Our subject now before us is Sanctification. The subject is one of great importance. Not only is there much ignorance and error and misconception about the subject, but there is, strange to say, most bitter controversy over the subject. So bitter is the controversy over the subject that some years ago there were two rival "holiness conventions" held at the same time in Chicago at different hours of the day, in the same church, and the animosity between these two companies of "holiness brethren" was so intense that on one occasion they came near to having blows at the altar of the church. The subject of Sanctification has given rise to such bitterness and such extravagances in some quarters that many even dread the use of the word "Sanctification." But the word is not only a Bible word, but a deeply significant word, a word full of precious meaning; and it would not be the part of wisdom on our part to give up this good Bible word simply because the word is so often abused. On one occasion a man said to me in the Bible Institute of Chicago, "Are you not afraid of holiness?" Of course what the man meant was, was I not afraid of certain phases of "holiness doctrine" so-called. I replied that I was not nearly as much afraid of holiness as I was of unholiness. The teaching of the Bible on the subject is very plain and very precious. What we have to say this morning will come under three headings. First, What Sanctification Is: 2. How to be Sanctified; 3. When Sanctification Takes Place.

I. WHAT SANCTIFICATION IS

First, then, let us consider what Sanctification is.

1. In the first place let me make it clear that, Sanctification is not the "Baptism with the Holy Spirit." The two are constantly confused. There is an intimate relation between the two, but they are not at all one and the same thing; and only confusion and misconception can arise from confounding two experiences which God keeps separate. That Sanctification is not the baptism with the Holy Spirit and that the baptism with the Holy Spirit is not Sanctification, will become clear as we proceed and find out from a study of the Bible just what Sanctification is.

2. In the second place, let me say that Sanctification is not the eradication of the carnal nature. We will see this when we come to examine God's definition of Sanctification; for God has very clearly defined what Sanctification is and when it takes place. Those who teach "the eradication of the carnal nature" are grasping after a great and precious truth, but they have expressed that truth in a very inaccurate, unfortunate, and unscriptural way, and this way of stating it leads to grave misapprehensions and errors and abuses. The whole controversy about "the eradication of the carnal nature" arises from a misapprehension and from using terms for which there is no warrant in the Bible. The Bible nowhere speaks about "the carnal nature," and so certainly not about "the eradication of the carnal nature." There is such a thing as a carnal nature, but it is not a material thing, not a substance, not a something that can be eradicated as you pull a tooth or remove the vermiform appendix. "A carnal nature" is a nature controlled by the flesh. Certainly it is a believer's privilege not to have his nature governed by the flesh. Our nature should be and may be under the control of the Holy Spirit, and then it is not a carnal nature; but one nature has not been eradicated and another nature put in its place, but our nature is taken out from under the control of the flesh and put under the control of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, while it is our privilege to have our nature under the control of the Holy Spirit and delivered from the control of the flesh, we still have "the flesh," and shall have the flesh as long as we are in this body. But if we "walk by the Spirit" we do not "fulfil the lusts of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16). The 8th chapter of Romans describes the life of victory, just as the 7th chapter, 9-24 verse describes the life of defeat, when men are "carnal, sold under sin," but it is in the 8th chapter where life "in the Spirit" is described (Rom. 8:9) that we are told that we still have the flesh, but that it is our privilege not to "live after the flesh," but "by the Spirit," to "put to death the deeds of the body." So we see that the body is there, but in the power of the Spirit we do, day by day and (if we live up to our privilege) every day and every hour and every minute, continuously "put to death the deeds of the body."

3. So much as to what Sanctification is not. We will see exactly what it is if we look at God's definition of Sanctification. We shall find that the word Sanctification is used in the Bible in a two-fold sense.

(1) The first meaning of Sanctification we will find in Lev. 8:10-12, "And Moses took the anointing oil, and anointed the tabernacle and all that was therein, and sanctified them. And he sprinkled thereof upon the altar seven times, and anointed the altar and all its vessels, and the laver and its base, to sanctify them. And he poured of the anointing oil upon Aaron's head and anointed him to sanctify him." Now it is perfectly clear in this passage that to sanctify means to separate or set apart for God, and that Sanctification is the process of setting apart or state of being set apart for God. The word Sanctify is used in this sense over and over again. Another illustration is Lev. 27:14, 17. "And when a man shall sanctify his house to be holy unto God, then the priest shall estimate it, whether it be good or bad: as the priest shall estimate it, so shall it stand ... and if a man shall sanctify unto Jehovah part of a field of his possession, then the estimation shall be according to the sowing thereof." Here again it is plain that to sanctify means to separate or set apart for God, and that Sanctification is the process of setting apart or state of being set apart for God. Still another illustration of this same use of the word sanctify is found in Num. 8:17, "For all the firstborn among the children of Israel are mine, both man and beast: on the day that I smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I sanctified them for myself." This, of course, does not mean that God, at the time that He smote the firstborn in Egypt, eradicated the carnal nature from the first-born of Israel. It does mean that He set apart all the first-born to be peculiarly His own. Another very suggestive illustration of the same usage of the word is found in the case of Jeremiah as stated by himself in Jer. 1:4, 5, "Now the word of Jehovah came unto me saying, before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee: I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations." This plainly means that before his birth God set Jeremiah apart for Himself. There would still be much imperfection and infirmity in him, but he was set apart for God. Another suggestive illustration of the same use of the word Sanctify is found in Matt. 23:27, in the words of our Lord Jesus Himself: "Ye fools and blind; for which is greater, the gold, or the temple that hath sanctified the gold?" But perhaps the most striking illustration of all is in what our Lord says about His own sanctification in John 17:19, "And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth." Here the plain meaning is that our Lord Jesus set Himself apart for this work for God and He did it in order that believers might be set apart for God "in truth," or "in the truth." This is the most frequent use of the word sanctify. There are numerous illustrations of it in the Bible. So to sanctify means to separate or set apart for God; and Sanctification is the process of setting apart or the state of being set apart for God. This is the primary meaning of the words.

(2) But the word as used in the Bible has also a secondary signification closely related to this primary meaning. An illustration of this secondary meaning will be found in II Chron. 29:5, "Hear me, ye Levites; now sanctify yourselves, and sanctify the house of Jehovah, the God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place." Bearing in mind the "parallelism" which is the chief characteristic of Hebrew poetry, it is plain that to sanctify here is synonymous with the "Carry forth the filthiness out of the holy places" found in the last part of the verse. So to sanctify here means to separate from ceremonial or moral defilement, to cleanse; and Sanctification is the process of separating, or state of being separated from ceremonial or moral defilement. The same use of the word is found in Lev. 11:44, "For I am Jehovah thy God: sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that moveth upon the earth." Here again it is clear that "sanctify yourselves" is synonymous with "be ye holy" and is contrasted with "defile yourselves" and means to separate from ceremonial or moral defilement, to cleanse; and Sanctification is the process of separating or state of being separated from ceremonial or moral defilement. The same meaning of sanctification is found in the New Testament in I Thess. 5:23, "And the God of Peace, Himself sanctify you wholly and may your Spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Here we see the close relation between entire sanctification and preserving wholly, without blame, and to sanctify here clearly means to separate from moral defilement, and sanctification here again is the process of separating or state of being separated from moral defilement. The same thing is evident from the 4th chapter of this same epistle in the 7th verse (I Thess. 4:7), "For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification." Our "Sanctification" is here set in direct contrast with "uncleanness," and hence it is evident that sanctification here means the state of being separated from all moral defilement. The same thing is evident from the 3rd verse of this same chapter, "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication." Here again it is evident that Sanctification means separation from impurity or moral defilement. The two meanings, then, of Sanctification are: the process of separating or setting apart, or state of being separated or set apart, for God; and the process of separating or state of being separated from ceremonial or moral defilement. These two meanings of the word are closely allied—one cannot be truly separated to God without being separated from sin.

II. HOW MEN ARE SANCTIFIED

We come now to the second question, How are men sanctified? There are several parts to the complete answer of this question.

1. The first part of the answer is found in our text of this chapter, I Thess. 5:23, "And the God of Peace himself sanctify you wholly and may your Spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." It appears from this verse that God sanctifies men, and Sanctification is God's work. Both the separation of men from sin and their separation unto God, is God's work. As it was God who in the old dispensation set apart the first-born of Israel unto Himself, so it is God who in the new dispensation sets apart the believer unto Himself and separates him from sin. Sanctification is primarily not our work but God's.

2. The second part of the answer is found in Eph. 5:25, 26, "Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water by the word." Here we are taught that Christ sanctifies the church and that Sanctification is Christ's work. The question, of course, arises, in what sense does Christ sanctify the church. The answer is found in Heb. 10:10, "By which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." Here it appears that Jesus Christ sanctifies the church by giving Himself up a sacrifice for it. By thus giving Himself up for it as a sacrifice Christ sets the Church apart for God. Just as the blood of the Passover Lamb in the 11th and 12th chapters of Exodus set a difference between Israel and the Egyptians, so our Lord Jesus by the offering of His own body has forever put a difference between the believer in Himself and the world, and has forever set every believer apart for God. The Cross of Christ stands between the believer and the world. The shed blood of Christ separates the believer from the world, purchases him to God and thus makes him to belong to God.

3. The third part of the answer to the question, how men are sanctified, is found in 2 Thess. 2:13 and in other passages, "But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, for that God chose you from the beginning unto salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." It appears from this passage, as from other passages in the Bible, that it is the Holy Spirit who sanctifies the believer, and that Sanctification is the Holy Spirit's work. Here the question arises, In what sense does the Holy Spirit sanctify the believer? In this sense, just as in the Old Testament type, tabernacle, altar and priest were set apart for God by the anointing oil (Lev. 8:10-12), so in the New Testament anti-type, the believer, who is both tabernacle and priest, is set apart for God by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Further than that, it is the Holy Spirit's work in the heart that overcomes the flesh and its defilements, and thus separates the believer from sin and clothes him with divine graces of character, and makes him fit to be God's own. As Paul puts it in Gal. 5:22, 23, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control." In opposition to this work of the Holy Spirit, we read in the immediately preceding verses what "the works of the flesh" are, an awful catalogue of vileness and sin, and we are told in the 16th verse, "Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh."

4. The fourth part of the answer to the question how we are sanctified is found in Heb. 13:12, "Wherefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood suffered without the gate." It is plain from this passage that believers are sanctified through the blood of Jesus Christ. Here the question arises, In what sense does the blood of Jesus sanctify? The answer is plain: The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all the guilt of sin, and thus separates us from the mass of men under the curse of the broken law, and sets us apart for God (cf. 1 John 1:7, 9). In the Old Testament dispensation the blood of the sacrifice cleansed the Israelites from the guilt of ceremonial offenses and set them apart for God; in the New Testament anti-type the blood of Christ cleanseth the believer from the guilt of moral offenses and sets him apart for God.

5. The fifth part of the answer to the question, how men are sanctified, is found in John 17:17, "Sanctify them in the truth: thy word is truth." Here our Lord Jesus in His prayer indicates that we are sanctified in the truth, and that the truth is the Word of God. In what sense does the Word of God sanctify? This question is plainly answered in different parts of the Word of God, where we are taught that the Word of God cleanses from the presence of sin, and thus separates us from it and sets us apart to God. (Ps. 119:9, 11; John 15:3.) As we bring our lives into daily contact with the Word, the sins and imperfections of our lives and hearts are disclosed and put away, and thus we are more and more separated from sin unto God. (cf. John 13:10.)

6. The sixth part of the answer to the question, how men are sanctified, is found in 1 Cor. 1:30, "But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." In this passage we are taught that Jesus Christ was made unto us from God sanctification. Just what does that mean? Simply this: that separation from sin and separation to God are provided for us in Christ Jesus and by the appropriation of Jesus Christ we obtain this sanctification thus provided. The more completely we appropriate Christ the more completely are we sanctified. But perfect sanctification is provided for us in Him, just as perfect wisdom is provided in Him (Col. 2:3). We appropriate either wisdom or sanctification or anything else that is provided for us in Christ in ever-increasing measure. Through the indwelling Christ presented to us by the Spirit in the Word, we are made Christlike and bear fruit.

7. The seventh part of the answer to the question of how men are sanctified is found in Heb. 12:14, "Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord." Here we are taught that we have our own part in sanctification, and that if we are to be sanctified in the fullest sense, sanctification is something that we must pursue, or seek earnestly, if we are to obtain it. While sanctification is God's work, we have our part in it, viz., to make it the object of our earnest desire and eager pursuit.

8. The eighth part of the answer to the question of how we are sanctified is found in Rom. 6:19, 22, "As ye presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification.... But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification." The meaning of these words is plain, and the teaching important and practical. We are here taught that we attain unto sanctification through presenting our members as servants (bondservants, or slaves) to righteousness and becoming ourselves bondservants unto God. In other words, if we wish to attain unto sanctification we should present our whole body and every member of it to God, to be His servants, belonging wholly unto Him, and we should present ourselves to God as His servants, to be His absolute property. This is the practical method of attaining unto sanctification, a method that is open to each one of us here to-day, no matter how weak we are in ourselves.

9. The ninth and final part of the answer to the question of how we are sanctified, is found in Acts 26:18, "To open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in Me." Here we are told that we are sanctified by faith in Christ. Sanctification, just as justification, regeneration, and adoption, is conditioned upon faith. Faith is the hand that appropriates to ourselves the blessing of sanctification that God has provided for us through His Son Jesus Christ by His death on the cross, and through the power of the Holy Spirit working in us. And we claim sanctification by simple faith in Him who shed His blood and by surrendering ourselves to the control of the Holy Spirit, Whom Jesus Christ gives.

III. WHEN DOES SANCTIFICATION TAKE PLACE

We now come to the question about which there has been the most discussion, the most differences of opinion, the most controversy. When does sanctification take place? If we will go to our Bibles to get the answer to the question there need be no difference of opinion. There are three parts to the answer.

1. The first part of the answer is found in I Cor. 1:2, "Unto the Church of God, which is at Corinth, even them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, their Lord and ours." Here the Holy Spirit speaking through the Apostle Paul, plainly declares that all the members of the church of God are already sanctified in Christ Jesus. Sanctification in this sense is not something that we are to look for in the future, it is something that has already taken place. The moment any one becomes a member of the Church of God by simple faith in Christ Jesus, for all who have faith in Christ Jesus are members of the Church of God, that moment that person is sanctified. Every saved man and woman in this building this morning, every one who has living faith in Jesus Christ, is sanctified. Our sanctification is involved in our salvation. But in what sense are we, that is, all believers, already sanctified? The answer to this question is found in a passage of Scripture to which we have already referred, Heb. 10:10, 14, "By which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.... For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." The meaning is plain. By the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all on the Cross of Calvary as a perfect atonement for sin, every believer is cleansed forever from the guilt of sin. We are "perfected forever" as far as our standing before God is concerned, and are set apart for God. The sacrifice of Christ does not need to be repeated as were the Jewish sacrifices (V. I). The work is done once for all, sin is put away, and forever put away (Heb. 9:26; cf. Gal. 3:13), and we are set apart forever as God's peculiar and eternal possession. If any one asks you if you are sanctified; if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, i.e., if you have a living faith, in Jesus Christ, you have a right to say, "I am." Every believer in Christ is a saint, a saint not in the sense in which that word is oftentimes used in modern usage, but in the Bible sense, as being set apart for God and belonging to God and being God's peculiar property. But there is another sense in which every believer may be fully sanctified to-day. This is found in Rom. 12:1, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service." In this passage we see that it is the believer's present and blessed privilege, and important and solemn duty, to present his body to God a living sacrifice—not some part or parts of the body, but the whole body with its every member and every faculty. And when we do thus present our whole body to God a living sacrifice, then we are wholly sanctified. Such an offering is well-pleasing to God. As God in the Old Testament showed His pleasure in the offering by sending down fire to take it to Himself, so when the whole body is thus offered to God, God will send down fire again, the fire of the Holy Ghost, and take to Himself what is thus presented. The moment a believer does thus present himself a living sacrifice to God, then, so far as his will, the governing purpose of his life, the very centre of his being, is concerned, he is wholly God's, or "perfectly sanctified." He may still, and will still, daily discover, as he studies the Word of God and is illumined by the Holy Spirit, acts of his, habits of life, forms of feeling, speech and action, that are not in conformity with this central purpose of his will, and these must be confessed to God as blameworthy and put away, and this department of his being and life brought, by God's Spirit and the indwelling Christ, into conformity with God's will as revealed in His Word. The victory in this newly discovered and unclaimed territory may be instantaneous. For example, I may discover in myself an irritability of temper that is manifestly displeasing to God. I can go to God, confess it, renounce it and then instantly, not by my own strength, but by looking to Jesus and claiming His patience and gentleness, overcome it and never have another failure in that direction. And so it is with every other sin and weakness in my life that I am brought to see is displeasing to God.

2. But this is not the whole answer to the question of when we are sanctified. The second part of the answer is found in I Thess. 3:12, "And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we also do towards you." And the 4th chapter of this same epistle, the 1st and 10th verses, "Finally then, brethren, we beseech you and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, even as ye do walk, that ye abound more and more.... For indeed ye do it toward all the brethren that are in all Macedonia. But we exhort you, brethren, that ye abound more and more." And in II Pet. 3:18, "Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." And II Cor. 3:18, R. V., "But we all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, and even as from the Lord the Spirit." And in Eph. 4:15, 16, "But speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things unto him, who is the head, even Christ; from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love." From these passages we see that there is a progressive work of Sanctification, an increasing in love, an abounding more and more in a godly walk and in pleasing God, a growing in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, a being transformed into the image of our Lord from glory unto glory, each new gaze at Him making us more like Him; a growing up into Christ in all things, until we attain unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Here we see there is a progressive work of Sanctification.

3. But we have not found the whole answer to the question of When Men are Sanctified, even yet. We find the remainder of the answer to the question in our text, 1 Thess. 5:23 accurately translated as it is in the Revised Version, "And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Here we are plainly told that the complete sanctification of believers, complete in the fullest sense, is something to be sought for in prayer and that is to be accomplished by God in the future and perfected at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The same thought is found in this same book, the 3rd chapter and 12th and 13th verses, "And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you, to the end that he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with his saints." It is "at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints" that He is to establish our hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father and that our spirit and soul and body are to be preserved entire without blame. The same thought is found in I John 3:2, "Beloved, now are we children of God, it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." It is not in the life that now is, and it is not at death, that we are entirely sanctified, spirit, soul, and body. It is at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is one of the many reasons why the well-instructed believer constantly cries, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Come quickly."