Talking Sanctification

This morning I’ll gather with a room full of men to dive deep into the topic of sanctification. It’s the first session of our Cities Institute Spring course on Christian Formation, and we are starting with definitions: What actually is sanctification according to the Bible? 

The verb “to sanctify” (hagiazein) is used some 28 times, along with the noun “sanctification” (hagiasmos) having ten occurrences. Based upon these uses, and what else the Bible tells us about the saving work of God in Christ, where does sanctification fit?

We can often think of sanctification as “our part” in salvation. We understand that justification is by the grace of God alone, not by our works (Galatians 2:15–16), and that glorification is certainly out of our hands (1 John 3:2), but sanctification, now that is where we must get to moving, right? 

At one level, that’s true. We are called to “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). But this is a cooperative working out, not a creative one. As Paul goes on to say, “… for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (verse 13).

God is the one at work, having already justified and sanctified us by our faith-union with Jesus (see 1 Corinthians 6:11). In Christ, we are already the sons and daughters of God, the brothers and sisters of Jesus, and there’s nothing we can do to make us more of who God has said we are. We don’t “make” ourselves holy. Our sanctification — or holiness or saintliness — it’s all given to us by the gift of God in Christ.

What’s remaining for us, then, in the Christian life is simply living out that reality God has accomplished by his grace — except there’s nothing simple about it, not in actual practice. 

Our propensity is to live out of the assessment we make of ourselves, or that others might make, rather than living by God’s assessment of us. The hardest part isn’t performing — most anyone can act any certain way for a period of time — but it’s harder to believe from the heart what God has actually said in his word. “To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). It’s that part that needs nothing less that the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Which is exactly who God provides.