God's Plans for You by J. I. Packer

Author:J. I. Packer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2010-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

8

SCRIPTURE AND SANCTIFICATION

How the Bible Helps Us to Holiness

“Sanctify them by the truth,” prays Jesus, adding adoringly, “your word is truth” (John 17:17). Truth here bears a theological sense: It is a declaration and disclosure of reality as God knows it. Since all Holy Scripture is God’s Word of truth, we are right to infer from Jesus’ words that biblical teaching is the means of the sanctification for which he prayed. Since he was praying not just for those who had already become his followers but “also for those who will believe in me through their message” (v. 20), his prayer was as much for us as it was for Peter, John, Augustine, Bunyan, Spurgeon, or whomever. Though his heavenly intercession (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25) would seem to be more a matter of active intervention on our behalf than of continual supplication before the Father, we may be sure that the sanctification of his people remains his constant concern. And the means whereby it takes place is the Word of God.

What is sanctification? The root meaning of the word is relational, or as some say, positional: To sanctify, or consecrate, is to set something or someone apart for God, either in general and inclusive terms or for some specific purpose, and to have it, or him, or her, accepted by God for the end in view. So in the high-priestly prayer from which we have just quoted, Jesus says: “For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified” (v. 19). Jesus’ self-sanctification was the specific setting apart of himself to be the sacrifice for his disciples’ sins; their sanctification and ours is the inclusive setting apart of ourselves to be God’s holy people in every aspect, department, activity, and relationship of our lives.

But whereas Jesus’ self-sanctification is his own act, he speaks of our sanctification as a work of God upon us and in us. This points us to the further truth that when God sets fallen human beings like ourselves apart for himself to be his servants and worshipers and to live in fellowship with him, his action is transformational in its character and effects. Why so? Because those whom God sets apart for himself must be Godlike. If they are not already so, they must be made so.

Accordingly, we find that while some New Testament passages speak of God’s sanctification of us in the past tense, as an event, a milestone, something already done (Acts 26:18; Heb. 10:10, 14, 29), others speak of it as something present and future (1 Thess. 4:3-4; 5:23), in other words as a process that goes on. The former texts refer to the relational aspect of sanctification, which becomes real upon our believing, as do justification and adoption, and is momentary. The latter texts refer to the transformational process that is lifelong and that is spoken of elsewhere as growth in grace, growing up into Christ, and being changed from glory to glory by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 3:18; Eph.

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