“Come As You Are—But Don’t Stay As You Are”
“Sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit in us whereby our inner being is progressively changed, freeing us more and more from sinful traits and developing within us over time the virtues of Christlike character.”
You can come to God as you are, but you cannot stay as you are. Many of us have heard this phrase or something similar to it before. The essence of it is that you do not need to clean yourself up to be saved, but once you are saved, God’s renovation project begins. To put this into Bible language, we would say that those who are saved will be sanctified.
What do we mean by the word sanctified? We are referring to the process of a Christian becoming more like Christ.
Multiple passages underscore the unbreakable link between salvation and sanctification. One key passage is found in Paul’s writing to Titus,
11 “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, 12 instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of bour great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.” (Titus 2:11-14)
God’s saving grace not only undergirds our salvation, according to Paul, but also undergirds our sanctification. Thus, we need to understand that sanctification is not some elective of the Christian life; it is at the core of it.
If this is the case, we need to become familiar with the Bible’s teaching on sanctification. A great place to start is with the three phases of a believer’s sanctification. Let’s consider them briefly.
3 PHASES OF THE BELIEVER’S SANCTIFICATION
1) Positional Sanctification. The Christians life begins with an initial moment of sanctification. This is when a person is separated from the world and joined to Christ. They go from loving sin and being in bondage to it to hating sin and being set free from it. The initial act of sanctification happens at the beginning of every person's life as a Christian.
It is for this reason that Paul often refers to believers as those who are or have been sanctified (Acts 20:32; Acts 26:18; 1 Corinthians 1:2).
2) Progressive Sanctification. While every Christian has been sanctified initially, every Christian is also called to pursue sanctification progressively. Another way to say this is that what is true about us objectively must become true in our lives experientially. For example, the Bible often refers to believers as holy (which means “set apart”), yet as believers, we are aware of how much unholiness remains within us. We are positionally holy in Christ because His perfect record has been credited to our account; however, we must also become holy experientially in our daily living. This is the essence of progressive sanctification.
That this is to be a central pursuit in the life of a Christian is seen in the Scriptures' continual call for believers to pursue holiness (Romans 12:1-2; Hebrews 12:14).
3) Perfected Sanctification. Perfection is an illusion this side of eternity. While this is the case, this does not mean that perfection will not come. The Bible makes clear that our pursuit of Christlikeness will culminate one day in the future when we will be made like Him. The Apostle John put it this way, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” (1 John 3:2).
When Christ returns and we see Him in all of His glory and splendor, the renovation project that began at initial sanctification will be completed. This is what the Bible speaks about when it says that we will be glorified. At this moment, God’s predestined purpose of Romans 8:29 will be fulfilled.
Application: How should knowing these realities impact how we live?
First, it encourages us to remember that what God begins, He is faithful to complete. The moment that positional (objective) sanctification takes place in a person's life, there is a divine guarantee that perfected (completed) sanctification will one day happen. What God begins, He is faithful to bring to completion (Philippians 1:6). What God predestines us to become, He is faithful to fulfill (Romans 8:29).
Second, it defines what ought to be the pursuit of our lives, which is conformity to Jesus Christ. The Apostle John, right on the heels of saying that when Christ returns, every Christian will be conformed to the image of Christ inasmuch as glorified humanity can be (1 John 3:2), he goes on to say that for those who possess this hope, they are to purify themselves as Jesus is pure (1 John 3:3).
Sanctification is not an elective of the Christian life; it is the very core of it. May we be people who not only read and hear the truth, but also obey it to see the image of Christ formed in us all the more.