Being made holy
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
The change that God works within us is termed ‘sanctification’. Luther used ’sanctification’ in the Small Catechism in the broad sense to include all that God does for us, and in us, through his word. This includes justification. This is what Paul means when he declares: “you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30).
The word ‘sanctify’ simply means to make holy, to be set apart. In the broad sense, sanctification refers to our justification, the fact that we are completely and perfectly holy before God (coram Deo). Luther in his response to the third article of the creed links sanctification here to the work of the Holy Spirit:
I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and kept me in true faith.
There is nothing we can add to that finished work of Jesus. This is what Christ has done for us outside of us. Because he is holy, he has made us holy in himself, and we are in him (1 Peter 1:15-21).
Conversely, in the narrow sense, sanctification can be used to refer to the process of Christian growth that happens within us. In this sense, we are not describing something that is perfect, far from it. Immediately after justification there is a lifelong process of spiritual growth that happens within us, wherein God makes us more like himself to do good works (Ephesians 2:8-10; Formula of Concord - Solid Declaration III 41). Sanctification, in the narrow sense, is the fact that we are in the process of being made holy. Before the world (coram mundo), we are gradually becoming more like Christ, as we turn away from sin, and God helps us to live according to his will.
In this narrow sense, sanctification is distinguished from justification temporally and theologically, but not in substance. Justification (God’s saving action) always precedes sanctification (our service to him). In both cases God himself is the active agent, and the Christian is passive (1 Corinthians 2:2). To reverse the order is an affront to God’s grace and a stumbling block to faith. Maintaining justification without works is to have faith without works, which is dead (James 2:26).
Our New Life in Christ
Of ourselves we are sinners, sinful from the moment we were conceived (Psalm 51:5); dead in sin (Ephesians 2:1), we are at enmity with God (Romans 8:7), and we do not seek God (Romans 3:11). We are anything but holy when we are born. People like to think of faith as some kind of human decision and will; that we can create faith in our hearts. But how can a body dead in its sins raise itself to new life? God must do a miraculous work in us. We must be born again if we are to have any spiritual life within us. This is how Jesus speaks to Nicodemus in John 3:1-8. Jesus, on the heels of His own death on the cross, reminds His disciples He will die and rise. They too will die. Even the disciple has no exemption from the suffering of living in a troubled and dying world. But there is a promise of being raised on the third day and he will send the Holy Spirit out of His own death and resurrection. Jesus said, “Unless one is born anew, born from above, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” Again, “unless one is born of water and Spirit”, unless you become a new creation, recreated by the Spirit working through water, you cannot be saved.
Paul puts it this way: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 15:50). He also speaks about this act of God as “the washing of regeneration” (Titus 3:5). Through baptism, Christians experience a regeneration, or a re-creation. Something drastic happens. Our old self is destroyed, which previously hated God and had no spiritual life, and God raises us up as a new creation who love and want to serve him. In this fallen world no one side-steps death. But if we die in Jesus through our baptism, we also live in Jesus; a resurrection occurs (Romans 6:5). After baptism we appear to others as the same old person, but not to God. He sees the new man in Christ – perfect and complete through his crucified and risen Son. Through the centrality of the cross in our lives we have a new life of faith in him (Romans 6:6-8).
While we are saints through baptism in Christ, we are sinners in Adam, simul justus et peccator, simultaneously justified and sinner. We are now both dead in ourselves and alive in Christ. This is a life of now and yet. Now we have peace in Christ, and yet, we also have trouble, tribulation, and hardship. Although we see our sin and guilt, that is not the complete picture. In Christ there has been a death and resurrection. Our salvation does not depend on which of saint or sinner wins out in any given situation but on the victory already won by God through Christ, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). God’s plan for transformation by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2) goes to the heart of the matter. He deals with the cause and not the symptoms. He daily works on us with the same reality he accomplished when we were baptised, that is, death and resurrection.
In the Divine service God comes to us, gathered around his word. Nothing is holy apart from God’s word, and his sacraments. His word sanctifies the waters of baptism, and in the absolution it delivers forgiveness to listening ears. In the sermon his preached word rightly divides law and gospel. In the Lord’s Supper, the risen Lord Jesus gives us his most holy body and blood for the sprinkling of our hearts, our conscience, our inner being so that we are fully consecrated as his holy priesthood for his holy work in the three ‘holy orders’ (family, government, church).
The Christian life is always a life under the cross. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). This is not an aspect that many like to hear about. It is very hard for us to comprehend how God could possibly be at work in the dark days of our lives under horrific circumstances. The risen and ascended Lord promises His church: "Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life" (Revelation 2:10). Our true identity as new persons in Christ will not be obvious until he appears again to present us holy and spotless both to Himself and his heavenly Father (Ephesians 5:27; Colossians 1:22), that we may see Him face to face (Hebrews 12:14; 1 John 3:2). Until then we live by faith in Christ.
By Pastor Andrew Ruddell