Sanctification: A Promise, Not a Threat

From our perspective oftentimes we don't see the growth we expected in the ways we expected it. It can be exacerbating and often leads to despair, especially if we don't set our hope on Christ alone and his promise.

We have bought too much into the idea that sanctification will be onwards and upwards in a way that we can smugly rest in. Yet God seems more interested in revealing the truth to us about our true condition and humbling our pride than simply allowing us to be convinced that we are nailing it at the Christian life.

This idea that you need to have measurable growth that satisfies your conscience to believe you're a Christian is not historic Protestant faith, and it undermines our confidence in the sole sufficiency of Jesus for us.

As the Belgic Confession Article 24 says,

"We would always be in doubt, tossed to and fro without any certainty, and our poor consciences would be continually vexed if they relied not on the merits of the suffering and death of our Saviour."

The truth is, we are weak, poor, and needy sinners who stand in continual need of forgiveness, strengthening, support, and encouragement. We all too often don't really have a sense of how holy God is today. We are not properly killed by the law, so we hold out hope that our obedience will be adequate, not fully casting ourselves as sinners and miserable offenders on the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ alone.

Yes, we say we need Jesus, but we also believe we need adequate holiness, adequate Bible reading, adequate prayer times, adequate spiritual disciplines, adequate growth, and adequate improvement in the Christian life, especially in the externals, to have hope in God.

Instead, the Protestant theologians and hymn writers teach us to say and to sing-- to believe: that his blood and righteousness are alone adequate, and that we dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus's name. On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand. In other words, our hope is in Christ alone.

Besides, we are not great judges of our sanctification. Some sins we are blind to, while other sins make us feel like we are beyond the reach of grace. But the truth is that, regardless of how we feel, we are the chief of sinners, and even if our conscience is clean, we are not thereby acquitted, as Paul says (1 Cor. 4:4). No, we are only acquitted, pardoned, and declared righteous by God based on Christ’s perfection alone.

So we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, and we take refuge in the cross. We don't look to our fruits and duties for hope; we look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. We are his workmanship. It is his work in us that he has promised to complete. We confess our sins and he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Sanctification is a promised blessing of the New Covenant, not a threat to motivate us with guilt to try harder to do better. As New Creations in Christ, we delight in the law in our inner ma,n and we desire to perfectly obey God. We groan in these bodies of death, yearning for glory and ultimate deliverance. Thank God for Jesus. And in the meantime, as we struggle and fail, and wrestle with our besetting sins, and our lack of progress, we remember that God is for us and he isn't giving up on us. He knew and knows what we are, and he chose us in Christ for adoption anyway. Jesus redeemed us with eyes wide open. And he still went to the cross for us and delights to show us mercy. He likes being our Redeemer and friend.

This is from the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 5, Article 5:

"The most wise, righteous, and gracious God doth oftentimes leave, for a season, His own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled; and, to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon Himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends."

Sanctification is more about deepening your dependence on Jesus rather than leading you to feel secure in your religious observance and duties. It's about revealing the truth and rescuing us from ourselves. Bringing us from being curved in on ourselves to beholding Christ crucified. So take heart, weary saint, sanctification is a promise and not a threat. It's a gift. It is the work of God's free grace. Look to Christ and rest in him alone. He is faithful. He will surely do it.

As Luther said,

"By paying attention to myself and considering what my condition is or should be, and what I am supposed to be doing, I lose sight of Christ, who alone is my Righteousness and Life. Once He is lost, there is no aid or counsel, but certain despair and perdition must follow."

This is an extremely common evil; for such is human misery that in temptation or death we immediately put Christ aside and pay attention to our own life and our own deeds. Unless we are raised up here by faith, we must perish. In such conflicts of conscience, therefore, we must form the habit of leaving ourselves behind as well as the Law and all our works, which force us to pay attention to ourselves. We must turn our eyes completely to that bronze serpent, Christ nailed to the cross (John 3:14).

With our gaze fastened firmly to Him, we must declare with assurance that He is our Righteousness and Life and care nothing about the threats and terrors of the Law, sin, death, wrath, and the judgment of God. For the Christ on whom our gaze is fixed, in whom we exist, and who also lives in us, is the Victor and the Lord over the Law, sin, death, and every evil. In Hi,m a sure comfort has been set forth for us, and victory has been granted.

Written by Brad Kafer