Sanctification

Systematic theology typically distinguishes three modes of sanctification, all found in Scripture:

(1) Definitive sanctification, the once-for-all setting-apart that occurs at conversion. 1 Corinthians 6:11, "you were sanctified" (aorist passive, a completed past act). Hebrews 10:10, "we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The believer is positionally holy in Christ. This is why Paul can address the Corinthians, a congregation with serious moral failures, as "sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints (hagioi, holy ones)" (1 Corinthians 1:2).

(2) Progressive sanctification, the ongoing growth in actual holiness throughout the believer's life. This is what most people mean by sanctification in ordinary use: "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12); "we all... are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another" (2 Corinthians 3:18). The Spirit is the agent; the means include Scripture (John 17:17, "sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth"), prayer, the community of believers, and suffering (Hebrews 12:10, God disciplines "that we may share his holiness").

(3) Glorification, the final, complete sanctification at the resurrection. 1 John 3:2, "when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." Philippians 3:21, the body of humiliation transformed into the body of glory. The process that begins with definitive sanctification and continues progressively reaches its goal at the last day.

Romans 6 is Paul's sustained argument for why the gospel does not lead to moral license ("shall we sin that grace may abound? By no means!, me genoito" 6:1-2).

The argument rests on union with Christ in baptism: "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (6:3-4).

The logic of 6:6-7: "our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin." Death breaks the dominion of sin: the slave who dies is no longer under the master's authority. The believer has died with Christ, therefore sin's dominion has been legally broken.

Romans 6:11-14, the indicative-imperative: "So you also must consider (logidzesthe, reckon, count) yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body... For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace." The imperative ("let not sin reign") is grounded in the indicative ("sin will have no dominion"), the command to resist sin flows from and depends on the prior reality of death-and-resurrection with Christ.

6:22, the telos: "But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life."

Philippians 2:12-13 gives the most compact statement of sanctification's divine-human cooperation: "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." The command to work is grounded in the reality of God's prior working in the believer's will and action. This is not synergism (two independent agents contributing equal parts) but the Spirit producing the believer's working from within.

2 Corinthians 3:18 gives the mechanism of progressive transformation: "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed (metamorphoumetha, continuous passive, being transformed) into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." The agent is the Spirit; the instrument is beholding, not self-improvement but the gaze directed toward Christ. The unveiled face contrasts with Moses's veiled face (Exodus 34:33-35): the new covenant brings unveiled access to the divine glory that transforms by its light.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, the promise behind the process: "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it." Sanctification is ultimately YHWH's work, guaranteed by his faithfulness to his call.

Sanctification in the Sanctum is neither self-improvement by moral effort nor passive waiting for God to change us. It is the Spirit-produced growth of the one who has been definitively set apart, is progressively growing into conformity with Christ, and awaits final glorification. The "work" of Philippians 2:12 is real human effort; the ground of that effort is the Spirit's prior working in the believer's own will. The gaze of 2 Corinthians 3:18 is directed outward toward the glory of Christ, not inward toward self-cultivation.