Sanctify
This
writing will offend many who depend on their personal efforts to gain or
maintain salvation!
Salvation,
reconciliation, justification, and sanctification go in tandem as a single gift
from God and they work in our lives through faith in and the faith of Christ
Jesus.
None
of those four are ever gained or maintained through human efforts by anyone at
any time!
Many
teach that we must sanctify ourselves through proper actions in life. Such a
teaching proves that the teacher does not understand sanctification!
Have
you ever read about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians?
Gal
5:22-23
22 But the fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no
law. (NKJV)
The Bible uses the singular “fruit” (Gr Karpos-KarpoV)!
The fruit of the Spirit is in the singular due to the fact
that you are given all of them at the time of salvation!
Just as the fruit of the Spirit is a package gift, salvation (Gr sōtēria-σωτηρία), reconciliation (Gr. katallagē-καταλλαγή), justification (Gr. dikaiōsis-δικαίωσις), and sanctification (Gr. hagiasmos-ἁγιασμός) are given as a package!
You may be weak in some and strong in others, but as a
Christian you have all of them!
And yet, many Christians do not understand that simple fact!
Look at this verse!
1 Cor 1:2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are
sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every
place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours: (NKJV)
The Corinthian Church was to most rowdy bunch of Christians
ever, and yet they were “sanctified in Christ” as are all real Christians! In
order to be a saint you must be sanctified!
Have you ever searched for the phrase, “sanctify yourself?”
If you search the New Testament you will NOT find those words!
The words and the concept are Old Testament! They do not
represent New Testament teachings!
The spiritual fact is that you cannot sanctify yourself! God
Himself sanctifies us!
1 Thess 5:23
And the very God of peace sanctify
you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be
preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus
He sanctifies us implanting His
peace within us! That sanctification preserves us as wholly or completely
blameless before God the Father until the return of our Lord, Christ Jesus!
You cannot be lost as long as God
preserves you!
As a Christian, you are the Temple
of God!
1 Cor 3:16
Know ye not that ye are the temple of
God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in
you?
The Spirit of God lives within you!
The Spirit of God does not
dwell within unclean, unsanctified vessels, so you MUST be spiritually clean and sanctified!
Those who attempt to demean the
Temple of God are demeaning God Himself!