Sanctification Study

CHAPTER XIII—Of Sanctification

1. They, who are once effectually called, and regenerated, having a new heart, and a new spirit created in them, are further sanctified, really and personally, through the virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection, (1 Cor. 6:11, Acts 20:32, Phil. 3:10, Rom. 6:5–6) by His Word and Spirit dwelling in them, (John 17:17, Eph. 5:26, 2 Thess. 2:13) the dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, (Rom. 6:6,14) and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified; (Gal. 5:24, Rom. 8:13) and they more and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, (Col. 1:11, Eph. 3:16–19) to the practice of true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. (2 Cor. 7:1, Heb. 12:14)
2. This sanctification is throughout, in the whole man; (1 Thess. 5:23) yet imperfect in this life, there abiding still some remnants of corruption in every part; (1 John 1:10, Rom. 7:18, 23, Phil. 3:12) whence ariseth a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. (Gal. 5:17, 1 Pet. 2:11)
3. In which war, although the remaining corruption, for a time, may much prevail; (Rom. 7:23) yet, through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part doth overcome; (Rom. 6:14, 1 John 5:4, Eph. 4:15–16) and so, the saints grow in grace, (2 Pet. 3:18, 2 Cor. 3:18) perfecting holiness in the fear of God. (2 Cor. 7:1)


The Westminster confession of faith. 1996. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.



Excerpt from Barnhouse: God's Heirs


CHAPTER II




Walking in the Spirit


For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (Rom. 8:3, 4).

WE have shown that the law was divinely given, and that it was holy, just, and good. We now see that it was weak through the flesh. Does this mean that something divine can be limited by something that is human? Or that God has voluntarily limited Himself so that things which He intently desires cannot come to pass? I believe that any such conclusions are a travesty of spiritual theology and a negation of ultimate truth as it is revealed to us in that divine consubstantiation where God shows Himself underneath and with the material Word of the Bible revelation of His purpose and His heart.

THE WEAKNESS OF THE FLESH

This weakness of the flesh of which our text speaks has made it impossible that any divine demand shall ever be fulfilled in us without the intervention of divine grace to provide the means of fulfillment. No man has ever bridged the gulf of his old nature in order to pass from death to life. Only the divine intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ can take us across the depths and bring us into our desired haven. It is the weakness of man’s flesh that makes it necessary for the Lord to do all for us. There is nothing that we can do for ourselves.
Again, the weakness of the flesh has made it impossible that man can ever do anything effectively for man. Just as I can do nothing for myself, so man, individually or collectively, can do nothing for others or for society as a whole. This is why the human intellect can never solve the problems which arise from the sum total of all of the sin of mankind. Some men have thought that education could bring man out of his difficulties, but education has never done it and can never do it.
Over forty years ago, David Starr Jordan, the president of Stanford University, delivered an address on the value of education in the solution of the world’s problems. He became quite visionary and said that he could see, in his mind’s eye, the great dismantled warships of our navy carrying doctors, nurses, and teachers to Africa and to other dark places of the earth. To him the transformation of the whole world into a place of lasting peace and righteousness was just at hand. The ink on his manuscript was scarcely dry and the echo of his voice had scarcely been stilled before the guns of those ships were booming in the first world war. What education could not do, in that it is weak through the flesh, God Himself will ultimately accomplish by His own intervention and the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

DIVINE INTERVENTION

The weakness of the flesh demands the intervention of God. Nothing else than divine intervention can touch the needs that have arisen because of the presence and the fruitage of sin in our lives. This weakness of the flesh, the total depravity of man, furnishes the dark background against which the glory of the love of Christ is manifested in His incarnation and in its manifold purposes.
Our context makes it possible for us to end what otherwise might be a message of gloom, on the note of highest triumph and hope. The weakness of the flesh is an impassable barrier to all the efforts of man, but it is not a barrier to God’s irresistible grace. Through the Lord Jesus Christ and His work we are joined to Him forever, and we are made partakers of His divine nature. We soon begin to understand that this new nature is elastic—infinitely so. We receive the first outpouring of blessing and learn that there is not room to receive it, and then suddenly we discover that we have an enlarged capacity. Soon we become aware of the nature of the divine process which is to last forever. We are eternally to have our capacities enlarged to receive yet larger stores of grace which in turn enlarge our capacities to receive still larger stores of grace.
Romans 8:3 is one of the most important texts in the Bible for a discussion of the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Savior Himself once asked a group of men “What think ye of Christ? whose son is he?” (Matt. 22:42). The answer to that question is the touchstone of faith.
We have the affirmation that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, sent by God to do the work of redemption. “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law” (Gal. 4:4, 5).

THE VIRGIN BIRTH

There have been those who claim that Paul never mentioned the Virgin Birth of our Lord, but here is one of several texts that are incomprehensible without the assumption that Christ was God the Son, come into this world without a human father. Paul simply took it for granted—as many parts of his epistles show. It could not be said of any human being that God sent him into the world. Furthermore, it could not be said of any human being that he was God’s “own son” in the way the possessive is set forth here. “As many as received him [the Lord Jesus], to them gave he power [exousia, a permit, authority] to become the sons of God” (John 1:12), but Christ Himself was eternally God’s own Son. That He was God’s begotten Son will become clear as we proceed with the meaning of this verse.
The text we are discussing in Romans demands the doctrine of the Virgin Birth by stating that God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. It should be noted that it does not say that He sent His own Son in the flesh, or in the likeness of flesh, but in the likeness of sinful flesh. His body, indeed, was a body of flesh, both before and after His resurrection. For at the time of the incarnation it was stated, “A body hast thou prepared me” (Heb. 10:5), and that “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). After the resurrection, also, Christ referred to this by saying to Thomas, “Handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have” (Luke 24:39).
The flesh which the Lord Jesus Christ had, His physical body, was not of the same nature as our bodies, though it resembled these bodies in outward appearance. He was made in the likeness of our sinful, fleshly bodies, but there was a difference so great between His body and ours and His nature and ours that He could be the Lamb without blemish and without spot (1 Pet. 1:19). If He had been the son of Joseph, His body would have been a body of sinful flesh, subject to all the same ills and corruptions as the bodies which we possess, and His nature could not have been other than our sinful nature. It should be realized that if we show that the body of Christ was different from our body, and if we show that His nature was different from our nature, we will have shown that His origin was totally different from ours.

THE BODY OF CHRIST

First, let us note the Bible proves that the physical body of Jesus Christ differed from ours. On the day of Pentecost Peter introduced the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ as follows: “Jesus of Nazareth … being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death; because it was not possible that he should be holden of it” (Acts 2:23, 24). He then quotes a prophecy in which Christ speaks of the nature of His body, “Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope; because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” What was this flesh that could not “see corruption?”
The Bible teaches that these forces of death, which exist in all of our bodies, did not exist in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Beside Him on the cross were two thieves who were dying in the same fashion that He was supposedly dying. But if a medical examiner had been at the cross and had been required to sign a certificate stating the cause of death he would have had to certify differently for the thieves and for Christ. These men who were dying beside the Savior died from wounds and loss of blood. The Lord Jesus Christ died because, when He was completely ready and His hour had come, He dismissed His Spirit. He had declared flatly, “No man taketh my life from me; I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again” (John 10:18). While the thieves were slowly dying, the Lord was in complete command of His life and of all the details that led to His death. He did not have His head lolling upon His breast in weakness; He held it erect until the final moment when He bowed His head and gave up His Spirit. He did not faint in weakness so that He could scarcely more than whisper; He cried with a loud voice after six hours of that experience on the cross. In many small ways the Lord God has filled the narrative of Christ’s death with details which confirm the statement of the book of Acts, that His body did not die in the usual fashion, and that it did not see corruption.
How did this flesh, so different from your flesh and mine, come to have these vital differences? The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ did not have a human father, but that He was “conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary.” Anyone who has followed my argument to this point must recognize immediately that the Virgin Birth of Christ is linked with the nature of His death and the quality of His resurrection. Our text in Romans is the explanation that ties all these truths together in a consistent whole: He was not given a body of sinful flesh, but He was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh.

FREE FROM THE LAW

The death of the Lord Jesus Christ had as one of its results, the condemnation of sin in the flesh. The redemptive work of our Savior included the putting away of the guilt of sin by the judicial act of God based on the death of His Son. It included not only the perfect future eternity for the redeemed, but also a provision for triumphant life for the believer here and now. When the angel announced the birth of Christ to Joseph he said, “Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). This is a promise for today. He did not come merely to save us in our sins, but to save us out of our sins. Thus the death of the Lord Jesus Christ condemned sin in the flesh, and provided the way whereby the righteousness demanded by the law might be fufilled in us.
We cannot reach a state of sinless perfection while we are yet in these bodies. It is, rather, that God has removed us from the jurisdiction of the law of sin and death, even though that law still works in our members. This fact is illustrated by an incident which took place sometime ago at a point along the frontier between Russian and British jurisdiction in Germany. The British authorities arrested a man who had come through the iron curtain and held him for some infraction of a minor regulation. The Reds asked for the man, saying that he was a convicted criminal, and that they wished to punish him for his crime. The British knew that the mere surrender of the man would be the equivalent of his death, and they refused to give him up. Finally, he was allowed his freedom and he went about according to his own desires, and all the while he was free from the sentence of death that had been passed upon him in the Russian jurisdiction.
We were once under the jurisdiction of the law of sin and death. But when the Lord Jesus Christ was placed on the cross by the Father and put to death in accordance with the divine plan, God so joined us to our Lord in that death and in the resurrection which followed that He could righteously place us under the jurisdiction of the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. It is this which forever frees us from the jurisdiction of the law of sin and death. God Himself cannot hold anything against the believer whom He has joined to the Lord Jesus Christ.
But even more than this: the existence of the law of sin and death in us, even after we have been joined to Christ, and after we have yielded ourselves to Him for crucifixion death, cannot condemn us, nor can it nullify the work that we do for Him even with the imperfection of our palsied hands. We have been made free from that law of sin and death and God himself will never bring us back under that law.

RIGHTEOUSNESS DEMANDED

Our text shows us that there is a righteousness demanded by the law; that this righteousness (which could never be fulfilled in a person under law, v. 3) can now be fulfilled in the believers; that this fulfillment takes place when the believer is walking after the Spirit and not after the flesh.
The righteousness demanded by the law is absolute perfection. A perfect God could never demand less than perfection. And since all have sinned and come short of that glory of God, there is none righteous; no, not one. But God not only redeemed us from the curse of the law, dealing with the guilt of sin, but He also purposed to get at the problem of sin in the lives of the believers. It is a wonderful fact that the Lord Jesus Christ can come to dwell within bodies which are decaying, dying things.
It is very important that we see the overall teaching of the epistle to the Romans with regard to these two works of Christ for the believer. If we understand this teaching, it will keep us from any of the false teachings of the various schools of perfectionism which have arisen from time to time through the centuries. Specifically, we will not fall into the error of believing that there are two experiences in the Christian life, the first being justification, and the second sanctification, the latter to be sought as a second work of grace. Rather we will understand that “He who has begun a good work in us, will keep on perfecting it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6), and that it is impossible for a justified person to be otherwise than indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and baptized of Him into the body of Christ.

A WALK

Human attempts at perfectionism are a far cry from the true Biblical doctrine of sanctification as being the entire work of Christ, continuing in us as what has been termed the perseverance of the saints. For the Bible teaches perseverance and not perfectionism. And our perseverance is described as a walk, and as a walk which is after the Spirit. We have passed the stage of birth; regeneration is ours in Christ. We have passed the baby stage where we are alive but do not walk. We have reached the phase of Christian truth where we have laid hold of this new life and where we are exercising the power of that new life to walk in newness of life. We are born, alive, and moving; and our walk is normal, in the Spirit—no longer abnormal, in the flesh.
It should be noted that all of this is a continual process of development begun by God and carried on by Him. At the root of all the work that is done in us is an act that is seen by God alone. We are born again of the Spirit and thus we become children of God. God does His work in us and He knows that it is done long before we know that it is done. Then there comes the time when we have consciously laid hold upon the Word because we have been born of the Spirit, and this new birth of the Spirit in the Word gives us the consciousness that we are children of God. Then this new life which God has created within us and of which we have become conscious is manifested by our walking in the Spirit. It is in that walk that other men can recognize that we are children of God. There are those who attempt to exercise faith to obtain a second work of grace, and who build up all sorts of human systems in order to demonstrate a supposed sanctification. We see them all around us; pale, sallow-faced women who have wiped the cosmetics from their lips but not the gossip from their tongues; men who proclaim that they do not go to the movies but who stay home and see worse on television; whole groups of people who pump up human effort and who paint an artificial sanctification that is not the sanctification of God. True sanctification is that which will be a normal growth in the measure that the Word of God takes effect in our lives. Every child of God, born of the Spirit, will grow in the Spirit and will walk in the Spirit.

PUT ON THE NEW MAN

The progress of the Christian life is described in Scripture as the changing of a garment. We are told to put on the new man, which is created after the image of God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:24). We are exhorted not to lie to one another, seeing that we have put off the old man and his practices, and that we have put on the new man, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created us (Col. 3:9, 10). We are told that as many of us as have been identified into Christ have put on Christ (Gal. 3:27). We are told to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and to make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof (Rom. 13:14). In other words, our old Adamic nature is compared to a dirty garment which we are to lay aside as we would lay aside any soiled clothing, and we are to put on the new man as we would put on clean, fresh linen.
The Galatians passage says we have done this, the other passages exhort us to do it. This is true of all truths in the Scripture; for God first tells us that we have the blessings and then tells us to exercise them. We are always told that a gift, an endowment, a power, is really ours, and after that we are told to exercise the gift, to enjoy the endowment, and to use the power. At the close of the day we take off the soiled garments which have become contaminated by soaking up the sweat of our bodies, and we lay them aside while we cleanse our bodies, ready to rise on the next day for fresh cleansing and fresh garments. Thus it is with the Christian life. Day by day and hour by hour we must put off the old and put on the new.
If it is a hot summer day and we are busy exercising, there may be three or four changes of garments in the same day. There may be days when we as believers are forced to come to the Lord for cleansing, for the laying aside of the old and the soiled, and the putting on of the clean and the fresh. There will be times when we can look at a garment and be thankful that a whole day has passed without soiling it too much, and we may even think it is wearable for another day. God’s provision for us in grace is so wonderful that we can always have the joy of laying aside the soiled and putting on the clean by a moment’s glance at the risen Lord Jesus Christ, who made provision for our cleansing in His death, and who made provision for the renewal of our righteousness by His resurrection from the dead.

TRANSFORMATION

Again, the continuing Christian life is set forth as a metamorphosis, the transformation like that of the insect that comes out of its chrysalis to become a butterfly. This is the meaning of the Greek word where we read, “I beseech you, therefore, brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God which is your spiritual service. And be not conformed [or shaped with] this world, but be ye transformed [metamorphosis] by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the will of God, what is good, agreeable and perfect” (Rom. 12:1, 2). Here, the figure of speech is quite different from that of putting off a soiled garment and putting on a clean one. It is the figure of one type of life passing through a transformation and coming out as something totally different. It is to be noted that this exhortation is made to those in Christ, called brethren, who understand the mercies of God and who move toward this transformation as a result of the love that has been manifested to us in Christ.
Again, we discover in both the Gospels and the Epistles that this development of the Christian life is set forth as a reanimation or a resurrection. We were dead through our trespasses and sins, but God brings life out of death in a resurrection work and makes us to walk in the power of that resurrection. Thus we read that the Son of God gives life to whom He will (John 5:21), and that He came in order that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly (John 10:10). This newness of life is the work of God, since He has made us alive, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1, 5). It is in the light of this resurrection that we are called to live holy lives, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, and not on things upon the earth, for ye are dead, and your [risen] life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:1, 2).

A NEW CREATION

But the figure of speech is slightly changed from resurrection to creation in other verses, and we are shown as being the objects of an entirely new work of God, a veritable new creation. There is less of a figure of speech here and more a description of the method by which God is daily working within us. We are said to be His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God had before ordained that we should walk in them (Eph. 2:10). One of the verses which we have already seen in connection with another of these figures, that of putting on a fresh garment, also contains the teaching that this garment is a new creation, not after the image of fallen Adam, but after the likeness of God, in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. 4:24). It is for this reason that it is stated that if any man be in Christ he is a new creation, that old things have passed away, and that all things are become new (2 Cor. 5:17). Again we are told that liturgical works can never have any effect in our lives, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation (Gal. 6:15).

THE INDWELLING CHRIST

This same divine process of the Christian life is set forth in yet another terminology, showing, perhaps, the source of the new life that is within us. Our life in its process of daily transformation is said to be the forming of Christ within us, or the dwelling of Christ within us. “Christ liveth in me,” Paul told the Galatians (2:20). It was for this purpose that he prayed that we might be strengthened with all faith (Eph. 3:17). Again we see the language used in two tenses. He does live in you; let Him live in you. All the way through we find this same dual usage. You are holy; be holy. You are alive; live like men who are alive.

WALKING AFTER THE SPIRIT

All that we have seen so far is the setting forth of synonyms for our text. The changing of the clothes, the transformation of an image, the bringing life out of death, the coming of a new creation, the coming of Christ to dwell in our hearts, to be formed in us, that His Spirit may indwell us and fashion us like unto Him—all of this is the turning of the facets of our text, for this truth of holiness is a veritable gem. Every movement of it brings forth new lights from its hidden depths. We are to walk after the Spirit.
This phrase, “walking after the Spirit,” is probably the most eloquent of all the symbols of the life of santification. There is something measured about a walk which we, in this age of motor cars and airplanes, are in danger of losing. In my student days I took a long walking trip in France. It was not the matter of a morning or an afternoon, but it was the entire month of June. I took a street car to Corbeil in the suburbs of Paris, to avoid the necessity of pounding hard pavements, and then set off through the countryside; the forest of Fontainbleau, the little village of Moret-sur-Loing, Sens and its old cathedral, prototype of Canterbury, the smiling villages of Burgundy, Dijon and its old houses, and then the pine-filled hills of the Jura, the lake of Geneva, and the Alps beyond. There is something indescribable and incomparable about a walking trip. To see an old village upon a far hill and to approach it one step at a time has something exquisite about it that cannot be put into words. I do not know how many times since then I have stood—a continent and an ocean away from those scenes—and in retrospect mentally breathed once more the air of that countryside.

STEP BY STEP

Oftentimes when I come upon a passage in the Word of God that speaks of the Christian life as a walk, I remember moments of that fair June and I thank God for the plodding perseverance of the saints, and the glories of learning patience in one step at a time. It is wonderful to know that certain things are to be left behind, and that we are to stretch out to the things that lie before. It is thrilling to catch a glimpse of some distant truth, some desired attainment, and then to move toward it with the leading of the Lord, step by step, knowing full well that in His time we shall reach the goal together. For to walk after the Spirit is to be led by the Spirit, and to be led by the Spirit brings the certain knowledge that one is a child of God, an heir of God, and a fellow heir with Christ (Rom. 8:14–17).
Christ wants you to know Him and to walk with Him moment by moment. There will be memories of the road. We will recall the time we slipped and fell and how He picked us up and set us upon our feet. We will remember how He cleansed us when we were spattered; how He cheered us when we were faint; how He held us when we were weary. We will remember how He fed us when we were hungry and how He brought us to a wayside spring. But since He is with us at the present moment, we will discover that it is more wonderful to look at Him and see Him as He reveals Himself to us in today’s mile of the road, than it is to look away from Him and try to recall what He was in some past incident.
As we walk with Him we become Spirit-determined men, Spirit-led men as distinguished from carnal men, that is, men under the dominance of their own weak vicious selves. We do not want to walk after the flesh; we earnestly desire to walk, and to walk after the Spirit.


Barnhouse, D. G. (1963). God's Heirs : Romans 8:1-39 (11–22). Grand Rapids, MI.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.