Category Archives: Sanctification

Sanctification – Affirmations and Denials

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Pastor Rick Phillips with Harry Reeder: Union with Christ and the Gospel

From the being totally depraved, is unable to obey or please God unto salvation.
We deny that the believer, being regenerated by the Holy Spirit, remains unable to obey and please God, by grace and in Christ.

Article III – The Gospel Includes Sanctification
We affirm that the gospel provides salvation for the whole man, including man’s need for both imputed and imparted righteousness.
We deny that the gospel provides freedom from the guilt of sin in justification without deliverance from the power of sin in regeneration and liberation from the practice of sin in sanctification.

Article IV – Union with Christ and Sanctification
We affirm that both justification and sanctification are distinct, necessary, inseparable and simultaneous graces of union with Christ though faith.
We deny that sanctification flows directly from justification, or that the transformative elements of salvation are mere consequences of the forensic elements.

Article V – Gratitude and Motivation
We affirm that gratitude for justification is a powerful motivation for growth in holiness.
We deny that gratitude for justification is the only valid motivation for holiness, making all other motivations illegitimate or legalistic.

Article VI-Good Works not Merit
We affirm that believers are not under the Law as a covenant of works, where the believer is required to merit his or her own righteousness before God.
We deny that Christ has freed the Christian from the moral Law as the standard of Christian living.

Article VII – Adoption and Sanctification
We affirm that through the finished work of Christ believers are adopted by God as sons and now relate to God as their loving heavenly Father.
We deny that our adoption precludes God’s fatherly displeasure when His children rebel, or that God’s Fatherly love prevents Him from disciplining Christians who stray from the path of righteousness.

Article VIII – Effort and Sanctification
We affirm that God-glorifying, Christ-centered, Holy Spirit-empowered effort to put off sin and put on righteousness is necessary for Christian growth in grace.
We deny that all practical effort in sanctification is moralistic, legalistic or that the only effort required for growth is that Christians remember, revisit, and rediscover their justification.

Article IX – Faith and Sanctification
We affirm that growth in the Christian life comes through faith, which believes and acts on the promises of God in the Scriptures.
We deny that faith is wholly passive in sanctification or separated from good works in the same sense that justification is by faith alone.

Article X – Preaching the Imperatives
We affirm that faithful preaching of the Law for use in the Christian life must always be done in the context of God’s provision through the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit.
We deny that preaching the Scripture’s indicatives without the imperatives is a healthy model for Christian ministry because such preaching fails to conform to the pattern seen in Scripture and is dangerous to the life and ministry of the church.

Article XI – Sanctification and Assurance
We affirm that Christians gain assurance of salvation by cherishing the promise of the gospel and by the fruit of the Spirit’s work in the believer’s life.
We deny that assurance gained through growth in godliness amounts to a performance-based religion or necessitates an unwholesome spiritual pride.

Article XII – Sanctification and Victory
We affirm that Christians can and should experience victories over sin, however limited and partial, and that these victories bring glory to God and bear testimony to the power of His grace.
We deny that rejoicing in victories over sin amounts to spiritual pride or performance religion, although Christians may and sometimes do sin in this way.

Personal Revenge – Spurgeon

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spurg7“Be not overcome of evil, but may God deliver us from the nature which makes it natural! It is just, no doubt, after a fashion, but from that sort of justice may our Redeemer rescue us! Again, it is admitted that the art of returning evil for evil is very, very easy. If, my dear Friend, you make it a rule that nobody shall ever insult you without having to pay for it, nor treat you with disrespect without meeting his match, you need not pray to God, in the morning, to help you to carry out your resolve. There will be no need to wrestle in prayer that you may be graciously enabled to take vengeance on your adversaries and stand up for your rights! You can do that decidedly better by trusting to yourself than by looking to God! Indeed, you dare not look to God about it at all. The devil will help you—and between your own passion and the Evil One, the thing may be very easily managed. There will be no reason for watchfulness. You need not be on your guard or keep your self in check. On the contrary, you may give to the very worst part of your nature the greatest possible license and go ahead according to the rage of your passionate spirit.

Prayer and humility of mind will, of course, be quite out of the question. Nor will there be any need for faith—you will not commit your case unto God and leave it there—you will fight your own battles, wipe off old scores as you go, and place your dependence on fierce speeches, on mighty fists, or on the law and the policeman. Christian Graces will be too much in your way for you to think of them! Gentleness, meekness, forbearance, forgiveness—you will bid good-bye to these and cultivate the virtues of a savage or of a bulldog. All this is wonderfully easy, though it may be that before long it will turn out to be difficult…

By many, to return evil for evil has been judged to be the more manly course. Years ago if a gentleman imagined himself to be insulted, it was necessary, according to the code of honor then in vogue, for him either to shed the blood of the offending person, or at least to expose himself to the like peril of his life. Thank God that murderous custom is now almost entirely gone from the face of the earth! The spirit of Christianity, has, by degrees, overcome this evil. But there still abides in the world the idea that to stand up for yourself, to just let people know what you are, never to knuckle down to anybody, but to defend your own cause and vindicate your honor has something extremely manly about it. And to yield, to submit, to be patient, to be meek, to be gentle is considered to be unworthy of a man of spirit. They call it showing the white feather and being cowardly, though to my mind, he is the bravest man who can bear the most.

Now, Christian, who is your model of a man? You do not hesitate for a second, I am sure. There is but one model of a Christian and that is the Man, Christ Jesus. Will you then remember that whatever is Christly is manly and whatever you think to be manly which is not Christ-like, is really unmanly, as judged by the highest style of man? The Lord Jesus draws near to a Samaritan village and they will not receive Him, though He was always kind to Samaritans. Good John, gentle John, becomes highly indignant, and cries, “Lord, will You that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?” Jesus meekly answers, “You know not what manner of spirit you are of: for the Son of Man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”…

Beloved Brothers and Sisters, I beseech you by the mercies of God that you refrain from, forever, the method of seeking to overcome evil with evil, and that you follow the example of your Lord, taking His yoke upon you and learning of Him, for He is meek and lowly in mind.

Let us consider THE DIVINE METHOD OF OVERCOMING EVIL WITH GOOD. And here I freely admit, to commence with, that this is a very elevated mode of procedure. “Overcome evil with good! Ridiculous!” says one. “Utopian,” cries another. “It might do for Plato’s republic,” says a third, “but it will never do for ordinary, everyday life.” Well, I shall not blush to admit that this is a very high course of conduct and one which the mere worldling cannot be expected to follow—but of Christians we expect higher things! You have a high calling of God in Christ Jesus and you are, therefore, called to a high style of character by your glorious Leader, the Lord Jesus Christ!

Brothers and Sisters, if it is difficult, I commend it to you because it is so! What is there which is good which is not, also, difficult? Soldiers of Christ love those virtues most which cost them most. If it is hard to obtain, the jewel is all the more precious. Since there is sufficient Grace to enable us to become like our Lord, we will labor after this virtue, also, and obtain the great Grace which its cultivation requires. Notice that this text inculcates not merely passive nonresistance, though that is going a good way, but it teaches us active benevolence to enemies. “Overcome evil with good,” with direct and overt acts of kindness. That is, if any man has done you a wrong, do not only forgive it, but avenge it by doing him a favor!

Dr. Cotton Mather was never content till he had bestowed a benefit on every man who had, in any way, done him an injury. If anybody has slandered you, or treated you unkindly in any way, go out of your way to serve him. “If your enemy is hungry, feed him.” You might say, “Well, I am sorry for him, but really, he is such a vagabond! I could not think of relieving him.” Yet according to this Scripture, he is the very man you are bound to feed! If he is thirsty, do not say, “I hope somebody will relieve him. I feel no animosity to the man, but I am not going out of my way to give him a drink.” According to your Lord’s command, he is the man to whom you must give drink! Go straightway to the well and fill your pitcher—and hasten to give him a drink at once, and without stint. You have not merely to forgive and forget, but you are bid to inflict upon the malicious mind the blessed sin-killing wound of your hearty and practical goodwill!

Give a blessing for a curse, a kiss for a blow, a favor for a wrong. “Oh,” you say, “this is high. I cannot attain unto it.” God is able to give you strength equal to this, also. “It is hard,” you say. Ah, but if you take Christ to be your Master, you must do what He tells you and, instead of shrinking because His command seems difficult to flesh and blood, you must cry, “Lord, increase my faith and give me more of Your Spirit.” To forgive to 70 times seven would not be hard to Christ, for He did it all His life. And it will not be hard for you if the same mind is in you which was also in Christ Jesus. It is to this that you are called! It is a sublime temper and it is exceedingly difficult and needs Divine Grace, needs watchfulness, needs living near to God—but for these reasons it is all the more worthy of a follower of Jesus and, therefore, we should aim at it with our whole heart.

– C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)

taken from: Overcome Evil with Good, Sermon No. 1317, Delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington Lord’s Day Morning, October 8, 1876

HT: Eric T. Young

Conditional Standing?

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John-HIn article entitled “Is Our Continued Standing in Christ Conditional?” John Hendryx writes:

Good works and obedience may be the necessary fruit of conversion but they are not the gospel which saves, nor do they play ANY part of what maintains our right standing before God. That office is reserved for Jesus alone. We contribute nothing to our justification. And if, as some claim, our continued standing in Christ is ultimately conditional, then it would directly contradict any feigned assertion that justification comes through Christ ALONE. Again, fruit is necessary, but it is Christ’s fruit.. He chose us and APPOINTED US TO BEAR FRUIT… fruit that will abide (John 15:16)

What about passages which call us to obedience and warn about disobedience. Well, this is what actually happens to true believers who fall into sin:

“But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we MAY NOT BE condemned along with the world.” (1 Cor. 11:31-32)

When a believer acknowledges his sin and the righteous judgment of God, God will not judge us, but when we sin we are judged by GOD as a form of discipline SO WE MAY NOT BE CONDEMNED ALONG WITH THE WORLD. Such discipline drives us back to obedience, and never results in causing God to forsake our status as His children. No one, including you or me, would have hope if any of our salvation depended, even a little, on ourselves. The idea that Christ can lose a believer also directly contradicts God’s promise that His call is irrevocable to all those he has given Christ. (Rom 11:29; John 6:39)

Theologian Robert Reymond once noted that in 1 John there is “a cause and effect relationship exists between God’s regenerating activity and saving faith/obedience/perseverance.” When one takes into account that John says in 1 John 3:9a that “everyone who has been begotten [gegenn?menos] by God does not do sin, because [hoti] his seed abides in him” and then in 1 John 3:9b that “he is not able to sin, because [hoti] he has been begotten [gegenn?tai—the word in 5:1] by God,” we definitely find a cause and effect relationship between God’s regenerating activity as the cause and the Christian’s not abiding in sin as one EFFECT of that regenerating activity. [The reverse is true that those who continue to abide in sin have not been regenerated]…In every other place where it occurs — an?then, means “from above.” [i.e. those who have been begotten [perfect tense] by God sins [present tense] not,”[ Though he does not say so in so many words, it is surely appropriate, because of his pattern of speech in 1 John 3:9 and elsewhere this word is used, to understand him to mean that the cause behind one’s not abiding in sin [and even the cause of one’s faith (1 Jn 5:1)] is God’s regenerating activity.”

In other words, the work of grace which the Lord does for us in the gospel is a complete work, and lacks nothing. Jesus Person and work is sufficient to save to the uttermost (Heb 7:25). Jesus says, “I have come to do your will … And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Hebrews 10:10)