The Doctrine of Sanctification

I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the 8th chapter of Romans. And hold your place at verse 29. A few weeks ago we began a mini-series on the subject of Soteriology. Now that simply means the doctrine of salvation.

And we've examined already several of the major subheadings that are associated with this area of theology. We have looked at original sin. If you don't remember what that is, that is the fact that we are all sinners by nature because of our relationship to Adam.

The Bible tells us that through one man sin entered the world and death through sin and sin spread to all men because all men sinned. We see that sin entering the world and infecting all people. The second week we looked at substitutionary atonement.

That Christ satisfies the wrath of God on sin for all believers. That God's wrath that is due our sin was poured out on a substitute who is Jesus Christ. Now last week brother Byron on his last Sunday with us preached on justification.

The doctrine of justification by faith. And that is the doctrine in Latin we call sola fide. The doctrine Martin Luther, the great reformer said it was the doctrine upon which the church will stand or fall.

It was the doctrine of justification. How is a man made right with God? Now I knew because of my impending time off as we look forward to the baby coming that I was going to be rather constrained in this series.

And as much as I would like to do a complete overview of the subject of soteriology I just am not able. So I began this week to pray about where would I want to bring our conclusion. I realize it's been a short series but where did I want to end?

Because there's so many things we could talk about. We could talk about election, adoption, redemption, glorification. All of those things could take weeks of study. But I wanted to ensure that this course on the doctrine of salvation did not omit a very important aspect.

And that is our calling to responsibility. Often times people go to one or the other extreme when they talk about salvation. We know salvation is all of grace. But sometimes that people who believe that salvation is all of grace, which it is.

Allow that to take them to the extreme that because salvation is all of grace. Then God does not have any desire for us to live in a holy life. So it leads to licentiousness. And Paul actually preaches against that in Romans 6.

He says, shall we continue to sin so that grace shall abound? No, certainly not. But people have allowed that to take them to one extreme. And the other extreme is the idea that we can somehow through our good works earn God's favor.

We call that legalism. So we have two far extremes. You have the extreme of licentiousness. Which says God has no desire for you to live a holy life. Just live as you will. Just believe in Jesus and all will be well.

And the other end of the spectrum says God demands that you live according to the law. And if you break the law, then your salvation is forfeited. That you have to earn your salvation. And there's these two wildly divergent extremes.

And the question becomes, what does the Bible teach about the balance between justification by faith alone. And the responsibility of the believer to die to self and live for Christ. Is there a balance?

And I would submit to you that there is. The question, the answer to the question is found in what is known as the doctrine of sanctification. We who are saved by grace through faith are not saved so that we would live like devils.

Didn't that go without saying? But yet, I have to say it. We're not saved so that we would live like the world. We're not saved so that we would live like the unsaved. But we are saved so that we would live like Christ.

We are saved not by our works. But the fruit of our salvation will be good works. James goes to great lengths in the second chapter of his book to tell us that faith, if it is devoid of works, is dead.

So, this morning we're going to examine the doctrine of sanctification, what it means to be conformed to Christ. If that's what sanctification is, to be conformed to Christ, what does that mean? But before we do that, let us read the text together.

We'll stand because we want to give honor and reverence to God's Word. We'll read only one verse. We'll discuss the context later, but this will be the verse upon which we focus. Romans 8 and verse 29.

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. Father in Heaven, I thank You for Your Word. I thank You for its truth.

I thank You for the opportunity to again preach Your Word. And I pray that You would keep me from error, and that You would open the hearts of Your people to the truth, and sanctify us by Your truth. Your Word is truth, so said Jesus Christ.

So we pray and understand that even now it's a moment of sanctification for us, a moment of growth. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear the glorious truths from Your Word. In Jesus' name, Amen. In 2004, I was working on my seminary degree.

And during that time, I was exposed to what I would later realize is referred to as Reformed Theology. I was at a youth camp with Brother Jim, our guitarist with the beautiful beard. He probably wouldn't want me to call it beautiful.

He's not in here, is he? The very handsome beard, we'll say that. And during the youth camp, I had gone on as one of the counselors. And during the camp, he was discussing with me certain aspects of Reformed Theology, the doctrine of election, and things like that.

And it didn't take long before I became convinced of what is typically known as the Reformed Understanding. And it wasn't long, of course, before it impacted my ministry, and ultimately impacted the life of this church.

But it was Paul's letter to the Romans, and in particularly, Romans chapter 8, and even more particular still, verses 28 to 30, which helped to mold my understanding. Our passage today, verse 29, falls into a larger argument of the Apostle Paul, wherein he is addressing the doctrine of God's sovereignty over all things.

If you look at verse 28, most people can quote 8 .28. Even unbelievers will say, well, God causes all things to work for the good. Usually I say, God causes all things to work for good. That is not what it says.

But that's the way you'll hear it quoted. What it says is that God causes all things to work for good for those who are the called. It goes on to say, it says, for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

That's, you know, I often point out to people, all things will not work out for good for those who do not love Christ. Ultimately, their end is eternal torment. Their end is hell. All things will not work out for good for them in the sense of what we might think of goodness.

And so the context here is very clear, that this is talking about those who love God and are called according to His purpose. That's who is in view here. God is sovereign over all things, but He's actively working for our good.

And the Apostle Paul moves on later to say that there's nothing in the world that can separate us from the love of Christ. Neither height, nor depth, nor angels, nor powers, nor principalities, or anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

That's the promise that concludes this idea. It begins with the idea that God's causing all things to work for our good, and ends with the idea that nothing can separate you from the love of God. It's beautiful.

It's a wonderful promise for the believer. In the midst of this, it gives us though, something that theologians have called the golden chain of redemption. The golden chain of redemption is found in verse 30.

We'll read it together. And those whom He predestined, He also called. And those whom He called, He also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified. It tells us God chose. It tells us God calls.

It tells us God justifies. It tells us God glorifies. All of these are in the past tense. Why? Because this is what God's already done. Though these things work themselves out in time, and we could even say glorified hasn't happened yet, because if you're a believer and you're still in this body, you haven't received your glorified body, that's something yet to come.

But in the mind of God are not all things past tense, for He is not bound by space or time. So He can speak about our redemption as if it has already occurred, because in His mind it has. In the mind of God we are called, justified, and glorified altogether because He will not lose one who are His.

So in the mind of God this chain is completed. So He explains to us in verse 30 how redemption works. He says that God chooses, He calls, He justifies, and He glorifies. But one interesting note that many scholars have recognized is that in this chain, this golden chain of redemption, there is an absence of one particular phrase that is typically used in our understanding of salvation, and it is sanctification.

Typically we say a person is justified by faith, and then they begin the process of sanctification, whereby they are conformed to the image of Christ. In fact, let me very quickly just help you understand, if you're not familiar with the term sanctification, it's used three ways in Scripture.

Sanctification means to make something holy. We talked about that during communion, remember? Sanctification is used for us in three ways. One, positionally. You were a child of the devil, you're now a child of God, by faith.

That happened, it changed your position. God reached down into the muck and the mire of your sin, He lifted you out of that, and He seated you where Ephesians 2 tells us. In heavenly places with Christ.

We are seated with Christ in heavenly places. You say, I'm seated right here. But you are in Christ, and Christ is at the right hand of the Father, and thus you are seated with Christ at the right hand of the Father positionally.

You are protected by the blood of Christ. Right now you are positionally sanctified, set apart. Amen? That's beautiful stuff. I don't usually ask for one, but that's worth it. We then talk about, there's three I said, positional.

The last one, I'm going to skip the middle one, the last one is perfect sanctification. What's perfect sanctification? Well, there's coming a day where you're going to no longer be in this body of flesh that's tempted by sin, but you're going to be given a new body in the new heavens, in the new earth, and you're going to have a new relationship with God that's no longer divided by your imperfection in the flesh.

So that's perfect sanctification, and we look forward to that. So what we could say is that positional sanctification happens at justification, because as soon as we're regenerate, we're positionally sanctified.

We're in Christ. And you could say that perfect sanctification happens at glorification, because that's what glorification is. When we see Him as He is, John tells us, we will be as He is. And that doesn't mean we're going to be like God, or we're going to be God, but we'll see Christ as He is in His glorified state, and we too will be like Him in a glorified state.

That's coming. But there's something in the middle. There's something in the middle that it doesn't seem to be addressing here, because it talks about justification, it talks about glorification, but what about sanctification?

Because the second type of sanctification that we often don't think about is what we call progressive sanctification, or our growth as believers. How many of you are new believers? You've only been a believer for the last five years.

Okay. How many of you have been a believer for more than ten years? How many of you have been a believer since you were maybe a teenager? Quite a few. Okay. All right. Now I know how many of you aren't believers, because I didn't leave many.

Some of you didn't raise your hand. No. How many of you are the same today as you were the day you got saved? Now you might say, well, I'm still a sinner. Okay. Let's be honest. We're all still sinners.

We all still fight a daily sin battle. But have you not grown in your understanding of who God is, what He desires of you? And that's what sanctification is. It is a growth in maturity in faith. It's a growth of conformity to Christ.

And so when this text doesn't mention sanctification, some people get upset. Because they say, well, it goes straight from justification to glorification. Where's the middle? The middle is in verse 29.

Go back up. It's not in the chain. It's before the chain. Look what it says in verse 29. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to what? To go to heaven? To be conformed to who? To Jesus Christ.

To the image of His Son. That is what you were predestined to. In fact, when we read about predestination here, and we can get into predestination another time. I'm not going to spend a lot of time with the Calvinism versus Arminianism debate and all that.

We know where we stand here. That's not an issue. But the issue for me is a lot of times people see this word predestination. They think about the fact that it's dealing with the destination. That's heaven.

But what it says is we've been predestined to what? To conformity to an image. So when you go down now to the chain, it says whom He predestined, He calls. Whom He calls, He justifies. What's the predestination in that context?

Whom He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, He calls, He justifies, and He glorifies. It's that same person. So having said all that, what does it mean when He says we've been predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son?

Well, I don't normally quote straight out of commentaries, but I found this. This is great, and I wanted to share it with you. The Pillar of the New Testament commentary says this. God predestined His people to be conformed to the likeness of His Son.

We are to become like Christ. Which, as Hendrickson points out, means sanctification. That's what we've been talking about. It is God's plan that His people become like His Son, not that they should muddle along in modest respectability.

Let me say that again. It is God's plan that His people become like His Son, not that they should muddle along in modest respectability. See, that's the thing that's been the problem in the church, especially in the last hundred years.

The idea that if you are somehow morally behaving yourself, that you're being like Jesus. And so what have we done? We have decreased our expectation as believers as to what God is going to do in us. And as long as we're not out stealing and lying and cheating and getting drunk or going to the club or going out and getting hammered, then we're okay.

We're not actively pursuing conformity to Christ, we're just trying not to be as bad as the guy next door. And so we've minimized the idea of conforming to Christ to simply be a modest respectability, rather than an active conformity to Christ.

And we've muddled the understanding of what it means to be sanctified. I like what the New American Commentary says on this passage. It says, In the present context, predestination is not concerned with election to salvation.

Rather, God's foreordained that believers be brought into moral conformity to the likeness of His Son. What is predestined for us is that we be like Jesus. Now, I want to make a quick statement. There is a sense in which this is an eschatological promise.

And I don't say that word just to throw out big words. Eschatological means end of time or the end times. So eschatological means there's a promise of a future where we will be, like Christ, glorified.

But there's also a temporal promise that we are to be conformed to Christ daily. Think of Romans 12. Do not be conformed. By the way, the word conformed, there's a different word. But it still means essentially the same thing.

Don't be conformed to the world around you. Do not be conformed to this world. But do what? Be transformed through what? The renewal of your mind. How does the renewal of the mind take place? A daily pursuit of the image of Jesus.

That's how this happens. This transforming is something that we... It doesn't happen all at once. John Wesley believed that it did. And as much as I love Wesley on many things, this is one place I think he got it very wrong.

He believed that a Christian could come to faith, or an unbeliever comes to faith and becomes a Christian. And then at some point in the future, he amazingly receives a second blessing. And at that point, he becomes no longer a sinner.

In thought, word, or deed. It's called Christian perfectionism. And I would disagree with it. And if you want to argue the merits of Christian perfectionism, we'll do it later. But the Bible teaches us that when we become a Christian, we are babes in Christ.

And how many of you have kids? You know, when you have kids, they don't know nothing. They can't do nothing. But they don't stay that way. It ain't long before the baby's scooting on his little booty.

You know, making it across the floor. You know what we had to do at our house this week? I had to put a lock at the six foot mark of my door. You know why? Because Hope can reach the doorknob now. She's two years old and she wants the world.

She can't. We had to put the little knob, but now we can't get out of our house either. No knob. The little thing that doesn't turn, and the little lock at the top. And my buddy emailed me, because I put a picture of it.

And he said, well, watch out. My daughter got a spatula and got it open. So, that's the growth. We start out as babes in Christ, but we're supposed to grow. If we're not growing, we need to go back and look at when we were converted and ask ourselves, was there really a change?

Was there really a change? Or am I the same person I was before coming to Christ? The Bible says all things become new. I'm a new creature in Christ. Is my newness being displayed in my life? Or am I the same ornery person that everybody used to know?

There's been no change. And if I met a person from high school... You know what's so funny? When people meet me from high school, it's like we never met. They say, you're so different. Thank God. I'm not lifting myself up as a standard, but I am saying that I'm not who I was.

Praise the Lord. It's all we can say. I'm not who I'm going to be, but I'm not who I was. And that's what we're supposed to be able to say. That's growth. That's sanctification. Conformity to Christ. So having said all that, I do have an outline I want us to get to.

Because I want to ask, what does it mean to be conformed to the image of Christ? I want to give you some things to hold on to from this text. The word conformed is sumorphos. Sumorphos means together, morphed, or the word morphed means formed, so it's the same.

Basically, it's the idea of being like someone. You know people who see someone else and they try to be like that person? It happens all the time, especially if you have teenagers. They'll have some friend who does something to his body and then they want to come home and do it to their body.

They want to conform to that person. They want to be like... I want to be like Jimmy. I don't know if there's a Jimmy. Jimmy. I want to be like Jimmy. Jimmy got the earring. I want the earring. Jimmy got the nose ring.

I want the nose ring. Jimmy got the mohawk. I want the mohawk. Whatever. Because I want to be like Jimmy. Jimmy, if you bring a mohawk in. Okay. How many of us can actively say, I want to be like Christ?

That's what this is. I want to be like Jesus. That's the idea of sanctification. And there's three things that I would argue that conformity to Christ looks like. And you have the outline in your worship folder.

If you didn't get one when you come in, you can grab one on your way out. But this is what conformity to Christ looks like from a scriptural perspective. Number one, conformity to Christ includes growing in our love for God.

By the way, I'm not breaking any new ground this morning. These are all pretty simple things. But it's things we need to be reminded of. Because Jesus Christ loves God. You say, now wait a minute. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh.

How can He love God? Well, the Bible teaches that within the Godhead or within the Trinity, there is interrelationship. The Father loves the Son. The Son loves the Father. And so too do they love the Spirit, and the Spirit loves them.

And there is interrelationship there. In fact, consider the words of Jesus. John 15 .9, He says, As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. And John 14 .31, He says, But I do as the Father has commanded Me so that the world may know that I love the Father.

You see, Jesus addresses God as His heavenly Father. And He says that. I love Him. I actively love the Father. My obedience is testimony to my active love of God. Thus, when we, who are called to conformity to Christ, try to understand what that means, we need to understand that it starts with a proper love for God.

It's the first commandment. When Jesus said, What's the greatest commandment? To love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength. The problem, and this is not only a problem outside the church.

When I say this problem is, this problem is in the church too. The problem is, people often do not love God. People love their rendition of God. Many worldly people claim to love God. You go out, if I were to go out into the world, and I were to stand out with tracts, talking to people, and we've done this, you go out and talk to people, you say, Do you love God?

Yes, I love God. Or you'll start talking to them about sin, and the necessity of Christ and salvation. What do they say? That's not the God I believe in. Well, what have they done? They've created an idol.

They've made their own God. You see, mankind has been called, you know we're homo sapien, right? The thinking being. We're also called homo religiosus. Homo religiosus, that we're the religious being.

Because man is the only being on the whole planet who worships. You never see a cow. You don't see cows out there worshiping. You don't see monkeys gathered around a temple worshiping. Man is the only being that worships.

And everybody worships something. Everyone worships something. But most people worship the idol of self, and they identify God as like them. They idolize a mystical figure that they've created and called Him God.

If you're going to write something down for today, write this down. Jesus loved God as He is. Jesus loved God as He is. Not as He conformed God into His own mind and made a God up in His mind. Jesus didn't love an idol.

Jesus loved God as He is. How many times do we describe God to people and say I couldn't worship a God like that? I just couldn't worship a God who would send someone to hell. How many of you ever heard of Richard Dawkins?

Richard Dawkins, atheist, very, very popular among atheists. This is what he says about God. He says, the God of the Old Testament is arguably... I can't do a British accent, so don't even try. But he says, the God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction.

So what does he say in that statement? Number one, God's fictional. Number two, He's just a character of fiction. But three, I don't like Him. He's unpleasant! And I don't even want to read the rest of the quote, but he goes on to say why He's unpleasant.

And he says all these terrible things about the God of the Bible. That's true for the unbeliever, whether or not they're willing to say it like Richard Dawkins says it. Because as soon as you begin to describe God to someone as He is described in Scripture, the unbeliever will say, I don't like that.

I don't like the idea of hell. I don't like the idea of God's wrath. I don't like the idea of God demanding that we worship Him. I don't like the idea that there's only one way to heaven and that way is Jesus Christ.

I don't like that. I don't like the fact that God would be so myopic. God would be so demanding. I just don't like it! But I love God! You love the God you've created. And that's what most people do. True sanctification is loving God as He is.

Simple. Simple. That's the fruit of regeneration. To be able to go to the Word and not conform God to us, but seek to be conformed to Him. That's sanctification. Loving God as He is. So that's number one.

Number two, conformity to Christ includes growing in our love for others. We've already said Jesus loved God. Well, Jesus also spent a great deal of His ministry preaching about relationships to other people.

And He did more than just preach. He exemplified His love for others in an unparalleled way. Nobody has ever loved people like Jesus loved people. You ever think about that? Nobody. You've got all these other religious figures.

Nobody loved people like Jesus loved people. Even more so, no person has ever loved sinners more than Christ loved sinners. That's the other thing. Jesus didn't just love people. Jesus loved sinful people.

What does the text tell us in Romans 5? It says, For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one might dare to die. But God shows His love toward us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

You see, the meaning behind that text is this. It says you might find a reason to die for somebody you think is noble. You might lay down your life for someone who is important to you. A child maybe. You may step in front of a bullet to save some dignitary.

You might be noble enough to do that. But who would stand in front of somebody condemned to death for having committed murder and you say, I'll take his place? No. But that's what Jesus did. He laid you who were condemned because of your sin.

Christ said, I'll take your place. And that's how Christ shows His love toward others. He took the condemnation you deserved. I had a conversation about the Gospel last night with a young lady. And I often do this when I'm talking about the Gospel.

I say, if you took Jesus Christ and you took Adolf Hitler, and Hitler is about the worst you can think of. There are other worse, I guess. But for most modern people, Hitler kind of stands as a testimony to bad.

And I say, now imagine this is a scale of righteousness. Where would you be? Would you be closer to Hitler or closer to Jesus? Oh, I'd be close to Jesus. I said, honey, you'd be arm in arm with Adolf Hitler.

You are nowhere close to the righteousness of Christ. We don't understand that. We don't understand the depth of our depravity. We don't understand the righteousness of God. And I tell them, until you understand that, you'll never understand grace.

Because you'll never understand why He went to that cross. Because the same seed of sin that was in Adolf Hitler is in you. It may not have worked its way out so powerfully in your life, but the seed is there.

So anyway, having said all that, Jesus loved people like Adolf Hitler. He loved me. That's a powerful thought. Jesus loved me in spite of me. That's the example that He gives to us. When we only love people who love us, we do not love like Jesus loves us.

I'll say it again. When we only love people who love us, we do not love like Jesus loves us. Love like Christ causes us to love unlovable people. Love like Christ causes us to love our enemies. Love like Christ causes us to pray for those who persecute us.

Love like Christ causes us to love those who will never reciprocate that love, but will only spurn that love. I've met people who had perfect theology, but have no love. And you know what I say to those people?

You don't have perfect theology. Because the reality is, sound theology without love is really an impossibility, for you are not sounding your theology if it's not working itself out in love. I mean, we had it read to us this morning.

Mike read it to us. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a sounding cymbal. If I have prophetic powers, I understand all mysteries. You could say I understand all doctrine and all knowledge.

If I have all faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all that I have in my body to be burned, if I'm a martyr, but I have not love, I am nothing. That's pretty clear.

Paul didn't mince words. The problem is the world defines, and I want to add something to that. The world defines love differently than Christ does, because one of the ways that we do show love to people is calling them to repentance and faith in Him.

And people say, oh, it's unloving if you call somebody to repentance. It's unloving if you tell someone that they need to come to Christ because they're a sinner. That is the greatest love that we can show anyone.

Now, that's not to say that we go hold signs that says, God hates fags, because that's dumb. And it's not beneficial to the kingdom. But the reality is we do share with the person who's in sin that there's salvation in Jesus Christ and no other.

And He's called us, that He's commanded all men everywhere to repent. Not just change a little something here or there, but to repent of your sins and trust Him as Savior. That's the greatest amount of love we can have to show and tell someone.

And we're told, no, that's judgmental. It's not judgmental to tell someone they need Jesus. It's necessary. It's the greatest act of love we can give to someone. All right, finally, and I'm running a little over, so I'll finalize it with this.

Number three. Conformity to Christ. We've already said it. It's growing in our love for God, growing in our love for others. This last one, though, is the hard one. Conformity to Christ includes growing in our hatred of sin.

I tell this story, many of you have heard it many times. A young man in my youth group, back in the day, when I used to teach, had a kid come to me. I said, Christ hates sin. And he said, I didn't know Jesus hated anything.

I said, really? You don't think Jesus hates when we kill thousands of babies every day? You don't think Jesus hates it when a man rapes a woman? You don't think Jesus hates it when a man beats his wife?

Oh yeah, I guess he would hate that. Yeah! Don't you think Jesus hates it when we lie? When we gossip? When we bear false witness? Don't you think God hates sin? And don't you think that He calls us to hate sin too?

Jesus Christ never sinned. Never. He never ever sinned. We can't even wrap our minds around that, but He never did. The Bible says He was tempted in every way as we are, but yet was without sin. Never once did Jesus sin.

And not only did He never sin, He hated it with everything in Him. He loved sinners. He loved people, that is for sure. But He always stood opposed to sin. And He condemned people in their sins. Think about what Jesus said to the Pharisees in Matthew 23.

He says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Seven times He says, Woe to you, woe to you, woe to you. By the way, the word woe means God's judgment upon you. Damnation be upon you. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees.

And He gives a litany of reasons why. Because they were religious hypocrites. And He called them snakes and vipers. And He condemned them to hell in verse 33. Matthew 23, 33. He condemned them to hell.

He cast out the money changers. He went in and He took a rod and He chased people out of the temple. I always love when people say, what would Jesus do? I always say, you know, taking a whip is within the realm of possibility.

Yes, He did it once. Actually, He did it twice. Jesus hates sin. And here's the thing. Most of us hate sin to some capacity. Even unbelievers hate sin to some capacity. Even the hardest atheist gets upset when he sees an injustice.

The unbeliever, you ask, even Richard Dawkins, what do you think about rape? It's atrocious. It's an atrocity. It's bad. I hate it. The problem is not that unbelievers do not hate the sin of others because they do.

The problem is they don't hate their own sin. They condemn their neighbor and they justify themselves. So when we ask ourselves, do we hate sin? We should add something to that sentence. Do we hate our own sin?