Fellowship: Fellowship with God is Experiencing Sanctification Lesson # 4

A believer who is experiencing fellowship with God is experiencing their sanctification.

Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom

Sunday July 16, 2017

www.wenstrom.org

Lesson # 4

A believer who is experiencing fellowship with God is experiencing their sanctification.

They are one in the same.

The believer who is experiencing sanctification is experiencing fellowship with God and vice versa.

Experiencing sanctification is describing experiencing fellowship with God from the perspective that it is experiencing being set apart to serve God exclusively.

The church age believer’s “sanctification” is directly related to the baptism of the Spirit.

“Sanctification” is a technical theological term for the believer who has been set apart through the baptism of the Spirit at the moment of conversion in order to serve God exclusively and is accomplished in three stages: (1) Positional (2) Experiential (3) Perfective.

Sanctification deals with conforming the believer to the holiness of God and reproducing it in the believer.

The moment the believer was declared justified through faith in Jesus Christ, the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit caused the believer to become identical and united with the Lord Jesus Christ in His crucifixion, His spiritual and physical death, His burial, resurrection and session.

It also ascribes to the believer the qualities and characteristics of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The baptism of the Spirit results in positional sanctification and the potential to experience sanctification in time and the guarantee of perfective sanctification at the resurrection of the church.

By positional, I mean that God views the believer as crucified, died, buried, raised and seated with Christ since at the moment of conversion, the Holy Spirit placed the believer in union with Christ, identifying him with Christ’s crucifixion (; ), His death (, ; ; ), His burial (; ), His resurrection (; ; ; ; ) and His session (; ).

“Positional sanctification” is the believer’s “entrance” into the plan of God for the church age resulting in eternal security as well as two categories of positional truth (, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; , ; ).

“Retroactive” positional truth is the church age believer’s identification with Christ in His death and burial (; ).

In other words, when Christ died God considers the believer to have died with Him.

“Current” positional truth is the church age believer’s identification with Christ in His resurrection, ascension and session (See ; ).

In other words, when Christ was raised and seated at the right hand of the Father, the Father considers the believer to have been raised and seated with Christ as well.

“Positional sanctification”: (1) What God has done for the church age believer. (2) His viewpoint of the church age believer. (3) Sets up the potential to experience sanctification in time. (4) Provides the believer with the guarantee of receiving a resurrection body.

“Experiential sanctification” is the function of the church age believer’s spiritual life in time through obedience to the Father’s will, which is revealed by the Spirit through the communication of the Word of God (; , ; ; ; , ; ).

The will of the Father is for the believer to obey the Spirit’s teaching in the Word of God that he has been crucified, died, buried, raised and seated with Christ, which constitutes experiencing sanctification.

But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. (NASB95)

“Experiential sanctification” is the post-justification experience of the believer who is in fellowship with God by confessing any known sin to the Father when necessary followed by obedience to the Father’s will, which is revealed by the Spirit through the Word of God.

Experiential sanctification is only a potential since it is contingent upon the church age believer responding to what God has done for him at the moment of conversion, therefore, only believers who are obedient to the Word of God will experience sanctification in time.

The believer who experiences sanctification is walking in “newness of life” and they do this by obeying the teaching of the Word of God, which states that the believer has been crucified, died, buried, raised and seated with Christ and which teaching is inspired by the Holy Spirit (See ).

The believer’s faith in the teaching of the Word of God that they have been crucified, died, buried, raised and seated with Christ will express itself in obedience, which results in the believer experiencing sanctification.

The believer who appropriates by faith the teaching of the Word of God that they have been crucified, died and buried with Christ will experience deliverance from the lust patterns of the old sin nature.

Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (NASB95)

The believer is to consider the members of their body to be dead to these lust patterns of the old sin nature since they were crucified at the cross and they have died with Christ.

Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. (NASB95)

The Lord Jesus Christ was crucified so that the believer might not live for the lusts of the old sin nature but for the will of God (See ).

“Experiential” sanctification is experiencing the holiness or in other words manifesting the character of God through one’s thoughts, words and actions ().

“Perfective sanctification” is the perfection of the church age believer’s spiritual life at the rapture, i.e. resurrection of the church, which is the completion of the plan of God for the church age believer (; ; ; ).

It is the guarantee of a resurrection body and will be experienced by every believer regardless of their response in time to what God has done for them at salvation.

All three stages of sanctification refer to the process of conforming the believer into the image of Jesus Christ, which is the Father’s plan from eternity past ().