Thoughts from this side of Sanctification

The goofy reality is that even with 2000 years of history behind us Christians don't agree about a lot of things.  Not a surprise. With human nature what it is and with the continuous tendency to stray from the simple truth, it is to be expected, but it is still goofy.


So here I sit a seminary student trying to figure out sanctification, the various schools of thought don't really seem to help much when it comes to actually counseling people, and trying to figure out what I am supposed to be doing. People are much more complex than a simple description can cover, and sin is more insidious than a simple response will address. 


The beautiful thing is that God is still very clear about two things.  He does the saving.  We are justified by his grace apart from any works of (un)righteousness that we may produce (Gal 2:21). and having been saved by grace we cannot then proceed to sanctification by works either (Gal3:3).   But there is a profound change that takes place once we have entered into union with Christ (Gal 3:27) and we are now heirs together with Abraham of God's GRACE (Gal 3:29). And the key issue in sanctification seems to be one of relationship (sometimes referred to as identity).  We are sons of God (Gal 4:6), and that change of relationship means we do not have to go back to relating to God from a position of debtor, or even of beggar (Gal 4:9). Our relationship with God is one aimed at freedom (Gal5:1) and that is a powerful concept, if you are free act like it!! Once we are in Christ - the only thing that matters is faith working itself out in love (Gal 5:6). We are no longer trying to keep a set of rules designed to keep us from sinful behavior that cannot change our hearts, and we are not tied to external symbols of God's grace, we have Christ in us! 

We are indeed free, and the only caveat is that our freedom is not designed to take us back to doing the things the Law was designed to protect us from. We are free to relate to God as his children, that doesn't mean we should then immediately begin to act like enemies!  We should live out our high position and rank as children of God by imitating God (Eph 5:1-2), that means that we should put his love in action in our lives.

That then leads to a profoundly important command - one which I'm not sure I have wrapped my mind around yet-  we should live by the Spirit, in the same way that we are made alive by the Spirit  (Gal 5:25).  What does it mean to live by the Spirit?  Well, Paul compares it directly to being saved by the Spirit.  Which happens in the blessed confluence of God's sovereign gift of faith and my dependent act of faith.  Confess and believe and you are saved (Rom 10:9-10).  I think - and again this is what I am trying to wrap my mind around here- that our sanctification functions in much the same way.  I confess that I am right with God, and a child of God - and I believe it.  As one of my high school students said the other day, "my head and my heart, they have to agree."  What happens next is that my new nature or identity, or pattern of life, begins to reflect what I know I am -by faith.  in other words, if I am living by the Spirit, in the same way I am made alive by the Spirit, what I know, and what I belive combine to change the way I act. 
   In Salvation, when what I believe and what I know combine, I cease striving against God, and I cease striving towards God. I simply rely on His grace - made effective in the Cross.   In Sanctification it works backward from the same place.  When what I believe and what I know combine, I begin to depend on my new relationship with God in increasingly pervasive levels in my life. I rely on his grace, made effective in the cross- and the same power that raised Christ from the dead which is now at work in me to make real in my life what God says is true of me. I start eschewing lustful, violent and idolatrous activities (5:19-21), and begin to see the likeness of God realized in me (Gal 5:22-23), because my head and my heat agree that I have crucified the flesh.

This could of course be interpreted to mean that it is possible to reach the magic tipping point where the Christian life is all down hill, where sin no longer has any interest (we know it has no dominion) and where everything I do is a perfect reflection of God's character.  But that idea stands in stark contrast to the teaching of Christ and the Apostles on the continued reality of sin in this world.  The sanctifying work of trusting God, must be a habitual and continuous daily action.  When we don't get it right it proves not that God has failed, nor that we are not saved (because it didn't depend on our actions anyway) but that we were sinners in the first place (Gal 2:17-18).

One of the things that we believe about salvation is that God uses means in a typical context.  God's grace saved us by means of the penal substitutiary atonement provided by the Cross of Christ. God's grace makes us alive by means of the same power that brought Christ up from the dead.  The context in which God's grace makes us alive is that of hearing someone preach the word of Christ (Rom 10:14-17). We are no more saved by preachers than cured by doctors, they are merely the normal context in which God's grace applies the means of healing.  We belive similarly about sanctification that it has a means, and a normal context. God's grace sanctifies us by means of the righteousness that was provided in the Cross. the Grace of God sanctifies us by the same power that raised Christ from the dead.  The contexts in which the righteousness and the power of the death and resurrection of Christ is typically applied to our lives are the Word of God, God's people and suffering.  Let me be clear, we are not sanctified by the Bible, we are not sanctified by going to church and we are not sanctified by going through pain.  We are sanctified by God's grace, applying the merit of the Cross to our lives, which tends to use those things as the context in which to apply the righteousness and power of the Cross of Christ to our lives.

Our only part in the sanctification process is to proceed by a rich, well informed, ever strengthening faith. Faith acts.  That is important.  Faith is not passive.  Faith is demonstrated in obedience. This is true of salvation- when we cease striving, and start trusting, our faith is demonstrated by our repentance, our confession, our prayers, our baptism, and by our forgiveness of others.  Our Sanctification is equally by faith, and is demonstrated by our repentance, our obedience and submission to Scripture, our imitation of God, and our love for one another.  Part of that obedience is to place ourselves in the typical contexts of Grace - because we are told to by the one we trust. but our obedience does not sanctify, and our obedience does not make us holy - it demonstrates it.