Justification is connected with righteousness, sanctification with holiness.
There are two aspects of sanctification in Scripture “positional,” the other “practical.”
Positional sanctification is that aspect of the truth which gives us an assured position before God.
Practical sanctification is the taking up of that position before God, and seeking by God’s grace and the Spirit’s power to be consistent with it and act up to it.
Positional sanctification is found in 1 Peter 1:2, “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you, and peace, be multiplied.” Notice, sanctification of the Spirit comes before obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, showing that the work of God’s Holy Spirit is to set us apart to obey as Christ obeyed. It is an assured position in the mind of the Spirit, not yet worked out as to practical details. Again in 1 Corinthians 1:2, “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both their’s and our’s.” The word “saint” signifies a sanctified person, a set-apart person. We are not called to be saints, we are saints by calling. What should follow is saintly conduct. We do not need to say that we are saints if our conduct is as becomes saints. There is one quality that tells in testimony more than anything else in this world, and that is humble, unobtrusive, real, downright saintliness.
The word “sanctified” does not necessarily mean we are made holy, it simply means being set apart. In Isaiah 66:17 we find men who sanctified themselves to do evil, set themselves apart to do evil. God sanctified the seventh day, set it aside for a definite purpose, before ever sin came into the world at all.
We are set aside for a definite purpose. What is that purpose? It is to be here in this world for God’s glory, kept as simple as little children, drawing from the Word of God, finding out what His mind and His will is, and carrying it out in practice, sanctified wholly—spirit, soul, and body.
If God has saved us through the work of Christ, the Holy Spirit is never going to leave us alone as long as we are down here, and if we are not saintly in our conduct the Holy Spirit will begin to deal with us in order that we may become so.
There is a beautiful verse in 1 Corinthians 11:32, “We are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.” That is to say, God is determined to preserve His grace to us, and His government will not shrink from going to the extreme length of taking a believer off this earth, through judgment, if need be. The believer is always fit for heaven through the work of Christ, but may not be fit for earth through his own bad conduct as a Christian. If we judge ourselves, God will not judge us; but if we will not judge ourselves, then God will chasten us, in order that we may answer to practical sanctification.
Practical sanctification is that in which we advance. We start from the fact that we are sanctified by God’s Holy Spirit, and our privilege is to uphold the position that God’s grace has put us into. It is a great help to see this principle in Scripture. We are never called upon to work up to a position, but we are called upon to work and walk because we are in a position. We cannot, however, realise the sanctifying power of the truth unless we know the truth. We must know it in our hearts first, as the result of being prayerful students of the Scriptures. We want to have a consuming passion to live here for God’s glory, then everything else will fall into its own place.
God chastens us with a view to sanctifying us. His chastening has very much of the tenderness of a father when chastening his children; it is not vindictive, it is tender, gracious, gentle. Of course, when saints go to great lengths the discipline may be more severe, as it was in 1 Corinthians 11; but this never alters the fact that Christ is made to us Sanctification, as well as Righteousness and Redemption.
1 Corinthians 1:30 is a very interesting verse. Christ is made to us Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption. Christ was the wisdom of God at the cross; He is the exemplification of righteousness in resurrection, sets forth sanctification in His ascension, and will accomplish redemption when He returns again. Redemption is the full, complete thing at the end. Christ on high is the measure of our sanctification—it is all by the Spirit; but there is an Object given to us, we have a Model to go by: “He that has this hope in Him, purifies himself, even as He is pure.”
The word chastening has a very broad meaning, that of discipline. There is discipline in an army, but a very small fraction of that discipline is punishment. David was chastened on account of sin; Job, in order that he might learn himself, and Paul that he might be better fitted for God’s service. It is not necessarily for failure we are chastened.
God sees certain tendencies in us, and He disciplines us in order to preserve us from that which would lead us astray. A brother might be preaching the gospel, or teaching saints, and God may pass him through some trial to enable him to carry out His service better. A Christian was taunted by an infidel thus: “There you are, a poor cripple, in pain and disease; here am I with a healthy body and can enjoy life.” The Christian replied, “If ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons” (Heb. 12:8). Somebody is going on well, and God says, “I will help you to go on better.” The Lord prunes the vine that it might bring forth more fruit. God’s house is holy, and He says, “I must have My children in correspondence with Myself.” We are chastened in order that we might be partakers of His holiness.
We are, positionally, as truly set apart as Christ is now in the presence of God; He is made Sanctification to us there. But the Spirit of God sets us apart here, and our measure is Christ. We must be true in practice to what God has made us in position. The neglect of two things is the most fruitful cause of the lack of practical sanctification: one is prayer, and the other the constant prayerful study of the Word. Added to this, we must keep the Lord before us. If we have any object short of Christ there will be failure.