Sanctification, Part 1: Victorious Christian Living

I want to speak to you about victorious Christian life. In theology we call this sanctification. Now that is a long word, but you must learn that word. Anyone who is a Christian must acquaint himself with biblical theological words, and one such word is sanctification. In the Hebrew the word is qadosh. You remember in Isaiah 6 it says: “Holy, holy, holy – Qadosh, qadosh, qadosh – is the Lord Almighty.” In the Greek the word is hagiazo.

These words have the meaning of setting apart – setting apart an object or a person or persons from a certain use to another certain exclusive use; from ordinary use to an exclusive sacred religious use. So we read in Exodus 19 that the people were sanctified. All the people of Israel were sanctified, meaning set apart as God’s exclusive people to serve and worship God. We read in Exodus 19:23 that Mount Sinai was made holy, meaning it was set apart for the use of God from which to speak. In Deuteronomy 5:12 we read about the Sabbath day being made holy, meaning that God set that day apart for the exclusive use of our worshiping and serving him. In Exodus 30:29 we read the tabernacle and the vessels were made holy, meaning they were set apart for God’s exclusive use.

So the root meaning of both the Hebrew and Greek words for sanctification is what? To set apart. Now, this setting apart has two aspects. The first aspect is to set apart from something. Turn to 2 Corinthians 6 and read from verse 14 through chapter 7, verse 1: “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers,” etc. In other words, you should be separating from unbelievers. You should be separating from wickedness. You should be separating from Belial. You should be separating from idols. Read that entire section. It says there is no fellowship between Christ and Belial, righteousness and wickedness, or the temple of God and idols. Read 2 Corinthians 6:17: “Therefore come out from them.” Here again, you see a separation from – from all that is evil and wicked and idolatrous and evil – “and be separate.” So there is a separation from.

Secondly, there is what? A separation unto. Unto whom? Unto God, your heavenly Father. We read in 2 Corinthians 6 and verse 16, “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they will be my people.” It is separation from evil and it is separating ourselves unto God, our heavenly Father. “‘Therefore come out from them and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.’” It is separation, therefore, unto God. “‘I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters,’ says the Lord Almighty.” So that is the basic idea of sanctification, of holy living, of living a victorious Christian life. Let us never forget these two aspects. What are they? Separation from all that is evil and separation unto the exclusive worship and serving of our God, who is our Father, the Lord Almighty.

You know, I have heard people glibly and superficially say, “Oh, well, it simply means separation. Be separated,” as though you don’t have to live a holy life. They affirm the basic idea is simply separation, and that God separated you. That is all true, but it is separation from something and it is separation unto God, who is all-holy and righteous. It is separation from evil and conformity to God, in other words.

The Bible uses this expression “sanctify” in many ways. First, we are told to sanctify ourselves. We just read that in 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1. You read it in Leviticus 11:44 and 45: “Sanctify yourselves.” The responsibility is given to you. You are to separate yourselves from all unclean things.

If that is the case, let me tell you, as a practical suggestion, that all that television watching that Christians do is absolutely moronic and sinful. It degenerates your mind. It debilitates you. It conforms you to the pattern of this world. It puts into your brain stupidity and wickedness. And yet how many people very passively turn the channel and are watching these things and getting entertained? Changing our television habits is a practical application of the basic meaning of the words qadoshand hagiazo – to separate from.

Another application involves young people buying and utilizing pornography. That is absolutely evil, and you and I have the responsibility to separate ourselves from evil. You can make a list of such things out of which you should sanctify yourselves or separate yourselves. You could also put food in it, and every other thing that is debilitating you. You must separate yourselves with a passion, with great diligence, from whatever is pulling you down from following Jesus Christ, .

Now the expression that we should “sanctify God” is used in the Old Testament. That’s a strange idea, but you see it in Deuteronomy 32:51. Look at 1 Peter 3:15. “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.” The word there is sanctify: “in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord.” What does that mean: in your hearts set apart, sanctify Christ as Lord? Does it mean to make Christ holy? Here Peter is harking back to the Old Testament passage, Deuteronomy 32:51. But what does that mean? We understand that when we are told to sanctify ourselves, it means to separate from evil and separate ourselves unto God’s exclusive service. But when we are told we should sanctify God, what does that mean?

To sanctify God means that we should acknowledge in our hearts and minds that God is holy, that he is Lord of all, and therefore we must worship and obey him. That’s the idea. It is the acknowledgement that God is not a man; that God is transcendent; that God is holy; that God is Lord; that God is almighty; that God is separate and different from us; and that therefore we must obey him, revere him and worship him. That’s the idea.

Oh, do not let us treat God as our friend in the sense he is just like us. Oh, no. Jesus Christ is our friend, our Savior and our elder brother, but he is also God transcendent and almighty, the sovereign Lord of the universe. Therefore we must acknowledge him to be our Lord and render him absolute and implicit obedience. Many Christians do not have this understanding, that Jesus Christ is Lord and we must obey him. But we must always keep that in our minds. We must worship him, revere him and submit to him. That is sanctifying God in our hearts. That is acknowledging him to be who he is. “Qadosh, qadosh, qadosh – Holy, holy, holy – is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”

This word also is used in terms of God sanctifying us. Look at Exodus 31:13. God says, “Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know I am the Lord’” – who sanctifies you – “‘who makes you holy.’”

Let’s look at more scriptures that show the truth that God – the triune God – sanctifies us. In 1 Thessalonians 5:23 it says: “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Yes, God sanctifies us, and here we see that God the Father sanctifies us. Remember the prayer of Jesus Christ? “‘Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.’” (John 17:17) Isn’t that wonderful? God plays a very important in our sanctification, in making us holy. God the Father is interested in our holiness.

God the Son, Jesus Christ, is interested in our holiness. In Ephesians 5:23-27 we read, “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” – for what purpose? So that you, the church, could be steeped in wickedness and be the same old person, and pretend that you are a Christian? Oh, no. Christ died “to make her holy,” to bring about moral renovation by transforming us and conforming us to the likeness of himself. There is a moral transformation and a moral conformation, a cleansing of us, “to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” So Jesus Christ, in other words, is interested in my having a pure and holy life.

God the Holy Spirit is interested in our holiness. Even the name of the third Person of the Trinity gives us a clue of this, isn’t that true? What is his name? Holy Spirit. In Galatians 5:16 Paul says, “So I say, live by the Spirit” and you’ll be holy. That’s the translation. “Live by the Spirit and you will not” – what? “gratify the desires of sinful nature.” The Holy Spirit’s singular interest is to lead us into holiness. As long as we obey the Holy Spirit, that will happen.

So, God the Father is interested in sanctifying us; God the Son died and shed his blood so we could be made holy, blameless, spotless, radiant; and God the Holy Spirit is sent from heaven for the specific purpose of sanctifying us, of making us holy.

What is the goal of this sanctifying process? Let me say this: If you are born of God, if God has planted in you divine life, which, in theology is called regeneration, I guarantee you and God guarantees us in the Holy Scriptures that there will be growth of that life. If there has been a birth from God, there will also be growth from God.

In other words, if there has been regeneration, there will be what? Sanctification. If we have no interest in living a holy life, we must logically deduce and come to this irrefutable conclusion that we am not born again. Do you understand what I am saying? If I have no desire to please God, if I have no hatred for sin, if I am doing the same old things, if I have no interest in separating from wickedness to love God and to follow him, the irrefutable and singular conclusion I must draw is this, that I am not born of God. Instead, I am one of those who will call God, “Lord, Lord,” but the Lord will say to them, “Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you.”

Think, brothers and sisters, and see whether God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit is generating within you such an intense desire to hate sin and to love God. If that is true, then you can draw the opposite conclusion, that you have been born of God because sanctification is taking place within you. Oh, that ought to cause us all to be happy, isn’t that true? And then we will rejoice in God our Savior. Amen.