How Can I Change? Understand How Sanctification Works

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People are tired of hearing nothing but doom and gloom.

The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of almighty God is hanging over our heads.

They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed and they will perish.

God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the Father, where he sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words,.

They will act upon them,.

And when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

The Sermon on the Wise and Foolish Builders

Welcome to Bible Bashed, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. Listen and enjoy this latest episode as Pastor Tim answers your sincere questions.

Here's Pastor Tim.

How Sanctification Works in Relation to Justification

On this episode of Bible Bashed, we'll be continuing our discussion, How Can I Change? In order to do that, we're going to talk about the importance of understanding how sanctification works. Now, there are many errors that happen as it relates to individuals who are attempting to pursue, in some sense, biblical change, and a lot of those errors are related to an individual's understanding about the relationship between justification and sanctification.

And so it's somewhat helpful to try to define these terms and talk about the differences and how these terms actually operate, and then talk about some errors that are related to the nature of biblical change or pursuing biblical change or sanctification that seem to crop up as it relates to confusion of these different categories.

So if these terms are somewhat unfamiliar to you, then just simply listen to the episode a few times in a row, and I'm sure that they'll begin to crystallize in your mind. Now, justification is what you might describe as a monergistic work of God, meaning it's a work solely of God.

So, you know, human beings don't have any part to play in justification. Justification is essentially a courtroom term where an individual is declared to be not guilty on the basis of what Jesus Christ has done for them on the cross.

So justification involves what you might describe as the imputation of an alien righteousness or righteousness outside of ourself that is the righteousness of Christ attributed to the sinner as a free gift on the basis of what Jesus did.

So if you think through a courtroom analogy, you know, all human beings essentially enter into the world owing an astronomical debt of sin that they can never pay. And so you can imagine yourself in the courtroom, and you deserve a guilty verdict, and you deserve a guilty sentence.

But then, you know, if Jesus were to come in, and he were to pay your debt, then God could declare you to be not guilty, not on the basis of anything that you did, but on the basis of something that Jesus did.

So that declaration of not guilty, that legal declaration of what you might describe as a righteousness outside of yourself or an alien righteousness, that's given as a free gift. And there's nothing you can do to earn that in any way.

If there was some way that you could earn that declaration not guilty, then you would have some sort of work salvation system that you have adopted at that point. But that legal declaration is basically an act of unmerited favor or grace that's shown to an individual, whereby God determines to declare him not guilty on the basis not of what they have done, but on the basis of what Jesus did.

So justification is solely an act of God. The not guilty verdict has nothing to do with man whatsoever at all. Like we can't do anything to contribute to that. We have no part to play in that. That's all something that God freely chooses to do of his own sovereign grace and initiative, having nothing to do with us at all.

Progressive Sanctification as a Dependent Work

Now, as it relates to sanctification, sanctification is not simply a monergistic work of God. It is a work of God, but it's not a monergistic work of God, meaning sanctification is a work of God and a work of man.

So it's a dual work in that way, meaning there is a part that we have to play in sanctification. So Philippians 2, 12 -13 tells us, Therefore, my beloved, as you've always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence, but also in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

So in this kind of passage, one of the things that you see is that there is this expectation that the individual puts work or effort into his salvation or sanctification at that point, and he's doing so as a dependent work.

He is working on the basis of what God has done. So God is at work in the individual both to will and to do according to his good pleasure. God's given the individual resources. He's given the individual every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

He's put his Holy Spirit as a down payment inside of him. God has started a process. So the Bible will tell us that we are confident that God began a good work in us, and he'll be faithful to complete that work.

But then on the basis of that work that God has done, we are to work ourselves in terms of work to pursue biblical change with the resources and all the blessings that God has given us in that kind of way.

So when you think about sanctification, sanctification is a dual work. It's a work of God and man. Now, when you're talking about sanctification, there's obviously three different aspects of sanctification that you may or may not be aware of.

There's what you might describe as positional sanctification. Positional sanctification is sanctification that happens at the moment of justification or synonymous with justification, meaning when God declares you to be not guilty on the basis of what Jesus did, you're also declared to be holy, meaning you're devoted especially to God's service in that way.

So you are declared to be holy or a saint. Sainthood is not something, as the Catholic Church tells us, that you have to earn over time through supererogatory acts and all that. Positional sanctification is a declaration itself that you are instantaneously declared to be holy.

You're devoted to God's purposes. So you have positional sanctification. Then you have what you might describe as progressive sanctification, and progressive sanctification is the process of an individual believer being conformed over the course of their life to the image of Christ, meaning God has started a good work in them at justification.

He'll be faithful to complete that work at the end, meaning either death or when Jesus Christ returns. So progressive sanctification is the process of being conformed to God's image over the course of our life.

And most naturally, when you talk about sanctification, what you're actually talking about is progressive sanctification in that way. And then you have what you might describe as perfected sanctification if you want to stick to the alliteration, or final sanctification, which we describe as glorification.

So once we die, that work that God has begun, it will be finally completed. So when we see Him, we know that we will be like Him. So whatever remaining sin that's in our heart and in our life will be fundamentally gone.

We won't have to worry about that anymore. And that is the day that we should all long for, the day when we finally experience the blessing of glorification. I know personally I can't wait to not have to ever think about this sin that's in my heart anymore and how to get rid of it with God's help and by His grace and for His glory and everything else.

So there is a day coming when we'll all be perfected and not have to worry about sanctification at all. But as we're talking about sanctification, one of the things to realize is that most naturally we're talking about that middle aspect of progressive sanctification, which is different from justification, meaning progressive sanctification is a work of God and man.

Avoiding the Ditches of Passivity and Self-Reliance

Now, there are errors that are related to this point, and there are many churches that are producing these kind of errors, and it's important to try to have some sort of theological discussion along these lines to talk through some of the errors that individuals are having at this point.

Now, there are what you might describe as two different extremes as it relates to sanctification that you could talk about that you want to try to avoid. So there is what you might describe as the let go, let God approach to sanctification, and then on the other end of that you might have what you might call the God helps those who help themselves approach to sanctification.

Now, the let go, let God approach to sanctification is probably the most common perspective of how sanctification works that's wrong. I like to call it the Carrie Underwood approach to sanctification.

It's the Jesus take the wheel approach essentially to sanctification, and essentially the way that works is an individual basically thinks of sanctification as something that God has to do totally. So this can happen in a variety of forms.

This can take on different forms, but it's essentially an error that believes that an individual in the sanctification process is entirely passive. So there's a variety of ways that this can show up. I've counseled at churches before that essentially big churches, charismatic megachurches, I've been involved in counseling some of their members, and it's very common in these kind of churches to have a second blessing kind of theology of sanctification or to have this perspective that what needs to happen in order for an individual to get rid of sin in their life is that God has to uniquely give them some sort of second blessing in their life where they achieve some super spiritual state to where they enter into this realm of being totally surrendered to the purposes of God.

So if you ever hear a pastor talking about, are you totally surrendered to God? Have you gotten to that point where you're totally surrendered? He's talking about getting to some point in the Christian life, maybe having some sort of second blessing as the charismatics tell us.

So not just the first blessing of being justified, but some sort of second blessing where you reach some kind of super saiyan status of holiness to where now you no longer have to struggle with sin anymore.

And in that way, essentially what you're waiting on is for God to do some kind of extra supernatural work in your life to where he's going to completely and totally take the sin away from you. So there are individuals who have a Christian perfectionism that's attached to that where they have some sort of expectation that in this life, God will completely and totally take away all their sin in some way.

But they can have their Christian perfectionism, or it could just be your standard fair, God, you're just going to have to take away the alcohol. And until you take it away, I'm just going to have to drink it.

It's that kind of thing. And so it can take that form. It can take deliverance ministry forms where everything's blamed on demons and you have the demon of depression in your heart and someone's going to practice some sort of deliverance ministry on you where essentially you're entirely passive in the process.

They're going to smack you in the head, maybe speak some nonsense syllables gibberish over your head in hopes the demon will come out so that you can be sanctified. But this can take many different forms at some point.

But essentially it's just a passive approach to sanctification. It's basically to say that if you're going to be holy, if you're going to get rid of sin in your life, then God has to do some kind of extra special work, whether it's casting out the demon of despair or experiencing that second blessing or whatever else.

But God's going to have to do something. He's just going to have to take the sin away apart from any effort or work on your part whatsoever. So that's an error on the one side of the ditch you might want to avoid.

If you want to actually make any progress in sanctification and on the Lord, then you need to avoid that error. But then the error on the other side is what I describe as the God helps those who help themselves kind of error.

And that's essentially what that saying essentially is. God essentially is kind of a deistic God. He's out there. He's watching maybe kindly old grandfather kind of God. But his method of helping us is just to basically tell us to take responsibility.

And if it's to be, it's up to us. And all that sees a moment. And everything else. And he's just not going to do anything. So he's not going to actively interact in the world in that way in order to help you at all.

It's all up to you. Now that can happen for a variety of reasons that are theological or whatever. But the basic point of that kind of position is to say that God has really nothing to do with your obedience whatsoever.

God expects you to obey. You're responsible to obey. And you better get to it. And he's not going to help you. And if you fail to obey, then you can't really blame him for it. It's just all on you. Now, I mean, it's obviously true that if you fail to obey, you can't blame him for that.

But it's not obviously true that God plays no part in the work of sanctification. So it's not true that God simply just helps those who help themselves. There are times, certainly, where God wants us to take responsible actions.

But the problem is that he's at work within our hearts in order to help us to make those responsible actions. And so there's no—I mean, sanctification is not solely a work of man. It's a work of God and a work of man.

And it's what you might describe as a dependent work. It's a dependent work. We work on the basis of God's work. We work in dependence on God's work. We work trusting in the fact of God's work. We walk by faith trusting in the promises of God that he fundamentally has declared us to be not guilty.

And not only that, he's declared us to be holy. And not only that, he set us free from the penalty of sin. And not only the penalty of sin, but the power of sin in our own life. And so as we're working out our own salvation with fear and trembling, we do so on the basis of what Jesus did.

For as God is at work in us, but to do according to his good pleasure. Sanctification is a dependent work. It's the kind of work that we work out by faith, trusting in the promises of God that fundamentally I no longer have to be a slave to sin, but God has put his Holy Spirit inside of me.

He has started a process of progressively changing my desires to honor him. And I'm working in dependence on that work. And so one of the things you have to do is you have to think if you actually want to pursue biblical change, avoid these two ditches.

On the one hand, you need to avoid the Carrie Underwood approach that God's just going to have to zap me with some kind of supernatural lightning bolt and do all the obeying for me. And on the other hand, at the other end of it, it's just God's passive.

He's up there watching, just as sad about our sin as we are and just waiting for us to make that right decision all on the basis of our own autonomous free wills and everything else. And so the issue is biblical sanctification, it's a dependent work.

We work on the basis of what God does, but then because it's work, what that means is that real biblical change is going to be specific, meaning it is actually going to require work. It is actually going to require effort.

It is actually going to require us to obey. And it is very true that God isn't going to obey for us. He will help us obey. The error on the one hand is to say that if we're going to obey, it's all up to us.

He'll help us to obey, but he's not going to obey for us, meaning we actually do have to obey. We do actually have to trust in the promises of God, and we do have to actually do the kind of things that we're going to talk about in the course of this study in general that will help us to pursue the biblical change that God wants us to pursue.

But for the purposes of this episode, if we're going to pursue biblical change, we need to understand how biblical change works, and that means reject a perspective of sanctification that essentially says that it's all God or it's either all us and realize that sanctification, unlike justification, is a dual work of both God and man.

Closing Encouragement and Podcast Sign-Off

This has been another episode of Bible Bashed. We hope you have been encouraged and blessed through our discussion. We thank you for all your support and ask you to continue to like and subscribe to Bible Bashed and share our podcast with your friends and on social media.

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Now, go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.