22. Sanctification Attainable in This Life
CHAPTER XXII Sanctification Attainable in This Life Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. - Matthew 5:8.
Biblical expositors take in general, three positions concerning sanctification: (1) that sanctification is not a second work; (2) that sanctification is not attainable until death; and (3) that sanctification is a second work and is attainable in this life. That sanctification is a second work we have before conclusively proved. This refutes the theory that entire sanctification is attained in regeneration. By proving that sanctification is attainable in this life, I shall refute the position that it is never attained until death. That sanctification is attainable in this life will appear from the following reasons:
1. Whatever inspired men have prayed that we might attain is attainable. Jesus prayed for the sanctification of his disciples? and not for them only, but for all those who should believe on him through the words of his disciples (John 17:17-20). Paul prayed that the Thessalonians might be "wholly sanctified" (1 Thessalonians 5:23). To confirm in their minds the certainty of the answer to his prayer, he said, "Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it" (1 Thessalonians 5:24). No reasonable person would conclude that either Jesus or Paul was praying for an attainment to be realized at death or in the future life. Moreover, the prayer of Jesus was definitely and fully answered with respect to his immediate disciples by the Pentecostal experience (compare Acts 2:1-4 and Acts 15:8-9).
2. Whatever other men under like circumstances with us have attained we may hope to attain, for God is no respecter of persons. "Unto the church of God which is at Corinth to them that are sanctified" (1 Corinthians 1:2). Jude, the brother of James, wrote to certain persons who were at that time sanctified: "Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called" (Jude 1:1). "For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified " (Hebrews 10:11). It can not be denied that the Corinthians, the Hebrews, and those Christians to whom Jude wrote, were living men. Those who believe that sanctification is not attainable until after death are driven to the absurd position that Corinth was not a city in Greece, but a place of departed spirits; that the Hebrews were not living men; and that the letter of Jude was addressed to the dead.
It is a generally accepted truth that all for whom Jesus died may have all for which he died. Jesus tasted death for every man (Hebrews 2:9). Jesus died to sanctify the people with his own blood (Hebrews 13:12). Therefore the people, every man, may be sanctified. And all that comes to us through the blood must come in this life, for "there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood" (1 John 5:8). We conclude, therefore, that all men may be sanctified in this life.