SANCTIFICATION-POSITIONAL

But I observed that, although I was such a great sinner before conversion, God never burdened me heavily with the guilt of sins committed while I was in ignorance. He only showed me that I was lost if I did not have Christ because I had been a sinner. I saw that I needed a perfect righteousness to present me without fault before God, and this righteousness was nowhere to be found but in the person of Jesus Christ.

John Bunyan

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, Evangelical Press, 2000, p. 51.

One day as I was passing into the field…this sentence fell upon my soul. Thy righteousness is in heaven. And…I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God’s right hand; there, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, he [lacks] my righteousness, for that was just before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, “The same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed. I was loosed from my afflictions and irons; my temptations also fled away; so that from that time those dreadful scriptures of God left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoicing for the grace and love of God.

John Bunyan

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.

There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be. It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest.

B.B. Warfield

The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, vol. VII, Baker, reprinted 1991, p. 113.

I learned early on that to be “set apart” is not a punishment; it is not an attempt on God’s part to deprive us or to condemn us to a cheerless, joyless lifestyle. It is a priceless privilege – it is a call to belong, to be cherished, to enter into an intimate love relationship with God Himself, much as a groom declares his intent to set his bride apart from all other women to be his beloved wife; to fit into the grand, eternal plan of our redeeming God for this universe; to experience the exquisite joys and purposes for which we were created; to be freed from all that destroys our true happiness.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Holiness, The Heart God Purifies, Moody Publishers, p. 33-34.

Paul [addressed] the Corinthians as “those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” (1 Cor. 1:2). The congregation in Corinth was anything but a “holy” people in terms of life and conduct; false teaching, schisms, and immorality marred the church. Still, it was a congregation of saints, of the sanctified, because in spite of the sinful conduct of many of its members and the worldly character of the church itself, it was still the church of God in Corinth.

George Eldon Ladd

A Theology of the New Testament, Eerdmans, 1993, p. 589.

When applied to Christians, holiness or sanctification is not in the first place an ethical concept although it includes an ethical aspect. It denotes first of all a soteriological truth that Christians belong to God. They are God’s people. This is why the most common use of hagios in Paul is to designate all Christians as saints – the people of God.

George Eldon Ladd

A Theology of the New Testament, Eerdmans, 1993, p. 564.

Sanctification, therefore, must be understood as being both definitive and progressive. In its definitive sense, it means that work of the Spirit whereby He causes us to die to sin, to be raised with Christ, and to be made new creatures. In its progressive sense, it must be understood as that work of the Spirit whereby He continually renews and transforms us into the likeness of Christ, enabling us to keep on growing in grace and to keep on perfecting our holiness.

Anthony Hoekema

Quoted by Bryan Chapell, Holiness by Grace, Crossway Books, p. 48.

God freely justifies the persons whom he effectually calls. He does this, not by infusing righteousness into them but by pardoning their sins and by accounting them, and accepting them as righteous. This he does for Christ's sake alone and not for anything wrought in them or done by them. The righteousness which is imputed to them, that is, reckoned to their account, is neither their faith nor the act of believing nor any obedience to the gospel which they have rendered, but Christ's obedience alone. Christ's one obedience is twofold- his active obedience rendered to the entire divine law, and his passive obedience rendered in his death.

The Westminster Confession

Because all men be sinners and offenders against God, and breakers of His law and commandments, therefore can no man by His own acts, works, and deeds (seem they never so good) be justified, and made righteous before God: But every man of necessity is constrained to seek for another righteousness or justification, to be received at God’s own hands, that is to say, the forgiveness of his sins and trespasses, in such things as he hath offended. And this justification or righteousness, which we so receive of God’s mercy and Christ’s merits, embraced by faith, is taken, accepted, and allowed of God, for our perfect and full justification.

Thomas Cranmer

Edwardian Homilies.

The remission of sin proceeds from the passive obedience of Christ, His offering up of Himself as the propitiation for our sins. Christ's active obedience provides that righteousness which constitutes the believer righteous. It is human righteousness. The incarnation was essential. As man he lived out righteousness for us throughout his life on earth.

Erroll Hulse

Who Are the Puritans? Evangelical Press, p. 123.

One man may appear to be righteous before another man, but before God there is no one truly righteous. The only righteousness that God accepts is His own. To stand before God in our own righteousness is certain rejection.

Jim Elliff

Pursuing God – A Seeker’s Guide, Christian Communicators Worldwide, 2003, p. 14, www.CCWonline.org.

Thou must be righteous and holy, before thou canst live righteously and holily.

William Gurnall

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 235.

As we feel the calamities of war more than the pleasures of peace, and diseases more than the quietness of health, and the hardness of poverty more than the commodities of abundance; even so we ought not to marvel if we feel the stingings and pricks of sin a great deal more than the consolations of the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Daniel Cawdray

A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 89

God saves believers by imputing to them the merit of Christ’s perfect righteousness – not in any sense because of their own righteousness. God accepts believers in Christ. He declares them perfectly righteous because of Christ. Their sins have been imputed to Christ, who has paid the full penalty. His righteousness is now imputed to them, and they receive the full merit for it.

John MacArthur

Initial sanctification occurs instantly at the moment of salvation when we are delivered from the kingdom of darkness and brought into the Kingdom of Christ (see Colossians 1:13). Progressive sanctification continues over time until we go to be with the Lord. Initial sanctification is entirely the work of God the Holy Spirit who imparts to us the very life of Christ. Progressive sanctification is also the work of the Holy Spirit, but it involves a response on our part so that we as believers are actively involved in the process.

Jerry Bridges

Scripture speaks of both a holiness we already possess in Christ before God and a holiness in which we are to grow more and more. The first is the result of the work of Christ for us; the second is the result of the work of the Holy Spirit in us. The first is perfect and complete and is ours the moment we trust Christ; the second is progressive and incomplete as long as we are in this life. The objective holiness we have in Christ and the subjective holiness produced by the Holy Spirit are both gifts of God’s grace and are both appropriated by faith.

Jerry Bridges

Because we are united by faith to [Jesus Christ] who is perfectly righteous, God accepts us as perfectly righteous. God does not resort to some kind of legal fiction, calling something righteous that is not. Rather, He declares us righteous on the basis of the real accomplished righteousness of Christ, imputed to us because of our union with Him.

Jerry Bridges

We have substituted the “unconditional love” of God for the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. If God loves us all unconditionally, who needs the righteousness of Christ?

R.C. Sproul

None Righteous, Tabletalk, April 2004, p. 6, Used by Permission.

The equation is simple. If God requires perfect righteousness and perfect holiness to survive His perfect judgment, then we are left with a serious problem. Either we rest our hope in our own righteousness, which is altogether inadequate, or we flee to another’s righteousness, an alien righteousness, a righteousness not our own inherently. The only place such righteousness can be found is in Christ – that is the good news of the Gospel.

R.C. Sproul

None Righteous, Tabletalk, April 2004, p. 7, Used by Permission.