Section III.—The Application Of Christ's Redemption In Its Continuation.
Under this head we treat of Sanctification and of Perseverance. These two are but the divine and the human sides of the same fact, and they bear to each other a relation similar to that which exists between Regeneration and Conversion.
I. Sanctification.
1. Definition of Sanctification.
Sanctification is that continuous operation of the Holy Spirit, by which the holy disposition imparted in regeneration is maintained and strengthened.
Godet: “The work of Jesus in the world is twofold. It is a work accomplished for us, destined to effect reconciliation between God and man; it is a work accomplished in us, with the object of effecting our sanctification. By the one, a right relation is established between God and us; by the other, the fruit of the reëstablished order is secured. By the former, the condemned sinner is received into the state of grace; by the latter, the pardoned sinner is associated with the life of God.... How many express themselves as if, when forgiveness with the peace which it procures has been once obtained, all is finished and the work of salvation is complete! They seem to have no suspicion that salvation consists in the health of the soul, and that the health of the soul consists in holiness. Forgiveness is not the reëstablishment of health; it is the crisis of convalescence. If God thinks fit to declare the sinner righteous, it is in order that he may by that means restore him to holiness.” O. P. Gifford: “The steamship whose machinery is broken may be brought into port and made fast to the dock. She is safe, but not sound. Repairs may last a long time. Christ designs to make us both safe and sound. Justification gives the first—safety; sanctification gives the second—soundness.”
Bradford, Heredity and Christian Problems, 220—“To be conscious that one is forgiven, and yet that at the same time he is so polluted that he cannot beget a child without handing on to that child a nature which will be as bad as if his father had never been forgiven, is not salvation in any real sense.” We would say: Is not salvation in any complete sense. Justification needs sanctification to follow it. Man needs God to continue and preserve his spiritual life, just as much as he needed God to begin it at the first. Creation in the spiritual, as well as in the natural world, needs to be supplemented by preservation; see quotation from Jonathan Edwards, in Allen's biography of him, 371.