Signs/Affect/Effect
When at the crossroads between the words of Christ, Einstein, and personal experience... become wise to God's purposes, will, and present activity. This is sanctification and will result in the new covenant experience.
Sanctification is the ongoing supernatural work of God to rescue justified sinners from the disease of sin and to conform them to the image of his Son: holy, Christlike, and empowered to do good works.
The former is founded on what Christ has done for us; the latter is the effect of what He does in us. (6.) Justification is complete and the same in all, while sanctification is progressive, and is more complete in some than in others.
Nor is sanctification to be confounded with the effects of moral culture or discipline. It is very possible, as experience proves, by careful moral training, by keeping the young from all contaminating influences, and by bringing them under the forming influences of right principles and good associates, to preserve them from much of the evil of the world, and to render them like the young man in the Gospel whom Jesus loved. Such training is not to be undervalued. It is enjoined in the Word of God. It cannot, however, change the nature. It cannot impart life. A faultless statue fashioned out of pure marble in all its beauty, is far below a living man.
23 May the God of shalom make you completely holy—may your entire spirit, soul and body be kept blameless for the coming of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah. 24 The one calling you is faithful, and he will do it.
Sanctification refers to being sanctified or holy. Objects and animals are holy or sanctified when they are set apart for God’s purposes. God’s people are to progressively grow in holiness until the Day of the Lord, at which point all believers will be completely sanctified.
Divine covenants reveal the saving plan of God for establishing communion with Israel and the nations, ultimately fulfilled by the death and resurrection of Christ.
An inadequate rendering of “covenant” as “testament” may obscure the theological meaning of the division of salvation history—and the biblical canon—into the old and new covenants. Covenant language is more prominent in the Old Testament, which reflects its futuristic character as “a story in search of an ending.”
In application, contracts are limited by the terms of the exchange of property (“this is yours, that is mine”), while covenants involve an exchange of life (“I am yours, you are mine”), which covers a virtually unlimited range of human relations and duties. In terms of motivation, contracts are based on profit and self-interest, while covenants call for self-giving loyalty and sacrificial love. Contracts are temporary while covenant bonds are permanent, even intergenerational.