What is sanctification?

Sanctification signifies literally a setting apart to God - like a vessel for the use of God in his temple. (See 2 Tim. 2:21.)

To some sanctification means just sanctimoniousness. It really means nothing of the sort; nor does it even mean becoming very holy, save in a secondary sense. The primary meaning of sanctify is to set apart - to separate from base uses to the service and pleasure of God. For example: "Thou shalt anoint the altar … and sanctify the altar … thou shalt anoint the laver … and sanctify it" (Ex. 40:10-11). "I [Jesus] sanctify Myself" (John 17:19). "Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts" (1 Peter 3:15).

The sanctification of believers means to many people, perhaps to most, a process by which they are made more and more holy and pleasing to God; whereas its primary meaning is that by an act of God they have been set apart for Himself, and according to this their growth in holiness becomes a necessity.

But I am going now to speak a little more on the important subject of sanctification. What is sanctification? Holiness. The primary presentation of it is in the scripture before us. It has two sides — the absolute side, and the progressive side. There is the positional side, and the practical side. On the positional side you have the truth of the soul being set apart for God. And then there is the practical change, and holy progress in the walk of the saint. He first learns that he is set apart for God, and then learns to shape his ways accordingly. Where would you begin if you were thinking of the subject of sanctification? I know where I began. I began with myself. I thought, dear me, what an immense amount of change and progress ought to go on inside me. But if I am going to talk of sanctification according to Scripture, I must begin with the positional aspect first, and hence I must begin with Christ. Oh, you say, do you think that the Lord Jesus can ever he altered? No, God forbid. Turn to Scripture and let us hear what it says.

Position: God has "sanctified" us as believers, that is, set aside or reserved us. He claims us for Himself, He declares us His own. The people of Israel were outwardly "sanctified" by certain rites and customs. Christians have been brought into a new position before God, based on the sacrifice of Christ. Practice: God wants us to live holy lives in all practical details as well (Heb. 12:4; 1 Pet 1:17).

It is necessary to note the way sanctification is used in the Scriptures when speaking of personal sanctification (for we are not now speaking of sanctification to a special service as Christ in John 10:36 or as the priests of the Old Testament). Sanctification always means to set apart to God, to separate unto Him, but it is spoken of sometimes in reference to one's person, sometimes in reference to the state of soul.

176 It may be well here to note the way in which sanctification is used in the Scripture. It always means separation to God, consecration to Him; but it may be, in us, sanctification of our persons, or of the state of our souls. As soon as we are believers, we are set apart to God, sanctified - all Christians are saints; and hence, strange as it may seem, when sanctification and justification come together, sanctification comes before justification.

I learn that we are sanctified, or set apart to God, by God the Father, through the offering of Jesus Christ once for all, and by the operation and power of the Holy Ghost through the truth, so that all Christians are saints,14 and that in our practical state we have to follow after holiness,15 and grow up to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, being changed into His image, to whom we are to be perfectly conformed in glory.16

Some of the Corinthians had been sinners of this type, but their conversion had involved three things — washing, sanctification, justification. Washing signifies that deep and fundamental work of moral renovation which is accomplished by the new birth. Sanctification is a setting apart for God, now to be for His use and pleasure. Justification is a clearance from every count that otherwise would lie against us; a judicial setting right, so that we stand in righteousness before God. All three are ours in the Name of the Lord Jesus — that is, in virtue of His sacrificial work; and by the Spirit of our God — that is, by His effective work in our hearts. We might have been inclined to connect the washing with the work of the Spirit exclusively, and the justification exclusively with the work of Christ. But it is not so stated here. The objective and the subjective go hand in hand.

(V. 10). In the tenth verse we are definitely told what the will of God is. There we read, “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” It is in vain and needless to look within in the endeavour to find in our faith, our repentance, our experiences or our feelings that which will bring relief or peace to the burdened conscience. This Scripture so blessedly takes our thoughts entirely away from ourselves and occupies us with the will of God and the work of Christ. God discovers to us the blessed secret of His counsels that it is His will to have us divested of every spot of sin, not through anything we have done or can do, but entirely through the work of another, the Lord Jesus Christ.