Romans 6:10-15 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! (NASB)
There was a time in my growing up years that I wanted nothing to do with God. However, there also came a time when I realized that life would not be meaningful without Him. As I was trying to figure out who God was and what it meant to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior, I would hear ministers (not my father) Sunday after Sunday proclaim that in order to be sanctified (salvation was step 1, sanctification was step 2) all we needed to do was invite the Holy Spirit into our hearts and ask that we be sanctified. At some point, I decided that I wanted to be sanctified, so I accepted the invitation and though my memory is not clear after all these years probably went down to the altar, believing that when I arose I would be sanctified.
But, nothing was different. Sermon after sermon I would hear the same thing, and I would continue to accept the invitation and invite the Holy Spirit into my heart to sanctify me. Week after week nothing was different.
Let me say this with deepest respect and please hear this quietly and with reverence. Twenty years later, I have come to the conclusion that those ministers got it wrong. The reason I say this with deepest respect, quietly and with reverence is that I do not want to see anyone “throw the baby out with the bath water.” Sanctification remains a critical element of our journey with Christ. It is the working out and the perfection of our salvation. It is just as important as the initial acceptance of the salvation Christ offered through his death on the cross and resurrection from the grave.
Still, I believe they got it wrong. Salvation may be instantaneous, in that in the moment of accepting Jesus Christ into our hearts, admitting we are sinners, believing His blood atones and forgives our sins and confessing our sins is an act that Christ promises will result in our names being written in the Book of Life. He promises that our sins will be remembered no more and will be removed from us as far as the east is from the west. It is instantaneous.
Sanctification on the other hand is a process. It is the working out of our salvation. It is the transformation of our hearts from sinner, which we were in the moment before accepting Christ, into a follower and disciple of Christ. Salvation removes our sin and guilt. Sanctification transforms the sinner. Throughout the New Testament of the Bible, there are innumerable promises of persecution, suffering, tests and temptation. Salvation alone is insufficient to see us through such difficulty. We must have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us and guiding us. This was the reason for Jesus promising to send us the Comforter, who would walk just as closely with us as Jesus did with His disciples.
Persecution, suffering, tests and temptation are not, however, difficulties which should be viewed as independent of the Christian life. Indeed, they are intended to strengthen us in our journey with Christ and to strengthen and deepen our relationship with Christ. Furthermore, they are necessary in the process of sanctification. This is rather profound because if I were to believe the ministers during my growing up years, we are either sanctified or we are not, and sanctification occurs instantaneously. Viewing sanctification as a process should not, however, be taken to mean that we are not sanctified until the process is complete.
Let’s consider a real life example, one that is used in the Bible and still applies today. Gold is a metal that has been considered precious almost as long as the human race has walked the face of the earth. Gold exists underground in an extreme environment and under harsh conditions. To get to the gold, a considerable amount of effort is expended. Mines may be dug and constructed, the gravel must be extracted and hauled to a processing site, and the gravel is then sifted and the gold separated. Getting to this point is ecstatic but not the end of the journey. A significant amount of wealth has been obtained just by having the gold out of the ground and separated from the gravel. To be presentable for use as currency or as jewelry, gold must endure still more harsh conditions. The gold is refined. The process that I have seen places the gold ore in a specially designed pot. The pot is then placed over an open fire and heated to very high temperatures, at which point the gold ore melts into a liquid. The purpose of this process is to remove impurities. Once the gold returns to its solid state, the impurities that remain floated to the top when the gold was a liquid and also hardened. The impurities are then chipped away, leaving a solid block of pure gold. Still, the process is not complete. The gold is a block, and many different products may be made from the block, such as coins, bars and jewelry of varying types and sizes. This means that the gold is melted again and poured into molds. Still, the process is not complete. Before final presentation in trading, the gold must be polished to bring out its true color and shine. Only then is the process complete, when the gold is finally presented as a gift, much like we are presented to God the Father at the end of our lives.
I believe we begin the process of sanctification when first we receive salvation. We are sanctified at once, yet we are not fully sanctified because the process has only begun. The gold was always there, yet its full shine and magnificence can not be truly known until it has been separated from the world around it, tried in the fire to separate any remaining imperfections, molded into recognizable forms, and then polished.
A complete sanctification which is had instantaneously is not really sanctification at all because the impurities have not been completely separated from deep within us. On the other hand, sanctification cannot truly be complete in this life because we cannot completely rid ourselves of the impurities of this world. Full and complete perfection is for the life hereafter to be lived with God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit our Comforter while on this earth.
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