Redefining Sanctification from Scripture

The following series hopes to put together evidence from Scripture that neither the way we currently use the word “Sanctification” nor the meaning we give the term are Scriptural. This first post is an introduction to lay out some initial thoughts before we dive deeper.

How the church currently uses the word “Sanctification”

Today the church would define sanctification as the process by which saints, with the power of the Holy Spirit within us, practice Biblical disciplines (study, learn, meditate, confess, praise, fellowship) to fight our way out of sin so that the count of our sins on a daily and weekly basis grows smaller and that by doing so we become more Christ-like which brings glory to God and fulfills our purpose on earth. Included in this definition is a concept that the sin of saints pushes them away from God but as they are sanctified they grow closer to Him. Also the belief that, after securing our souls from His eternal wrath, God’s dearest wish is for us all to pursue holiness and to wage war against our sins and that if we are faithful in these things we will receive from God a variety of blessings in reward.

In summary:

• Sanctification is done by the Christian with the support, guidance, and power of God
• Sanctification is achievable if you do it right
• Sanctification results in a smaller sin count over time
• In Sanctification we become more “Christ-like” or “holy” or “righteous”
• Sanctification shortens the distance that our sin puts between us and God
• Sanctification fulfills God’s will and plans for us on this earth
• Sanctification receives natural blessings and wisdom from God

Although we may claim to believe that salvation is “by grace alone”, we create a false distinction when we then claim that this “growing in Christ-likeness” must be done by the saint. But in fact, I argue that, according to Scripture, it is all one in the same and that both the salvation and sanctification have to be on the same side, either done all by God or all by the saint. Did it bother you that I cut that statement short, “by grace alone”? I left out the “by faith alone” which is very important to most circles of Christianity. I never knew how much we depended on that last part. But it’s the key to the whole thing, the bit that gives it away. While we do believe in salvation that is given to us by God, we also believe that God gives us certain things called faith and repentance and we must, in a sense, activate them or use them in order for us to be saved. There is a part that is dependent on us and that is very valuable to us. We wouldn’t say it quite like that, but you DID squirm when I left out the faith part didn’t you? Because we’d hate for someone to think they could have salvation without also repenting and turning from their sin and taking up their cross and working hard and spending the rest of their days striving and sweating to prove their devotion and gratefulness to God for the salvation He’s entrusted to them.

Salvation is, in fact, according to God through His Word, by grace alone. Full stop. And that includes this thing called sanctification.

Taking a look at Colossians 2

Colossians 2 makes a lovely summary of the things we’ll be thinking about in this series. Let’s begin in verse 6 where Paul reminds us that, since we are in Christ, let us remember that we are in Christ and walk through life with that in mind. What does that look like? Finding our security and confidence in His work and in everything He’s done for us.

Colossians 2:6-7 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

Paul references being rooted and built up in Christ for us so that then He can contrast it with the lies and deceptions that they have faced.

Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.

Paul announces that there are philosophies and human traditions and spiritual things practiced among the saints that are not of Christ. Paul warns that Saints not be caught up believing the lies and deceptions of these philosophies and human traditions. What lies and deceptions? Well, he goes on to declare again, that all fullness of God is in Christ and we are now totally full in Christ who is higher than any other anything so the lies and deceptions would be anything that says otherwise. Anything or anyone who says, “Yes, of course we have fullness in Christ, but…”

Colossians 2:9-10 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.

This blows out of the water any idea that there is anything for us to do to be fully saved, and here many would say yes! But fullness means fullness and can’t mean anything else. Fully acceptable, fully pleasing, fully having fulfilled the law.

Paul goes on by describing everything evil and wicked and displeasing in us as “flesh” and uses the picture of circumcision to illustrate that Christ is the one who removed our old evil flesh from us, died with it, was buried with it, and when He was raised from the dead, He raised us also into new life. Any part of us that was insufficient or wicked has died and was buried with Christ and no longer remains. And Christ took our hollow core and filled it with life in Himself.

It is in this new life that we exist. As Christ is no longer under the law, having completed it, so are we. As Christ is pleasing and acceptable to God, so are we. And all this fullness is ours because of Christ. As we walk through life remembering that we have fullness in Christ, we experience rooting and a building up of our faith.

Colossians 2:11-13 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ.

Because all of the evil flesh was destroyed, we have been forgiven, the debt, as we might say, has been paid in full. There is nothing left to defeat or conquer because Christ did it.

Colossians 2:13-15 having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Christ paid the debt to the last penny and even the record that we ever owed a debt has been destroyed. With the debt paid, the law fulfilled and complete in Christ, it behind us now, no longer part of our existence. The law was meant to be for the entirety of our lives and determine our existence after death, but since it has been fulfilled and yet we still live, we live outside the law, “it is finished”, as Jesus said.

Just like those in Colossia, to whom this letter was written, who believed there were rulers and powers and authorities that were necessary to add to Christianity, we today think that there is a host of things for us to do to add to what Christ did for us to make us pleasing to God and to fulfill His plans for us. But verse 15 takes it all over the top and reminds us that Christ is so much higher than all that stuff that He made a royal spectacle of them all when He triumphed over them on the cross. Not just powers and authorities were put to shame, our very efforts were put to shame. Especially when we remember that it is perfection itself and perfection alone that He requires.

In the same vein, to compound our error, our tendency to think of sins as a plural thing and when we do that we go all sorts of wrong by trying to weigh and count sins. We picture God counting up all the things we’ve ever done that were wrong. We weigh hate as a sin that is so bit, but hate plus murder is two sins and murder is bigger and weightier. We picture Christ hanging on the cross for each sin as though they were piled on Him in a heap. And we teach our children that sin is everything we “think, say and do that is wrong before God” as though we are neutral and our thoughts and actions are the problem. But I can’t find that God says these things, rather He uses things we think say and do that are in error to reveal to us the fact that we ourselves are the problem because we ourselves are dead, rotten and decaying. It is the heart that is not positioned up to its Creator as God that is the problem. In our own flawed terms we could say that this incorrect heart positioning it is the One sin, the only sin, the biggest worst sin. Since Christ made this heart position right in each of us, what is there left for us to do?!

Colossians 2:16-17 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

Paul says for us to be encouraged by our fullness in Christ, to ignore the lies that would tell us there is anything we can or should do to attain fullness, again tells us that Christ really did do everything needed to make us fully pleasing to God and His work was so complete and final that it puts everything to shame. And because of these things, Paul continues, we ought not judge each other by what we do.

Those who are move by His Spirit to enjoy the freedom Christ bought for them should not judge those who either choose to participate in traditions nor those who’s callings involve more business or more restraint than they’re called to. As well, those who rejoice in Christ’s work by celebrating traditions must not judge those who are called to lay them aside, nor those who’s callings involve being more busy or more restrained should not judge those who have not been given those callings.

It comes down to trusting God’s Spirit at work in each of us. And trusting that God’s decisions to give different callings to each of us is perfect to accomplish His will. That neither the one or the other is more “Christ-like” as both are following God’s plans for their lives, to God’s perfect glory. And so we get to trust that Christ made us fully pleasing to God and that Christ made our brothers and sisters fully pleasing to God as well.

Colossians 2:18-19 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

Paul finishes these thoughts with this: since we are no longer tied to the counting of sins, our One great sin has been removed and replaced by life in Christ, and we are no longer slaves of sin and thereby doomed to damnation, why do we worry ourselves with “Why is that person doing something different than me?” “Why do they get to do that?” or “Why don’t they restrain themselves as I do?” Why are our eyes on these petty things as though what we do could change anything about us? As though the fleeting things we do could somehow tarnish what Christ has done which is everlasting? Is there nothing greater to take our attention?! Have we actually mastered that to which we are called, to place all our faith in God’s will through the work of Jesus Christ?

Isn’t sanctification – the idea that we can be closer to God or further from God or the idea that there is some holy ladder to climb – one which stems from the belief that Christ’s work only went so far to make us pleasing before God? Isn’t the suggestion that our sin moves us from Christ, the idea that our actions are greater and stronger than His sacrifice? Was His sacrifice not complete? You cannot say His sacrifice is complete and also say that we have work to be fulfilled. How can God be more pleased with us by our tiny actions than He already is, completely pleased by the great and mighty sacrifice of His perfectly obedient Son?!

By worrying ourselves with what we do and what someone else does, don’t it show our lack of faith in Christ’s work for us?

Colossians 2:20-23 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

These teaching, Paul says, are not from God. And even he says that by merely restraining our outward actions, we do not change our hearts, choosing restraint or choosing to do an action isn’t proof of a lack of sin! When God said He required perfection of us, and then Christ provided perfection, was that in some way insufficient? How then can our fleeting actions, born from hearts that are usually selfish and self-satisfied, add anything to His righteousness given to us! Do we believe that in that day, we will stand before God as creatures who were once dead but were brought to life, creatures who were vile and decaying, made new and sparkling clean and now good and healthy and wholesome, creatures who stand before their Creator clothed in the perfection that Christ earned for Himself, full sweet glowing tributes to Christ’s miraculous works — and we’re gonna stand there with our arms full of petty deeds that we forced ourselves to do???

Paul goes so far as to say these have zero value before God, that these things are not true faith. Romans 15 says they are called weak faith.

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And lest we lose heart, let us remember that in Philippians Paul describes the truth plain and clear. For us, to live IS Christ. We tend to think that means, for us to live means that we must choose to do things to please Christ. But no where do the scriptures say that! We’ve added that meaning. Paul means that if he did nothing for the rest of his days but breathe, his life IS Christ. Everything He does is redeemed. His vile flesh has been defeated, the core of His dead heart removed and Christ placed Himself inside, and created life, that life is Christ Himself, so taht every breath, every moment is pleasing to God, life IS Christ. God is pleased with Life.

Saint, as you walk through your day, God is not counting your sins, your life is a pleasing aroma to God because your very life, your very breath is Christ’s life coming out of all your pores. That is what the Scriptures say. These are things worthy for us to dwell on.