Question 35

The word sanctification, with its cognates saint, sanctuary, and such like, occurs a great number of times, and in a great variety of senses, in the Holy Scriptures. The word, like the work it describes, grows from less to more; from small beginnings at first to a great fulness and depth of meaning in the end. Beginning in the most outward, conventional, and ceremonial sense, it ends, as in the text, by containing and setting forth the most inward, spiritual, and exalted realities.

Sanctification—Let no student miss consulting Cruden’s most valuable analysis and classification. Calvin, on 1 Cor. i. 2, says: “Now the term sanctification denotes separation. This takes place in us when we are regenerated by the Spirit to newness of life, that we may serve God and not the world.” And Godet, on John xvii. 17: “The Greek word to sanctify is not synonymous with the word to purify. The holy is not opposed to the impure, but merely to the natural. To sanctify is to consecrate to a religious use anything pertaining to common life. From an Old Testament point of view, consecration was an external and ritual act; under the New Covenant, where all is spiritual, the seat of consecration is first in the heart, the will of the person sanctified.”

the work—Not, like justification and adoption, an act, but a work; a process, having its beginning in regeneration and its consummation and completion in glory. (See Answer 33 under act.) Sanctification is often called a work in Scripture, and from the nature of the case the student will see that this is the proper term to apply to it. For regeneration does not all at once make of a sinner a new man, in the sense of extirpating sinfulness from his heart and filling his life with the fruits of righteousness. The seed is planted in the new birth, but it must spring up and grow; it must be watched and watered, digged about and pruned, before it will become a tree of righteousness. That great change makes the sinner a child of God, but long years may have to pass before he attains the stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesus.

God’s free grace—“Grace is not of merit, but merit of grace.” The Latin Father here means that no work of ours, even our working out our own salvation, will merit aught at God’s hand; but that if we have any merit, if we do aught worthy of praise or reward, it is all of grace. In the old language of divines, “grace prevents merit.” And all grace is “free grace.” The student will note that this phrase “free grace” occurs three times in succession in this part of the Catechism. Justification is an act of God’s free grace; adoption is an act of God’s free grace; sanctification is the work of God’s free grace. For grace see Answer 20, and mark what Goodwin says on the characteristically Pauline expression, free grace: “Rom. iii. 24. The word freely is to show that it is merely grace; it is without cause, it is grace dyed in grace, as I used to say, gracious grace.” “To make a man a saint, grace is absolutely necessary; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, nor what a man is” (Pascal).

renewed—Dr. John Duncan’s daughter tells us in her diary that having heard a good sermon on one occasion on the words, “For the will of God is your sanctification,” and having spoken well of it to her father, he at once replied, “Did it begin with regeneration?” This question of Dr. Duncan’s goes to the very root of the matter. For sanctification is no mere reformation or refinement of manners or morals. It is a maxim even in ethics, that the morality of the man must precede the morality of his actions. Much more is it a law of Christ and His Church. “Make the tree good.” Reformation and sanctification differ, says Dr. Hodge, as clean clothes differ from a clean heart. It is as essential to a truly holy life as it is to a good sermon on a holy life, that it begin with regeneration. (Confession, chap. xiii.) Connect “renewed” in this Answer with “renewing” in Answer 31.

in the whole man—“I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is the teaching of Scripture and the Catechism that sin has corrupted the whole man in every man, and it is the corresponding offer and promise of God in the gospel that He will make the whole man in spirit, and soul, and body blameless. As deep, and wide, and inward as is the taint and infection of sin, so universal and so thorough will the work of sanctification be. Let the theological student turn to Goodwin, Index, Sanctification.

after the image of God—On God’s image see Answer 10. No man hath seen God at any time, but Christ is His express image, and we are renewed after the image of God, when we are made and make ourselves after the image of Christ. The Holy Spirit who wrought all His graces in Christ, and made Him after the image of God, works in us in like manner. He works in us a conformity to the graces that are in Christ, and we put on a conformity to His example. Holy dispositions and heavenly affections are the features and complexion of Christ formed in us.” In adoption we are taken into the family of God, and in sanctification we take on us the family features in tone and manners.

“It is the office of the second Adam to give back to a lapsed race the forfeited image of God. Nor is he, as the Son of God, the renewer only of the miserable state of man, but equally the type and model of the new creation. Such he is, both with respect to personal purity, and to his eternal filial relation” (Candlish, Fatherhood).

enabled—“In which war, although the remaining corruption for a time may prevail, yet, through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part doth overcome: and so the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (Confession, xiii. 3).

more and more to die unto sin—A familiar form of thought with all the more spiritual Scripture writers, with the psalmists and prophets, with John, and Peter, and Paul. To die unto anything is to become indifferent to it, to shake off its power, to be superior to its attractions. A dead man hears not, sees not, tastes not, smells not, feels not; and a soul spiritually dead to sin would be in a world of sin dead to it all. A little reflection and imagination will enable the student to apprehend and appreciate this vivid and impressive scriptural metaphor. (But see Fraser’s criticism of this phrase in his Scripture Doctrine of Sanctification, Rom. vi. 2.)

“Such are my feelings; and every day of my life I bless my Redeemer, who has inspired me with them, and who, from a man full of weakness, misery, lust, pride, and ambition, has made me a man exempt from all these evils by the power of His grace, to which all the glory is due, as of myself I have nought but misery and error” (Pascal).

and live unto righteousness. There is, no doubt, a striking and instructive resemblance between a death-bed and one aspect of the work of sanctification; but there is a fundamental and essential contrast also. Death, it may be said, drives out and destroys life in a dying man, but in a godly man it is the new life that expels and destroys sin and death. The wisest physicians do not content themselves with striking at the special disease to which their attention has been called. They aim also at strengthening the enfeebled constitution, sure, as they are, that returning strength will be their best ally in rooting out any local and particular evil. And in like manner evil habits and evil affections will be overcome less by ascetic mortification of the body, and close incarceration of the mind and heart, than by attracting the mind and captivating the heart by whatsoever things are true and lovely and of good report. “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.” As we study this doctrine we may well say with the prophet, “The thing is true, but the time is long.” Compare Antoninus: “Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the present time: and live according to Nature the remainder which is allowed thee.”

The student who has mastered the teaching of the Answer on Justification will be in a position at once to understand what is meant by “righteousness” in the text. In the former case it was the righteousness of Christ, here it is the righteousness of the sanctified believer. “We have already showed that there are two kinds of Christian righteousness: the one without us, which we have by imputation; the other in us, which consisteth of faith, hope, charity, and other Christian virtues. . . . God giveth us both the one justice and the other: the one by accepting us for righteous in Christ; the other by working Christian righteousness in us.” (But see the whole matchless sermon in Hooker’s Works. Those who have it in their power should master Cremer’s article “Righteousness” in his Lexicon.)

Uses

1. From a multitude of scriptures, and from the whole course of the life of sanctification in the Church, this sure deduction has been drawn: the more sanctification, the more sense of sin. Before sanctification commences there is little or no knowledge of sin; but as sanctification deepens and spreads through the whole man, so does the sense of sin spread and deepen with it, till this strange and disheartening paradox is realized; the less actual sin, the more indwelling sinfulness; and the less outward transgression, the more inward corruption. And thus it is that the life and work of sanctification are continually delivering over such companies of submissive souls to the type of doctrine set forth in the Answer on Justification. And thus it is that the great and vital and blessed doctrine of imputed righteousness has always had such blameless ornaments and determined defenders in the foremost ranks of scripturally taught and spiritually sanctified men.
2. “Woe to him that is wholly renewed—that is, that thinks himself to be so. That man, without doubt, has never so much as begun to be renewed, nor did he ever taste what it is to be a Christian” (Luther).
3. One of Bunyan’s Puritan contemporaries expounds “prudence” in Eph. i. 8 of sanctification. In connection with this read the dialogue between Prudence and Christian commencing: “Do you not think sometimes of the country from whence you came?”
4. May great sinners be sanctified? Yes, the Spirit of God can sanctify the vilest heart (1 Cor. vi. 11). And such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified (Flavel).
5. “After the greatest mortification, I always find the greatest comfort” (Edwards).

Questions

1. Give the etymology of sanctification, and explain the uses of the word in such texts as Gen. ii. 3; Lev. viii. 30; Josh. vii. 13; 1 Pet. iii. 15; Isa. xxix. 23; 1 Cor. vii. 14; 1 Tim. iv. 5.
2. Master and hold always in mind Cruden’s four things in which justification differs from sanctification.
3. Distinguish and characterize righteousness as it is found in Answers 10, 18, 33, 35.
4. Sanctification is described under these three striking and suggestive metaphors in Scripture: (1) The casting of metal into a mould (see Revised Version), (2) engrafting, (3) writing the law upon the heart. Give the passages.
5. 1 Thess. v. 23. A profoundly experimental writer says on this text: You have here expressed the subject of sanctification in its fullest extent, for it seems to signify not only totus homo, but totum hominis. Explain and illustrate the distinction.
6. The same author, in his Trial of a Christian’s Growth, John xv. 1–8, describes sanctification under the two heads of Mortification and Vivification. Give the etymology of these terms, and exhibit their agreement with the Scriptures and the Catechism.
7. Explain and remember Pearson’s explanation: By virtue of this sanctification of the sons of men, proceeding immediately from his office, the Spirit of God is properly called the Holy Spirit.
8. Explain the rule in morals: The morality of the man must precede the morality of his actions.