Great Doctrines of Salvation
Mike Doyle · May 9, 2010
Great Doctrines of Salvation, No. 19
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492622337494

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

Okay, today's subject matter is sanctification. What does sanctification mean? What do you think it means? Before you give me the textbook definition. What do you think it means? The first question I asked was to ask you to give me synonyms of words in the Bible that mean roughly the same thing. So give me one. Give me one. Oh, that was a tough one. All right, another one. Give me another one. Saint. Give me another one. Holy. Holiness. Give me another one. Dedicate. Dedicate. Consecrate. Consecration.

All of those mean roughly the same thing. Now, I've done a little expansion on what Mark Banks has talked about, and I got this out of Lewis Barry Chafer. The basic understanding of all of these words is to be set apart for God. And we have grown up in what I would call the Methodist viewpoint of sanctification. You want to tell me what that is? What's the Methodist viewpoint of sanctification?

I'm doing better today than I did yesterday. I'm just doing a lot better, you know, and I'm working at it and I'm doing better. That's right. I got saved by grace and I'm getting busy and I'm getting sanctified and I'm working really hard at it. Now we sort of chuckle at that, but that's the mentality, the prevailing mentality that I need to do better today than I did yesterday.

And it's not only within Christian circles, that's the world's view. And the guy that brought us that wonderful view is our saintly friend, John Wesley. So, the thing about sanctification that makes it tough is that it covers both condition and position. You see that? Sanctification is a position, but it's also a living experience. It's both. And so it makes it difficult, I think, to get a handle on it. And it makes it easy for it to be perverted, to make it be something that it isn't.

Now, Chafer came up with several interesting points for a right understanding, the essentials of a right understanding of sanctification. Here's what he said, and these are not in Marchbank's book. Whatever you think sanctification is, here's the test, the litmus test. It must be rightly related to other Bible doctrines.

It can't be something out there all by itself. It cannot be interpreted by experience only. And again, in our society today, and especially in the Christian circles, Anecdotal evidence is the most powerful evidence there is, isn't it? Don't you hear that everywhere?

Well, my experience was X, so it must be true. That my experience supersedes whatever the Word of God says. The biggest cancer in Christianity today is what I call, I've made up my mind, don't confuse me with the facts cancer. And we're all guilty of that to some degree. An analysis of your personal experience, whatever it may be, is not a substitute for all the teaching of the Word of God.

There's nothing wrong with experiences, but if you have a quote-unquote spiritual experience or a growth experience or a sanctifying experience you need to go into the Word of God and line it up and see if it's relevant because that's the easiest way to be fooled. On Wednesday night we're studying Romans and we just went into Romans 8 and we spent most of the time talking about the Holy Spirit and one of the comments that I found which is really apropos That if a Christian is focused in on the Holy Spirit, he doesn't have anything that's spiritually true. Because what's the job of the Holy Spirit to do? What's his job? He's to reveal Christ. He never focuses on himself. And so if you're involved in an issue or an experience that focuses on the Holy Spirit, by that alone you can guarantee to be wrong. You see that?

Speaking in tongues, one of my buddies that I go to lunch with about every three months, who came out of the same background as me, met the Lord but somehow got really involved in Messianic Judaism and healing ministry. And you sit at lunch with this guy and he talks about all of these experiences he's had with traveling around and people getting healed. You don't want to say to your friend you're an idiot, or you're a liar.

But I have challenged him to show me in the Word of God where it's legitimate what he's talking about. And that's focusing on the Holy Spirit. Focusing on the power of the Spirit. Because the Spirit of God has been specifically cataloged by Christ. in John 14, 15, and 16 to do something specific, and that's to reveal Christ.

He restrains evil, and he corrects the believer and restores him to fellowship, but he never, never focuses on himself. Even if sanctification were limited to human experience, there could never be an experience that could provide the perfect example of what sanctification is. And don't misunderstand me, I'm not discounting experience.

Because we all have them. And the Spirit of God gives us experiences. But we must interpret them by the Word of God. You just have to go there. Because otherwise you can be fooled. Because it looks spiritual, maybe. And the third criteria is that it's got to, depends on a right understanding, a consideration of all the scriptures, all of them that are relevant to whatever the sanctification is. So, you can, if you, maybe put it this way.

I can say, when Vern first got here he sent me an email and he said, St. Mike, Now, if I sent you an email and said, St. Calvin, St. C, St. Bruce, wouldn't you look at that and think, oh, I'm not a saint. Are you a saint? I used to think that. You used to think you were a saint? And now you're not. Yet I wasn't. But your church equips the saints. But are you a saint or are you being equipped? So that we will be. What about right now?

Think about the definition. What did you just say? Is that John Wesley talking? Certainly I'm smarter than I was 20 years ago, as far as with the Bible. Yeah, you are. Okay, so what does that mean? From a positional standpoint, Are you sanctified? Yes. Yeah, you are. From a conditional standpoint, are you sanctified? You're getting there. From a positional? From a conditional. Oh, conditional. Yeah. Well, position you can't change, but condition you're getting smarter. Okay, let's look at that. No, that's okay. When you have a position, Remember when we talked about position and condition? If you have a position in Christ, is it total and complete? Can't add anything to it? Can't take anything away from it? That's your position. Now let's move over to your condition. It may or may not line up with your position. Which one of those two is reality? Your condition or your position? Your position is reality. Condition may be, or it may not be. If it lines up with your position, it's okay.

That's why you have to check it with the Word of God. If you base your sanctifying condition on your own opinion about how you're doing, you missed it. You see that? But you're the teacher, so you could tell me, hey, no, you're wrong. Okay, I could. So being you in charge, It's all on you. You know what I mean. You're the one that teaches us. Well, and I'm taught too. I know, but you've had it forever. Now listen, yesterday was my birthday, but I'm not that old. Oh yeah.

So let's go through some of these words and talk about exactly what they mean in the Word of God. The first one is the word sanctify. It's interesting. It's used 106 times in the Old Testament and 31 times in the New Testament and it just means to set apart. That's all it means. Or the state of being set apart. Do you need 11? The state of being set apart. So would you mind going back to that saint thing? Say that again? Would you mind going back to that saint thing? Sure. So we're saints? Yes. Okay, just checking.

See if you grow up, now think of it, what's the definition of the word saint? It just means set apart, it doesn't mean that I'm a holy roller. or I'm all clean and, you know, got my spiritual act together. It just means that I'm set apart. Did God set me apart on the day that I was saved?

Yes, he did. For his purpose. So we don't need anything from the Pope or anything? Anything, yeah. They call it canonization. We have credentials, though. You have credentials. I think some of that's a result of the American thinking, which is, somebody does something really good, they must be a saint.

Weren't you set apart back before the beginning of time? Were you? Do you hear the question? Bruce said, weren't you set apart way back before the beginning of time? Yes and no. Explain yourself. The answer was yes and no. Don't you love that? You were identified, but you were not made his. I was identified? You were predestined. No. Explain yourself. He's a government worker. Bush in the middle.

No. Until you're in Christ, once you're identified with Christ, then your history goes back. And then, yes, from an eternity past, because you have Christ's history. So because you're placed in Him. So not until that point, but once you are, then you're eternal. And yes, you were saying from Understand what he just said.

It's a difficult concept. Once you accept Christ, his life is your life. in him, be in him, that now goes to eternity past, because we are identified with him now. You know, I don't understand eternity past. Yeah, well, finite brains, I don't fully understand that either, but you know, how far does that go back?

But before knew you. He knew your choice. He knew you were going to be a Christian before you were born because he knew everything. He knew even more than that. He knew you personally, Monique, before the foundations of eternity. How do I know that? Because the Word tells me. But in order to explain that, before someone is a believer, where does his history go back to? Where did your history go back to before you were a believer? How far back?

Adam. Right? Because there wasn't any human beings before Adam. Right? So you can trace your genealogy all the way to Adam. You can trace your sin nature all the way to Adam. What Adam was is what you are. Okay? Now, via the identification truths, which is when you believed in the person and work of Christ, you were co-crucified with him, which means you died. You got separated from something. You were buried and you were resurrected. What you died from, one of the things you died from, was your total identity with Adam. You were buried and then when you were resurrected, you were resurrected in Christ. Now Christ is your history. Adam isn't your history anymore. How far back does Christ go? So God can say, I've known you in Christ since the foundations of eternity. If you were in Adam, he couldn't say that.

Now I don't propose to understand what eternity is. Some people look at it that it spans forever. Others look at it like it all comes right here and right now. A finite mind can't explain eternity. I just know that the word of God tells me that I'm in Christ. So are you saying eternity past P-A-S-T or eternity past P-A-S-S-E-D? I think eternity passed.

Which is kind of an oxymoron. Is there such a thing? Mike said it right. Your human history only goes back to Adam. That's a finite time. Time-space. That's a finite amount of time. But Christ, before Adam was created, his past goes... He had no beginning. He had no beginning. You go back to that whenever Christ, because you're now identified with Him.

And that's how, like I said, yes and no. But aren't those criteria to every term, every... Pretty much. And the same criteria holds for every one of these words. Right. Or any of these. Anything that's going on. Yeah, yeah. I think there needs to be a litmus test about... Let's say you hear me stand up here and say something doctrinally. And if you... you should go check and see if I'm right. You definitely should do that, because you need to know the truth for yourself. Not because I said it, or Vern said it, or Courtney said it. You need to see it in the Word of God, and you need to be persuaded by the Spirit of God that what you're hearing is true. That having been said, pay attention.

Sanctify, which means to set apart, it indicates a matter of classification in matters of position and relationship, my position and my relationship to things. The basis of classification is usually that a person or thing has been set apart or separated from others in his position and relationship before God, from that which proves unholy.

So when you see the word sanctified, that's usually what it means. And I have been separated from something that isn't holy to something that is, who is who is God himself. Now, the next word is holy. Holy is used 400 times in the Old Testament and only 12 times in the New Testament.

It refers to the state of being set apart rather than just the set-apartness. It means to be separate from that which is unholy But look at this, Christ was holy, he was harmless, undefiled, and he was separate from sinners. Now, here's what it doesn't mean, and this goes for most of the other words too.

It does not mean past improvement. If you're going to say that God is holy, has he been getting better as time went on? God is essentially holy, that's what he is. He's essentially set apart. It's a state indicated by this word and it's not a process. You have to get this idea in your mind that holiness and sanctification is not a process and we'll talk more of that as we go. It doesn't necessarily imply sinless perfection. Because in the Old Testament, God talks about a holy nation. He talks about a holy priest, a holy mountain, holy apostles. None of these were sinless before God. When he says that piece of real estate is holy, does that mean the whole creation fell?

Do you see that? So you can be holy, but not sinless. And the other thing that it doesn't indicate is the finality. What I mean by that is that you've achieved the highest degree you possibly can of separateness. Is that your final answer? To be separate from God? Well, listen to this.

Leviticus 21.8, I think this is the right verse.

You shall sanctify him, therefore, for he offers the food of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I the Lord who sanctifies you am holy. Doesn't that sound like, what? But listen to what he says. You shall sanctify him. In other words, you'll set him apart from the rest of you. And therefore, for he offers the food of your God.

He shall be holy or be set apart to you. And here's the Lord says, and the reason is, is for I, the Lord, who sets you apart, am holy. I'm set apart. I set you apart. And you're going to take this person, this priest, and you're going to set him apart. Apart from what? Anything that's undefiled or anything that's defiled. So it can mean there's a difference between the word holy and sanctified. Do you see the difference? No, you don't. How do I say this?

The Lord says that he's holy. That's an essential of his character. And then he says, this person shall be holy to you. In other words, it's a standing or a state that he has. But then he says, you go ahead and sanctify him or set him apart, because I've set you apart. So one is a process or a process is a good word. The other is a stance, a position. Is that OK? So holy is position. Sanctification is condition. But not all the time.

Because if you look at Leviticus, somebody look up Leviticus 21. This is the New American Standard Bible, maybe the translation is better. Because it sounds confusing when he says, God says to the Jews, you shall sanctify him. In other words, you are going to set him apart. for he offers the food to your God. He shall be holy to you. And then he says, for I, the Lord, who sets you apart, am holy.

Leviticus 21.8 How could we be holy when Christ said not one is holy? There's none good but the Father. So until we're separated from that nature, It's interesting because in the Jewish economy of things, in the Old Testament, they weren't separated from their sin natures and yet God declared them a holy nation, a holy temple, a holy mountain, separated unto him. That was their position, that's right. Leviticus what?

Leviticus 21.8.

For I am the Lord who sanctifies you. I am holy. So when the Lord says, I am holy, that's a statement of what he is. Not a position he enjoys. It's a statement of who he is. But he's saying, I am different. I am set apart. Yeah. So God could say, I'm holy and I'm setting you apart to them and I've set all of them apart too. They're holy and I'm setting you apart to them because you have a function for them to me. Because I'm no longer in me, I'm in him. Yeah. As a believer, yeah. Okay.

Holy meant perfect. Say that again? Yeah, see that's the Methodist mindset, that holy means perfection, but based on the things that it isn't, there's no finality to holiness, because if he'd have said, well the mountain's holy, is it perfect? What's a perfect mountain? Perfection means, what's the word perfection mean? The Lord says, be perfect as I am perfect.

Okay. What does that mean? It means that there was a design for you. There was a design for this chair. If it meets all the requirements of the design, it's perfect. Have I met all the requirements of a human being designed by God? No. Not in and of myself I haven't. But the command is, be perfect. Is Christ the perfect man? Did he meet all the requirements of the design? Yes he did. So not only is he holy, he's perfect.

So what am I after? Perfection? In the design? But you'll never reach it. No, but by position, by being placed into Christ, God can say, well you are holy. But he wasn't always perfect. Who? Christ. When wasn't he? When he took on all the sins of the world. Oh, what do you think? When he took on the sins of the world, did he become less than perfect? No. He just carried the penalty. Carried the penalty and he also took to nature. That was the perfect thing to do. That's really insightful. That is really good. But that's why God couldn't look at him. Because he became sin. And what's the definition of sin? Falling short of the mark. So you could say when Christ was made sin for us, he wasn't perfect. In other words, he didn't measure up to the design. In his humanity. Good point.

Now, let's talk about the word saint. We're only talking about people on this side of the room. God used the word saint to refer to Israel 50 times and he uses it 62 times as applied to believers. And here's the interesting thing about the word saint. And this sort of makes the Catholics a little nervous. It's only applied to living persons and relates only to their positioning in the reckoning of God. So if I call up Bruce and say, Hi Saint Bruce, what am I saying?

One, that he's alive. And two, I'm just reckoning what God has reckoned him to be. God is the one that has reckoned him to be a saint. Not me. I'm just saying that what God says you already are. You know? And you believe. What's that? If you have the faith. If you're in Christ, you're a saint. Let's say you're in Christ and you're having a crappy day and your faith isn't working so good. Are you still a saint? Why? Because of your position. Now, the word saint is never used as associated with the quality of your daily life.

Thank the Lord for that. They are saints by reason of peculiar... of peculiar... I can't say the word... peculiarly classified and set apart in the plan and purpose of God. Being sanctified, thus they are saints. I can call Bruce a saint because he's been sanctified. Okay? Now here's an interesting thing.

There are epistles, and you know where these are, that we were called to be saints. Is that a proper statement? Were you called to be a saint? Did God call you to be a saint? No, He didn't. No, I mean. No? No. And the scripture says, talks about believers, who already are believers, The phrase is called to be saints. You should take out should be. You are saints. You're not called to be one. You are one. It's a really important difference. Do you see that? You are a saint. You're not called to be one. You already are a saint. Are you living up to this criteria here, Monique? Pretty tough, isn't it? It's tough to find out all of this grace that we have. Here's another interesting term.

In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit uses the term believer 184 times. He uses the term saint 62 times, and Christian only three times. So, it's interesting, the next time you have to fill out a resume for a job, you can say, well, let's see, I'm a saint, I'm a believer, I'm a Christian, I'm sanctified and I'm holy. And you're hired. Do I get the job? Probably not. So, actually, what I might recommend to you is, those of you, how many of you have Chafer System Axiology?

He has an index volume, and he has about eight pages on sanctification, which I just found fascinating. God is eternally sanctified. God sanctifies persons. The Spirit sanctifies. God sanctified Israel, and sanctification is God's will. The believer's sanctification comes from God. Watch by how many times, by union with Christ, by the word of God, by the blood of Christ, by the body of Christ, by the Spirit, by choice. All of those mean that God has sanctified you. But God also sanctifies days, places, and things. How about them apples? He sanctified all of the articles in the temple. All of it? Set it apart. Okay. A man can sanctify himself.

Did you know you could do that? Did you know that you could set yourself apart for God? How do you do that? Give me a verse that would give you a sanction to do that. By believing. that you did it by believing. Can you make a decision that I'm going to set my life apart for God? Can you do that? Sure you can. You can sanctify yourself to God. Now, we'll talk later about whether you can hold up to it.

Man can sanctify persons and things. We can set things apart. And here's an example. The unbelieving husband is sanctified by his believing wife. He's set apart. It doesn't mean that he's saved, but he's set apart for God's use. Isn't that kind of cool? I mean, it's neat that it says that in the Word, that a couple that gets married and they're not believers, and one of them becomes a believer, the other one gets set apart. Whether they like it or not. I always thought that was kind of funny. One thing can sanctify another. For whether it is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold. I don't get that.

If you don't believe, how can, if Bruce didn't believe I could sanctify him? Let's say that he wasn't a believer. And you weren't either. And then you became a Christian. Now what's the definition? I'm a Christian. No, what's the definition of sanctify? To set apart.

So you become a believer. You're united to Him and from God's viewpoint you're married to Him. He becomes set apart. Because your marriage now is something of God and if He's going to be in it, He's set apart. Now He may never become a believer, never. But He's been set apart because you are. Okay, suppose I wasn't married to him and he's a brother. Well, okay, forget the brother, he's the uncle. Or, you know, not a family member. It only applies in marriage that I can find. You know, if I'm a family of five children and I become a Christian, the other four aren't set apart. But if my mom and dad become believers, or one of them does, then all of us are. Because the whole family is. Oh, really? Well, you're in their household.

But understand, and we'll see this in a minute, does sanctification mean you're saved? No. I think Mark, didn't he put it as in that circumstance that God just has a more particular interest in the unsaved spouse or children because the one is sanctified. Because the one is his. Yeah. I think that works so at one point your children become saved. Because they would have an effect on all their families.

They may. In one way or another. They may. They may. I mean there's plenty of stories where a child gets saved and because of their testimony and their life the parents get saved and the whole family gets saved. Look at the Philippian jailer. And you see in the early church where the Bible clearly says that so and so got saved and his whole family. you know when he came home that night nobody in the family suspected what was going to happen but they all got saved look at Cornelius's house he got saved his wife got saved his kids got saved and all the servants and everybody in the place got saved because overnight they believed because the Spirit of God drew them to Christ but didn't they have to hear the word they had to hear the word and they had to believe or they heard it from Peter or Paul Yeah, I mean, how did the Philippian jailer hear the word?

He came running in there after all the shackles were gone, and he said, what must I do to be saved? Because Paul yelled to him, he was going to kill himself, and Paul said, wait a minute, we're still here? And he was going to kill himself because the deal was that if I'm the jailer, and I'm supposed to watch him, if he escapes, I have to serve his sentence. So if I got a jail full of people and they're all walking out the door, I'm going to get out the sword. I'm done. And Paul says, wait a minute. We're all here. Nobody left.

And he came in and said, what must I do to be saved? And the word says that Paul said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. And so will your family. How cool is that? And then he and he went over to the family's house and they, you know, bandaged him up and cleaned him up. And while he's there, what do you think Paul's doing? He's giving them the gospel. The whole place got saved. Like the other man on the cross. Overnight he was saved. He had sanctification. Set apart. Okay. Oh no. Really? Okay. Well, we got to do what?

We got to at least get through three questions. According to the author, And we've kind of gone through this. What are the three things that are not sanctification? Sinless perfection. And I think you need to really think about this because we have a tendency in our society to think that sanctification does mean sinless perfection. We've got to get good. We've got to get good. We've got to get better.

I came from an alcoholic family and what's interesting about people that didn't get sober in my family, they were always improving. When you talk to them, they were always improving and I was the first one in my family to become a believer and I understood because I made it a real point during my being led to the Lord.

Do you mean to tell me that if I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and His work, that I will be saved for all eternity? There's nothing else for me to do?" And these guys kept saying, yep, that's what we mean. So you can imagine me getting saved and going to my Catholic family and saying, guess what guys? You can stop the self-improvement process right now. You can be saved for all eternity by one act of faith. You know what they said to me? Yeah, fat chance. What are you smoking? I mean, they didn't buy it at all. Why? Because religion is a system of self-improvement.

So that you get to a point where God says, okay, you're finally good enough. We'll let you inside the door. But to make it into the living room, you've got to keep hustling. And boy, if you want to sleep at night, you really have to work hard. Self-improvement. Because what do you discover? of what God did with the self. What did he do? He crucified it. So what are you improving on? So sanctification has nothing to do with self-improvement.

John 17 at 19, sanctify them by your truth, your word is truth. One Peter 2.22, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. 2.22, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. 2.22, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth.

2.22, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. 2.22, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. 2.22, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. 2.22, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. 2.22, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. 2.22, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. 2.22, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. 2.22, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. 2.22, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. 2.22, who committed no sin I have a set of principles that I live by and I'm going to stick with them.

And by doing that I'm going to be better. That's not sanctification. And the third thing that Marchbank says is that it's not necessarily salvation. And he uses 1 Corinthians 7.14 and we've already talked about this. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife. and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband.

Otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. Isn't that interesting? The word sanctify and holy is used there. So what does it mean? I'm the believing husband, my wife's non-believing, and my kids aren't anything yet. So I believe my wife gets sanctified. What about the kids? They're all set apart. but they are now holy.

In other words, they're in a state, a position of being set apart. And not finally, it's just a position they're in. Okay? I mean, if I were a betting man, what are the chances of somebody being saved in that environment as opposed to not? Probably better, because of the influence. Okay? And question four, maybe I'll get through four. Explain in each case why those meanings are not correct.

In John 17, 19, is sinless perfection then there would be conclusion that there was a time when Jesus was sinful. We are never told to make the Lord Jesus sinlessly perfect. John 17, 19. Somebody read that verse. Too late. We'll pick up on that next week. If there's one point that I can get through your head, it's that sanctification does not mean improvement, especially self-improvement. Christianity is not the self-improvement society. It's not that. Let's close.

Dear Father, how we thank you for our position and your son. Wow, the fact that to discover that we are already holy, we are already sanctified, we've all been set apart specifically to you and for your purpose. We thank you for that. We pray in your son's name. Amen.