodies as instruments of sin, if we are dead to sin (cp. 1 John 2:1). Here again, we must make the distinction between our persons and our character and conduct. In our persons we are completely dead and freed from the guilt and defilement of sin. Nothing we do by way of obedience will make us any more dead to sin than we already are. Nothing we do by way of sin will make us any less dead to sin than we already are. But for me to conclude that because I am dead and free from sin's guilt and defilement, that I am not under sin's influence, power, and presence in my character and conduct would be to deny the truth and to deny my need for Christ and His righteousness. For me to conclude that because I am a saint, holy, dead and freed from sin's guilt and defilement, that character and conduct does not matter, is to deny the truth and to dishonor God.

In Romans 6:12-13, he is speaking of the sinfulness and the potential sinfulness of our character and conduct. Here we are commanded to strive to be holy, to bring our character and conduct into conformity to Christ, to not obey the lusts that comes from sin, not to be saved, not to be made holy, not to be sanctified, but because we are saved, holy, sanctified, dead to sin! Read Rom. 6:13 again. Read Rom. 6:22; 7:4 - This fruit is our efforts to be holy in our character and conduct all motivated by the absolute certainty of final glory conditioned on Christ alone. So, we who in our persons are dead to sin's guilt and defilement with no possibility of condemnation are to strive to avoid sin in our
character and conduct.

Eph. 3:5 compared to Rom. 7:14-25.

1 Cor. 1:2; 6:11 - Here, the apostle assures believers of the state of the persons as washed, sanctified, and justified in Christ. He is speaking here of sinners who are holy and dead to sin's guilt and defilement. He had just spoken to them about divisions in their church, of fornication, which was not sinful to the Gentiles. Read 1 Cor. 6:18-20. Why would he command those who are washed, sanctified, and justified to flee fornication? Again, we have to make the distinction between our persons and our character and conduct. In their persons they were completely and wholly washed, sanctified, and justified. But in their character and conduct, they were sinners who needed to be ashamed of their behavior and life-style, ashamed without fear of condemnation, but ashamed in such a way so as to seek to change their character and conduct. Paul commands them to strive to be holy in their conduct, again, motivated by grace.

Notice he does not say that because they were washed, sanctified, and justified, that their character and conduct did not matter. It does matter, not as to the ground of salvation, not as a means of becoming holy, but as the fruit and result of God's grace, as our reasonable service to God who justified and sanctified us, as the responses of gratitude to Christ who made us holy, as a testimony to the world that we are God's children, and as encouragements of love to our brethren.

Eph. 1:3-4 - The apostle begins this epistle by establishing the fact that believers are blessed with all spiritual blessings, that we are holy and without blame before God based on the merits of Christ's obedience and death. But in Eph. 4:26ff. he exhorts believers to avoid all sorts of sinful attitudes and practices, all sorts of unholy things. How can this be? Again, the same distinction must be made. As we are holy and without blame in our persons as we are united to Christ having His righteousness imputed to us, as we are dead to sin's guilt and defilement, we are still sinful in our character and conduct. We need to be aware continually of how far short we fall of holiness and blamelessness in our character and conduct, not in order to cause us to doubt the holiness of our persons, but to cause us to continually look to Christ for all holiness, and to cause us to be ashamed enough, without fear of condemnation, to seek to bring our character and conduct
into conformity to Christ. Again, all this is to be motivated by grace - Eph. 5:1.

Col. 1:21-22; 2:9-10; 3:1,3,12 - This language describes the blessed state of justification and sanctification of the believer's person in Christ. But look at Col. 3:5ff.. "Mortify" means to put to death, kill it. This is the goal of perfect conformity to Christ in our character and conduct. We all, even believers, have evil thoughts that we cannot control. This is what Paul meant when he said that he was "carnal, sold under sin." All we can do is to be ashamed and ask forgiveness for these sinful thoughts. And we should even seek to rid ourselves of these thoughts (cf. Phil. 4:8). But here in Col. 3:5 he is telling holy, unblameable, unreproveable, brethren, that we are not to put those evil thoughts into action. If we do not make the distinction between our persons and our character and conduct, we would be utterly confused about this. Read Col. 3:12-13 - Why would holy brethren need to forbear and forgive one another. Holiness in character and conduct means perfect love to God and to our neighbor. We are not holy in our character and conduct, but we are in our persons. We are to seek after holiness in our character and conduct, not legally, but as "Christ forgave you.."

1 Thes. 5:27. compare to 1 Thes. 4:3-7; 5:22-23.

1 Pet. 2:5,9,24 - The Apostle Peter describes believers as a holy priesthood and nation. He says that we are dead to sins by the body of Christ. Again, we are dead to the guilt and defilement of sin. But in 1 Pet. 2:11 he tells this holy priesthood and nation, who are dead to sins, to abstain from fleshly lusts. 1 Pet. 1:15-16. How? Again, the distinction must be made.

Heb. 10:10,14 compared to Heb. 13:21.

Although we know that we will never attain sinless perfection in this life, we know also that God can command nothing less, and so we are to aim at this goal. Our desire to please God on the one hand and our ashamedness of coming so far short on the other hand, mutually promotes our thankfulness for Christ, our value of His righteousness as the only ground of salvation, and our desire to be in Heaven and finally conformed to His image. This thankfulness expresses itself in deeds, seeking to bring our character and conduct into conformity to Christ. Every exhortation concerning our character and conduct in this world is motivated and based upon the absolute certainty of salvation based on the righteousness of Christ. Given our position as justified and sanctified, and in consideration of what God has done for us by His grace through His Son, this is our reasonable service and an evidence of our justified, sanctified state based on the righteousness of Christ.