6.06. Sanctification

Sanctification The term sanctify (hagiazein)¹[Note: 1. ἁγιάζειν] is employed in Scripture in two senses: (a) to consecrate or set apart to a sacred service or use: “Whom the Father has sanctified and sent” (John 10:36); “the temple that sanctifies the gold” (Matthew 23:17); and (b) to purify and make holy: “But you are washed, you are sanctified” (1 Corinthians 6:11; Hebrews 13:12); “sanctify them through your truth” (John 17:17). The latter is the sense in which it is taken when the doctrine of sanctification is discussed. Westminster Shorter Catechism Q. 35 defines as follows: “Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness”; “God has chosen us that we should be holy” (Ephesians 1:4); “you are washed, you are sanctified by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11); “God has chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit” (2 Thessalonians 2:13); “the very God of peace sanctify you wholly” (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

Sanctification results from the continuation of the agency of the Holy Spirit after the act of regeneration (a) in strengthening and augmenting existing graces: faith, hope, charity, etc.; and (b) in exciting them to exercise, through reading and hearing the word, the sacraments, prayer, providences, afflictions, and chastisements. Hence it is often called “renewing” (Psalms 51:10; 2 Corinthians 4:16; Ephesians 4:23; Colossians 3:10; Romans 12:2; Titus 3:5). “Renewing” or renovation in this use of the term is not synonymous with “regeneration.” When St. Paul exhorts the Ephesians (4:23) to “be renewed in the spirit of their mind,” he is not exhorting them to regenerate themselves, but to sanctify themselves. So also with the exhortation to “the house of Israel”: “Make you a new heart” (Ezekiel 18:31).

Sanctification includes the entire man: “The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless” (1 Thessalonians 5:23).²[Note: 2. WS: See Shedd onRomans 7:23; Romans 8:10for the meaning of this trichotomy.] Sanctification affects (a) the higher rational and spiritual part of man’s nature, the pneuma,³[Note: 3. πνεῦμα = spirit] because this has been corrupted by the fall (Titus 1:15; Romans 1:28; Ephesians 4:18); (b) the inferior intelligence, the psychē;⁴[Note: 4. ψυχή = soul] and (c) the body, sōma.⁵[Note: 5. σῶμα = body] As apostasy began in the pneuma⁶[Note: 6. πνεῦμα] and affected the other parts of human nature, so sanctification begins in the pneuma⁷[Note: 7. πνεῦμα] and passes throughout the soul and body. A man can control his physical appetites in proportion as he has a vivid spiritual perception of God and divine things. The intuition in the pneuma⁸[Note: 8. πνεῦμα] restrains the appetites of the psychē⁹[Note: 9. ψυχή] and sōma.¹⁰[Note: 0 10. σῶμα] If spiritual perception be dim, the bodily appetite is strong. That the higher nature, denominated pneuma¹¹[Note: 1 11. πνεῦμα] or nous,¹²[Note: 2 12. νοῦς = mind] is depraved and needs to be sanctified is proved by Romans 1:28; Romans 12:2; Ephesians 4:17; 2 Timothy 3:8; Titus 1:15; Mark 1:23; 1 Thessalonians 5:23.

Sanctification is gradual: “We are enabled more and more to die to sin.” It is the conflict with and victory over indwelling sin described in Romans 7:14-25; Romans 8:1-28. Romans 7:1-25; Romans 8:1-39 speak of the struggle and groaning of the still partially enslaved will: “Even we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope. Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities and makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (8:23-24, 26). The means of sanctification are (a) internal, namely, faith (“faith works by love”; Galatians 5:6), hope (“hope makes not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts”; Romans 5:5), joy (“in whom you rejoice with joy unspeakable, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls”; 1 Peter 1:8-9), and peace (“the peace of God shall keep your hearts and minds, through Christ Jesus”; Php 4:7). The exercise of any one of these Christian graces increases the holiness of the believer. The means of sanctification are also (b) external, namely, the Scriptures (“sanctify them through your truth”; John 17:17; “desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow thereby”; 1 Peter 1:22-23; 1 Peter 2:2), prayer (“whatsoever you shall ask in my name I will do it”; John 14:13-14; Acts 2:42), providential discipline (“every branch in me that bears not fruit, he purges”; John 15:2; Romans 5:3-4; Hebrews 12:5-11), and the sacrament of the supper (“they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers”; Acts 2:42). The believer cooperates with God the Spirit in the use of the means of sanctification. Sanctification is both a grace and a duty: “Watch, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13); “take the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance” (Ephesians 6:16; Ephesians 6:18); “work out your own salvation, for it is God who works in you” (Php 2:12-13). Hence sanctification is the subject of a command: “Put off the old man, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Ephesians 4:22-23); “make you a new heart and a new spirit” (Ezekiel 18:31). Regeneration, being the sole work of God, is a grace but not a duty. It is nowhere enjoined upon man as a duty to regenerate himself. (See supplement 6.6.1.)

Sanctification though progressive is not complete in this life: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” (1 John 1:8; 1 John 1:10); “brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but I press toward the mark” (Php 3:12-14); “I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind” (Romans 7:18; Romans 7:23; Galatians 5:7). Sanctification is completed at death: “The souls of believers at their death are made perfect in holiness” (Westminster Shorter Catechism Q. 37). The heavenly Jerusalem contains “the spirits of just men made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23); “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2); “absent from the body and present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8); “Christ loved the church that he might sanctify it and present it to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle” (Ephesians 5:27); “now we see through a glass darkly; but when that which is perfect is come, face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12); “the pure in heart shall see God” (Matthew 5:8); “blessed are the dead who die in the Lord” (Revelation 14:13). (See supplement 6.6.2.)

Sanctification once begun is never wholly lost. It fluctuates with the fidelity of the believer, but he never falls back into the stupor and death of the unregenerate state: “They whom God has sanctified by his Spirit shall constantly persevere to the end and be saved” (Westminster Larger Catechism 79); “my sheep shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:28-29); “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Romans 11:29); “he which has begun a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ” (Php 1:6); believers are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation” (1 Peter 1:5).

Exhortations to diligence and warnings against carelessness and failure are consistent with the certain perseverance of the believer because (a) while the certainty is objective in God, it may not be subjective in man. God knows that a particular man will certainly persevere, because he purposes that he shall, and he will realize his purpose by the operation of his Spirit within him; but the man does not know this unless he has assurance of faith. Many believers do not have this highest degree of faith and hence are more or less subject to doubts and fears. Exhortations to diligence and warnings against apostasy suit such an experience as this. But one who is assured of salvation by the witness of the Holy Spirit would not require to be warned against apostasy while in this state of assurance. Such exhortations and warnings are also consistent with the perseverance of the believer because (b) exhortations to struggle with sin and warnings against its insidious and dangerous nature are one of the means employed by the Holy Spirit to secure perseverance. The decree of election includes the means as well as the end. Now if success in the use of means is certain, there is the strongest motive to employ them; but if success is uncertain, then there is little motive to use them. St. Paul employs the certainty of success as a motive to struggle: “Fight the good fight of faith; lay hold on eternal life, whereunto you are called” (1 Timothy 6:12).

It must be remembered that salvation is certain, not because the person believes that he has once believed in the past, but because he now consciously believes. If from his present experience and daily life he has reason to think that he is truly a believing Christian, then he has reason to expect that he will continue to be one. Cromwell, according to the anecdote, committed an error in inferring his good estate because he believed that he was once a believer.¹³[Note: 3 13. WS: The situation inHebrews 6:4-6is hypothetical, as is proved by verse 9: “We are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.” A supposition which is not an actual or even a possible case is sometimes made for the sake of illustrating or enforcing truth. In1 Corinthians 13:1-3Paul supposes the existence of Christian faith without that of Christian charity. InGalatians 1:8he supposes that an angel from heaven may preach another gospel than the true one. InMatthew 13:21-22the stony-ground hearer is not a true believer. In2 Peter 2:20-21the “dog who turns to his own vomit” is a false professor. His “knowing the way of righteousness” is superficial knowledge, like that of the stony-ground hearer.]

That sanctification is never lost is proved also by its connection with justification. Justification naturally tends to sanctification: “Faith works by love” (Galatians 5:6). Trust in Christ’s blood of atonement spontaneously impels to the resistance of sin; and if there be no struggle against sin, it is clear proof that there is no true trust in Christ’s sacrifice. Justification supplies the only efficient motive to obedience. Hence the obedience of the believer is called “new obedience” because of the new motive from which it springs, namely, the atoning love of the Redeemer. It is also denominated “the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Gratitude to Christ and love of him for the forgiveness that comes through his death are the springs of this evangelical obedience and sanctification. The strongest inducement for a Christian to obey the divine law is the fact that he has been graciously pardoned for having broken the law. He follows after sanctification because he has received justification. He obeys the law not in order to be forgiven, but because he has been forgiven: “The love of Christ constrains us not to live unto ourselves, but unto him which died for us” (2 Corinthians 5:4). And the love meant is Christ’s redeeming love: “Having these promises [of forgiveness], let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit” (7:1). Because God has blotted out all his past sin, the believer has the most encouraging of all motives to resist all future sin. Had God not pardoned the past, it would be futile to struggle in future. In 2 Peter 1:4 it is said that the “exceeding great and precious promises are given to us in order that by these we might be partakers of a divine nature, having escaped the corruption of the world through lust.” Sanctification does not justify; but justification sanctifies. And there being this close connection between the two, sanctification can no more be wholly lost than justification can be. The necessary connection between sanctification and justification is taught by both Paul and James, between whose views there is a verbal but not a logical contradiction. Paul in Romans 4:4-13 assumes that saving faith is living faith and produces works, but he says nothing particularly upon this latter point because his object is to contrast faith and works and because the opponent with whom he was disputing did not claim to be justified by faith of any kind, true or false, but by works altogether. James, on the other hand, not only assumes that saving faith is living faith and produces works, but speaks particularly and emphatically upon this latter point because he is not contrasting faith and works because he was contending with hypocrites who claimed that what they called “faith alone” and “faith only” and what James calls “dead faith” is a faith that would save the soul. Hooker (Justification) remarks that justification is spoken of by St. Paul in the narrow sense as exclusive of sanctification, but by St. James in the wide sense as inclusive of it. Paul means justification without its fruits; James means justification with its fruits. The former speaks of faith simply; the latter of working faith. Paul describes faith as the antithesis of works; James describes faith as producing works.¹⁴[Note: 4 14. WS: The seeming contradiction between Paul and James disappears if James is understood to put, by metonymy, the effect for the cause-the work of faith for faith itself. When he says that “Abraham was justified by works” (James 2:21) and “Rachel was justified by works” (2:25), he means that they were justified by a faith that produced works or a working faith. Abraham’s “work” proved that his “faith” was genuine and therefore might well stand for and represent it. It was a “work of faith” (1 Thessalonians 1:3) (Shedd, Sermons to the Spiritual Man, sermon 19).] (See supplement 6.6.3.) S U P P L E M E N T S

6.6.1 (see p. 804). That the regenerate can cooperate with the Holy Spirit, but the unregenerate cannot, is illustrated by the act of prayer. There is no sincere prayer for a spiritual good except as it is prompted by the Holy Spirit. The foundation of prayer is a sense of want; of spiritual poverty and need: “The Spirit helps our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26); “I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications” (Zechariah 12:10); “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:18). All desires expressed in prayer that are prompted solely by unregenerate human nature and without the impulse of the Holy Spirit are vitiated by selfishness. Man does not precede God, but God precedes man, in every exercise that is holy and spiritual. Consequently, when our Lord says, “Ask and you shall receive [the Holy Spirit],” he does not mean that the sincere desire and prayer for this blessing arises in the heart prior to any agency of the Holy Spirit upon it; but that the person who feels this desire has already been the subject of the Spirit’s influence to this degree and is to express the desire and so cooperate with the Spirit. In other words, Christ presupposes regeneration as shown in holy and spiritual desires and prayers, when he says, “Ask and you shall receive; for everyone that [sincerely] asks receives.” This line of remark is applicable to all the other means of sanctification. The regenerate cooperates with the divine Spirit in all struggling with sin, all attendance upon reading and hearing of the word, all confession of sin, all partaking of the Lord’s Supper, etc., because the Spirit has gone before him and moved upon his heart. The unregenerate cannot thus cooperate in these acts because the action of his heart and will is not spiritual, but selfish. His prayers and use of the means of sanctification are prompted by fear, not by love. Consequently, the divine Spirit first regenerates the sinful heart prior to any right cooperating action in it, and then the regenerate heart coworks with the Holy Spirit.

Says Augustine (Grace and Free Will 33): “God operates without our assistance in order that we may will rightly, but when we will rightly he cooperates with us.” Says Owen (Sin and Grace in Works 14.459 [ed. Russell]): “The work of first conversion [regeneration] is performed by an immediate act of divine power, without any active cooperation on our part. But this is not the law or rule of the communication or operation of actual grace for the subduing of sin [in the regenerate]. This is given in a way of concurrence with us in the discharge of our duties, and when we are sedulous in them we may be sure we shall not fail of divine assistance.”

6.6.2 (see p. 805). Bates (Of Death, chap. 3) describes the completion of sanctification at death: “Death is to a believer a universal remedy against all the evils of this life. It frees him from all injuries and sufferings and from sin in all its degrees, from all inclinations and temptations to it. He that is dead ceases from sin (1 Peter 4:1). Death is the passage from this wilderness to the true Canaan, the rest above. There nothing can disturb the peace or corrupt the purity of the blessed. Beside the privative advantage, the freedom from all the effects of God’s displeasure, there is the highest positive good obtained by death: the spirits of just men are made perfect in heaven. The soul is the glory of man, and grace is the glory of the soul, and both are then in their exaltation. All the faculties of the soul are raised to the highest degrees of natural and divine perfection. In this life grace renews the faculties, but does not elevate them to their highest pitch. It does not make a mean understanding pregnant nor a frail memory strong nor a slow tongue eloquent, but sanctifies them as they are. But when the soul is released from this dark body of earth, the understanding is clear and quick, the memory firm, the will and affections ardent and vigorous. And they are enriched with divine light and love and power that makes them fit for the most noble and heavenly operations. The lineaments of God’s image on the soul are first drawn here, but at death it receives his last hand. All the celestial colors are added, to give utmost life and luster to it. Here we are advancing, but by death we arrive at perfection.”

Respecting the possibility of complete sanctification in this life, Augustine, in his treatise Nature and Grace 49, 70, thus remarks: “Pelagius contends that the point lies in the possibility of a man’s not sinning; on which subject it is unnecessary for us to take ground against him, for in truth I do not much care about expressing a definite opinion on the question whether in the present life there ever have been or now are or even can be any persons who have had or are having or to have the love of God so perfectly as to admit no addition to it; for nothing short of this amounts to a most true, full, and perfect righteousness. For my own part, I am unwilling to dispute the point whether a sinless state is possible in this life.” In this treatise and in Man’s Perfection in Righteousness, written about the same time (a.d. 415), Augustine does not deny the possibility of sinless perfection in this life-only it is by divine grace and not by the natural will as Pelagius asserted. But in his treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians (4.27) he says: “Let us consider the third point of theirs which is shocking to every member of Christ, that there have been righteous men having absolutely no sin.” This treatise was written about 420. In 418 the Council of Carthage condemned the tenet of perfection in this life, in which decision Augustine must have had a leading part. Respecting complete sanctification at death, Augustine (Nature and Grace 70) says: “Whether there ever has been or is or can be a man living so righteous a life in this world as to have no sin at all may be an open question among true and pious Christians; but whoever doubts the possibility of this sinless state after the present life is foolish.”

6.6.3 (see p. 806). Augustine (Grace and Free Will 18) explains the difference between Paul and James as follows: “Unintelligent persons with regard to the Apostle Paul’s statement that ‘we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law’ have thought him to mean that faith suffices to a man even if he lead a bad life and does no good works. Impossible is it that such a person should be deemed ‘a vessel of election’ by that apostle, who, after declaring that ‘in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avail anything nor uncircumcision,’ adds immediately, ‘but faith, which works by love.’ It is such [working] faith which separates God’s faithful from unclean demons; for even these ‘believe and tremble,’ as the Apostle James says; but they do not work well. Therefore they have not the faith by which the justified man lives, the faith which works by love in suchwise that God recompenses it according to its works with eternal life. But inasmuch as we have even our good works from God, from whom likewise comes our faith and our love, therefore the same great teacher of the Gentiles has designated ‘eternal life’ as his gracious ‘gift’ [as well as his recompense].” The creeds, both Lutheran and Reformed, teach that justifying faith is working faith. The Formula of Concord 3.8 declares that “we are not to imagine any such justifying faith as can exist and abide with a purpose of evil, to wit: of sinning and acting contrary to conscience. But after that man is justified by faith then that true and living faith works by love (Galatians 5:6), and good works always follow justifying faith and are most certainly found together with it, provided only it be a true and living faith. For true faith is never alone, but has always charity and hope in its train.” Smalcald Article 13 declares that “good works follows this faith, renovation, and remission of sins. Furthermore, we say that where good works do not follow, there the faith is false, not true.”¹⁵[Note: 5 15. Hanc fidem, renovationem, et remissionem peccatorum, sequentur bona opera. Dicimus praeterea, ubi non sequuntur bona opera, ibi fidem esse falsam, et non veram.]

The Irish Articles maintain that justifying faith is working faith and not faith which does not work, in the following manner: “When we say that we are justified by faith only, we do not mean that the said justifying faith is alone in man without true repentance, hope, charity, and the fear of God, for such a faith is dead and cannot justify; neither do we mean that this, our act, to believe in Christ, or this, our faith in Christ, which is within us, does of itself justify us or deserve our justification unto us, for that were to account ourselves to be justified by the virtue or dignity of something that is within ourselves; but the true understanding and meaning thereof is that although we hear God’s word and believe it, although we have faith, hope, charity, repentance, and the fear of God within us and add never so many good works thereunto; yet we must renounce the merit of all our said virtues, of faith, hope, charity, and all other virtues and good deeds which we have done or shall do or can do as things that be far too weak and imperfect and insufficient to deserve remission of our sins and our justification, and therefore we must trust only in God’s mercy and the merits of his most dearly beloved Son, our only Redeemer, Savior, and Justifier, Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, because faith does directly send us to Christ for our justification and that by faith given us by God we embrace the promise of God’s mercy and the remission of our sins, which thing none other of our virtues or works does, therefore the Scripture used to say that faith without works, that only faith does justify us.” The faith which Paul and James both alike mean by justifying faith is not a faith to which works do not naturally belong, but are subjoined to faith from the outside, being produced by another act of the will than that of faith. Works, in their view, are produced by the one single act of faith itself and thus are an integral element and part of faith itself. The same mental action which produces the faith produces the works. The works are not a separate addition to faith, but an issue from it. They can no more be separated, even in thought, from faith, than vegetable fruit can be from vegetable life. We do not conceive of grapes as something that can be produced ab extra¹⁶[Note: 6 16. from the outside] by another force than that of the vine and then added to the vital force of the vine, but as the spontaneous, natural, and necessary product of the vine’s vitality and making an integral part of the vine’s total action. Our Lord teaches this when he says, “Abide in me, and I in you: as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself [spontaneously] except it abide in the vine, no more can you except you abide in me.”

Faith and works, then, are two aspects or phases of one and the same principle of divine life in the soul. This one principle, viewed as cause, is faith; viewed as effect, is works-just as vegetable vitality and vegetable fruit are two aspects of one and the same principle of physical life. This one principle viewed as cause is the vitality of the vine stock; viewed as effect is the cluster of grapes. “It is not possible,” says Owen (Justification, chap. 2), “that there should be any exercise of this faith unto justification but where the mind is prepared, disposed, and determined unto universal obedience. And therefore it is denied that any faith, trust, or confidence which may be imagined so as to be absolutely separable from and have its whole nature consistent with the absence of all other graces is that faith which is the especial gift of God and which in the gospel is required of us in a way of duty.” The alleged difficulty of harmonizing Paul and James arises, then, from an erroneous view of the relation of good works to living faith. If both of these are regarded as constituting a unity that has two phases or aspects, so that works are faith in operation and faith is works potentially, there is no contradiction in saying with Paul that a man is “justified by faith” (Romans 3:28) and with James, that a man is “justified by works” (James 2:24). But if faith and good works are not regarded as a unity but as two separable and separate things, one of which can exist without the other, then it is contradictory to say with Paul that a man is “justified by faith” and with James that he is “justified by works.”

Christlieb (Modern Doubt, 530) thus explains the subject: “The difference between Paul and James lies in the language used by each; inasmuch as what Paul usually designates as ‘being saved’ (sōzesthai;¹⁷[Note: 7 17. σώζεσθαι] e.g., Ephesians 2:8) is expressed by James by the word dikaiousthai,¹⁸[Note: 8 18. δικαιοῦσθαι = to be justified, declared righteous] which Paul generally applies to the first part of redemption, namely, justification.”

After this statement of the inseparability of good works from faith it is important to observe carefully that the works which naturally issue from faith are not the cause or ground of justification any more than the act of faith itself is. A man’s sins are not remitted nor does he acquire a title to eternal life because of his own merit in believing, but because of Christ’s merits in suffering and obeying for him; and neither does he obtain these benefits because of the good works that are inseparable from living faith.