7. The seventh part of the answer to the question of how men are sanctified is found in Heb. 12:14, "Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord." Here we are taught that we have our
own part in sanctification, and that if we are to be sanctified in the fullest sense, sanctification is something that we must pursue, or seek earnestly, if we are to obtain it. While sanctification is God's work, we have our part in it, viz., to make it the object of our earnest desire and eager pursuit.
8. The eighth part of the answer to the question of how we are sanctified is found in Rom. 6:19, 22, "As ye presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification. . . . But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification." The meaning of these words is plain, and the teaching important and practical. We are here taught that we attain unto sanctification through presenting our members as servants (bondservants, or slaves) to righteousness and becoming ourselves bondservants unto God. In other words, if we wish to attain unto sanctification we should present our whole body and every member of it to God, to be His servants, belonging wholly unto Him, and we should present ourselves to God as His servants, to be His absolute property. This is the practical method of attaining unto sanctification, a method that is open to each one of us here to-day, no matter how weak we are in ourselves.
9. The ninth and final part of the answer to the question of how we are sanctified, is found in
Acts 26:18, "To open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in Me." Here we are told that we are sanctified by faith in Christ. Sanctification, just as justification, regeneration, and adoption, is conditioned upon faith. Faith is the hand that appropriates to ourselves the blessing of sanctification that God has provided for us through His Son Jesus Christ by His death on the cross, and through the power of the Holy Spirit working in us. And we claim sanctification by simple faith in Him who shed His blood and by surrendering ourselves to the control of the Holy Spirit, Whom Jesus Christ gives.
III. WHEN DOES SANCTIFICATION TAKE PLACE
We now come to the question about which there has been the most discussion, the most differences of opinion, the most controversy. When does sanctification take place? If we will go to our Bibles to get the answer to the question there need be no difference of opinion. There are three parts to the answer.
1. The first part of the answer is found in I Cor. 1:2, "Unto the Church of God, which is at Corinth, even them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place,
their Lord and ours." Here the Holy Spirit speaking through the Apostle Paul, plainly declares that all the members of the church of God are already sanctified in Christ Jesus. Sanctification in this sense is not something that we are to look for in the future, it is something that has already taken place. The moment any one becomes a member of the Church of God by simple faith in Christ Jesus, for all who have faith in Christ Jesus are members of the Church of God, that moment that person is sanctified. Every saved man and woman in this building this morning, every one who has living faith in Jesus Christ, is sanctified. Our sanctification is involved in our salvation. But in what sense are we, that is, all believers, already sanctified? The answer to this question is found in a passage of Scripture to which we have already referred, Heb. 10:10, 14, "By which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. . . . For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." The meaning is plain. By the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all on the Cross of Calvary as a perfect atonement for sin, every believer is cleansed forever from the guilt of sin. We are "perfected forever" as far as our standing before God is concerned, and are set apart for God. The sacrifice of Christ does not need to be repeated as were the Jewish sacrifices (V. I). The work is done once for all, sin is put away, and forever put away (Heb. 9:26;
cf. Gal. 3:13), and we are set apart forever as God's peculiar and eternal possession. If any one asks you if you are sanctified; if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, i.e., if you have a living faith, in Jesus Christ, you have a right to say, "I am." Every believer in Christ is a saint, a saint not in the sense in which that word is oftentimes used in modern usage, but in the Bible sense, as being set apart for God and belonging to God and being God's peculiar property. But there is another sense in which every believer may be fully sanctified to-day. This is found in Rom. 12:1, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service." In this passage we see that it is the believer's present and blessed privilege, and important and solemn duty, to present his body to God a living sacrifice—not some part or parts of the body, but the whole body with its every member and every faculty. And when we do thus present our whole body to God a living sacrifice, then we are wholly sanctified. Such an offering is well-pleasing to God. As God in the Old Testament showed His pleasure in the offering by sending down fire to take it to Himself, so when the whole body is thus offered to God, God will send down fire again, the fire of the Holy Ghost, and take to Himself what is thus presented. The moment a believer does thus present himself a living sacrifice to God, then, so far as his will, the governing