Preaching the good news of God’s sanctification.

Owen Strachan and the gift of God’s holiness in us.

Photo by Mishu Vass on Unsplash

For many well-meaning Christians, there is, perhaps, no water that is more turbulent than the sea of arguments, interpretations, and opinions concerning the doctrine of sanctification. The ocean of commotion surrounding this topic has troubled sinners and saints for centuries, with some recent online debates leaving many still searching for answers. While I don’t presume to have every answer for this crucial aspect of the Christian faith, I do believe that sanctification is easily understood when the gospel is viewed as a panoramic announcement concerning the work of the Christ of God who fulfills the promise of redemption for all of creation. Accordingly, Jesus recreative death recreates you, too, by faith.

Certain Scriptures seem to be tailor-made for out-of-context teaching, which only muddies the waters of sanctification for clergy and laity alike. For instance, the author of Hebrews states that the church ought to “strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). The word “holiness” is the Greek word hagiasmos, which is elsewhere in the New Testament translated as “sanctification.” Consequently, some employ this verse in their argument that a concomitant obligation for sanctification appends any notion of justification, with the added stress laid on the imperative to “strive” after it. The net effect, then, is that the sinner is not only bound but also compelled to exert every last ounce of spiritual energy he can muster to finally lay his paws on the carrot of sanctification that is dangling at the end of the stick of the gospel. This is the picture that is often painted whenever sanctification is discussed.

Of course, theorizing that sanctification is nothing more than a carrot used by God to make sure his followers pursue holiness is a tragic caricature of God’s work in us. Sanctification is dreadfully misrepresented if it is understood as “50% God and 50% us,” to use the way Harrison Perkins puts it. “The impression is,” he continues, “that God has given the free gift of a legal status, now we need to get cracking on our part.” Although theologians and clergymen who ascribe to this understanding, even if implicitly, may be well-meaning, they are wholly mistaken when they dispense of this interpretation. They catalyze confusion and frustration among parishioners, leaving them in a spiritual “no man’s land,” unmoored from the biblical gospel, which announces that Christ Jesus has become to us “wisdom [and] righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).

Accordingly, in a lengthy post entitled, “Against Functional Catholicism,”

Owen Strachan

posits several theses in favor of what he refers to as “Reformed sanctification.” This amounts to a series of assertions that refute the Pelagian or synergistic conceptions of how one is sanctified. Instead, Strachan boldly professes what ought to be the confession of every disciple of Christ — namely, that sanctification is not a matter of willpower but of grace. This, of course, has huge ramifications for the church and those who are called to preach the Scriptures regularly, which is why Strachan takes aim at the pulpit. He writes:

Sanctification is not what we do to keep ourselves saved. God keeps us saved every second, minute, and day of our lives. Sanctification is not of our own power. As I just stated, sanctification enlists all our will and all our being, but it is entirely of God’s power. Sanctification is not in any way directed by us. Sanctification is the express assignment of God the Holy Spirit, who works in us continually to bear the fruit of godliness in every dimension of our lives . . .

Too many pulpits seem gripped by fear that a grace-driven approach to sanctification will unleash waves of worldliness in the congregation. Too many pulpits make God small in sanctification, and man big in sanctification. Too many pulpits seem wary of a big, massive, overarching, over-spilling vision of the majestic God and his mighty working. As I have observed, we Reformed people rightly talk much about God’s saving grace; we badly need a full-scale recovery of God’s sanctifying grace.

To put it directly, preachers must stop gripping the staff of the law with a white-knuckled grip. Preachers must instead unleash the grace of God in the church, and trust that God will do the work.

Sanctification is a gift. It is the gracious work of the Spirit on the soul by which the sinner is “conformed to the image of [the] Son” (Rom. 8:29). “God, who graciously justifies sinners, also graciously, progressively sanctifies them into the image of Christ,” writes R. Scott Clark. “Out of that free, gracious salvation comes good works just as surely as good fruit comes from a living tree.” This, of course, invokes Jesus’s own words to his disciples in John 15 where he declares himself to be the True Vine out of which sprouts fruit-bearing branches. The point is, of course, that the branches do not bear fruit of their own accord or will-power. Rather, they bear fruit only as they “abide in the vine” (John 15:4). Consequently, sinners are sanctified only as they abide by faith in Christ alone.

In The Gospel-Mystery of Sanctification, which is, perhaps, the most influential work on this doctrine, 17th-century Puritan pastor and theologian Walter Marshall meticulously unpacks the gracious mystery by which sinners are made holy by the work of Christ alone. “As we are justified by a righteousness wrought out in Christ, and imputed to us,” he writes, “so we are sanctified by such a holy frame and qualifications, as are first wrought out and completed in Christ for us, and then imparted to us” (35). To be sure, sanctification is necessary for every Christian and remains an inseparable part of the gospel of God. But it is imperative that we understand this doctrine the way the New Testament presents it — namely, as the work of God’s Spirit in us.

Grace and peace.

Works cited:

Walter Marshall, The Gospel-Mystery of Sanctification Opened in Sundry Practical Directions (London: W. Baynes, 1819).