We have been studying OSS and today we move on from the time of our coming to faith to what does God do for us as we move through life. In other words, is our salvation just to get us into heaven, or is there something more to it?
To answer this question, let us first go to 2 Cor 5:17, Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold they are become new. Now go to 1 Cor 6:19, Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.
These two scriptures reveal that when we come to faith, old things are passed away, we become new creatures, and we are in Christ. We also note He is in us. Two questions now arise; what does it mean to be in Christ and old things are passed away? And what does it mean that He is in us and we are new creatures? We can answer these two questions by the doctrine or theological concept of sanctification. Theologically there are two types of sanctification, positional and experiential. Positional sanctification answers the first question of what it means that we are in Christ and old things are passed away, and experiential sanctification answers the second question of what it means that Christ is in us and we are new creatures. I will begin with positional sanctification, then will move on to experiential sanctification.
Positional sanctification answers the question of what it means that we are in Christ and old things are passed away. Positional sanctification is a one-time event that occurs with saving faith. It is called positional (or definitive) sanctification because our position before God has changed (in other words, something definitive was done for us). For example,
a. Before salvation we were spiritually dead –we are now spiritually alive (Eph 2:1-3).
b. We were once children of wrath—but now we are sons of God (Eph 2:3, Jn 1:12).
c. Where once we dwelt in the kingdom of darkness –we now have been transferred to the kingdom of light (Col 1:12-13).
d. Where once we were an enemy of God –we now are his friend (Rm 5:10, Jn 15:15).
e. Where we were once guilty of sin, we are now Redeemed, Righteous, and Justified.
With each declaration, our position before God has changed. Think of positional sanctification as a transference from one realm to another. As an unbeliever you are a part of the world. You are animated by your fallen nature. You have no spiritual life and stand condemned. As a believer, through God’s grace, He gives you spiritual life and adopts you as his son or daughter. You now have a new identity and name, and certain familial benefits: not because you have done anything, but simply because of your new familial status. Your “being” is changed. There are many scriptures that acknowledge this new state: 1 Cor 1:1 “To the church of God at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, and called to be his holy people”; or 2 Corinthians 1:1 “To the church of God in Corinth together with his holy people throughout Achaia”, Ephesians 1:1, “To God’s holy people in Ephesus”, or Philippians 1:1, “To God’s holy people in Christ Jesus in Philippi”: Most every greeting in the NT starts this way: there is a recognition of a new state of being.
Now why is this important? Fundamentally, with saving faith, it means that your core being –the reality of who you are, has changed. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Rm 6:1-7:6. Paul uses language of an event of which we all know, that of death, to illustrate a foundational spiritual truth. When a person dies, he no longer is active in the sphere, or the realm in which he lived. All connection has been lost. There is no longer any communication or experience of that realm. Paul is using this analogy with regards to sin. The person who lives in sin and lives to sin, lives, and acts in the realm of sin—it is the sphere of their activity. This is who we were before saving faith (Eph 2:1-3) Paul states when we come to faith, we are made a new creature (2 Cor 5:17) and explains here in Rm 6:3-7 that our old self was crucified –killed as it were—when we were saved. As Rm 6:6 says, For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with. As new creatures, we no longer live in that sphere. Our tie with it has been broken. This decisive cleavage occurs with saving faith and is the foundation upon which Paul predicates his conception of the Christian life. This is an irreversible and definitive event. Look how he contrasts it:
In the realm of Death, death in sin means.
a. We are in the service of sin as a slave Rm 6:6, 16-17, 20.
b. Sin reigns in our mortal bodies, 6:12.
c. Obedience is rendered to evil desires, 6:12.
d. We present our members as instruments of wickedness and as a slave to impurity and to ever increasing wickedness, 6:13,19.
e. We were free from the control of righteousness, 6:20.
f. Sin has dominion over us and we are under the law, 6:14.
In the realm of new spiritual life, death to sin means:
a. The old man has been crucified and the body of sin destroyed –we no longer serve sin, 6:6.
b. We are justified from sin, 6:7.
c. We are alive to God and live to Him, 6:10-11.
d. Sin no longer reigns in our mortal body and it no longer is lord over us, 6:12,14.
e. We present ourselves to God and our members as instruments of righteousness to God so we are servants of righteousness unto holiness, 6:13,19.
f. We are under the reign of grace, 6:14.
g. We render obedience from the heart to the pattern of Christian teaching 6:17.
h. The fruit is unto holiness and the end eternal life 6:22.
This is a very binary division. There is no mixing, no blurring of the lines. As a believer you have been changed and the realm in which you live has changed. Paul summarizes this argument in Rm 7:1-6. You see, a new creature means you are now something new that you were not before. And knowing that your old self is now done with and the sphere in which that old self lived is no longer relevant to your present existence becomes the foundation for our experiential or progressive sanctification which Paul speaks of as being a new creature in 2 Cor 5:17 and in Romans 7 and 8.
Experiential sanctification answers the question of what it means that Christ lives in us and we are new creatures. Quite simply, experiential sanctification is the transformative process of Christ manifesting Himself in your life. We all know there is a tension here, and that is, even though our position has changed, we still have experiential memory of our past life. We grew up animated by our sinful nature. We were used to that operative dynamic in our life. The Bible says we now have a different operative dynamic, which is the Spirit of God. We are not used to that. It is a new pattern of life. It is something to be learned and practiced. It is challenging because, unfortunately, we still have our old nature, and we feel its tug and hear its commands: so, there is a struggle between the old and the new. Paul expresses this conflict in his own life in Romans 7. But, as he makes clear in Rms 6 and 8, its absolute power over us has been broken, and we now have the power to live a new life. Now a few observations.
The Purpose of Experiential Sanctification is the manifestation of Christ in your life. Another way to think of it is allowing Christ Brightness to shine forth from you. Note I did not use the word likeness although that is a by-product. Rather, experiential sanctification is the presence of Christ manifesting Himself through you. It is letting His light shine. In Ex 19, God chose the nation of Israel to manifest himself to the pagan world. His Shekinah Glory was present in the tabernacle and indicated to all God was with them. Today Christ lives in you and his purpose is to radiate His glory through every pore of your body. That is what you were designed for. This does not mean a life without sin. I do not believe in sinless perfection (that is a life without sin). But Christ Brightness does mean a life characterized by a decreased frequency of sin and a progressive expression of righteousness. There are a number of verses that illustrate this theme: 2 Cor 3:18 “And we all with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” or Phil 3:12 “not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me”. Scripture clearly exhorts us along this path as 1 P 1:14-15 notes, “as obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “be holy for I am holy.”
The Means of Experiential Sanctification is by the Spirit of God. When we came to faith, God came to indwell us with His Spirit as 1 Cor 6:19 makes known, Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself. As new creatures in Christ, we are now designed to be run by God’s Spirit as Rm 6:17 notes, but thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. Gal 5:16 also amplifies this theme, So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
It is through the Spirit of God that He produces spiritual fruit in our lives. It is not by our work. As Paul said in Gal 2:20, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. It is Christ living through Paul which he further explains in Gal 5: 16 where he says, walk by the Spirit and in verse 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. It is a matter of letting rather than doing. We simply need to present ourselves to His guiding voice and let God produce through us the works he designed us for as Eph 2:10 says, For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do, or as Jn 15:5 notes, I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
The Expression of Experiential Sanctification comes in Stages. Scripture likens this process to growing up in a family. Through saving faith, we enter God’s family and then proceed along a trajectory of spiritual growth. Coming to full maturity is not something that happens overnight. All of us are on a learning curve. In 1 Jn 2:12-14 the apostle John writes to various age categories of men: children, young men, and fathers, but John is doing so in relation to various spiritual milestones. In other words, just as our bodies physically change from babies to toddlers to children, then to young men, then fathers, and then old men, so spiritually we come to faith and become new creatures, then grow and mature spiritually along a similar path. Peter reinforced this concept when he said, “as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word.” The writer of the Hebrews also discusses this idea of growth in Heb 5:11-14 (NLT), There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen. 12 You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word.[c] You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. 13 For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. 14 Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong. So, we can see from various scriptures that when we come to faith, we become new creatures, but like any new creature, we start small as an infant, and then we must grow and mature through childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, becoming an adult, and then a wise elder statesmen. This process takes time. Some are faster on this path than others. It is not an age thing; it is a maturity issue. There are many believers who are wise fathers who are young chronologically.
In Heb 10:14 we have a succinct summary verse of both positional and experiential sanctification, “for by one sacrifice, He has made perfect forever (positional), those who are being made holy” (experiential).
