“Them That Are Sanctified”

“For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” – Hebrews 10:14

God’s elect are a sanctified people. All believers are sanctified. There is no such thing as an unsanctified believer. If we are saved, we are saints. If we are not saints, we are not saved. This is exactly what Paul told the Corinthian believers (1 Cor. 6:11).

Sanctification is altogether the work of God’s free and sovereign grace in Christ. Our sanctification, like our redemption and justification, is the work of God almighty in the trinity of his sacred Persons. We are sanctified by God the Father in election, by God the Son in redemption, and by God the Holy Spirit in regeneration. Sanctification is not something we do for ourselves. It is something God does for us and in us.

The words “sanctify,” “sanctified,” “sanctifieth,” and “sanctification” are used more than thirty times in the New Testament. We are said to be sanctified by the purpose of God, by the blood of Christ, by the Spirit of God, by faith in Christ, and by the Word of God. But never, not even once, are we said to sanctify ourselves. Sanctification is the work of God alone.

Sanctified In Eternity

All who are God’s were sanctified by God the Father in eternal election (Jude 1). All believers were sanctified by God the Father in eternal election, set apart for him by God’s decree, and separated unto him (Jude 1:1).

This is the character of God’s distinguishing grace. -- It sets some people apart from others and sanctifies them unto the Lord. Grace makes men to differ (1 Cor. 4:7). We were secretly set apart for God in his secret, eternal decree of election before the world began. We were legally set apart from Adam’s fallen race by the purchase of Christ at Calvary when he ransomed us from the curse of the law. And we were manifestly set apart and separated unto God by the effectual call of God the Holy Spirit in regeneration.

Every believer has been, in this sense, eternally sanctified, completely set apart by God and for God. The practical importance of this glorious doctrine is this: -- That which has been set apart for God ought never be used for common purposes again. “Ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:19-20). We belong to the Lord our God. Let us therefore consecrate ourselves to him and serve him in all things (Rom 12:1-2). We belong to God. Be assured, God almighty will protect all who belong to him in all their appointed ways, even as he protected the ark of the covenant in the Old Testament (Ps. 91:3-13).

Sanctified At Calvary

We were sanctified by God the Son in redemption at Calvary. All of God’s elect were perfectly sanctified by the blood of Christ when he died as our Substitute (Heb. 10:10-14). Christ is our Sanctification (1 Cor. 1:30). We have been and are forever “sanctified in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:2). Believers are addressed throughout the Epistles as “saints,” that is as “sanctified ones” in Christ.

This is what I want you to see and rejoice in: -- In the Lord Jesus Christ we who believe are regarded by God as perfectly holy, treated as if we were perfectly holy, and declared to be perfectly holy, because in Christ we are perfectly holy! We do no believe in imputed sanctification any more than we believe in imputed justification. We believe in imputed righteousness, by which we are both justified and sanctified. The righteousness of Christ has been imputed to us; and we are by his righteousness both justified from all things and declared to be holy. Sanctified in the sight of God. -- “With His spotless garments on I am as holy as God’s Son!”

Sanctified By The Spirit

Every chosen, redeemed sinner is sanctified by God the Holy Spirit in the new birth. All believers are actually made holy by God the Holy Spirit in regeneration. Through the instrumentally of gospel preaching, the Spirit of God effectually applies the blood of Christ to the hearts of God’s elect, purifying our hearts and implanting a new, holy nature within us. This is regeneration, the new birth. This is our sanctification by the Spirit (2 Thess. 2:13-14; 2 Pet. 1:4; 1 John 3:9; 1 John 5:18).

Someone once wrote, “We are a people with two natures, one that is holy and seeks after righteousness, and one that is corrupt and seeks after sin. However, these two natures are not equal in power. The divine nature rules and reigns; but the evil nature will not bow nor serve.”

While we live in this world we must continue to live with this old, sinful nature. But we do have a new nature created in us, in the image of Christ, a nature that cannot sin (1 John 3:9). It is the old man that sins, not the new. It is written, “Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me” (Rom. 7:20) In glorification the old man shall be totally eradicated from us, but not until then. That eradication of the old man is not a gradual, progressive thing. It is the radical, climatic change experienced by God’s saints in death, and ultimately in resurrection glory.

Understanding that sanctification is altogether the work of God, the work of God’s grace, it is obvious that there is no such thing as “progressive sanctification” taught in the Book of God. Believers grow in grace, but not in holiness. We grow in faith, but not in righteousness. There is no sense in which our sanctification depends upon us. It is God’s work.