What is sanctification?

Question 07015.

Sanctification means being set apart, and if you grasp that one idea you have the doctrine in your hand. The word group behind it in Hebrew and Greek does not primarily mean to become morally impressive. It means to be marked off for a particular use, taken out of general circulation and reserved for somebody.

The temple vessels in the Old Testament were set apart in exactly this sense. They were not better bowls than the ones in the kitchen. They were bowls that belonged to God, and that belonging determined everything about how they were treated.

Set Apart in Two Tenses

Scripture uses sanctification language in two ways that need distinguishing. There is a sanctification that is already complete. 1 Corinthians 6:11 tells the Corinthians, of all people, that they were washed, they were sanctified, they were justified, all in the past tense. Paul can call the same church saints, which means set apart ones, while spending sixteen chapters correcting them.

Then there is a sanctification that is ongoing and unfinished. 1 Thessalonians 4:3 says that this is the will of God, your sanctification, and then goes on to describe conduct that clearly still needed work. The same word covers a settled position and a daily process.

So the believer has been set apart, and is being set apart. The first is about ownership. The second is about resemblance.

Why the Order Matters

This is not theological hairsplitting. Get the order wrong and the Christian life becomes a treadmill. If I think I am being set apart in order to become acceptable, then every failure threatens my standing and I will live exhausted.

But Scripture always puts the position first and the process second. You are holy, therefore live holy. You have been set apart, therefore behave like it. Ephesians spends three chapters on what God has done before it spends three on what we should do, and the therefore at the start of chapter four is doing all the work.

Justification settles who you are. Sanctification works out what that means. I have written on the first in what justification is.

Whose Work Is It?

Both God’s and ours, and the New Testament refuses to let us drop either half. Philippians 2:12-13 tells believers to work out their salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in them both to will and to work. The divine activity is the ground of the human effort rather than a substitute for it.

This rules out two errors that have both done damage. One is the passive approach that says let go and let God, as though effort were unspiritual. The New Testament is full of athletic and military language, of running, striving, fighting and putting to death. The other is the grim self-improvement approach that leaves the Spirit out altogether and produces either pride or despair.

The healthy middle is dependent effort. You strain, and you know perfectly well who is supplying the strength.

The Means God Uses

God does not sanctify people in a vacuum. He uses his word, which Jesus prayed about in John 17:17 when he asked the Father to sanctify them in the truth. He uses prayer, which keeps the relationship live. He uses other Christians, which is why the New Testament has so many one another commands and so little patience with solitary religion.

He also uses suffering, which is the means none of us would choose. Romans 5 traces a line from suffering through endurance to character, and Hebrews 12 treats hardship as a Father’s training rather than a Father’s rejection. That does not make suffering good. It makes it usable.

And he uses time. This is the part we resist most. Nobody is set apart in character overnight, and expecting otherwise produces a great deal of unnecessary discouragement.

The Words Behind the Idea

The Hebrew root is qadash, and it runs right through the Old Testament describing anything reserved for God: a day, a tent, a garment, a nation. Israel was told that they would be a holy nation, which meant a nation set apart, not a nation of unusually pleasant people. The Greek equivalent in the New Testament is the hagios family, from which we get the word saint.

That is why the New Testament calls ordinary believers saints. It is not a promotion awarded after a distinguished career and a couple of verified miracles. It is a description of everyone who belongs to God, including the Corinthians, who were making a spectacular mess of things at the time Paul addressed them that way.

Once you see that, a lot of false humility falls away. If you have trusted Jesus, you are already one of the set apart ones, and you may as well get used to the title. The question is not whether you qualify. The question is what belonging to God is going to look like in your Tuesday.

Sanctification and the Battle With Sin

Romans 6 to 8 is the sustained New Testament treatment of this, and it is worth reading in one sitting. Paul argues that the believer has died with Jesus and been raised with him, that sin is no longer the master, and that we are to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. Then in chapter 7 he describes a fight so real that many readers assume he must be talking about an unbeliever.

I take Romans 7 as the experience of a believer, and I take it as a comfort rather than a discouragement. The man who does not want to sin and finds himself sinning anyway is describing something every honest Christian recognises. The chapter ends not in despair but in thanks to God through Jesus, and chapter 8 opens with there being no condemnation.

The practical word for this fight is mortification, putting sin to death, and Colossians 3:5 uses exactly that language. It is deliberate, daily and unglamorous work, and it is done in the Spirit’s power rather than by gritted teeth. I have written about it in the mortification of sin.

What Progress Actually Looks Like

Not a straight line. Anybody who tells you their Christian life has been a smooth upward gradient is either very unusual or not paying attention. The normal pattern is progress, setback, repentance, progress, and a slow overall drift in the right direction that is far easier to see over ten years than over ten days.

The markers are worth knowing. Sin bothers you more than it used to, which feels like going backwards and is actually going forwards. You recover faster after failure. You find yourself wanting things you did not use to want. Your temper over the same provocation is a fraction better than it was.

Galatians 5 describes the outcome as fruit rather than achievement, and fruit grows quietly. Nobody stands over an apple tree shouting at it.

Positional and Practical

Older writers spoke of positional and practical sanctification, and the labels are useful even if the words are a little dusty. Positionally you are as set apart as you will ever be, because you are in Christ and that position does not have degrees. Practically you are somewhere on a long road.

The gap between the two is the space in which the Christian life is lived, and it is closed by the Spirit rather than by willpower alone. What keeps the gap from becoming despair is knowing that the position is secure while the practice is still catching up.

There is more on this in positional versus practical sanctification and in definitive and progressive sanctification.

Will Anyone Be Perfect in This Life?

No, and I say that plainly because the alternative has hurt people. Some traditions have taught a second work of grace after which sin is no longer an issue, and I have met sincere believers left broken by the failure of that promise.

1 John 1:8 says that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Paul, writing late in life, still described himself as pressing on rather than as having arrived. If he had not finished, neither have we.

Perfection is guaranteed, but it is guaranteed for later. That is glorification, and I take it up in what glorification is.

Where the Motivation Comes From

Not fear of losing your salvation, which cannot be lost, and not the hope of earning God’s favour, which you already have in full. The New Testament grounds the pursuit of holiness in gratitude, in love and in the coming appearance of Jesus.

There is also the matter of reward. 2 Corinthians 5:10 says we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, and that assessment concerns the quality of a believer’s life rather than their eternal destiny. Being set apart in practice has consequences that will last.

But the deepest motive is simpler than any of that. You love him. People do things for those they love that no amount of threatening would ever produce.

So, now what?

So do not measure your sanctification by whether you have arrived, because you have not and neither have I. Measure it by direction, and be patient with the pace. God has set you apart for himself, and he is not in the habit of abandoning half-finished work.

What is the one area where you know the Spirit has been pressing lately? Perhaps that is where to start this week, rather than trying to fix everything at once.

And the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 (ESV)