What is sanctification?
Sanctification is one of those words that people assume they understand, and often get backwards — most take it to mean a slow process of becoming better. The commentators trace it back to a simpler root, and that root changes everything about how the rest of the subject is read.
The Root Meaning: Set Apart
The word does not start with moral improvement. It starts with ownership, and the picture behind it is a container reserved for one household's use.
The Christian's FriendSanctification means, quite literally, a setting apart to God — like a vessel used for God in His temple.
The opposite of a sanctified thing is not a struggling thing but a common thing, and what is common gets spoiled by everyone's handling.
F. B. HoleThe root idea of the word, whether we take its Old or New Testament use, is that of setting apart for God. A sanctified person or thing is one set apart from ordinary uses to be God's own possession, for His use and enjoyment. The opposite of sanctification is profanation... The very word used there means "common or polluted," and of course it is exactly when a thing is put to common use that it does get polluted.
God's Act Before Ours
Because the word means being claimed, the first form of sanctification is something done to a believer, not by him. It is finished, not in progress.
Hamilton SmithHere it is the absolute setting apart of the believer, of which we read in Hebrews 10:10: "we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The stone, once cut from the quarry, is set apart from it for ever, though afterwards it may be worked and carved to fit it better for the designer's purpose.
This explains an order in Scripture that surprises many readers — the setting apart is named before the clearing of guilt.
A. J. PollockNotice the order here: sanctification comes before justification... it is the act of the Holy Spirit, and means the setting of the individual apart in the mind of the Spirit, and by His work, for Himself.
Then Daily Life Follows
The second form is the one people usually think of first: conduct. It is not a way of earning the position but of matching it.
Michael HardtSince God has set Christians apart to belong to Him, they are sanctified 'positionally' — every Christian is in the position of being 100% sanctified, all the time. But what is true of us in principle should also be true of us in practice... Peter writes to believers who have already received the 'sanctification of the Spirit' (1 Pet. 1:2), once for all, but then goes on to encourage them to be sanctified practically: "be holy in all your conduct."
Writers differ on whether to call this side "progressive," since the term is easily misread; some prefer to avoid the label unless its meaning is spelled out.
How It Actually Happens
Practical sanctification is not produced by willpower. Two means are named in the Lord's prayer for His followers in John 17.
William KellyThis is strikingly shown in John 17: "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent Me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth." There are therefore two special means of Christian sanctification in His mind: the Father's word, which is the truth, and Christ set apart on high as the glorified man, who is the personal model before our faith.
Where these are neglected, the shortfall shows.
A. J. PollockWe must be true in practice to what God has made us in position. Neglect of two things is the most common cause of a lack of practical sanctification: one is prayer, the other the constant, prayerful study of the Word. On top of this, we must keep the Lord before us. If we have any goal short of Christ there will be failure.
What It Is Not
A long-standing mistake treats sanctification as the gradual removal of the sinful nature. The commentators reject this firmly.
William KellyThe true scriptural meaning of sanctification is that you are set apart to God. It is not at all a question of whether there is no evil in your flesh, for there is a great deal... Yet you are sanctified. Sanctification has nothing whatever to do with the extinction of evil in the flesh.
Christ Himself as the Measure
Finally, the subject is not an abstract quality but a Person given to us.
J. N. DarbyAnd now we come to sanctification; He is "made unto us sanctification"... Christ is the whole thing. Whatever wisdom I have is only the wisdom of God in Christ... What is this righteousness? Christ. What redemption? Christ. And so with sanctification — Christ still.
Summary
- Meaning — Sanctification is being set apart for God, like a vessel reserved for His use; the opposite is not failure but being common.
- Position — God's act sets the believer apart once for all, like a stone cut from the quarry; it is complete before any change in conduct.
- Practice — What is already true of us in position is to become true in daily conduct: "be holy in all your conduct."
- Means — The Father's word and Christ set apart in heaven are the two instruments; prayer and steady study of Scripture are where practical holiness lives or dies.
- Misreading — It is not the gradual removal of the sinful nature; sanctification is a Person given to us — Christ made to us sanctification.