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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Subsequent process | 1 Cor 1:2 | biblicalman | 228447 | ||
Well of course you may use 2 Thessalonians 2.13 as you like. That is your privilege. But the point is that 'sanctification of the Spirit' comes before 'belief in the truth'. Thus it would appear to be prior. Had Paul meant what you say he would have put sanctification of the Spirit after belief of the truth. Incidentally are you denying that the Spirit works in men to bring them to Christ? How then do they come to Him? They come to Him through the work that He does in their lives by His Spirit. What is that if it is not 'sanctifying', separating out in order to make holy. Would you say that children could be sanctified at birth? Or that an unbelieving man could be sanctified? (Although not by the Spirit). Paul does. (1 Corinthians 7.14). The term has a variety of meanings to be determined in context. I really do not mind how you take 'from the beginning'. But what does happen 'from the beginning'? Certainly not belief of the truth. It is God's choice that is from the beginning and that results in His commencing His sanctifying work on those chosen in order to bring them to belief of the truth. Why should what is in the eternal mind of God be described only as justification? Do you not think that He had in His mind the making of us holy as well as the declaring of us as righteous? I fail to see why the fact that being made holy is distinct from being declared righteous means that it has to be a 'subsequent process' (if we can speak of subsequent when speaking of non-time) as opposed to justification. Clearly both are the result of a subsequent processs by which God brings men to Himself. And I have in fact already previously indicated that Scripture teaches that sanctification is both a status and a process. I notice you do not mention 1 Peter 1.2. There also we have God's election, then sanctification of the Spirit, and this leads to (is 'unto') the obedience of Jesus Christ and the sprinkling of His blood'. Now whether the obedience of Jesus Christ is His obedience put to our account, or is our subsequent obedience through Jesus Christ, makes no difference to the fact that it is subsequent to sanctification of the Spirit. And more importantly from the point of view of the question, the 'sprinkling of the blood of Jesus' which takes place at conversion is also subsequent to sanctification of the Spirit. Thus salvation follows sanctification of the Spirit in this case. Need I say more? Best wishes |
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2 | Subsequent process | 1 Cor 1:2 | Beja | 228468 | ||
Thread, I recently did an in depth study on the word sanctification in the new testament. What I found was that as Biblicalman said, "The term has a variety of meaning to be determined by context." The word is extremely flexible. However, I was quite disturbed by the range. How can it mean "set apart" in a quite literal interpretation. Yet we see it universally discussed as an ongoing conformity to Christ in every discussion we read in books? I found this disturbing and decided to try to dig at the root of it all. I found that sometimes the word is meaning "set apart," sometimes the word is meaning the ongoing growth of holiness/conformity to Christ, and yet sometimes it seems to have the sense of a finished event accomplished at the cross. See Hebrews 10:10 for an example of that type. Other times it seems to be almost synonymous with our entire salvation. Now what is the common denominator in all of this? I found the Old Testament to hold the answer. In the law, the setting apart of something to God was always done by clensing it. Whether by water, fire, or most often by blood, clensing something of its defilements was the way in which one set something apart to God. We can not seperate the two. If you took a holy object and asked a Levite at what moment it became set apart to God, I believe they would say when it was clensed for that purpose by the blood of a sacrifice. The clensing by sacrifice was its being set apart, and its being set apart was its clensing. So in the same stripe, we are set apart unto God through clensing by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. So in one sense, we were certainly sanctified once for all at the cross. Christ is our sanctification. Then again we can look to our sanctification as the moment the sacrifice was applied to us when we were united to Christ by Faith. And yet there is more. The sacrifice ofcourse was clensing. Our sanctification is our clensing of sin, and our clensing of sin is our being set apart to God. So we must look at that aspect. And we must notice that Christ has clensed us from sin and this happens in two ways. First, Christ has clensed us finally from the guilt of sin, justification. Second, Christ has (ongoing process) sealed our clensing from the actually practice of sin, holiness. See the new covenant in Hebrews 8 and you will see both forgiveness and obedience were bought for us at the cross. So this means though we previously have mentioned a sense in which our sanctification has been accomplished, now we see a sense in which although our sanctification is garaunteed, it is in the process of happening through the holy spirit's work in progressively securing our obedience. So here is a sense in which sanctification is ongoing and can even be commanded that we persue it (Heb 12:14). So this I think is the root of sanctification, our being clensed by the sacrifice of Christ both from guilt and practice of sin so that we are set apart to God Holy. This is why the word is so so very flexible. Sometimes it just means set apart, sometimes it is highlighting the fact that Christ accomplished it, sometimes it is focusing on the fact that it is not yet completed in practice, and sometimes it is highlighting the entire process. Yet if we keep the whole picture in mind, we can see where they are focusing on any given context. Hope this wasn't hopelessly jumbled and that somebody benefited. In Christ, Beja |
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3 | Subsequent process | 1 Cor 1:2 | DocTrinsograce | 228473 | ||
Good stuff, pastor! Thank you for the post. | ||||||