Sanctification?

What is Sanctification?

One of the things that sets the church of the Nazarene apart is the way that John Wesley interpreted,experienced and taught Sanctification. The way he lived Sanctification. And without a doubt the way he preached Sanctification.The very first thing that Bob and I studied was Sanctification. The Lord has laid it on my heart to do a in depth but simple series explaining what Sanctification is, what it does, how it does it, the effects and the stages, and why it is something every Christian has in part and at the same time it’s something every christian should be seeking out in whole. We see Sanctification from the very beginning of the Bible and creation. In the second chapter of Genesis God ends His work week by sanctifying the seventh day.

Genesis 2:3 (CSB)

God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it he rested from all his work of creation.

God sanctified the seventh day because it was a gift to man for rest and replenishment, and most of all because the Sabbath is a shadow of the rest available through the work of Jesus Christ. For us Christians every day is a day of rest in the finished work of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. Every day should be set apart for God. As God created each day it was completed with the phrase “ so the evening and the morning were the 1st , 2nd etc… day”. The seventh day was not ended with this phrase because God’s rest for us isn’t confined to one literal day. In Jesus , God has an eternal Sabbath rest for His people. So from the very beginning of time God is using sanctification ,and it’s connected and related to rest for His people. God completed His work of creation , He rests, as if to say , this is the destiny for my people to rest as I rest,to rest in me. So what does this have to do with us now in the context of this series on sanctification? The seventh day was sanctified, made holy and intended for God’s people to embrace God’s rest, and it’s a example of what God intended for His people who live for Him more than just one day a week. God is telling us from the very beginning that He has created the universe around His people living in rest with the understanding that living for God daily, being set apart in surrender to His will, then we to become sanctified and live with and in the eternal rest of God every day of our lives.

The Lexham Bible Dictionary Sanctification

SANCTIFICATION Refers broadly to the concept of being set apart as sacred. In Gen 2:3, God “sanctified” the seventh day, meaning He set it apart as sacred. In Leviticus, Yahweh tells the entire people of Israel to maintain being sanctified (Lev 11:44–45). This aspect of the concept of sanctification is closely related to holiness and biblical regulations for maintaining purity. The New Testament similarly reflects the idea that followers of Christ have been sanctified or set apart as a result of Christ’s holiness (Acts 20:32; 26:18; 1 Cor 1:30; 2 Thess 2:13). This idea that Christians have been made holy before God through their faith in Christ is related to justification. In Christian theology, a distinction is sometimes made between justification and sanctification where justification refers to having saving faith and sanctification refers to the process of gradual purification from sin and progressive spiritual growth that should mark the life of the believer. This doctrine of sanctification draws on New Testament passages that emphasize a move toward holy and righteous living that characterizes following Christ in faith (1 Thess 4:3–8; Rom 6:19–22