Sanctification, What We Believe, Part 32

The instant someone's regenerated, they're instantly adopted into God's family, the Holy Spirit indwells them, they're justified, they're sanctified positionally. All of these things happen immediately.

It is difficult for us to wrap our heads around because we think everything in a cause-effect type of way. And yet there's these things that just occur because God does them instantaneously and simultaneously because he decides to regenerate us.

Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Welcome to another edition of The Wrap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport, the Executive Director of Striving for Eternity Ministries and the Christian Podcast Community of which this podcast is a proud member.

I am joined by the husband and wife team from Religionless Christianity, Spencer and Nikki. They're going to be the. And as I said last episode, we're going to be you're going to hear a lot of different co-host voices because we're going to try to get you to hear all of the different hosts and co-hosts at the Christian Podcast Community.

So welcome, Spencer and Nikki. How are you guys doing today?

Doing good. Thank you for having us again.

Yeah, we're doing great. Honored to be here again with you.

And we're not talking news, so we don't have to go into the, you know, the have the scream of your podcast when you get into the news section.

And no, we're talking about good stuff here. We're not talking about the horror show that is our news media. I'm a little more relaxed.

Yeah. Yeah. So that becomes a question, Nikki, which one do you prefer more now? Which podcast are you going to take? Maybe you can convince him to do more theology and less news.

Well, I would love to do it. I'm just not smart enough yet. So we have to talk in areas that I can actually be somewhat intelligent in. That's why we're on sitting here trying to talk and learn with you along the way.

Oh, you're supposed to do like I do. You just fake it till you make it. Isn't that what it's called or?

Yeah, I mean, that's we just edit multiple times and cut out all the mistakes. Yeah, that's what we do.

Sanctification as a Present Reality for Every Believer

Well, we're going to talk to we're going to talk today about a doctrine that every Christian experiences. And yet, unfortunately, a lot of Christians don't know, don't study. And so this may be a new topic for those of you who are in churches that don't kind of cover these things.

But we're going to talk about the doctrine of sanctification. And so that is some people will say, oh, that that sounds like someone's becoming a saint. Well, yes, that's actually exactly what it means.

I'm glad you think that because that's the idea of being sanctified is to be a saint, which, OK, right off the bat, we have to start being a saint doesn't mean what the Roman Catholic Church says a saint is.

I was going to say, you have to clarify that, because it gets a bad rap from the Roman Catholic Church, I would say.

Was that a pun on the rap report? A bad rap? Just saying. All right. Right. There you go. But what we end up seeing is that in Scripture, we are considered to be saints. But the Catholic Church has corrupted that term.

And so the Catholic Church has the idea that someone is a saint. They've done some I think they have to do at least one miracle, because I remember when when Teresa, they call Mother Teresa, was they were making her a saint and they had to figure out a miracle she did.

Like, I'm just going, oh, OK. So they have like these criteria. What makes a saint? The sad thing in Catholicism is then you have people who probably lived godly lives that were made into saints. And now people pray to them and they're not hearing it.

I've always said that about the Virgin Mary. I'm like, she was a holy and righteous woman. And we've sullied her good name with all of this, you know, pray to Mary talk. It's really a shame in Mary's honor.

Yeah. Well, I was just going to say, like, Mary can't hear the prayers because she's not God, even though you think about it. They say, oh, Mary's listening to prayers of everyone everywhere. Really? Hmm.

Almost sounds like she must be God or something. So, yeah, no, Mary's not God. And the saints that we're talking about are the saints that we see in scripture, which is to be made more and more in the image of Christ.

That's what sanctification is. And so we're going to read through the doctrinal statement. But just a quick kind of high level definition. It is the process of being made more in the image of Christ that starts the moment we're regenerated and continues until the moment we die and are glorified.

And so if you are a believer in Christ, everything we talk about in this episode and the next one, because this will probably be a two parter, everything we're talking about should be evident in your life.

And if it's not, then you got to ask if you're really a believer, because this is the this is the Christian life is to be sanctified. And so we're going to go through the doctrinal statement. This is a continuing series that we're doing.

This actually is as we go through our series here. This episode is like 32, I believe, in the series. So you want to go back and see the previous ones. You especially want to go back and see what we've been saying about in the doctrine of salvation, the issues of regeneration, election, justification.

We've covered those in the past few episodes. So if you want to follow along, just go to striving for eternity dot org. In the about section, you'll see what we believe. That's what we're going over. Just scroll down to see the soteriology section.

That's doctrine of salvation. Click on that. Open it up. Scroll down a little bit more and you'll get to sanctification. And I'm going to ask if one of you guys could read that section for us. And that way we'll be able to see what it is that we're going to look at today.

And actually, you can read the whole both paragraphs, even though we probably won't get through both paragraphs. OK.

All right. Sanctification. Every believer is sanctified, set apart unto God by justification and is therefore declared to be holy and is therefore identified as a saint. Sanctification is positional and instantaneous and should not be confused with progressive sanctification.

Sanctification has to do with the believer's standing, not his present walk or condition. There is also, by the work of the Holy Spirit, a progressive sanctification by which the state of the believer is brought closer to the standing the believer positionally enjoys.

Through justification, through obedience to the word of God and by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit the believer is able to live a life of increasing holiness in conformity to the will of God, becoming more and more like our Lord Jesus Christ.

In this respect, every saved person is involved in a daily conflict. The new creation in Christ doing battle against the flesh. But adequate provision is made for victory through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

This struggle, nevertheless, stays with the believer and is never completely ended throughout this earthly life. All claims to the eradication of sin in this life are unscriptural. Eradication of sin is not possible, but the Holy Spirit does provide for victory over sin.

Positional and Progressive Sanctification

OK, so there's a lot that we're going to cover in this. And right off the bat, if you heard as Nikki was reading, we're making a distinction when we talk sanctification about what we will call positional.

And progressive, just like if you guys go back in the previous part of the series, when we talked about the word salvation, we said that's a general word that could be broken down to salvation past being our regeneration, salvation present being our sanctification, our our salvation future being our glorification.

So even though we have one term, it could be broken down to be more specific. The same thing here when we talk sanctification, it could be broken down into the positional and the progressive. Obviously, must have been a preacher who came up with this because they alliterated it.

They both start with P so we can remember it. Right. Progressional and positional. Right. So we have this this idea, though, that as we look at these two, the the first thing we're saying here is that every believer is sanctified.

That is the very thing that starts with regeneration. I mean, soon as God regenerates us, we're sanctified. The term sanctified means to be set apart. Which is the same idea that we have as being a saint, which is based on the idea of being holy.

To be holy is to be set apart. And so that's the idea here that you and I, who are believers, are set apart. So if we're set apart, the question becomes, what do we set apart from and what do we set apart to?

Right. So what we're saying is that every believer is sanctified, meaning set apart unto God. So we're now being separate from our sin, our pride, our sinful behaviors that led us to being deserving of God's punishment.

We're separating from that selfish pridefulness and we're being set apart unto God. And what we're saying here, and this goes right off what we last week's episode, we're being set apart unto God. How?

By justification. Justification is the means that you and I can be set apart. When God justifies us, he immediately sees us in a right state with with him. Do you and I continue to sin? OK, I know Spencer doesn't, but Nick probably doesn't.

It's probably just me that continues. No, we all do. We have some stories to tell. Actually, wait, your kids probably have stories to tell. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Right. So so what we end up seeing, though, is that the moment we're saved, the moment we're justified, God looks at us.

As if we have the righteousness of Christ, we dealt with this last episode and the differences between saying justification is just as if I never sinned. That's not really a good argument or a good way to explain it.

It's just as if I was as righteous as Christ.

Yeah. And I maybe just for my own sake, because I like the point that you bring up and you brought it up in the justification episode. I think for anybody that hasn't listened to your episode on superintending, I would encourage it because you bring it up in there as well.

But this idea, and I think because of our just the fact that we're human and we live in time and space and all that, that justification and this sort of stuff, it's not chronologically. And that's the wrong way to think about it.

It's logically. So our justification and our and I can't remember the the first P that you said. Progressive or positional. Positional. Our justification and positional sanctification is simultaneous.

So it's not something where, well, I'm justified and then I'm initially sanctified. No, it's that's our chronological mind trying to think of, well, which one comes first, where it's simultaneous.

Yeah. And we a lot of times we think of this and we'll say, well, logically. But then when we say logically, we end up adding it and speaking of it as if it's chronological. And sometimes it messes us up or it messes up others when we speak to them.

And so, yeah, I have in my book, what do we believe on the section? Chapter seven on Soteriology, Doctrine of Salvation. I have a chart there of all the things that happen simultaneously when someone is regenerated.

When you think about it, the the instant. Like if we're going to talk in time, the instant someone's regenerated, they're instantly adopted into God's family. The Holy Spirit indwells them. They're justified.

They're sanctified positionally. All of these things happen immediately. And that is something that it is difficult for us to wrap our heads around because we think we think everything in a cause effect type of way.

And yet there's these things that just occur because God does them instantaneously and simultaneously because he decides to regenerate us.

Well, and I think, too, you know, maybe because people don't discuss and maybe they do in some churches, but I know in our churches growing up, doctrine wasn't really discussed openly very often. It was overcoming your battles and this sort of stuff.

But so when you don't discuss doctrine a lot and you hear something like sanctified, that means, well, I'm holy. And that's something that happens at the end of life. You know, so how can I be sanctified if I continue to sin?

And if I continue to sin, does that mean I'm not saved then? And that was one of my questions. You don't have to mention it now, but I was going to bring up later on if you want to discuss and maybe you will.

The first John chapter three, verse six, you know, he talks about no one who abides in him continues to sin. And sometimes that's a question for people to go. Well, if I keep sinning, does that mean I'm not saved?

You know, so it does cause some confusion because you don't get into the doctrine of progressive sanctification in church. Yeah. Yeah.

And we're going to definitely dive into that much more in the next episode, because in this section of doctrinal statement, we're going to address that. You know, we say the eradication of sin is not possible, but the Holy Spirit provides victory over sin.

And that's the whole idea that these people that we already mentioned last episode that believe in sinless perfectionism, they believe they could be sinlessly perfect on earth. And if you do sin, then you've lost your salvation.

Now, a couple of problems with that one. If you if you're arguing that you can lose your salvation, especially if they argue from Hebrews six and Hebrews 10, if that's speaking of salvation, then you can never get saved again.

That's one of the things people often that say that you can lose your salvation. And they use those verses and it says it is impossible. Well, if it's impossible, then you can't get saved again. But one of the interesting things with the sinless perfectionist is they have this wiggle room because what they do is they go to Hebrews six and they'll say, well, see, it's a willful sin.

So as long as as long as you don't do a willful sin, as long as you you sin unknowingly, you know, so if I get angry and just start yelling and completely losing it, as long as it wasn't willful. Well, I got news for you.

Every sin is willful. No one forced you to sin. No one said, you know, took over your body and made you sin. No, every sin you did is willful. And that becomes a problem for them because now they have no escape clause.

And then now they have to admit. And I have had this discussion with a guy who said he was a sinlessly perfect. And I was pointing out that, you know, he admitted that, yes, he he has lied and he has done things after being a believer, getting angry with his children.

And he did these things, but he wasn't willful. And I said, well, no, actually, every sin is willful. And once he realized that, he just looked at me. I said, well, now you have a real dilemma, don't you?

Because your position would be that you've lost your salvation and scripture would make it clear you you can't get saved again. Now, either either you're wrong in your theology or your theology has just condemned you to hell.

Yeah. Yeah. Let me give you hope you are wrong in your theology.

Yeah. And I was like, I'll just I'll make you feel better. You're just wrong in your theology. The scriptures don't teach what you say.

The question I had, I guess I'm thinking of like sanctification, you know, the progressive sanctification, like how quickly you will observe yourself or others being sanctified or having a a hatred for sin or just a remorse over sin and the struggle with it.

How would someone who's a new believer have assurance of salvation when they're, you know, they're still overcoming sins that maybe someone else is, you know, they're way past that, they don't struggle in those same sins.

So would they have would they be able to go first shot with confidence?

You know, well, there are you know, that's a really good question, because when we first get saved, there are some things that I know. I'll speak for myself. I used to have a foul mouth before I was a Christian, and it was interesting that as soon as I became a Christian, some people came up to me within weeks and others months later that made the comment that I wasn't using foul language anymore.

And I didn't even notice that that stopped, but it just it immediately stopped. Now, there's other things still dealing with almost 40 years later. So, you know, we'll always have some things that are more difficult for us to eradicate.

But there's going to be some things that change right away. One of them will be love for God and love for others. Yeah. So if you have someone that says, well, I'm a believer, but I hate my brother. Well, James speaks about that in James, too.

Then, you know, if you see a brother or sister in need there, they're they have no clothes, they're cold, they have no food. James is you walk by and just say, keep warm and and fed and walk on. Then, yeah, you're probably not a believer.

Right. So there's some basic things that that we should be able to see change. But a lot of it's I had one person said it's more like a stock market. You kind of see ups and downs and you you you trace the line.

The line should be going up over time. OK, though, they have some peaks and valleys. We should have the trajectory that we're more and more in the image of Christ. And I will give you the advantage of of years of being, you know, walking with the Lord, what, 38 years now.

The advantage is that after 38 years, I look back and go, boy, a lot has changed. Still got a lot more to work on, but. It's a good thing you didn't know me 38 years ago. Yeah. Although you guys probably weren't even born, but almost.

Almost a month now. Yeah. Where where were you in in July of 1984?

She was a twinkle in her mother's eye. Yeah, not even. Oh, yeah, I wasn't. Yeah, no, she was probably conceived at that point. Close to it. Close to. OK, I was a twinkle in my mother's eye.

That's about. So so what we're saying here is that we're we're sanctified. Right. We mean set apart. We're giving you how we're sanctified or not how yet, but who were sanctified unto God. So that's where set apart to how we sanctified by justification.

OK, so now we we say in the statement and is therefore declared to be holy. And that's what sanctification means to be set apart, to be holy. You and I, as believers, should be holy. We're not as holy as we would like to be.

And we're definitely not as holy right now as Christ is. But in God's position, from God's vantage point, he sees us as having the righteousness of Christ, and therefore we have that holiness. So when we talk about these things, when we're talking specifically about positional sanctification.

It's something that is seen from God's perspective, God looking down at us, sees us with the righteousness of Christ, so he sees us as holy. We're in the position. Of being set apart, even though we continue to sin, and I'm taking a little bit of time on this because we talk sanctification, this is a struggle, by the way, one of the biggest things that you do, if you deal with cults, you're going to deal with this, you deal with anyone with a works-based system, you are going to address the issues between regeneration and sanctification because they're both referred to as salvation and they will mix those up because the cults and the man-made religions need to justify a works-based system.

And the only works that are involved in salvation are in sanctification. So they don't regenerate us. They purify us. And this is what you end up seeing with, you know, I'm down here in Florida. Actually, all three of us are in Florida.

We're just not in the same area, right? But I'm down here and run into this Muslim guy and we start talking. And he's openly saying, yes, I mean, it was kind of interesting because I told him there's only two religions in the world, man-made and divine, and there's a way to know the man-made religions.

I said, all you got to do is look for any religion that has human effort doing works, and that's man-made. And then he goes on to tell me and Anthony how Islam is based on your works. It's everything that you do.

And I'm going, yes, that's how you know it's man-made. Remember what I said earlier? And it's just like right over his head. So, you know, but this is the thing when we talk about this, you and I are holy.

We don't see that yet, but God does.

And I think that's why this initial part here of this sort of positional sanctification, I think is really important. You said you're going to spend some extra time on it, and I think you should, because I think this is the one that often gets missed.

I think it's easy for people to go, well, yes, throughout my life I will become more holy and when I die eventually, but they lose sight of the fact that, no, you were made holy initially when you were justified.

It's the work of God. And I don't think, and maybe they don't want to be prideful. I don't know what it would be that would say, well, I'm not holy. I mean, that would be shameful to say. But, so I think it is something that gets lost for a lot of people.

But, you know, another thing it also does, Spencer, is for some Christians who beat themselves up over their sin, this doctrine is very freeing because what it does is help remind us that we are saints.

Exactly as it says here. It says, therefore, we identify as saints. I had a friend of mine, he always used to say, I'm perfect in Christ. And that's true. In Christ, God sees us as being perfect. It doesn't mean we're perfect compared to men and perfect, you know, having never sinned, but what that was always doing for him was reminding him when he'd beat himself up over sin, God paid for it.

And sometimes we need that reminder. We are saints. Now, you're speaking to a Catholic. You can have a little bit of fun when, you know, you say, you know, I'm a saint. And they'll, what? No, you're not dead, you know, because their saints have to be dead, right?

But the Bible says I'm holy and set apart. I'm a saint.

Well, and even the idea of it being freeing, and again, I'll probably keep plugging your episode on superintending, and I'm paraphrasing, so if I get it a bit wrong, please correct me. But in this maybe is the more progressive sanctification, but, you know, beating yourself up over sin, and I'm not as holy as I should be and all this stuff.

But, you know, it's not only God who justifies us and sanctifies us initially. It's God who sanctifies us throughout our life. It's not even you sanctifying yourself. It's God working through you to sanctify you.

So, you know, you're really, in a sense, trying to beat up God for not doing his work fast enough in you, in a sense, you know.

And what is it Paul says in Philippians? That he is not only the author, but the finisher of our faith. He doesn't just save us and then leave us to our own devices. He doesn't just say, okay, I regenerated you, you're on your own.

No, he's the author and the finisher. And the way he does the finishing work is called sanctification. That's what we're discussing, right? So, this next sentence we're saying, sanctification is positional and instantaneous and should not be confused with progressive sanctification.

Now, if I've done my job well enough at this point, you all know exactly what that means, right? This is why I was taking the time because understanding this is really important. Right now we're talking about positional sanctification, which happens instantaneously with your regeneration.

Soon as you're saved, soon as you're regenerated, you are set apart unto God. You're now adopted into his family, you're his. That is reassuring, especially when we get caught in sin or give ourselves over to sin.

And there's people who have some life-dominating sin that they just keep returning to, beating themselves up over, and then to realize, wait, God put me in a position where I'm set apart unto him. Wow, then I should act it.

It's an amazing thing how sometimes just knowing your position can change the way you view things. So, when you are, there are stories about people who, they end up having an inheritance of a lot of money or finding a family or whatever that they didn't know they had, and how things can change.

It was interesting. I talked to a friend of mine who, he was adopted. And so, he had went and decided he'd find his birth parents. And so, he ends up, kind of a funny story, but he ends up finding his family and finding, I guess, one of his half-sisters.

And she was like, oh, another one. Oh, gosh. So, I guess the dad, as he found out, had a lot of children with a lot of women, and he was just gone from all their lives. And a lot of these women would put kids up for adoption because they didn't want to kill the children and couldn't have the children.

And they would always end up finding. Like, they have, I think, seven kids, two of which are actual sisters, mother and father, but this whole thing. Now, here's the interesting thing. His whole life, he studied the Bible.

Not his whole life, but he'd say the Bible's a believer. And when he did that research, he discovered his father was Jewish. And all of a sudden, he called me up and was like, it changed my perspective when I read the scriptures, because now I'm realizing that these are my people that I read about in the Old Testament.

What changed? I mean, nothing changed really in his life other than the knowledge of it, right? The knowledge that you and I are saints, that we are set apart, considered to be holy by God, is a great reminder to say, you know what, I don't need to sin.

I can remember who I am. I'm a child of God. It would be like being adopted. If we were suddenly, we don't have a kingdom in America, but say you were suddenly adopted by the president, or if you were in a country where there's a king, and you're suddenly adopted into his family.

All of a sudden, things change for you. I kind of think of the movie Ben-Hur, if you've ever seen that movie. But in the film, this Jewish guy ends up becoming a slave. He saves a Roman commander, and that commander ends up adopting him, and he goes back to Jerusalem.

But he goes, and everything's changed about him. Why? Because he knows who his adopted father is, right?

Just to be clear, you don't want to be adopted by this president. You don't have a laptop we should know about, do you?

Just to be clear on that. Okay, if it's this president, you get $10 million from foreign countries just for having a last name. And hey, you can do works of art, if you can call it that, and sell it for millions of dollars.

Just because you're listing me on this.

Hey, you know? No, but I will say, the idea, again, it is freeing to have this doctrine taught to you that the positional initial sanctification, that it frees you from the penalty of sin. And I mean, we all know that Christianity and the Christian faith should be hopeful, and it should be burden removing.

And it's a shame when it doesn't remove that burden for people.

Progressive Sanctification, the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit

Yeah, I was just thinking on the way me and Spencer were, I mean, I guess the churches we went to. I guess in a sense, you would say that we were taught sanctification, but it wasn't called that. But definitely, you would never hear of progressive sanctification.

It was just, all right, you know, the once saved, always saved gospel. So there was no reason to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. No reason to fear the Lord because, well, you're in right standing with him because you called on him.

And I just wonder why we didn't, I guess, have, like, see that work in ourselves. Is it like because we believed we were sanctified and weren't taught that we should have a progressive sanctification?

Like, why? And so many other people have the same story who went to those kind of churches. I'm like, but it was when I started learning. I don't know. It's like, I don't even know if I was saved before all those years going to those churches.

And I know I'm not alone in that. Yeah.

And a lot of churches think you can't teach doctrine. It's just, it's too heady. It's too much for people. And when I first became a pastor, the church had a retreat planned. And so they had a speaker already planned.

And so I volunteered, my wife and I, to take the children and to, you know, during the retreat, we'll take all the kids that, you know, from, I think it was like from five to eight or four to eight, something like that.

And so I remember one of the deacons saying, so what are you guys going to do with the kids? I said, we're going to teach them the doctrine of the Trinity. They were like, what?

Yeah, we're going to teach them. We need to find a new youth pastor.

Yeah, and so we taught the doctrine of Trinity. And in fact, at the end of the retreat, the parents came to pick their kids up. And I basically said, okay, to each parent, I said, I got two questions for you before you can pick up your child.

And if you get stuck, your child can help you. Define the Trinity. Show me where it is in scripture. And so many parents needed the help of their children and were surprised that their kids not only knew the definition, understood the doctrine and could support it in scripture.

People can understand these things. And I think that people end up focusing either too much on the progressive side or the positional side. And that's where we have the problems. Yeah. And so what we need to look at is that these are two separate things.

And that's why this sentence here, we're trying to make that distinction. There's positional sanctification and progressive sanctification. And we're going to talk in a lot more detail next week on progressive sanctification, but we have to see they're different and they help and teach us different things.

So we right now as believers are saints, we are sanctified, even though it's a process that continues to happen. And so it means that we are in God's eyes sanctified, but it's a process that he starts at our regeneration and he's not done with yet.

Even though from God's standing, it's done. It's a done deal. Why would it be a done deal from God's perspective? Well, it goes right back to the nature of God. He's eternal. And being an eternal being, he looks outside of time.

He's not bound by time. So to him, in his, I can't even say a way of thinking, in his knowledge, knowing all things, he already knows the outcome of our sanctification. We don't. We don't know the struggles, but he does.

And so we say here sanctification has to do with the believer standing, not his present walker condition. So what we're trying to say here is this doesn't have to do with how your pattern of life is going right now with Christ.

Maybe you're listening to this and you're like, Andrew, you don't know. I mean, I'm just, I had a fall, whatever it is, had some, some sinful fall. And you think, well, you know, what, what do I do? Well, you remember who you are.

You're a child of God. You've been set apart by God, sanctified. And now you confess your sin and do what scripture tells you to do and start walking with Christ. Change that pattern of life. That's what we do.

Now, is that easy? No, didn't say it was. But what we want to do at this point, just to wrap up, I want to, at least this first paragraph is to remind us that as we look at sanctification, we spent the bulk of this episode on positional sanctification.

And like I said, next episode, we're going to spend it all on progressive sanctification. But before we get into the next section, I would like to remind you that this show is sponsored by MyPillow, an American-made product.

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So we start by saying this. There is also, by the work of the Holy Spirit, a progressive sanctification by which the state of the believer is brought closer to the standing the believer positionally enjoys through justification.