In part 1 we explored the subject of sanctification in its various aspects including the failures of legalism and license.\u00a0 We also asked the questions, Why do we have to continually fight against sin?\u00a0 How is the power of sin removed from us?\u00a0 Do we ever get to a place where we have victory over sin?\u00a0 How is this a matter of pleasing God?\u00a0 Are we to just buckle down and work as hard as we can whether we like it or not, or are we to just let go and let God do it all?\u00a0 Neither of these options will answer the questions we have.\u00a0 Sanctification is hard work but it is joyful work.\u00a0 God will surely help us, complete His work in us, and will also be a partner with us in our walk.<\/p>\n
In part 2 I want to \u201creset\u201d our perspective on sanctification.\u00a0 Solomon said there is nothing new under the sun and that is true in this field as in any other.\u00a0 I don\u2019t claim to have come up with some new formula whereby we all can walk with absolute victory in our Christian life.\u00a0 I have spent the last year reading authors (many of them again) from almost every point of view on sanctification.\u00a0 I must admit that I have enjoyed almost all of them and have been encouraged from both sides of the theological (albeit evangelical) spectrum.\u00a0 But I also realize when the slope begins to get a little slippery and I understand how the Christian who is struggling with sin can become discouraged at trying to find a biblical and sensible solution to his problem.<\/p>\n
My aim therefore will be to try to find that biblical (and practical) center for which I think all Christian authors are striving.\u00a0 For myself, I have always enjoyed the Christian walk.\u00a0 I was saved at eleven years old and started living seriously for the Lord in my High School years.\u00a0 I went off to Bible College at eighteen and seminary after that.\u00a0 I was a youth pastor, an associate pastor, a Bible College teacher, and then have been a pastor since 1985.\u00a0 I have loved every church I have been in, large or small, and in all of this my life has remained pretty conservative and separated by almost anyone\u2019s measure and, frankly, I love it.\u00a0 I love my personal time early in the mornings and evenings.\u00a0 I love my small local church where great people sing out hymns with untrained but joyful voices and talk forever after the services.\u00a0 Even as a pastor I still teach a class of singles and love it.\u00a0 But I also love the older saints and learn from them how to approach daunting struggles in life.\u00a0 I just love Christianity.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think of it as a drudgery because there are commands to keep.\u00a0 Neither am I afraid that the liberty I have in Christ will drop me off a deep end somewhere.\u00a0 I want to live a God-honoring older life and I\u2019m also looking forward to seeing heaven.<\/p>\n
Romans 6 – walking in Spirit<\/span><\/p>\n All of us who believe in salvation by grace alone, and therefore in eternal security also, sympathize with all of those who try to explain justification and sanctification in Romans 5 and 6.\u00a0 Most authors reiterate our standing in Christ as Paul describes it here.\u00a0 In salvation we died with Christ in His death and have been raised with Him in His resurrection.\u00a0 Our old man, the life that we had before, is now gone.\u00a0 We are no longer under the ownership or dominion of that life or the master of that realm, the devil himself.\u00a0 Paul says, \u201cKnowing this, that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin\u201d (Rom. 6:6).\u00a0 John Murray described it this way,<\/p>\n “If we view sin as a realm or sphere, then the believer no longer lives in that realm or sphere.\u00a0 And just as it is true with reference to life in the sphere of this world that the person who has died \u2018passed away, and lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found\u2019 (Psa. 37:36), so it is with the sphere of sin; the believer is no longer there because he has died to sin . . . The believer died to sin once and he has been translated to another realm.”1<\/sup><\/p>\n The idea of being transferred by salvation to a new realm of existence is a common and good analogy.\u00a0 Some may simply call it \u201cpositional truth,\u201d or the doctrine of our \u201cunion with Christ.\u201d\u00a0 DeYoung uses the analogy of an athlete leaving one team and being drafted by another team because of no real talent of his own, and now he wears a new jersey.2<\/sup>\u00a0 Jerry Bridges says, \u201cBut now through our union with Christ in His death to sin, we have been delivered out of the realm of sin and placed in the kingdom and realm of righteousness.\u201d3<\/sup>\u00a0 So we should \u201cknow\u201d that our justification is the basis for everything else, especially for our sanctification.<\/p>\n Romans 6 – walking in the body<\/span><\/p>\n But we still sin!\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Paul makes it very plain:\u00a0 though we are saved and secure, we have a \u201cmortal body\u201d (vs. 12), a \u201cbody of sin\u201d (vs. 6).\u00a0 This part of us will remain unredeemed until resurrection.\u00a0 The good news is that, \u201cour old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed (lit. \u2018rendered inoperative\u2019), that henceforth we should not serve sin\u201d (vs. 6).\u00a0 This means that \u201cdeath has no more dominion over [us]\u201d (vs. 9).\u00a0 We have a new Master and we don\u2019t have to listen to the old one.\u00a0 Our old master still wants to \u201creign\u201d (vs.12) over us but he has no authority.<\/p>\n In the slave world of the Roman Empire one might see this often.\u00a0 A slave is sold to a new master but the old master walks by and says, \u201cshine my boots.\u201d\u00a0 The slave, who doesn’t belong to him anymore, begins to kneel down and shine his boots.\u00a0 But the new master says, \u201cstop, you don\u2019t belong to him any longer and you don\u2019t have to obey his commands.\u201d\u00a0 In a similar way Paul says to the new believer, \u201cNeither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness\u201d (vs. 13).\u00a0 Our \u201cmembers\u201d are the parts of our body that are still susceptible to sin.\u00a0 When Paul also says, \u201cLikewise reckon <\/i>yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin,\u201d (vs. 11) I think the best way to translate \u201creckon\u201d into our vernacular is to say, \u201cHey, wait a minute, I don\u2019t have to do that anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n Handley Moule portrayed it best in his old way, \u201cCancelled does not mean annihilated.\u00a0 The body still exists, and sin exists, and desires exist.\u00a0 It is for you, O man in Christ, to say to the enemy, defeated yet present, \u2018thou shalt not reign; I veto thee in the name of my King.\u2019\u201d4<\/sup>\u00a0 So Romans 6 has taught us that though we are secure in Christ, we still live in real flesh and we are susceptible to its demands.\u00a0 Yet our union with Christ has set us free from its ownership and dominion.\u00a0 It is in this sense that \u201cHe that is dead is freed from sin\u201d (vs. 7).<\/p>\n Those Biblical commands<\/span><\/p>\n There is a tendency today to divide the \u201cindicatives\u201d in Scripture from the \u201cimperatives.\u201d\u00a0 What is meant is that our justification, our position in Christ, is usually described in Scripture with the present tense indicative\u2014it is something that is a fact and is true every minute of every day.\u00a0 Commands, however, are usually in the imperative mode\u2014they are something that we are commanded to do.\u00a0 It has become fashionable to encourage sinning believers to stop trying so hard to keep commandments.\u00a0 After all, doesn\u2019t that take human effort to try to please God, and isn\u2019t pleasing God with human effort legalism at best?\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t it be better to focus on what Christ has already done?\u00a0 Doing that will cause us to do right without all that ugly, judgmental, legalistic human effort.<\/p>\n Of course, today\u2019s culture loves such talk.\u00a0 But it is built on a half truth at best.\u00a0 Yes, there is no ability to keep imperatives without a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Yes, Christians can focus too much on who we are (a \u201clook at me\u201d mentality) and not enough on Who Christ is.\u00a0 But, no, you can\u2019t please God without obeying His commands.\u00a0 Jesus said, \u201cIf you love me, keep my commandments\u201d (John 14:15); \u201cHe that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me\u201d (John 14:21); \u201cThat as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more . . . For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus\u201d (1 Thes. 4:1-3).<\/p>\n In refuting this very error, DeYoung points out the irony of insisting on the indicatives to the exclusion of the imperatives itself becomes an imperative!\u00a0 \u201cStop doing the one and start doing the other!\u201d5<\/sup>\u00a0 Commandments in Scripture are not just the Mosaic law.\u00a0 Anything God has said is truth and anything He says for us to do is a commandment, even the gospel, faith, and loving one another.\u00a0 John says in his epistle, \u201cHe that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked\u201d (1 John 2:6).\u00a0 The life of Christ itself is a commandment to us.<\/p>\n My encouragement would be to stop thinking of commandments as something to dread and begin loving God\u2019s commandments.\u00a0 What is the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 119, all about?\u00a0 In one statement\u2014I love God\u2019s law!\u00a0 \u201cOh how I love thy law!\u00a0 It is my meditation all the day\u201d (119:97).\u00a0 When we consider that the believer today has the New Testament, what about its precepts is there not to love?\u00a0 Even the negative commands that are difficult and cost us dearly to keep are only the loving discipline from our Lord.<\/p>\n Exercise is no fun\u2014at first.\u00a0 Diet is certainly no fun\u2014at first.\u00a0 After a while however they become easier and even enjoyable.\u00a0 We are to exercise ourselves unto godliness because it brings the blessing of this life and the life to come (1 Tim. 4:7).\u00a0 It is the \u201cpeaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby\u201d (Heb. 12:11).<\/p>\n There\u2019s nothing wrong with work<\/span><\/p>\n I doubt that any Christin would deny that God created us to work.\u00a0 The garden of Eden is the prototype of God-ordained work.\u00a0 Idleness was never God\u2019s intention for human beings.\u00a0 We are made in His image and He is our example.\u00a0 Psalm 111 is a Psalm extolling the work of God, \u201cThe works of the LORD are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein . . . His work is honorable and glorious . . . He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered\u201d (Psa. 111:2-4).\u00a0 Winston Churchill was one human being who loved his work.\u00a0 He wrote, \u201cIt is no use doing what you like; you have got to like what you do.\u00a0 Broadly speaking, human beings may be divided into three classes; those who are toiled to death, those who are worried to death; and those who are bored to death.\u201d6<\/sup><\/p>\n I think too many Christians are bored to death with working and keeping God\u2019s commandments.\u00a0 Why should we be?\u00a0 If we are created to work, and the commandments of God are the greatest type of work, shouldn\u2019t we be the happiest people in the world when we are doing what He has commanded us to do?\u00a0 Philip Doddridge, in his great work, The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul<\/i>, wrote, \u201cI am persuaded much of the credit and comfort of Christianity is lost in consequence of its professors fixing their aims too low, and not conceiving of their high and holy calling in so elevated and sublime a view as the religion would require, and the word of God would direct.\u201d7<\/sup>\u00a0 To keep the commandments of God requires that we set our aims high and love the greatest work a person could be doing.<\/p>\n Work requires tools, and God has \u201cgiven us all things that pertain to life and godliness\u201d (2 Pet. 1:3).\u00a0 Have you noticed that people skilled in a certain occupation always have the best tools for the job?\u00a0 A sharp blade, a socket that fits, a device that is powerful, a machine that is precise, these all make work fast, well done, and enjoyable.\u00a0 We who are doing the work of God also have the best possible tools for the job.\u00a0 We have Jesus Christ as the great Example of divine work; we have the Holy Spirit Who works from within us; we have the Word of God with its sharp two-edged precision; we have the local church with encouragement and instruction; and we have a whole tool box of other sources of help as well.<\/p>\n There is another tool that the Psalmist often used and which many older writers encouraged.\u00a0 Richard Baxter called it Soliloquy, He wrote,<\/p>\n “By soliloquy, or a pleading the case with thyself, thou must in thy meditation quicken thy own heart.\u00a0 Enter into a serious debate with it.\u00a0 Plead with it in the most moving and effecting language, and urge it with the most powerful and weighty arguments.\u00a0 It is what holy men of God have practiced in all ages.\u00a0 Thus David, \u2018Why art thou cast down, O my soul; and why art thou disquieted within me? . . . It is a preaching to one\u2019s self; for as every good master or father of a family is a good preacher to his own family, so every good Christian is a good preacher to his own soul.”8<\/sup><\/p>\n As children we used to sing, \u201cBe careful little eyes what you see, be careful little mouth what you say, (etc., etc.), for the Father up above is looking down in love.\u201d\u00a0 We were learning a soliloquy.\u00a0 We were encouraging ourselves in the commands of God.\u00a0 This is what Paul was doing in Romans 7, \u201cOh wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?\u00a0 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.\u00a0 So then with the mind I serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.\u201d\u00a0 Then Paul concluded, \u201cThere is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus\u201d (Rom. 7:24-25; 8:1).<\/p>\n With good work to do and with good tools to use, there is no reason why we shouldn\u2019t enjoy keeping God\u2019s commandments.\u00a0 We know that we should not be self-centered in our work but there is no reason for us to be either.\u00a0 Knowing that all our effort is made possible because of our Lord Jesus Christ, let\u2019s be vessels unto honor and sanctified, ready for the Master\u2019s use.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s realize who we are and enjoy it<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain\u201d (2 Cor. 6:1).\u00a0 Doing the work of God, i.e., keeping His commandments, means that we are employees of the greatest business in the world.\u00a0 Whether that would be preaching the gospel or abstaining from all appearance of evil, loving the brethren or visiting the widows in affliction, we are workers together with God!\u00a0 Why do some look at keeping God\u2019s commandments as drudgery?\u00a0 We are the most privileged people in the world to be doing the King\u2019s business.\u00a0 Listen to some great saints who understood the wonderful privilege of working for God:<\/p>\n C.H. Spurgeon:\u00a0 \u201cDoes this not make a man outstanding?\u00a0 Have you never stood in awe of your own self?\u00a0 Have you thought enough about how this poor body is sanctified, dedicated, and elevated into a sacred condition by being set apart as a temple of the Holy Spirit?\u201d9<\/sup><\/p>\n Eric Sauer:\u00a0 \u201cEnriched in Christ, the practical realization of these riches is now our duty.\u00a0 This is at once our task and privilege.\u00a0 The redeemed must live as redeemed.\u00a0 Bearers of salvation must walk as saved.\u00a0 They who possess heaven must be heavenly-minded.\u201d10<\/sup><\/p>\n Jonathan Edwards:\u00a0 \u201cChristian holiness is above all the heathen virtue, of a more bright and pure nature, more serene, calm, peaceful, and delightsome.\u00a0 What a sweet calmness, what a calm ecstasy, does it bring to the soul!\u00a0 Of what a meek and humble nature is true holiness; how peaceful and quiet.\u00a0 How it changes the soul, and makes it more pure, more bright, and more excellent than other beings.\u201d11<\/sup><\/p>\n Matthew Henry:\u00a0 \u201cThat a holy, heavenly life, spent in the service of God and communion with him, is the most pleasant and comfortable life any one can live in this world.\u201d12<\/sup><\/p>\n And So . . . <\/b><\/p>\n Seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let\u2019s lay aside the weight and look unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A Charge to Keep I Have<\/i><\/p>\n Charles Wesley<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A charge to keep I have\u2014<\/p>\n A God to glorify,<\/p>\n Who gave His Son my soul to save<\/p>\n And fit it for the sky.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To serve the present age,<\/p>\n My calling to fulfill\u2014<\/p>\n O may it all my powers engage<\/p>\n To do my Master\u2019s will!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Arm me with jealous care,<\/p>\n As in Thy sight to live;<\/p>\n And O Thy servant, Lord, prepare<\/p>\n A strict account to give!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Help me to watch and pray,<\/p>\n And on Thyself rely;<\/p>\n And let me ne\u2019er my trust betray,<\/p>\n But press to realms on high.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Notes:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In part 1 we explored the subject of sanctification in its various aspects including the failures of legalism and license.\u00a0 We also asked the questions, Why do we have to continually fight against sin?\u00a0 How is the power of sin removed from us?\u00a0 Do we ever get to a place where we have victory over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[167],"class_list":["post-7372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-christian-living-cross-discipleship"],"yoast_head":"\n\n