Sanctification in Relation to Justification

[Steven Yeadon]

I have been in an IFB church for almost a year. I noticed something pleasant about my church theologically. It teaches that we are not to presume about our own salvation with a faith that is complacent and without works. Instead, we are told to search ourselves and live as directed by scripture with good works as the evidence of a faith that changed us. Faith saves us, but faith is never alone.

It is an amazing teaching and at last completes my personal journey through the doctrine of Sanctification and how it relates to Justification.

I started in a church that taught the sign of saving faith was to verbally assent we had faith. A teaching I was very disturbed by, given the sins observed in celebrity "Christians" in the secular music industry.

What do you think of my church's teaching? How have you come to understand the relationship between Sanctification and Justification?

 

[Aaron]

I have been in an IFB church for almost a year. I noticed something pleasant about my church theologically. It teaches that we are not to presume about our own salvation with a faith that is complacent and without works. Instead, we are told to search ourselves and live as directed by scripture with good works as the evidence of a faith that changed us. Faith saves us, but faith is never alone.

It is an amazing teaching and at last completes my personal journey through the doctrine of Sanctification and how it relates to Justification.

I started in a church that taught the sign of saving faith was to verbally assent we had faith. A teaching I was very disturbed by, given the sins observed in celebrity "Christians" in the secular music industry.

What do you think of my church's teaching? How have you come to understand the relationship between Sanctification and Justification?

I was in that kind of teaching for a while. It tends to have people looking to themselves and trusting in their works, when they should be looking to Jesus and trusting in His promises. Jesus is the One who sanctifies. We do not sanctify ourselves. Hebrews 2:11 .

 

[Steven Yeadon]

I was in that kind of teaching for a while. It tends to have people looking to themselves and trusting in their works, when they should be looking to Jesus and trusting in His promises. Jesus is the One who sanctifies. We do not sanctify ourselves. Hebrews 2:11 .

How do you know you aren't being complacent? That is an honest question.

I ask because on the surface, your view worries me, because at my old Baptist church people could be living in sin 6 days and "trusting in His promises" 1 day. Like the Faith and the church of the LORD was a brunch club that gave free fire insurance. This was reinforced by teaching that God was mainly just irritated at sin in believers, which is a far cry from the disciplinarian Father of Hebrews 12, Who scourges every son. It led to a group of people that failed to comprehend their God. I was also never sure who may wind up in heaven, because there were those that lived for themselves their whole life. People who you knew would, for certain, fail the Judgment of the sheep and goats, for instance.

I'm just saying, James 2, 1 John 1-5, Revelation 2-3, 2 Peter 1, and many others give the Believer with complacency no end to the Terror of the LORD. Our Faith and the indwelling Spirit are living and active, changing us to be free of complacency.

 

[tyndale1946]

I was in that kind of teaching for a while. It tends to have people looking to themselves and trusting in their works, when they should be looking to Jesus and trusting in His promises. Jesus is the One who sanctifies. We do not sanctify ourselves. Hebrews 2:11 .

An Exposition Of Hebrews by Arthur Pinks comments on Hebrews 2:11

But what is meant by "He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified"? The Sanctifier is Christ Himself, the sanctified are the many sons who are being brought to glory. "The source and power of sanctification are in the Son of God our Savior. We who were to be brought unto glory were far off from God, in a state of condemnation and death. What could be more different than our natural condition and the glory of God which we are awaiting?

Condemned on account of our transgressions of the law, we lived in sin, alienated from God, and without His presence of light and love. We were dead; and by ‘dead’ I do not mean that modern fancy which explains death to mean cessation of existence, but that continuous, active, self-developing state of misery and corruption into which the sinner has fallen by his disobedience. Dead in trespasses and sins, wherein we walked; dead while living in pleasing self (Eph. 2:1, 2, 1 Timothy 5:6).

What can be more opposed to glory than the state in which we are by nature? and if we are to be brought into glory, it is evident we must be brought into holiness; we must be delivered and separated from guilt, pollution, and death, and brought into the presence of God, in which is favor, light, and life—that His life may descend into our souls, and that we may become partakers of the Divine nature. "Christ is our sanctification. ‘By one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified’ (Heb. 10:14).

By the offering of His body as the sacrifice for sin, He has sanctified all that put their trust in Him. To sanctify is to separate unto God; to separate for a holy use. We who were far off are brought nigh by the blood of Christ. And although our election is of God the Father (who is thus the Author of our sanctification, Jude 4), and the cleansing and purification of the heart is generally attributed to the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:4,5), yet is it in Christ that we were chosen, and from Christ that we receive the Spirit, and as it is by the constant application of Christ’s work and the constant communication of His life that we live and grow.

Christ is our sanctification. "We are sanctified through faith that is in Him (Acts 26:18). By His offering of Himself He has brought us into the presence of God. By the Word, by God’s truth, by the indwelling Spirit, He continually sanctifies His believers. He gave Himself for the church, ‘that He might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water by the Word’ (Eph. 5:26). ‘Sanctify them through Thy truth’ (John 17:17; 15:3). "Christ Himself is the foundation, source, method, and channel of our sanctification.

Brother Glen

 

[Yeshua1]

I have been in an IFB church for almost a year. I noticed something pleasant about my church theologically. It teaches that we are not to presume about our own salvation with a faith that is complacent and without works. Instead, we are told to search ourselves and live as directed by scripture with good works as the evidence of a faith that changed us. Faith saves us, but faith is never alone.

It is an amazing teaching and at last completes my personal journey through the doctrine of Sanctification and how it relates to Justification.

I started in a church that taught the sign of saving faith was to verbally assent we had faith. A teaching I was very disturbed by, given the sins observed in celebrity "Christians" in the secular music industry.

What do you think of my church's teaching? How have you come to understand the relationship between Sanctification and Justification?

Justification happened the very moment believed that Jesus died for me and was raised again to save me, while sanctification will continue unto death!

 

[Van]

I have been in an IFB church for almost a year. I noticed something pleasant about my church theologically. It teaches that we are not to presume about our own salvation with a faith that is complacent and without works. Instead, we are told to search ourselves and live as directed by scripture with good works as the evidence of a faith that changed us. Faith saves us, but faith is never alone.

It is an amazing teaching and at last completes my personal journey through the doctrine of Sanctification and how it relates to Justification.

I started in a church that taught the sign of saving faith was to verbally assent we had faith. A teaching I was very disturbed by, given the sins observed in celebrity "Christians" in the secular music industry.

What do you think of my church's teaching? How have you come to understand the relationship between Sanctification and Justification?

I think your church holds the biblical view of assurance, if we examine ourselves and find we are "of the faith" which is a full commitment to Christ from which faithfulness flows, we are encouraged to show even more "diligence" in our walk with Christ.

I expect your view of "Sanctification" and how it relates to "Justification" may be unrelated to the "amazing" theology of assurance.

Sanctification has two meanings (1) being set apart for a godly purpose and (2) being made holy and blameless. Positional Sanctification is when God puts us individually into the body of Christ, and Progressive Sanctification is when we strive to become more Christ-like and effective ambassadors of Christ after we are born anew.

Justification occurs when God puts us individually into Christ, where we undergo the washing of regeneration and circumcision of Christ. Once in Christ, it is just as if we never sin, not in the past, not in the present, and not in the future. Once in Christ we are fully justified, and never need any further justification. We have been made perfect, flawless, blameless, and holy. But we can still think and do things, that, if we were not washed with His blood, would be counted as sin. It is these that we are to strive to avoid as we diligently strive to be Christ-like.

 

[Aaron]

How do you know you aren't being complacent? That is an honest question.

The question is basically, how do you know if you are wheat or a tare?

It's a basic question of assurance. The best assurance is the testimony of the Holy Spirit, Romans 8:16 .

It is helpful to examine the fruits, of course, but faith is the victory.