A Prayer for Complete Sanctification

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

     As we come to the wonderful time in our worship when we turn to hear from the Lord Himself, we're privileged again to turn to Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. This morning we're going to be looking at verses 23 and 24, 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and 24.

     Paul writes: "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Faithful is He who calls you and He also will bring it to pass."

     George Gallop, the famous American pollster has been in a sort of continuous effort to try to dissect the religious patterns of Americans.  Some of you will remember an earlier poll some years back when his survey indicated that 80 percent of Americans say they are Christians.  That same poll indicated that 70 percent of Americans say they are church members.  Very recently he has completed another poll which shows up in a new book, following up that initial poll and endeavoring to try to discern the level of Christianity that exists among these 80 percent who claim to be Christians. 

     He determined in the poll that only 40 percent of those who say they're Christians knew who wrote or preached the Sermon on the Mount.  In case you're wondering, it was Jesus.  He also found in his later studies that about five to ten percent of Christians are prepared to articulate and defend their faith.  Five to ten percent of those who claim to be Christians can define what it means and defend it.  He also concluded that less than ten percent of those who claim to be Christians fall into what he called, quote: "High spiritual faith."  He said that is a category of deeply committed Christians who live their faith.  In fact, he called them, quote: "The quiet saints in our society who have a powerful impact," end quote.

     And that is interesting to me because originally when the Gallop poll first came out, everyone was kind of excited to find out that 80 percent of the people in America were Christians.  Everybody assumed that this meant there was a massive revival in this country and that many were now claiming and naming the name of Christ.  Well, even the pollster, George Gallop, wanted to find out what that claim meant and has now come to the conclusion that less than ten percent of the people who claimed to be Christians can defend what Christianity is and live at a high spiritual level of commitment.  What he is basically identifying or attempting to identify is who is really a Christian.  A true Christian is not one who claims to be a Christian but one who lives like a Christian.  It's not the sayers, Jesus said, but the doers in the Sermon on the Mount.  So even George Gallop is concerned  to identify true Christians and sort them out of the larger mass of people who make the claim.

     What he is really identifying is sanctification.  That's a big theological word but that's really what he's talking about.  There are some people who have been transformed.  Sanctification, we believe, is inseparable from justification.  Justification refers to the very salvation event whereas sanctification refers to the process of spiritual development.  And we believe that justification and sanctification are inseparable so those who were truly justified are being sanctified.  Those who experienced the saving event are in spiritual progress and it shows up in their life.

     The issue of sanctification then is central to the reality of the Christian faith.  George Gallop is finding it out.  We hope that many others will find it out as well.  Certainly the Apostle Paul knew it.  He knew that sanctification was central to Christian life and experience.  And so his prayer, really the sort of benediction prayer at the end of this epistle, is that the God of peace Himself will sanctify you. 

     Now that introduces to us this matter of sanctification.  There is, believe it or not, an awful lot taught about sanctification in these two simple verses, and we'll try to extract as much as we can in the limited time we have this morning.  But I want you to do with me a little bit of a study on sanctification.  Let's start with point number one, the nature of sanctification.

     When we talk about being sanctified, when we talk in the terms of Gallop Poll about "high spiritual faith," when we talk about deep commitment, what are we really talking about?  What is this sanctification?  What does it mean?

     Well look at the verse, verse 23, and please note the word "sanctify" here is a verb.  It is a verb.  It defines action, activity, process, progress.  You will notice the little word "may" is included, "May God sanctify you."  Later on in the verse, "May your spirit, soul and body be preserved complete."  That little word "may" takes us into the Greek language to a form of Greek verbs called optative, that simply means it expresses a wish...a wish or a prayer.  So here you have Paul's wish for the Thessalonian believers and for all believers that comes out in a prayer, his prayer wish, "May God sanctify you."  And he thus introduces us to the burden of his heart that believers be sanctified, that they be in the process of being sanctified.

     Now the word "sanctify" here, the verb, is a common one, hagiazo.  It is used a number of times in the New Testament because this is a very common and basic principle of Christian life.  Noun forms of it appear also.  The noun form hagios translated usually by the word "holy".  The verb means "to separate," to separate, to set apart from.  And in this case to set apart from sin to holiness.  So when we see sanctify or sanctification or holy or holiness, all of those come from the same root.  They all have the idea of being separated, set apart.  Sanctification then is the process of being set apart from sin unto holiness.  It is as if you have sin on the one hand, holiness on the other hand, and you are moving in progression away from sin to holiness.  That's Paul's prayer burden, that there may be a decreasing attachment to sin, an increasing attachment to holiness, that there may be a decreasing incident of sin and an increasing incident of holiness, that there may be a decreasing frequency of sin and an increasing frequency of holiness.  That's the path of sanctification.

     Now this same word in its varying forms is used on a number of occasions in this epistle, too many to read to you.  But it appears in one form or another all throughout this epistle.  For example, chapter 1 verses 5 and 6, chapter 4 verses 3, 4, 7, 8, chapter 5 here, later on in verses 26 and 27.  The word is commonly in this epistle because there is a great concern on the part of the Apostle that the believer be committed to holiness.

     In verse 3 of chapter 4 he says, "It is the will of God even your sanctification," chapter 4 verse 3.  God wants you sanctified. That's God's will.  That is therefore Paul's great and passionate concern for the true believer, that he move along the path of decreasing frequency and incidents of sin to increased frequency and incidents of righteousness, decreasing attachment to sin, increasing attachment to holiness.  That is his prayer.

     Now there is earlier in this epistle a very similar prayer.  Go back to chapter 3 verse 11, this is almost a direct parallel, the words are somewhat different, the thought is the same.  Again he uses that form of the Greek which puts it into a prayer wish, "Now our God," he says, "May our God and Father Himself and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another and for all men, just as we also do for you, so that He may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father and the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints."  Now there's a prayer for the same thing.  It is a prayer for an increase and abounding of love, a heart established unblamable in holiness...holiness, sanctification, same basic word group.  So there in chapter 3 he was praying for their sanctification, praying for their holiness and here again at the end he prays again along this line.

     Now this matter of wanting believers to move along the path of spiritual progress toward holiness is really not a new concept.  Separating from sin unto God is a very old concept.  To take you back to some of its roots is to take you back to the Old Testament where you have in the Old Testament a very commonly applied principle of separation for holy use.  Some things in the life of those in the Old Testament were set apart for holy use.  For example, at God's commandment Moses sanctified the people prior to the giving of the law at Mount Sinai in Exodus 19, setting them apart for holy use to God.  In Exodus chapter 13, all the firstborn of man and beast were sanctified and set apart unto God for His use.  Aaron and his sons were sanctified to minister to God alone in the priestly office, according to Exodus 28. 

     In Ezekiel 37:28 God even set apart the nation Israel as a special people to belong to God.  IN a day of spiritual peril not only is a congregation sanctified but a fast was sanctified and even war was sanctified as set apart unto God.  Read the first three chapters of the prophecy of Joel.  Job himself sanctified his sons, setting them apart unto God through an offering of a sacrifice in Job 1 and verse 5.  Samuel sanctified Jesse and his son David with a sacrifice, according to 1 Samuel 16.  And even before his death that noble prophet Jeremiah was set apart by the divine will for the sanctified or separated work of a prophet, according to Jeremiah chapter 1. 

     In Exodus chapter 19 Mount Sinai was set apart for God's holy use, and no one was to go near that place.  Genesis 2:3, the Sabbath day was sanctified, or set apart unto God.  The tabernacle was set apart, the vessels of the tabernacle were set apart in Exodus chapter 30.  The temple in Jerusalem in 2 Chronicles chapter 7 was set apart unto God.  All the cities of refuge were set apart for holy use in Joshua chapter 20 and verse 7.  Houses and fields could be devoted to God and given to Him, according to Leviticus 27. 

     You come in to the New Testament and according to John 10 even Christ was set apart unto God.  Go in to Paul's writing to Timothy, 1 Timothy 4, he says, "Everything, every created thing is sanctified through the Word of God and prayer, set apart unto God."

     So this concept of setting things apart to God is a very old one.  And we come into the CHristian life, we come into the same concept.  God says, "All right, I've bought you, I've paid a price for you, I've redeemed you, you now belong to Me, set yourself apart to me."  That's why in Romans 6 Paul says, "You no longer are slaves to sin, you are now slaves to God, therefore do not any longer yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness but yield your members as instruments of holiness."  God bought you and He wants you set apart to His use.  Little different, is it?, then when a man takes a wife who may have had a number of suitors and even a number of lovers but is now set apart holy and only unto him...that is God's design.  That is being sanctified.

     Now it is basic for us to understand some of the more simple elements of sanctification so we can get a grip on its significance in our life.  First of all, there are several aspects to sanctification, three of them, and I want you to understand them.

     Number one is what we can call positional sanctification, positional.  Or we could call it official sanctification.  Or sanctification of one's state before God.  This feature of sanctification, this component or element is past...it's a past aspect. 

     You say, "What do you mean by that?"  Well, when you were saved you were sanctified.  At the moment of your salvation you were set apart from Satan unto God.  You were set apart from darkness unto light.  You were set apart from death unto life.  You were set apart from hell unto heaven.  You were set apart from the dominion and from the destruction of sin to the dominion and the glory of God.  You were set apart.  There is an element of sanctification that occurred at your salvation.

     Furthermore you received a new nature.  "Old things were passed away and behold, new things have come."  You now have the life of God within you.  That holy life resides in you, the indwelling Holy Spirit has taken up residence in you.  You have the holy life of God within.  You have become a partaker of the divine nature.  So you have in a very real sense been set apart unto God.  You now love what is right and hate what is wrong.  You find yourself desiring to obey the will and the Word of God.  That is because you have a new standing.  You have with that new standing a righteous nature. 

     Furthermore for the remaining unrighteousness in your life, not to offend God, He covers you with the robe of Christ's righteousness so that when He sees you He sees you as righteous in Christ.  As Isaiah said, "You have the robe of righteousness."  You are now in Christ.  "He was made sin on the cross, that you might become the righteousness of God in Him."  So you bear the very righteousness of Christ.  You are therefore declared righteous. 

     You are declared holy and you are set apart unto holiness.  That is why you can be called a holy one.  Sometimes that word is translated "saint."  It's the same word.  Every true Christian is a saint, you are a saint.  When Paul wrote to the Romans in chapter 1 verse 7 he says, "To all who are beloved of God in Rome called saints."  When Paul wrote to the Corinthians he called them saints, sanctified he said, sanctified saints.  Now when you think of the Corinthians, you don't think of a sanctified saint, but they were.  When he wrote to the Ephesians he called them sanctified...sanctified.  His second letter to the Corinthians chapter 1 verse 1, again he calls them saints.  Now that was achieved as a positional reality through Christ's provision on the cross.

     Look at Hebrews chapter 10, very important text in order to fix this in your mind.  In Hebrews chapter 10, the writer, of course, is looking at the cross of Christ and what it accomplished, and he says about the cross that through it, verse 10, "We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, we...past tense...have been sanctified."  That's a past tense event, obviously with continuing significance.  Down in verse 14 he says it again.  "For by one offering," that is the offering of Christ, "He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified." 

     So we have entered into one dimension of sanctification through Christ, through His death.  When you believed, you were set apart unto God.  You were given a new and sanctified and holy impulse and you have the resident Holy Spirit taking up His place in your life so that you are His temple and you have the robe of Christ's righteousness covering you on the outside so that God sees you in Christ as righteous as He sees Christ.  That's your position.

     Now if you look at 1 Thessalonians, our epistle, chapter 4 for a moment and verse 7, it might help.  First Thessalonians 4:7 says, "God has not called us for the purpose of impurity."  When God called us, and here is an efficacious call to salvation, not a gospel call, not in the sense that you just call a lot of people to be saved.  He's talking here about calling us into salvation.  When God called us for the purpose of salvation, it was not that we would be impure.  But look, "He called us not for the purpose of impurity but in sanctification."   Not for sanctification but in it.  That little Greek preposition "in" indicates the state resulting from the calling, it indicates the sphere in which we live. The call to salvation places us in a sphere of sanctification.  We are holy as to our position, as to our official status.  He called us in a sphere of sanctification.  By His sacrificial work on the cross He has set us apart unto Himself, gave us a holy nature, an indwelling Holy Spirit, covered us with a robe of Christ's righteousness and therefore we have holiness.  We are sanctified therefore we are holy, therefore we can be called saints.

     This aspect of sanctification is fixed.  It is fixed.  It causes us to desire God's will, to love God, to hate sin and to long to obey.

     Now there is a third, and I'll skip the second and come back, a third aspect of sanctification you need to understand, we'll call it ultimate sanctification...ultimate.  It takes a look at sanctification in another way.  Ultimate sanctification is a future aspect.  Positional sanctification was past, ultimate is future.  It is established at our glorification.  The first was established at our justification.  This at our glorification.  The moment we are translated out of this world into the presence of God, we enter into ultimate sanctification.  That's...that's when we lose this vile flesh, this unredeemed fallen humanness and we are absolutely sanctified body and soul and spirit, in every part.  That is when this mortal puts on immortality, when this corruptible puts on incorruption, according to 1 Corinthians 15:52 to 54.  That is when, to borrow the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 3:21, "God will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory."  That's when we become like Christ for we see Him as He is.  That's at that glorious moment when we are presented as a bride without spot and without blemish, glorious in holiness, to our bridegroom.  That's future.

     So, we already have the past-positional sanctification.  We are guaranteed the future-ultimate sanctification.  That leaves us with the second one, the middle one, experiential sanctification.  And that's where we live, folks, right now.  We are in between the two.  The first is fixed, inviolable, permanent, and eternal.  We will always bear the righteousness of Christ, that is an eternal gift.  You cannot lose that.  The second is fixed and inviolable, we will be glorified, we will enter in to ultimate sanctification...the one in the middle fluctuates.

     It would not be wrong to say then that we are in the process as Christians of the coming what we really are and what we shall be.  What we are is sanctified.  What we shall be is sanctified.  And in the middle we're trying to really be sanctified, we're trying to live up to what we are in position and what we will be ultimately.  This is what Paul is dealing with in 1 Thessalonians.  His prayer here is not for a sanctification that is past, his prayer here does incorporate the hope of a sanctification that is future at the coming of Christ.  But the focus of it is that here and now, spirit, soul and body, we would be being continually conformed to holiness.  That's his passionate prayer for the Thessalonians and for us, that we would be, as Paul put it to Timothy, sanctified and fit for the Master's use.  True justification gives us the hope of glorification which should cause us to pursue sanctification.  That's the goal of the Christian life.  "Be holy as I am holy," Peter quotes God in 1 Peter 1.  "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect," Jesus said in Matthew 5:48.

     So this is the goal of Christian living.  This is th