065. Some teach that a believer is sanctified instantaneously, others declare that sanctific...

Some teach that a believer is sanctified instantaneously, others declare that sanctification is a gradual process, perfected in heaven only. What does the Bible teach as to this? The Bible teaches that every believer is sanctified instantly, the moment he believes on Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:2, R.V.; 6:11). The moment any one becomes a member of the church of God by faith in Christ Jesus, that moment he is sanctified. By the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all we are cleansed forever from all the guilt of sin. We are “perfected forever” as far as our standing before God is concerned (Hebrews 10:10; Hebrews 10:14). The sacrifice does not need to be repeated as the Jewish sacrifices were. The work is done once for all. Sin is put away forever (Hebrews 9:26, compare Galatians 3:13), and we are set apart (sanctified) forever as God’s peculiar and eternal possession. In this sense every believer is instantly sanctified the moment he lielieves on Jesus. But there is still another sense in which every believer may be instantly sanctified. It is his privilege and his duty to present his whole body a living sacrifice to God (Romans 12:1). Such an offering is well-pleasing to God, and when it is made, God sends down the fire of the Holy Spirit and takes to Himself what is thus presented. Then instantly the believer so far as his will is concerned is wholly God’s, or perfectly sanctified. But after he is perfectly sanctified in this sense, he may and doubtless often will discover, as he studies the Word of God and as he is taught by the Holy Spirit, that there are individual acts and habits of his life, that there are forms of feeling, speech and action, that are not in conformity with this central purpose of his life. These should be confessed to God as blameworthy and put away, and thus this department of his life also brought by the Holy Spirit into conformity with the will of God as revealed in His Word. But the victory in this newly discovered and unclaimed territory may also be instantaneous. There is no need of a protracted battle. For example, if I should discover in myself an irritability of temper that was manifestly displeasing to God I could go to God at once and confess it and renounce it, and in an instant, not by my own strength but by looking to Jesus and by surrendering this department of my life to the control of the Holy Spirit, overcome it and never have another failure in that direction. But while there is this instantaneous sanctification that any child of God may claim at any moment, there is also a progressive work of sanctification, an increasing in love, an abounding more and more in the godly walk and in pleasing God, a growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, a being transformed into the image of our Lord Jesus Christ from glory to 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 fulness of Christ (1 Thessalonians 3:12; 1 Thessalonians 4:1; 1 Thessalonians 4:10, R.V.; 2 Peter 3:18, R.V.; 2 Corinthians 3:18, R.V.; Ephesians 4:11-15).

Sanctification becomes complete in the fullest sense at the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:23, R.V.; 3:12,13). It is not in the life that now is, nor is it at death, but at the coming of Christ that we are entirely sanctified in this sense.