Sanctification VI: The Author

God Himself is the alone source and spring of all holiness. There is nothing of it in any creature but what is immediately from the Holy One. When God first created man, He made him in His own image, that is, ‘in righteousness and true holiness’ (Eph. 4:24 and cf. Col. 3:10). The creature can no more produce holiness of himself than he can create life: for the one he is just as much dependent upon God as he is for the other How much less, then, can a fallen creature, polluted and enslaved by sin, sanctify himself? More easily could the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots, than a moral leper make himself pure. Where any measure of real holiness is found in a human heart its possessor must say with Paul, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am’ (1 Cor. 15:10). Sanctification, then, is the immediate work and gift of God Himself. - From The Doctrine of Sanctification by A.W. Pink.