0031. The Scope of Sanctification

The Scope of Sanctification

"And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1Th_5:23).

Sanctification includes spirit, soul and body.

Man is a trinity.

The spirit is that part of the man through which we have contact with God.

The soul is that part of the man through which we have contact with one another.

The body is that part of the man which houses the spirit and the soul.

The body is the implement or the instrument through which both spirit and soul express themselves.

1. God wants us to be sanctified in "spirit." When man fell, the spirit lost its touch with God; the spirit has eyes, but it sees not; it has ears, but they hear not; it has senses, but they are blighted by the fall.

The purpose of God is to impart sonship, and to restore fellowship. The one who by sin was afar off, is made nigh by the Blood of Christ.

The world seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him; but we both see Him and know Him. God restores to the "spirit" of man its function of seeing God, and then tells us that the very God of peace will sanctify us wholly: and that our spirit should be preserved blameless.

God hath promised and He will enable His children to be kept in His love, to abide in Him, and to live in constant fellowship with the Father and with the Son.

We are sanctified in spirit when having been renewed in the "spirit of our minds" we have learned the secret of living "Godly" in this present world.

2. God wants us to be sanctified in soul. This is our intellectual life–the life of thoughts, ideas, opinions, imaginations, memory, will, affection. All of these should be made subject to Christ. We want to bring our thoughts into the obedience of Christ.

3. God wants us to be sanctified in the body. Rom_12:1 makes it plain, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice".

In Rom_6:13, we read, "Yield * * your members as instruments of righteousness unto God".

God wants our eyes and our ears, our feet and our hands; in fact, God wants every part of our body for His use.

Having been cleansed in spirit, soul and body, and having been separated from the walks and ways of the world, we bring this, the whole man, and pour it out as sacrifice to God.

"All to Jesus, I surrender,

Now I feel the cleansing flame;

Oh, the joy of full salvation,

Glory, glory to His Name!"

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR