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NASB | 1 Corinthians 1:2 ¶ To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours: |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | 1 Corinthians 1:2 ¶ To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified (set apart, made holy) in Christ Jesus, who are selected and called as saints (God's people), together with all those who in every place call on and honor the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours: |
Subject: Subsequent process |
Bible Note: 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 |