Santification
Hal Molloy · Feb 9, 2003
Major Bible Themes (2002-03), No. 32
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262252437124

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay. Sanctification, as someone said, means to be set apart. So what we're going to do this morning is kind of a five-part outline, and I know that we're not going to get through, but that's okay. You'll have it in your notes. We're going to look at, in terms of sanctification, what does it mean? And here's the question. Are you sanctified? I want to throw the question out. Are you guys sanctified? Are you holy? Did you have an argument with your husband or wife this week? Were you holy then? Okay, very good. Someone asked a question. Conditional or positional? Here's one of the key questions.

Why were you sanctified? And we're going to look at some of the aspects of sanctification. I've got some points on sanctification at the end, and I don't think we'll get through those, but that's okay. You've got them in your notes. All right, let's take the first one in terms of what does it mean. As you look at the word sanctify, as I've indicated, there's two of the words, saint and holy, which have the same root meaning.

So sanctified, to be sanctified, hagiadzo, and saint, hagias, and holy, hagiasmas, and you see the hagi hagi hagi in each case, and they have the same root, and the same root meaning, as Sue said, to be set apart. And think of this, to be set apart for a special purpose.

So that, how many of you have, or your parents have, good china? Now, when you were kids, Did your mom set out the good china for eating every day? No. Why? Number one, it wouldn't be around by the time you get to be a teenager. And what she did is she set that apart for a special purpose. And she set it apart usually for what?

Company. Special occasions. So that's what setting apart means, to set apart for a special purpose. So when something or someone is set apart from one thing or person to another, so there's always the from-to aspect, so that if I set apart these papers from this table, I set it apart to something else, to this table. So there's always the from-to aspect.

I want you to think about that as we go through sanctification. It's from and to. Whatever God sets apart to himself, he calls holy. In the case of you as a person, and me as a person, he calls us saints. So we're a set-apart one. We're a saint. Did you think that you were a saint? And here's the key. Most believers don't believe that they're saints. And it's a function, really it's a function of lack of teaching, that they don't understand that they're saints.

So what I did is I put together, I just went through the concordance, and went through every word on on holy and saint. I didn't put down every single reference because they were duplicated, but I just put at least one verse that talked about what was holy and what was a saint.

So that you find that as you go through the New Testament, and this is strictly the New Testament, as you go through the word holy, you see holy angels, so they are set-apart ones from something to something else. They're set-apart messages to God. Holy prophets, they are men that were set-apart from their daily life to God to prophesize for God.

The Holy Spirit, He's a set-apart one. He's set-apart from any sin. He's set-apart from any unrighteousness to righteousness. Holy Covenant, the covenant that was given to Abraham. It was a set-apart covenant. Holy Father, the Father is holy, a set-apart one. Holy One of God, talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. When it talks about the temple, it talks about the holy place. It's set apart from everything else strictly to God, from man to God, for a place of worship. The law is holy. And then it talks about saints, set-apart ones at Jerusalem. Talking about those who are believers, set-apart ones to God. And all believers call saints.

And we're going to look at that in a moment. Again, it talks about the holy thing. It talks about the holy thing, the holy one. It talks about Mary having her child, and it's Christ. It says, and we're going to be looking at this, it says, be holy, to command, to be holy, be set apart. The church is to be holy. It talks about those who are holy and beloved, the elect ones, believers in Christ. It talks about having a holy calling, believers having a holy calling, that God called us with a holy calling to set us apart. holy brethren, talking about believers, God is holy, holy priesthood, holy nation, holy woman.

I wonder why they don't say holy men, just holy women. But there's a reference to holy women in the Old Testament, it's an Old Testament reference in the New Testament. And here's something they're saying about the holy city, talking about the earthly Jerusalem, and then it talks about the heavenly Jerusalem, and it also calls it a holy city. So those are just some of the references so you get a feel for what holy and saint is.

I want you to open your Bibles now to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Here's what we're going to do this morning. This is an overview in terms of the aspects of sanctification. As we go through Scripture, you'll find that sanctification is talked about in three different tenses, a past tense, a present tense, and a future tense.

Very much like when Roger went through salvation, talked about past tense of salvation, present tense of salvation, Future tense, same thing with sanctification, three tenses of the word used. When it's talking about the past tense, it's talking about our position, as someone said, our position in Christ. When it's talking about the present tense, it's talking about our practice, in terms of our walk, our moment by moment walk. future, it's talking about our perfection, that we are going to be perfected one day, that we're going to be just like Him.

So, in the past tense, or our position, it says that we are sanctified. Past tense, we're sanctified. In the present tense, in terms of our practice, it says we're being sanctified. It's a process. It's a process that goes on 24-7 in your life and my life that we're being sanctified. And then, in eternity, is the ultimate, where we will be perfected. There's no longer this being set apart, because we're going to be with Him. Okay, those are the three tenses. Any questions so far?

So, in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, We're going to be looking at the first aspect of salvation, the positional aspect of salvation. Look at verse 1. It says, Paul called... How many in their Bibles have called to be an apostle? If you have that in your Bible, take a pen and scratch it out. Scratch out to be. It should be Paul, called an apostle of Jesus Christ.

Through the will of God, and thus then is our brother unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus called, how many have to be saints? Scratch out the to be, called saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours. Now, notice in verse 2, unto the church of God at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus.

The word sanctified is the verb hagiadzo that we've looked at before, and it's in a perfect tense. Perfect tense simply means this. It says that it's a completed action in past time in their life, and it has abiding results up until the present time. So in past time, they were sanctified. At some point in the past, they were sanctified, and they were set apart unto God, and the results continue, abiding results, up until the present time. Now, what was that point of time when they were sanctified?

The silence is deafening. So let me ask another question. When you were born, were you sanctified? When you were physically born, were you sanctified? See, I'm giving you a hint now. Crystal? Okay. The point is, did sanctification occur when Jesus Christ died on the cross? Okay. And then follow that by personally, when we believed in him. And that's the point of time in the past, when we put our trust in Christ.

Because notice what 1 Corinthians 1.2 says, to them that are sanctified, and look at that little preposition, what does it say? In Christ. We are sanctified, we are set apart in Christ. So when we were placed in Christ, we were sanctified. And we were placed in Christ when we first trusted Him, when we believed on the person and the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. At that point in time, we were sanctified. We were set apart forever and ever. And it's eternal. It's eternal. It will never change. We'll never become unsainted. We'll never not be a saint. How's that? Never not be a saint. It's eternal.

Now I want you to take a look at verse 30, in the same chapter. In verse 30, it says this, that of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption." Notice what it says, that the Lord Jesus Christ is made unto us. Wisdom, righteousness included in that is sanctification and redemption.

And the word made there is the word, first of all, before I hit that, Look back at verse 30 when it says, But of him are you in Christ Jesus? And that is an essence verb in terms of your state of being, the state of being that you exist continually. You are in Christ Jesus. That's your state of being.

And it says that he was made unto us, sanctification. And the word there is another essence verb. It's an essence verb, not a state of being, but coming into a new state of being that we were made sanctification, we were in him, we were made righteousness. A state of being that never existed before in our life.

So we came into a new state of being that we were made sanctification. but it was all in Christ. So, the point is this. Every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is sanctified because we're in Christ. We're in that living union with the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's for all eternity.

Look over at 1 Corinthians chapter 6, since we're here, and verse 9. It says, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And look what it says in verse 11.

And such were some of you. Wow. And such were some of you and me. But, it says, you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Now, it's interesting. When it says that you were washed, I'll just get into the Greek a little bit, in the middle voice, means that you took part in the action. That you were intensely involved in the action of being washed. That when you believed in Christ, you divorced yourself from all of that that was in your life. And you cleansed yourself from all of that that was in your life.

But the next two verbs, which talks about that were sanctified in verse 11, but you were justified in the name of Jesus. Where am I? Let me get back here. When it says, but you are sanctified, but you are justified, those are not in the middle voice. Those are passive voice, which says that you were acted upon.

So you had nothing to do with your justification. You had nothing to do with your sanctification in terms of you didn't sanctify yourself and you didn't justify yourself. You could not declare yourself. Justification means declare righteous. You could not declare yourself righteous.

So what it's saying is this, you were sanctified, you were set apart, and in this text that we're looking at, you're set apart from all the unrighteousness that was listed there, all of those unrighteousness that listed, to righteousness. So being sanctified, being set apart from something to something else. So you were set apart from unrighteousness to righteousness.

And it's the aorist tense, which says it's a fact tense. It's a fact in your life. And not only that, it's in the indicative mood. And if you want to know what all this is about, next month we're going to start a Greek class. So if you want to understand all this, but you don't have to understand Greek to know this. Just to say, that the indicative mode says it's a reality. It's talking about something that is real.

So it's a reality in your life that you are sanctified. You have been set apart from unrighteousness to righteousness. This is your position. And if we were to take a look at Romans 6.18, you don't have to turn there. tried to do this morning, and I know I've got a lot to cover, but if you take a look at Romans 6.18, it says this, being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. And this is the word doulos, and last week Vern was talking about doulos, and it's very interesting about the word doulos, because often doulos is is a word for slave, and it's slavery that you've been born into.

So when you and I were born, we were born into slavery. We were born into slavery, into the sin nature. And then when we were reborn, at our rebirth, when we trusted Christ, we were born again. We had another birth, and we were born again. We were born that time into slavery again. but not into slavery of sin, we were born into slavery of righteousness.

And so you see how this all goes together in terms of being set apart. We're set apart from unrighteousness to righteousness. We were born into righteousness. Okay. I assume that you're going to ask questions. So the question is this, how were you sanctified?

In each case here, in every one of these verses that we looked at in terms of being sanctified, it's in the passive voice, which simply says that you were acted upon. It's not the active voice where you participated. If it was active voice, it says that you participated in the action. It's passive voice, which says that you received the action.

When I say John hit the ball, it's active voice, right? He participated in the action of hitting the ball. When we say John was hit by the ball, he had nothing to do with the action. He received the action of the verb, right? And so, same thing is here. We receive the action here in terms of being sanctified. Always in passive voice. Okay. All right. Good question.

The middle voice is when you want to say that the subject was really intensely involved with the action, then you use the middle voice. No. He was saying that in a bitter voice. In a bitter voice. He was intensely involved in terms of recognizing that he's justified, sanctified, and he or she made a decision to wash himself from all of that lifestyle that he or she had before. By being hit by the ball would do more middle voice? No, middle voice.

I mean, you're walking along a golf course and you get clunked in the head by a golf ball. You had nothing to do with that action, right? But you have something to do with the results of the action. Your head hurts. You received the action, but you did not participate. Middle voice says that You were an active participant in the action, and you did it for yourself. Something that you did for yourself. Middle voice.

Okay, come March 23rd. Okay. Help me to understand when you say, Which or that? Okay. The question is this. The washing. Was that a choice? Because there's the washing. What, the justification and sanctification? Right? Three verbs. First verb, middle voice, talks about the washing.

That the subject is actively involved in terms of the washing. In terms of eliminating, cleansing, him or herself from that old way of life. It's a decision that that person is making and intensely involved with it and says, I know the Lord now, and that's not of the Lord. I'm just washing it away from me in terms of my life. It's that kind of a decision. So let me give you an example.

I was a compulsive gambler. I spent a lot of my time in Las Vegas. Not only that, I used to smoke these Mississippi cigars, these real long cigars, Havana cigars. I drank my whiskey straight. And there came a point in time when I became a believer. And I still was doing all that because I didn't know who I was in Christ. I had no clue. But there came a point in time when I was sitting at a poker table and some gal said to me, and I was talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, I said, hey, do you know about the Lord Jesus Christ? Long slump in her face. And she looked at me with this disgusting look and said, Are you trying to tell me that you're a Christian?" I said, yeah, I became a Christian here just a short time ago.

But I never forgot the look on her face. And I used to drag Wendy with me to these poker games, and she used to read a book or something. And so we were driving home. We're not going to get through with this lesson. I was driving home and I said, Lindy, you go to bed. I stayed up until about 2 or 3 in the morning and said, Lord, you know, I was a stumbling block to that gal.

That's it. I'm washing myself of all of that. That's it. Went into my liquor cabinet, emptied out over 40 bottles of liquor. It was all over. No more gambling. And the Lord just, I just said, that's it, Lord. So, it's all done. So that's kind of, it's kind of like the washing.

Does that help? I was intensely involved with that. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Exactly. You are intentionally involved with that. Right. He did all that. You had nothing to do with that. Exactly. Could. Yeah. And that's I just want to look at it here for a second. Yeah, I think it's it. It's an it's a. Yeah, it's it.

Our wife were OK. We got to go on. But let me tell you the rest of the story. The rest of the story is, that next morning, I was awakened by somebody slapping me across the face. And it was Wendy. And I said, what are you doing? And she says, you're alive. I said, of course I'm alive. I said, why didn't you think I was alive? She says, I just came back from the trash. Alright, get the point here. You could not, did not sanctify yourself. You were sanctified through the body, the death of Christ.

Hebrews 10.10. Let's see. Let me just show you what it says.

In Hebrews 10.10, it says, By the witch will we are sanctified, fact tense, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Now, were you involved in any of this? And the way you were.

In Acts 26.18, it says that Paul is before King Agrippa. And he's pleading his case before King Agrippa. And he's telling King Agrippa what the Lord spoke to him on the road to Damascus. And he says, to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified, how?

By faith. Your only response in the sanctification aspect of it is believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, his person and his work. And God then sanctified you. But you were sanctified through faith in the sense that you had to respond to him by faith and then you were sanctified. So, we've talked about sanctification in terms of past, our position, that we are sanctified, that it's eternal, it's unchangeable. You are sanctified. You are a saint. You don't have to become a Mother Teresa to be a saint, right? You are a saint. And there's nothing that you have to do, and we are saints because we're in Christ. All right. Now, let's talk about positional sanctification. Or, excuse me, practical sanctification, in terms of our walk. Turn to 1 Peter. Never mind. Here's what I'm going to do.

1 Peter 1, verses 14-16 says this, As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, which you wash yourself of, but as he which has called you is holy, in terms of God who has called you is holy, and here's a command, so be ye holy. It's a command, you're to be holy. Well, hold it. I just thought I was holy. Right? I just thought that it was forever and ever and I'll never could be unholy. Now here's the command to be holy.

So this is very much like salvation. The three aspects of salvation, past, present, future. Past aspect of salvation, you were saved from the penalty of sin. present aspect of salvation, you are being saved from what? The power of sin. Okay. So in sanctification, you were sanctified, once for all, set apart forever unto God.

Now, but it's talking about our walk. Because we still have that sin nature. And that sin nature keeps tugging at us. And when we, by faith, think that sin is more attractive than Christ, we flip right over there to that sin nature. So here's a command now to be holy, just as there is a command in Scripture that says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

You work it out. I'll hold it. Wasn't I safe? Yes, you were safe. But it's talking about now the conditional aspect of salvation. So this is talking about the, if you will, the practical aspect of sanctification or conditional. I like to use the word practical more than conditional, but anyhow. So here's the command.

Be holy in all manner of conversation, in your total walk in life. Be set apart. Be set apart unto him. Verse 16 is written, Be holy, for I am holy. We are His. You are His. And we're in this living union with Him. And we're to live and practice what our position is. And since He's holy and He's set apart, that's the way we're to live. So in practical sanctification, there's a command. There's a command. actually to be sanctified.

There is an exhortation in Colossians 3.12 also. I want you to turn there.

Turn to Colossians 3.12.

And while you're turning there, I just want to share with you in Romans 12.1, which you're all familiar with.

Romans 12.1 and 12.2, where Paul says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. How? Holy, set apart. Set apart, except the will unto God, which is your reasonable service. in verse 2, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is good and acceptable and perfect rule of God. Okay, so here's an exhortation that we're to, in terms of our walk, we're to walk set apart, set apart from the world and self, and but set apart to God. From the world to God.

Somebody want to read Colossians 3.12? Okay, so. How are we to be holy? How do you be holy? Well, number one, in Romans 12, in terms of presenting ourselves, presenting our bodies to the Lord, and it's like, presenting our bodies, it's like this. Lord, here am I. I'm yours. Here am I. Use me as you would have me to be used. Because I don't have a clue as to what your will is, in terms of what your plan is, in terms of your good works.

And I know you have a plan, because in Ephesians 2.10 it says that we are his workmanship, we are his handiwork, created unto what? Unto good works, which were what? Preordained, predetermined.

So he's got the plan. And so presenting ourselves Lord, you've got the plan. Here am I. Plug me into your plan. I want to be used by you. I want to be used as a set-apart one to you. So, we're to put on Christ. The word put on means to be clothed. And what it means is physically this. to be clothed with Christ. So in the morning when you get up, this is what you do. You clothe yourself. And you put on clothes. And that's what that word means.

That we're to clothe ourselves with Christ. So that when people see us, they see Christ manifested through us. of the Lord Jesus Christ through us, because we're clothed with Christ. We've put Him on. So, what do they see? They don't see us, but they see Christ. And they see His compassion, and His kindness, and His humility, His meekness. And meekness is not weakness. Meekness is when you are resting and you are trusting in His grace and His power. is power. That's what meekness is, not weakness. It's power.

Long-suffering. Long-suffering just means self-restraint, and when there's provocation. So wherever provocation comes into your life, somebody provokes you, either by word or deed, that there's this long-suffering, this self-restraint, and not responding. and not reacting. But that's not you.

That's Christ. Only He can do that through you. There's the forbearance in terms of bearing with or enduring some situation that's in your life. So this is the manifestation of one who is being set apart to Christ. There's forgiveness and love. This is what the world is going to see. And isn't that neat that the world sees that? Because, you know, when they see that, you know what their question is? Their question is, how come? How come you're that way? I want to know. Because I try to be that way, and I can't do it. And you can say, you're absolutely right, you can't. Only Christ can do that through you. So I end with a question here.

How are you going to implement these exhortations to be holy? Isn't this a wonderful refrigerator list? Boy, Lord, today I'm going to be more compassionate, more kind, and I'm going to be more loving to my husband, to my wife, and I'm going to try to be more patient. Wonderful refrigerator list, and there's no way that you can accomplish it, because once you try to do it, like Paul did, Paul ended up in failure, failure, failure, failure, and he finally, in the end, says, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?" Right?

He doesn't say, what shall deliver me from this body of death? Because if he had said, what shall deliver me from this body of death? Paul would say, I've got to redouble my efforts. I've got to really try harder to be more compassionate, more kind, more loving, and more forgiving, etc. But he said, who? Who shall deliver me? And then he goes on to say, I thank God through the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's the answer. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. That's his life. Not yours. His.

How are you going to implement these? They say, you cannot do it. Only Christ can do it through you. Your only responsibility, my only responsibility, is to walk that faith. Colossians 2, 6 and 7 says, as you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, what? So walk ye in Him. You receive Christ by faith, so you walk the same way. That's all the Lord ever asks us to do in the Christian life, is just to walk the same way we receive Christ, by faith. And then it's God who sanctifies us through His work. And the Lord Jesus Christ said, Father, sanctify them through thy word, because thy word is truth.

Okay. You've got lots of notes there, ten pages of notes to look through. But let me just close and summarize. Someone asked the question, and here's the question. Let's take salvation from the power of sin in the present tense. The present tense of salvation and the present tense of sanctification, how do they link? What is the relationship between the two? So let me throw that out as a question. What do you think is the relationship of the two? Where does salvation from the power of sin fit in with sanctification? Or are they totally separate? Is salvation the umbrella over sanctification? Or is sanctification the umbrella over salvation from the power of sin?

Let me ask back, which is the umbrella? Which do you think is the umbrella? You can guess, that's okay. Yeah, which is the umbrella is Is sanctification the umbrella and salvation from the power of sin is under that umbrella? Or is the umbrella salvation from the power of sin and sanctification is under that umbrella as part of it? Salvation is the umbrella? How many say salvation is the umbrella? How many say sanctification is the umbrella? And the rest of you are chickens. Okay, think about this now.

Sanctification being set apart, okay? And being set apart as we sought to the life of Christ. Not our life, but His life being lived through us. Being set apart starts out with abiding in Him, walking by faith, abiding in Him, walking in the Spirit, because if we walk in the Spirit, we're not going to be fulfilling the lust of the flesh. But, as we walk, what comes at us? The lust of the flesh, 24-7, right? Now, where does salvation from the power of sin come in? As those lusts come at us, what do we do? We reckon ourselves what?

Dead. We're separated. We have been cut loose from that. We don't need to be a slave to the sin nature anymore. We're a slave to righteousness and not to the sin nature. And so the salvation from the power of sin comes here as we're walking in the Spirit. coming at us are the lusts of the Spirit, or the desires of the Spirit, and at the same time coming at us are the lusts or the desires of the flesh. And that's where we do the reckoning that we're dead. We're dead from the power of sin.

So I think the umbrella is sanctification. And that being delivered from the power of sin is part of the sanctification process. Because then we start beholding Christ through the Word. As we behold Him, we grow. And as we grow, we present our bodies. And the end result is that we glorify God. That's all involved with sanctification. And can you see that power being delivered from the power of sin is just part of this? Okay, better close.

Our Father, we are just so thankful for your word. We are thankful, Father, that as we read your Word, we start to understand and comprehend as to who we are in Christ and what you've done in each and every one of our lives. And, Father, to understand that you have set us apart set us apart from the self-life, set us apart from our sin nature, and set us apart to You and to Your righteousness. Father, we stand in awe. And we thank You, Father, for it. And we pray that as we walk in faith, that You would use us as vessels, vessels of honor unto Your glory. And we give You thanks in Christ's name. Amen.