Sanctification

Sorry I don't have time for an original thought this week. Here is an interesting excerpt I read last week. Hope you all enjoy!


One of the reasons that God’s “justification” is often misunderstood is that it is separated too widely from “sanctification.” The latter is also a term that many want to throw out as meaningless jargon, and the word has been further corrupted by the exaggerated piety of sanctimonious people, who pretend to a holiness that no one except Jesus could possibly live.

The greatest distortion of sanctification occurs when we start to think that we accomplish it ourselves – that we can fix ourselves, get rid of our tendency to sin, make ourselves more holy, attain perfection. Of course it is true that holiness is nourished by our participation in the practices of the faith, but it is GOD’S WORK through those practices that enable us more to act like the saints that we are by virtue of God’s justification of us. The same God who forgives our sins also sets us free from their controlling power.

Holiness is not abstract. IT is the story of God’s multifaceted interventions in the world.

Another, more subtle, corruption of sanctification arises when one’s piety is not rooted in the dialectical combination of truth and love. This can be seen in the warped “holiness” of those who insist on God’s commands as the basis for moral deliberations, but do so without love for their opponents. On the opposite side are those who emphasize love, but lose the truth of the Scriptures.

Jesus demonstrated true holiness when He said to the woman caught in adultery, “Neither do I condemn you. God your way, and from now on do not sin again” (John 8:11). He did not dismiss the actuality of sin (in which she might have been and unwilling participant), but forgives her in love and by grace sets her free for fresh obedience.

In the past I have thought about justification and sanctification primarily as a first and second step in God’s work for and in us. Now, I see them more as two sides of the same coin, which landed first on the justification side as Christ accomplished the sacrifice of atonement that forgives us. Thereafter, the coin keeps spinning as the two actions of God continually reinforce each other. We can’t be open to God’s renewing, sanctifying work within us if we don’t know clearly that we are forgiven, but when we fail and think, say, or do things contrary to God’s best way, the opulence of triune forgiveness widens us to receive more of God’s sanctifying work.

That is one of the reasons I love Sunday morning worship so much. Sometimes I have trouble forgiving myself and digging out of the guilt I feel because I’m not the kind and gracious person I’d like to be. Then, in worship, when I hear the pastor or priest announce to me the entire forgiveness of all my sin, it tastes so good that it makes me hungry for holiness. And the texts, sermon, music and liturgy, liturgical symbols and sacraments, and community keep teaching me about a God who wants to – and will! – work it in me. What a feast!

Dawn, Marva. Talking the Walk: Letting Christian Language Live Again (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005), 179-180.

"my husband beat the $h!+ out of me!"

Last night after our New Year's Covenant Service I was talking with a couple of lady's. A girl, no older than Antonina, came walking up the middle isle and asked if she could use our phone. I took her to the phone. She seemed upset. I asked if she was OK and she replied, "no. I'm not OK. My husband just beat the $h!+ out of me." I talked with her for a little bit and she didn't want to talk to the police. Then one of the lady's told me that the husband was outside. When I came out of the room the phone was in. The husband was walking up the isle with their 3 kids. I made him wait outside and I called the cops. Then we talked. In the end, the kids got taken to children's services and the police took the girl so that they would have some time apart and then so she could go home and get the $h!+ beat out of her again.

Through the whole thing, she insisted on her love for him and his love for her. He wanted to be very consoling and huggy. It almost made me sick.

I began thinking about what it really means to be married. As I thought I was reminded of something I'd written comparing explaining salvation based on the metaphor of marriage. So I thought I'd post it here:


“I believe in one baptism for the remission of sins.”

This confession, found in the Nicene Creed, is part of our (Nazarene) confession of faith. Further we subscribe to Wesley’s popular definition of a sacrament as “an outward sign of an inward grace…” but we usually forget to include the second half of the definition, “…and a means of grace by which we receive the same.”

So why am I bringing all this up? Because our soteriology (theology of salvation) seems to contradict this foundational confession of faith. How do we reconcile our evangelical emphasis of salvation by faith alone, which excludes baptism as efficacious in salvation, and the creedal bconfession that our baptism is “for the remission of sins”?

The key is in Wesley’s definition: “An outward sign of an inward grace” (faith alone) and “a means of grace by which we receive the same” (baptismal regeneration). Salvation is both by faith and by sacrament. How can this be?

Dr. Rob Staples, in Outward Sign, Inward Grace, directs our thoughts to marriage. He poses the question of what makes a couple married. Is it the love and commitment they share or the ceremony and ritual in which they participate that makes them married? The answer is a real marriage requires both internal and external commitment. The couple who shares love and commitment, but has not participated in the wedding ceremony is not married. Nor is the couple who has been through the ceremony yet lacks love and commitment truly married. Therefore, it is not an either or proposition, but a both and proposition.

I would suggest that we must take the metaphor further. Marriage requires both love and ritual, as noted above, but it must also be consummated sexually. A real marital relationship is one in which the love and ritual is consummated repeatedly and regularly. If any one of these components is lacking there really is no marriage at all.

So now we must bring the metaphor home to relate it to our theology of salvation. Salvation requires relationship, ritual and consummation – love, baptism, and communion. To fail to give adequate attention to any of these components is to fail to give our salvation the serious consideration it deserves.