Doctrine of the Spiritual Life; John 15:4-6
The Hebrew word QADDASH and the Greek word HAGIAZO [a(giazw]: What is important about these words is their basic meaning. QADDASH is translated "holy" in many places. When used as a verb it means to be holy or to be sanctified. But "holy" is one of those old English words that we use so much in Christian circles that it doesn't always carry a lot of meaning with it. HAGIZO is from HAGIOS which means holy, set apart, sanctified. It doesn't mean moral purity, that is only a secondary meaning. The Hebrew word QADDASH in the noun form it referred to temple prostitutes. How does that jibe with out idea of moral purity? The temple prostitutes had dedicated their life to the service of their god. That is the root meaning of QADDASH and HAGIAZO—the concept of being set apart to the service of God. So when we are talking about sanctification we are not talking about becoming sinless. A good word to use is "integrity." 1 Thessalonians 4:7—"For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification." Sanctification is the process whereby the believer is set apart to God for service. Note that "impurity" is the Greek word AKATHORSIA [a)kaqorsia].A is the equivalent to the English word "un", a negative; KATHORSIA is the word for cleansing, clean. This tells us right away that this word is a central concept in sanctification. What renders the believer unclean is sin, and that has to be dealt with.
In John 15:3 we have "you are already clean." That is the word KATHAROS [kaqaroj], the noun. Immediately this tells us we are talking about something to do with sanctification, but there it tells us that they are already clean. That is salvation, so there is some sense that at the point of salvation the believer becomes sanctified. This is positional sanctification. At the point of salvation we are legally cleansed from all of our sins. But we sin after salvation, so post-salvation cleansing requires the use of 1 John 1:9. So we see that cleansing can relate to either phase one cleansing or phase two cleansing, either salvation cleansing or in terms of our day to day experience dealing with sin after salvation. The issue here is sanctification which is the process by which God sets us apart for spiritual service. When we talk about progressive or experiential sanctification we are talking about the Christian life. Morality is for believer and unbeliever alike. The Church Age spiritual life is uniquely based and energized by God the Holy Spirit, and that is what makes the difference. This concept of abiding in Christ, fellowship, is central to understanding the whole process of sanctification, and we must understand that this isn't some experience.
In 1 John 1:1-3 John says it is "what we have seen and heard. . .we have seen with our eyes . . . in our hands have handled," etc.: objective data, not some subjective mystical experience. . . "that you also may have fellowship with us." Fellowship with the apostles is based not upon an experience but upon belief in information, in certain data. In other words, "You have to believe what we tell you to have fellowship with us." Fellowship is based on apostolic message, not a common experience. This is the problem with the ecumenical movement: We've all had a religious experience, so let's get together and hold hands, and we will just have a wonderful religious experience and go home feeling good! That is not what the Scripture says. The Scripture says there is an apostolic succession, not the physical hand to head, empty-head succession of the Roman Catholic church; it is an apostolic succession of apostolic doctrine. That is how the early church viewed apostolic succession. It wasn't physical, it was content. So John tells us that if we want to have fellowship with the apostles then you can have fellowship with God, but you can only have fellowship with the apostles if you believe their message which is based on an objective content. Then the basis for fellowship with God the Father.
There are three stages of sanctification. When we talk about God's plan for our life, this is the plan. It is a blueprint. Remember that salvation and sanctification are not ends in themselves. We are saved from something to something. It is a means to an end. Sanctification is to make the believer ready to serve God. The trouble is that most believers think that they are saved and that is it! They forget that it is for a purpose. God has laid out a blueprint for our lives and that is the three stages of sanctification.
The goal of sanctification is to glorify God. So how do we do it? What happens after salvation is that the believer is going to go through various tests—adversity. God is going to test us in terms of growth. James calls them tests of faith, and there it is not just whether or not you believe but it is what you believe. You cannot grow if you are not believing the right things. Faith is non-meritorious, it is the object of faith that matters. Faith and feelings doesn't work faith and emotion doesn't work, faith and experience doesn't work; mixing faith with the promises of God is what moves us forward in the spiritual life; we apply the doctrine we have learned under the filling of the Holy Spirit. So we get into tests of doctrine. Ever time we make a decision we need to be thinking: What is God's thinking on this problem? Every decision is a test as to whether we are going to apply divine viewpoint or human viewpoint, whether we are going to be walking by the Spirit or walking according to the flesh. It is an issue of volition. The issue in the spiritual life is, are you going to decide to apply the Word of God and continue to grow all the way to spiritual maturity, or you are going to do it your way. If you go forward in the spiritual life it is going to involved the following progressions. If you grow are going to produce divine good under the filling of the Holy Spirit. You will be walking by means of the Holy Spirit and filled by means of the Holy Spirit. That produces divine good. It is also going to produce in the life objective evidence that the will of God is good and perfect—Romans 12:2. Then we have steadfast endurance: remaining in fellowship with Christ, enduring in the times of testing by applying doctrine. That leads to the adult spiritual life, James 1:2-4. God is glorified in phase three at the judgment seat of Christ when we produce rewards and have an inheritance. That is the culmination. We need to be living today with the future in mind. Every decision we make today impacts eternity. To put it another way, what you decide today determines what you will be in eternity. When we make decisions today based on what will happen at the judgment seat of Christ we are beginning to come to grips with the sense of eternal destiny. This is the process of sanctification.
What is the means? How does sanctification take place? There are two elements. It is the Word of God working in tandem with the Spirit of God. These two are not independent in the process; one is not emphasized at the expense of the other. The Word of God is always the key element. Deuteronomy 6:6-9: "And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart [the thinking part of the soul]." The question we need to ask is how they are going to get there. How are we going to get the Word of God inside our kids, and inside of ourselves? [7] "and you shall teach them diligently [indicating that this is a priority issue]." It is a priority issue to teach our children; "to your sons and shall talk of them" – this means "with them." This is conversation with your children. In family situations bring the children into the decision-making process so that you can show them how you utilize the Word of God in problem-solving. Talk about the spiritual issues. What is the divine viewpoint perspective of a problem? So you are going to be communicating by modeling with the kids what procedure is; "when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up"—the totality of your life. It includes every category of life. The Bible is not just for Sunday! [8] "And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead." Your hand relates to what you do. This was an agrarian society, they worked with their hands. The frontals of your forehead: this is where you think. The point was that the Word of God is going to affect what you do and what you think. [9] "And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." In other words, this is going to characterize your family life.
Deuteronomy 17:18 NASB "Now it shall come to pass when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests." This is talking about the king. The Bible was not only for the family, it was also for government leaders. The king had to sit down and copy out for himself his own copy of the Old Testament. Notice: Anyone who has spent any time studying secular education theory knows that secular education theory says that this is a lousy way to learn. But God said that this is what the king is supposed to do. Notice that it is memorization and making a hand copy of something; constant reminder and repetition. This is just the opposite of modern education! What parents can do with their kids is get some program of Scripture memorization going. You can't mix faith with promises you don't know. When you are out there is real life on the job, you don't have your Bible with you or your doctrinal notebook to tell you what to do. It has to be in the soul. You have to have promises memorized in order to apply them. Make memorizing Scripture a family project. [19] "And it shall be with him [his doctrine], and he shall read it all the days of his life, in order that he may learn to respect the Lord his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes." Notice that respect for God comes as a result of careful obedience to the Word of God.
Deuteronomy 31:10,11 NASB "Then Moses commanded them, saying, 'At the end of every seven years, at the time of the remission of debts, at the Feast of Booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord, you shall read this law in front of all Israel in their hearing.'" The whole nation would come together and the priests would go out and read the Torah to everyone. They had to hear it over and over and over again. Notice the emphasis on continuous repetition and reminding of what was in the Word of God. Psalm 1:1, 2 reiterates the principle: "in his law he meditates day and night." John 17: "Sanctify them through thy word, thy word is truth." Colossians 3: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." This is the key to living the spiritual life. Throughout the Scripture the emphasis is on learning the Word of God, and that then produces fruit. Fruit is not overt activity, that is the function of our priesthood. Fruit in Scripture always talks about inner character, inner transforation. It is talking about developing inside of us the character of Jesus Christ. Jesus emphasised this to the Pharisees in Matthew 23:25 NASB "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence." In other words, they just wanted to clean up the outside of the dish, but on the inside where they had motivations and lust patterns they just left that alone. [26] "You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also." It is ain inside-out process. You start with cleansing the thinking, changing the inner character, and then the result is the outside overt activity change. [27] "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. [28] So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."