Sanctification and the Gospel – Getting it Right

A great video on sanctification from Derek Thomas...



Thanks to Mel Duncan and GRN for posting.

What is Sanctification?

Thought this was very good...



For more head over to the Place for Truth website.

Richard Gaffin on Sanctification & Justification

Sanctification Is Our Work Of Gratitude For God's Work Of Justification, Right? (Richard Gaffin; CCEF) from Desiring God on Vimeo.

Sanctification - Piper & Keller

Love these guys...

Piper and Keller Wrestle with Sanctification from Desiring God on Vimeo.

More on Sanctification from Piper and Keller from Desiring God on Vimeo.

God Justifies Us That He Might Sanctify Us

Tremendous clip of Richard Gaffin from the good folks at Desiring God...

John Piper onThe Effects of Aging on Sanctification

Terrific interview with John Piper on sanctification...



As I often grieve over my lack of increasing sanctification I found that Piper's comments comport with my own thoughts and are very comforting. What a blessing it is to have and know the Gospel.

[A]ll the saving events and all the saving blessings of the gospel are means of getting obstacles out of the way so that we might know and enjoy God most fully. Propitiation, redemption, forgiveness, imputation, sanctification, liberation, healing, heaven—none of these is good news except for one reason: they bring us to God for our everlasting enjoyment of him. If we believe all these things have happened to us, but do not embrace them for the sake of getting to God, they have not happened to us. Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. It’s a way of overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God. If we don’t want God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel. -John Piper, God is the Gospel.

Tough Talk on Sactification

A.W. Tozer

I love it...

I do not know why you fear sanctification and I do not care. But I do say this: you had better mortify your flesh, or your flesh will do something terrible to you. In these terrible days in which we live, we have not only accepted the flesh in its morally fine manifestation as being quite proper, but we have created an ignoble theology of "extenuating circumstances," by which we excuse the flesh. (Taken from Success and the Christian by A.W. Tozer, page 44.)

How many of us need to hear that? How many need to hear it just that bluntly? I do.

A Slow Transformation - Sanctification

Sanctification, Why Bother?

From the Heidelberg Catechism we read,

Q2. How many things are necessary for thee to know, that thou, enjoying this comfort, mayest live and die happily?
A: Three; the first, how great my sins and miseries are; the second, how I may be delivered from all my sins and miseries; the third, how I shall express my gratitude to God for such deliverance (emphasis mine).

 And from the Westminster Catechism,

Q32. What benefits do they that are effectually called partake of in this life?
A. They that are effectually called do in this life partake of justification, adoption, and sanctification, and the several benefits which in this life do either accompany or flow from them.


35. What is sanctification?
A. Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness (emphasis mine).

And so we read that sanctification is neither an option or simply a recommended lifestyle. It is a requirement for every beleiver to pursue for Peter tells us, "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed." (1 Peter 2:24 ESV) and Paul,  "Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God." (2 Corinthians 7:1 ESV).

And finally, John Owen offers an excellent explanation

John Owen

"He gave us a new understanding, a new heart, new affections and renewed the whole soul into the image of God. He does this by the washing of regeneration and the restoring of the image of God unto our souls.This work is the cause of our holiness. Our minds, hearts, and affections are renewed by the Holy Spirit, and he cleanses us from all spiritual and habitual pollution. If we would be further cleansed from our sins, we must labour after and endeavor to grow in this renovation of our natures by the Spirit. The more we have of his saving light in our minds, of his heavenly love in our wills and affections, and of a constant readiness unto obedience in our hearts, the more pure we become. He purifies us by strengthening our souls in grace. Having given us the principle of purity in regeneration, he now acts in us the duties of obedience in opposition to sin. By the special application of the blood of Christ, the Holy Spirit becomes the efficient cause of the purging of our souls from all the defilements of sin ( John Owen, Works, III:436-438, emphasis mine,.)

So, my friends, just how do we labor in our sanctification?

Sanctification VII: It's Procurer

We have now reached what is to our mind the most important and certainly the most blessed aspect of our many-sided subject, yet that which is the least understood in not a few circles of Christendom. It is the objective side of sanctification that we now turn to, that perfect and unforfeitable holiness which every believer has in Christ. We are not now going to write upon sanctification as a moral quality or attribute, nor of that which is a matter of experience or attainment by us; rather shall we contemplate something entirely outside ourselves, namely, that which is a fundamental part of our standing and state in Christ. That which we are about to consider is one of those ‘spiritual blessings’ which God has blest us with ‘in the heavenlies in Christ’ (Eph. 1:3). It is an immediate consequence of His blood-shedding, and results from our actual union with Him as ‘the Holy One of God.’ It is that which His perfect offering has sanctified us unto, as well as what it has sanctified us from.

Among all the terrible effects and fruits which sin produces, the two chief are alienation from God and condemnation by God: sin necessarily excludes from His sanctuary, and brings the sinner before the judgment seat of His law. Contrariwise, among all the blessed fruits and effects which Christ's sacrifice procures, the two chief ones are justification and sanctification: it cannot be otherwise. Inasmuch as Christ's sacrifice has ‘put away’ (Heb. 9:26), ‘made an end’ (Dan. 9:24) of the sins of His people, they are not only freed from all condemnation, but they are also given the right and the meetness to draw nigh unto God as purged worshippers. Sin not only entails guilt, it defiles; and the blood of Christ has not only secured pardon, it cleanses. Yet simple, clear, and conclusive as is this dual fact, Christians find it much harder to apprehend the second part of it than they do the first.

...By the redemptive work of Christ the entire Church has been set apart, consecrated unto and accepted by God. The grand truth is that the feeblest and most uninstructed believer was as completely sanctified before God the first moment that he trusted in Christ, as he will be when he dwells in Heaven in his glorified state. True, both his sphere and his circumstances will then be quite different from what they now are: nevertheless, his title to Heaven, his meetness for the immediate presence of the thrice Holy One, will be no better then than it is to-day. It is his relation to Christ (and that alone) which qualifies him to enter the Father's House; and it is his relation to Christ (and that alone) which gives him the right to now draw nigh within the veil. True, the believer still carries around with him ‘this body of death’ (a depraved nature), but that affects not his perfect standing, his completeness in Christ, his acceptance, his justification and sanctification before God. But, as we said in an earlier paragraph, the Christian finds it much easier to believe in or grasp the truth of justification, than he does of his present perfect sanctification in Christ. For this reason we deem it advisable to proceed slowly and enter rather fully into this aspect of our subject. Let us begin with our Lord's own words in John 17:19, ‘For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.’ Unto what did Christ allude when He there spoke of sanctifying Himself?

...God has made Christ to be sanctification unto us by imputing to us the infinite purity and excellency of His sacrifice. We are made nigh to God by Christ's blood (Eph. 2:13) before we are brought nigh to Him by the effectual call of the Spirit (1 Pet. 2:9): the former being the necessary foundation of the latter—in the types the oil could only be placed upon the blood. And it is on this account we ‘are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints’ (1 Cor. 1:2). How vastly different is this—how immeasurably superior to—what the advocates of ‘the higher life’ or the ‘victorious life’ set before their hearers and readers! It is not merely that Christ is able to do this or willing to do that for us, but every Christian is already ‘sanctified in Christ Jesus.’ My ignorance of this does not alter the blessed fact, and neither does my failure to clearly understand nor the weakness of my faith to firmly grasp it, in anywise impair it. Nor have my feelings or experience anything whatever to do with it: God says it, God has done it, and nothing can alter it. - From The Doctrine of Sanctification by A.W. Pink.

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.

Sanctification V: The Nature of Sanctification

Holiness, then, is both a relationship and a moral quality. It has both a negative and a positive side: cleansing from impurity, adorning with the grace of the Spirit. Sanctification is, first, a position of honour to which God has appointed His people. Second, it is a state of purity which Christ has purchased for them. Third, it is an inducement given to them by the Holy Spirit. Fourth, it is a course of devoted conduct in keeping therewith. Fifth, it is a standard of moral perfection, at which they are ever to aim: 1 Peter 1:15. A ‘saint’ is one who was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), who has been cleansed from the guilt and pollution of sin by the blood of Christ (Heb. 13:12), who has been consecrated to God by the indwelling Spirit (2 Cor. 1:21, 22), who has been made inwardly holy by the impartation of the principle of grace (Phil. 1:6), and whose duty, privilege, and aim is to walk suitable thereto (Eph. 4:1). - A.W. Pink, The Doctrine of Sanctification

Sanctification IV: The Solution of Sanctification

How, then, is this mystery cleared up? By what method, or in what way, have the sanctified become blest with a nature which makes them meet for the ineffable presence of God? By what process does the evil tree become good, so that its fruit is wholesome and acceptable? Obviously, we cannot here supply the full answer to these questions, or we should be anticipating too much that we desire to bring out in later chapters. But we will endeavor to now indicate, at least, the direction in which and the lines along which this great mystery is cleared—lines which most assuredly would never have entered our hearts and minds to so much as conceive; but which once they are viewed by anointed eyes, are seen to be Divine and satisfying. The Lord graciously assist us to steer clear of the rocks of error and guide us into the clear and refreshing waters of the truth.

...We may clearly perceive that it is they who are truly sanctified and holy, who are the most deeply sensible of the root of corruption which still remains within them, and which is ever springing up and producing that which defiles them; and therefore do they greatly bewail their pollutions, as that which is most dishonoring to God and most disturbing to their own peace; and earnestly do they endeavour after the mortification of it. A remarkable corroboration is found in the fact that the most godly and holy have been the very ones who most strongly affirmed their sinfulness and most loudly bewailed the same. It was one whom God Himself declared to be a ‘perfect (sincere) and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil’ (Job 1:8) who declared ‘Behold, I am vile’ (40:4). It was one ‘greatly beloved’ of God (Dan. 10:19), who acknowledged ‘my comeliness was turned in me into corruption’ (10:8). It was he who was caught up to the third heaven and then returned again to earth who moaned, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ (Rom. 7:24).

Every Christian, then, has a ‘pure’ heart in the particulars given above. But every Christian does not have a ‘clean’ heart (Ps. 51:10). That which pollutes the heart of a Christian is unjudged sin. Whenever sin is allowed by us, communion with God is broken, and pollution can only be removed, and communion restored, by genuine repentance—a condemning of ourselves, a mourning over the sin, and unsparing confession of the same, accompanied by a fervent desire and sincere resolution not to be overtaken by it again. The willing allowance and indulgence of any known sin cannot exist with a clean heart. Rightly, then, did John Owen say of repentance: ‘It is as necessary unto the continuance of spiritual life, as faith itself.’ After the repentance and confession, there must be a fresh (and constant) recourse unto that Fountain which has been ‘opened for sin and for uncleanness,’ a fresh application by faith of the cleansing blood of Christ: pleading its merits and efficacy before God.

...We have sought to answer the questions at the close of the fifth chapter. We have met every demand of the law in the person of our Surety. We are made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light, because all the value of Christ's cleansing blood is reckoned to our account. We are capacitated to draw nigh unto God now, because the Holy Spirit has communicated to us the very nature of Christ Himself. By faith we may regard ourselves as holy in Christ. By regeneration we have received a ‘pure heart:’ proof of which is, we hate all impurity, although there is still that in us which delights in nothing else. We are to maintain communion with God by cleansing our own hearts (Ps. 73:13), and that, through constant mortification, and the daily and unsparing judgment of all known sin in and from us. - A.W. Pink, The Doctrine of Sanctification

Sanctification III: The Problems of Sanctification

There are various subsidiary difficulties in sanctification, as we intimated in the fourth and fifth paragraphs of the Introductory article, such as whether sanctification itself be a quality or a position, whether it be legal or experimental, whether it be absolute or progressive; all of which need to be cleared up in any satisfactory treatment of this theme. But far more intricate is the problem itself of how one who is a moral leper can be fit to worship in the Sanctuary of God. Strange to say this problem is the acutest unto those who are the most spiritual. Self-righteous Pharisees and self-satisfied Laodiceans are in no wise troubled over the matter. Antinomians cut the knot (instead of untying it) and deny all difficulty, by asserting that the holiness of Christ is imputed to us. But those who realize God requires personal holiness, yet are conscious of their own filthiness, are deeply concerned thereupon.

- A.W. Pink, The Doctrine of Sanctification.

Sanctification II: The Necessity of Sanctification

...With what forms of godliness, outward appearances, external embellishments are most people satisfied. How they mistake the shadows for the substance, the means for the end itself. How many devout Laodiceans are there who know not that they are ‘wretched and miserable, and poor and blind, and naked’ (Rev. 3:17). No preaching affects them, nothing will bring them to exclaim with the prophet, ‘O my God, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to Thee my God’ (Ezra 9:6). No, if they do but preserve themselves from the known guilt of such sins as are punishable among men, to all other things their conscience seems dead: they have no inward shame for anything between their souls and God, especially not for the depravity and defilement of their natures: of that they know, feel, bewail nothing.

‘There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness’ (Prov. 30:12). Although they had never been cleansed by the Holy Spirit, nor their hearts purified by faith, (Acts 15:9), yet they esteemed themselves to be pure, and had not the least sense of their foul defilement. Such a generation were the self-righteous Pharisees of Christ's day: they were constantly cleansing their hands and cups, engaged in an interminable round of ceremonial washings, yet were they thoroughly ignorant of the fact that within they were filled with all manner of defilement (Matt. 23:25–28). So is a generation of churchgoers today; they are orthodox in their views, reverent in their demeanor, regular in their contributions, but they make no conscience of the state of their hearts.


That sanctification or personal holiness which we here desire to show the absolute necessity of, lies in or consists of three things. First, that internal change or renovation of our souls, whereby our minds, affections and wills are brought into harmony with God. Second, that impartial compliance with the revealed will of God in all duties of obedience and abstinence from evil, issuing from a principle of faith and love. Third, that directing of all our actions unto the glory of God, by Jesus Christ, according to the Gospel. This, and nothing short of this, is evangelical and saving sanctification. The heart must be changed so as to be brought into conformity with God's nature and will: its motives, desires, thoughts and actions require to be purified. There must be a spirit of holiness working within so as to sanctify our outward performances if they are to be acceptable unto Him in whom ‘there is no darkness at all.’ - A.W. Pink

Sanctification I: Defining Sanctification

A. W. Pink does well in defining this difficult term for us:

To sanctify, then, means in the great majority of instances, to appoint, dedicate or set apart unto God, for a holy and special use. Yet that act of separation is not a bare change of situation, so to speak, but is preceded or accompanied by a work which (ceremonially or experimentally) fits the person for God. Thus the priests in their sanctification (Lev. 8) were sanctified by washing in water (type of regeneration: Titus 3:5), having the blood applied to their persons (type of justification: Rom. 5:9), and being anointed with oil (type of receiving the Holy Spirit: 1 John 2:20, 27). As the term is applied to Christians it is used to designate three things, or three parts of one whole: first, the process of setting them apart unto God or constituting them holy: Hebrews 13:12; 2 Thessalonians 2:13. Second, the state or condition of holy separation into which they are brought: 1 Corinthians 1:2; Ephesians 4:24. Third, the personal sanctity or holy living which proceeds from the state: Luke 1:75; 1 Peter 1:15. - A.W. Pink, The Doctrine of Sanctification.

Justification vs. Sanctification

Though absolutely inseparable, yet these two great blessings of Divine grace are quite distinct. In sanctification something is actually imparted to us, in justification it is only imputed. Justification is based entirely upon the work Christ wrought for us, sanctification is principally a work wrought in us. Justification respects its object in a legal sense and terminates in a relative change—a deliverance from punishment, a right to the reward; sanctification regards its object in a moral sense, and terminates in an experimental change both in character and conduct—imparting a love for God, a capacity to worship Him acceptably, and a meetness for heaven. Justification is by a righteousness without us, sanctification is by a holiness wrought in us. Justification is by Christ as Priest, and has regard to the penalty of sin; sanctification is by Christ as King, and has regard to the dominion of sin: the former cancels its damning power, the latter delivers from its reigning power.

They differ, then, in their order (not of time, but in their nature), justification preceding, sanctification following: the sinner is pardoned and restored to God's favour before the Spirit is given to renew him after His image. They differ in their design: justification removes the obligation unto punishment; sanctification cleanses from pollution. They differ in their form: justification is a judicial act, by which the sinner as pronounced righteous; sanctification is a moral work, by which the sinner is made holy: the one has to do solely with our standing before God, the other chiefly concerns our state. They differ in their cause: the one issuing from the merits of Christ's satisfaction, the other proceeding from the efficacy of the same. They differ in their end: the one bestowing a title to everlasting glory, the other being the highway which conducts us thither. ‘And an highway shall be there,…and it shall be called The way of holiness’ (Isaiah 35:8). - A.W. Pink, The Doctrine of Sanctification.

Happy New Year (again)

What is it about the New Year that makes people want to make resolutions? I, for one, dislike resolutions. I can’t keep them. Maybe something is wrong with the resolutions I’ve made. Maybe it’s just me. I’ve come to the conclusion that I really don’t like New Year’s resolutions. If something requires change in one’s life it ought to start immediately and not wait for a particular day of the year to start working on the change. Regardless, one thing I have noticed is that change comes through hard work. I somehow have been quoted on numerous “quote” websites for the little phrase, “No sweat, No sanctification.” I truly believe this. I’ve never received a holy zap that changed some area of my life for the better. I have, however, worked in certain areas of my life and with the Holy Spirit have achieved change, at least to some degree, that honors our Lord. So, rather than looking forward, let’s look to the past this year. Here a just a few questions that can be asked: Have I studied more? Read more? Have I reached out in love more? Have I prayed regularly? Memorized more? Applied what I’ve learned? Written more? Bottom line, has my sanctification increased? As this year rolls along the hope is to be focusing less on the meaningless and more on the meaningful.