Associate Editor, Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society, Dallas, Texas
I. Introduction
When most authors or speakers write or speak about sanctification, they almost always mean progressive (or present) sanctification. [1] In fact, many of the books and articles on sanctification never even mention past sanctification.
One wonders why there is such a neglect of the subject of past sanctification.
It is not because the Scriptures are silent on the subject.
One might well think that the reason for this lack of attention is because many more passages speak of present sanctification than speak of past (or future) sanctification. Before embarking on this study, I thought that way. However, after doing a study of all NT passages dealing with sanctification, I found that over three quarters deal with past sanctification! By comparison only 20% deal with present sanctification. See Appendices 1–4 for a listing of the actual percentages and passages.
One reason for the lack of attention to past sanctification may be a desire to oversimplify biblical concepts. That is, there is a tendency to want to reduce concepts like salvation and sanctification to one basic meaning. This tendency is misguided since both salvation and sanctification are complex concepts which have a wide range of meaning in Scripture. Another possible reason for this neglect of past sanctification is the understandable desire to focus on external transformation. Pastors, and often theologians as well, tend to be more interested in behavioral changes than in constitutional, legal, or positional changes.
A third reason is the failure to see a clear separation between justification and progressive sanctification. Lordship Salvation teachers believe that perseverance in the faith—and hence in personal holiness— is a condition of eternal salvation. Anyone who fails to persevere is said to have never been saved in the first place.
According to Lordship thinking, if progressive sanctification is not in clear evidence in a person’s life, then past sanctification probably never really occurred. This naturally leads Lordship teachers to view progressive sanctification as the sine qua non of past sanctification (rather than the other way around)!
A.W. Pink, himself a strong Calvinist, decried the tendency in Reformed circles to ignore past sanctification and to link assurance to progressive sanctification. Referring to the Westminster Confession’s statement on sanctification he writes:
Instead of placing before the believer that complete and perfect sanctification which God has made Christ to be unto him, it occupies him with the incomplete and progressive work of the Spirit. Instead of moving the Christian to look away from himself with all his sinful failures, unto Christ in whom he is “complete” (Col 2:10), it encouraged him to look within, where he will often search in vain for the fine gold of the new creation amid all the dross and mire of the old creation. This is to leave him without the joyous assurance of knowing that he has been “perfected forever” by the one offering of Christ (Heb 10:14); and if he be destitute of that, then doubts and fears must constantly assail him, and the full assurance of faith elude every striving after it… Let the young believer be credibly assured that he will “more and more die unto sin and rise unto newness of life,” and what will be the inevitable outcome?…Why this: if the Catechism-definition be correct then I was sadly mistaken, I have never been sanctified at all (italics his). [2]Similarly he challenged the statement on sanctification in the 1742 Baptist Association Confession of Faith:
This description of sanctification by the Baptists leaves something to be desired, for it makes no clear and direct statement upon the all-important and flawless holiness which every believer has in Christ, and that spotless and impeccable purity which is upon him by God’s imputation of the cleansing efficacy of His Son’s sacrifice. Such a serious omission is too vital for us to ignore. In the second place, the words which we have placed in italics not only perpetuate the faulty wording of the Westminster Catechism but also convey a misleading conception of the present condition of the Christian. To speak of “some remnants of corruption” still remaining in the believer, necessarily implies that by far the greater part of his original corruption has been removed, and that only a trifling portion of the same now remains. But something vastly different from that is what every true Christian discovers to his daily grief and humiliation (italics his). [3]It is difficult to decide how to approach this subject. It would be helpful to be able to discuss the various views of past sanctification as was done concerning progressive sanctification in the symposium book Five Views on Sanctification. [4] However, there really aren’t a number of clearly defined views on past sanctification. In fact, I could not find even one article—let alone a book—devoted to the subject. The most I found was a few pages in a few books and articles.
The approach which seems best to me is to consider (1) the various types of past sanctification, and (2) questions dealing with past sanctification.
II. The Various Types of Past Sanctification
A concordance study reveals that it is impossible to compress all references to past sanctification into one mold. There are, in other words, a number of clearly distinct types of past sanctification.
I have come up with four types of past sanctification: pre-conversion, forensic, intrinsic, and positional. [5] Let us briefly consider each now.
A. Pre-Conversion Sanctification [6]
Even before a person is born again, God is at work in his life. He works in the lives of unbelievers to draw them to Christ. He does this in a number of ways.
One way an unbeliever is sanctified—yes, unbelievers can be sanctified!—is by their home environment. An unbelieving spouse or child is sanctified if one of the spouses is a Christian:
For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy (1 Cor 7:14).
The root idea of sanctification is being set apart. Unbelievers are set apart if they live in a house with a believer. They have an ongoing witness to the truth of the Gospel living before their eyes.
By extension it would seem that any time an unbeliever receives a clear witness of the Gospel, he is sanctified in a pre-conversion sense. Of course, this sort of sanctification is iterative. That is, it only lasts as long as the witness continues. That is Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 7. If the believing spouse leaves, then the other spouse and the children lose that sanctifying influence.
A person who works closely with a Christian likewise experiences ongoing pre-conversion sanctification.
Similarly, an unbelieving college student is sanctified by his Christian roommate.
In the broad sense anything God does to set an unbeliever apart for special influence from His truth is a form of pre-conversion sanctification.
Space does not permit a detailed consideration of 1 Pet 1:2, another passage which appears to deal with pre-conversion sanctification. However, a strong case can be made that Peter is discussing that very thing:
To the pilgrims of the Dispersion… elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ (1 Pet 1:1-2).
Election is something which was done in eternity past.
Obedience (i.e., obedience to the faith, obedience to God’s command to trust in Christ, cf. 1 Pet 2:7; Acts 6:7; 16:30-31) and sprinkling of the blood of Christ are something which occur at the moment a person is born again.
The middle element, sanctification, mediates the two. That is, the elect are set apart by the Holy Spirit before they believe—by giving them a Spirit-wrought witness of the Gospel—with the result that they might ultimately believe and thus be cleansed by the blood of Christ.
A third passage which deals with pre-conversion sanctification is 2 Thess 2:13. It reads:
But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.Eternal salvation is said here to be through (1) sanctification by the Spirit and through (2) belief in the truth. Only pre-conversion sanctification is a precursor to eternal salvation. The Holy Spirit draws unbelievers that they might believe and be saved.
B. Forensic Sanctification [7]
This type of past sanctification is identical to justification, hence the name forensic sanctification.
Forensic sanctification is a legal declaration by God that a person has right standing before Him.
In the Book of Hebrews the terms sanctification (hagiasmos), and sanctify (hagiazō) occur four and two times respectively. Most, if not all, of these uses concern forensic sanctification.
- For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified [better = those who are sanctified, compare Heb 10:10, 29] are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren. (Heb 2:11).
- For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Heb 9:13-14).
- By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Heb 10:10).
- For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified [or, better, those who are sanctified—compare Heb 10:10, 29] (Heb 10:14). [8]
- …the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified… (Heb 10:29).
- Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate (Heb 13:12).
Commenting on the meaning of sanctification in the Book of Hebrews, Denney writes:
There has been much discussion as to what sanctification in such passages [Heb 2:11; 10:10, 14; 13:12] means, and especially as to whether the word is to be taken in a religious [positional] or an ethical [experiential] sense… In short, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the word hagiazein [to sanctify], corresponds as nearly as possible to the Pauline dikaioun [to justify]. The sanctification of the one writer is the justification of the other… In technical language, it alters their relation to God, or is conceived of as doing so, rather than their character. [9]C. Intrinsic Sanctification
This type of past sanctification is a product of the new birth. When a person is regenerated, he or she experiences an internal transformation.
This inner change is something which cannot be felt or directly observed. Only its effects are capable of scrutiny—and even then human observations are by no means infallible. [10]
All born-again people have within them a sinless, perfectly holy self. This is the eternal self or the essential self. In the NT this is called “the new man.” In Eph 4:24 Paul wrote, “put on the new man which was created according to God, in righteousness and true holiness” (see also Col 3:10). It is also called the one “born of God.” In I John 3:9 John wrote, “whoever has been born of God (= the born-again new man) does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.”
Passages which speak of intrinsic sanctification include the following:
- Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin (Rom 6:6). [11]
- But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life (Rom 6:22).
- …that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word (Eph 5:26).
- For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Heb 9:13-14).
- He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still (Rev 22:11).
D. Positional Sanctification
New Testament positional sanctification is accomplished by the baptism of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:13). The Holy Spirit places people into the Body of Christ. Anyone who is in the Body of Christ is no longer in the world in a positional sense. That is, such a person has been set apart in Christ (en Christō). [12]
On the one hand, there are three NT passages which deal with positional sanctification which use the verb sanctify (hagiazō): [13]
- And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified (Acts 20:32).
- …to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me (Acts 26:18).
- Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified [14] by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ (Jude 1).
- But now I am going to Jerusalem to minister to the saints (Rom 15:25).
- Greet Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them (Rom 16:15).
- To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours (1 Cor 1:2).
- For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints (I Cor 14:33).
- To the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in all Achaia (2 Cor 1:1b).
- To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons (Phil 1:1b).
- Greet all those who rule over you, and all the saints. Those from Italy greet you (Heb 13:24).
The English reader must remember whenever he reads the word saint that it is merely a noun form of the Greek word for sanctify.
It would have been helpful, albeit cumbersome, if each place the Greek noun hagios occurred it had been translated “the sanctified one” (or “the sanctified ones”). So, for example, Rom 15:25 could be translated, “But now I am going to Macedonia and Achaia to make contributions for the poor among the sanctified ones who are in Jerusalem.”
Saints are sanctified people. They are not a special category of “super-Christians.” If you are a Christian, you are one who has been set apart, placed into the Body of Christ.
III. Key Questions About Past Sanctification
The following are some of the specific questions that can be asked about the subject of past sanctification.
A. Question #1: What Is Past Sanctification?
As noted in the introductory article to this series on sanctification, the word sanctification basically means set apart. [15] In this article we are considering those aspects of sanctification that have already fully occurred for every believer—hence the name past sanctification.
Every believer has already been sanctified or set apart in four ways.
First, before being saved, all believers were drawn by the Holy Spirit via pre-conversion sanctification. Second, at the moment of faith all believers are forensically sanctified. This is a synonym for justification. Third, when a person believes, he is intrinsically sanctified—that is, he gains the life of God so that the inner (i.e., born-again) man is totally holy and pure. Fourth, all NT believers at the moment of belief are positionally sanctified by being placed into the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit.
B. Question #2: How Is Perfection Related to Past Sanctification?
Experiential perfection (i.e., sinless perfection) will occur for every recipient of forensic, intrinsic, and positional sanctification; however, it will not happen until he or she dies or is raptured (cf. 1 John 1:8, 10; 3:2). That is called future (or ultimate) sanctification. See also question 4 below.
C. Question #3: How Does Past Sanctification Relate to Progressive Sanctification?
Past sanctification is the ground upon which progressive sanctification is built. [16] Without past sanctification, progressive sanctification would be impossible.
No level of progressive sanctification is guaranteed in this life to the person who has experienced past sanctification. Great growth in holiness is possible. So, too, little growth—or even a decrease in holiness!—is a sad possibility. Believers must be diligent in order for progressive sanctification to be experienced to the fullest degree.
D. Question #4: How Does Past Sanctification Relate to Ultimate Sanctification?
At the point of faith, God sets every believer apart forensically, intrinsically, and positionally. No longer is a believer a member of the world—at least not in a positional sense. Henceforth he is a citizen of heaven.
Past sanctification guarantees that ultimate sanctification will occur when one dies or is raptured. Another way to say that is this: What is now true of believers in their position (i.e., forensically) will eternally be true of them in their experience. Or, what is now true of believers intrinsically (in the innermost self) will be true of them totally at the Lord’s coming (1 John 3:2).
E. Question #5: How Does Past Sanctification Compare with Justification?
Justification is a legal term in all of its biblical uses relating to justification by or before God. When God justifies people He declares them righteous. That is, He legally grants them right standing before Him.
Forensic sanctification is that type of past sanctification which is synonymous with justification. The author of the Book of Hebrews largely referred to this type of past sanctification. Intrinsic and positional sanctification can only take place because justification (= forensic sanctification) has occurred as well. Thus justification is the ground of intrinsic and positional sanctification.
F. Question #6: Does Intrinsic Sanctification Necessarily Result in a Constitutional Change?
All whom God has set apart have undergone a change in their inner self. God grants them “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Pet 1:3). He destroys sin’s lordship over their lives (Rom 6:1–14). He gives them a new view of the world (2 Corinthians 5). Other believers are seen as brothers and sisters, and unbelievers are viewed as outside of God’s family and needing reconciliation (2 Cor 5:16–21).
Yes, intrinsic sanctification does necessarily result in a constitutional change.
G. Question #7: Does Intrinsic Sanctification Necessarily Result in Behavioral Change?
A change in one’s inner self need not necessarily result in a change of behavior. Hypothetically, at least, a person could undergo intrinsic sanctification and manifest absolutely no behavior changes prior to death. In reality, however, unless a person dies immediately upon believing in Christ, there surely will be some behavioral changes— though they may not be observable to others.
Each day we are faced with a myriad of moral choices. When God changes a person constitutionally, it is fairly certain that some, if not many or most, of those choices will be handled differently by the one who has been intrinsically sanctified.
In addition, it is important to remember that all who have been intrinsically sanctified will one day be ultimately sanctified. While believers may experience major behavioral changes in this life, they will experience more radical changes once they die or are raptured. Calvin said that all believers sin daily. [17] That is true only in this life. Once believers are ultimately sanctified, they will never sin again. Their behavior will then be sinless (1 John 3:2).
Intrinsic sanctification lays the groundwork for ultimate sanctification and experiential perfection.
H. Question #8: What Must One Do to Obtain Past Sanctification?
As indicated above, forensic, intrinsic, and positional sanctification occur at the moment of faith. Thus the sole condition for those three types of past sanctification is faith in Christ and Him alone.
Pre-conversion sanctification is something God sovereignly does without any stated condition imposed upon the unbeliever.
I. Question #9: What Is the Role of the Trinity in Past Sanctification?
All three members of the Trinity are involved in past sanctification.
Pre-conversion sanctification is evidently the work of the Holy Spirit primarily. He does the drawing (cf. John 16:9–11). However, God the Father and the Lord Jesus both send the Holy Spirit to do this and hence They are directly involved as well.
Forensic sanctification is grounded in the work of Christ and is a legal declaration made before God the Father.
Intrinsic sanctification is seen to be the work of the Holy Spirit, who is sent by the Father and the Son.
Positional sanctification, likewise, is the work of the Holy Spirit, who is sent by the Father and the Son.
J. Question #10: Does Gal 3:3 Refer to Justification or to Some Type of Sanctification?
Galatians 3:3 reads as follows: “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?”
While there are many who suggest that the issue here is progressive sanctification, there are compelling reasons to reject that conclusion.
The Judaizers were proclaiming a false gospel, a false way of justification. See Gal 1:6–9 and 5:1–6. Note particularly that in 5:4 Paul speaks of those who “attempt to be justified by law” (emphasis added).
The Judaizers were evidently saying that salvation could be lost if one failed to keep the law. Thus one began his salvation by the Spirit—that is, by faith in Christ—but finished his salvation by being made perfect in the flesh—that is, by obedience to the law. According to the Judaizers, perfection was not obtained merely by believing in Christ.
Justification, not progressive sanctification, is in view in Gal 3:3.
IV. Conclusion
Past sanctification is much more prominent in the NT than present or future sanctification. For this reason, it is a mistake to use the word sanctification to refer only to progressive sanctification.
There are four types of past sanctification. One of these, pre-conversion sanctification, occurs before salvation. God draws unbelievers to Himself via pre-conversion sanctification.
Three types of past sanctification occur at the moment of faith in Christ. Forensic sanctification is the same as justification. It is a legal declaration that one has right standing before God.
Intrinsic sanctification refers to the internal constitutional changes which occur at regeneration. Believers are internally set apart.
Positional sanctification looks to the believer’s being set apart in the Body of Christ, the Church. All believers are saints—not only the heroes of the faith!
Past sanctification is the ground upon which progressive sanctification is built. A proper understanding of past sanctification is a vital aid to progressive sanctification.
All who are the recipients of past sanctification are guaranteed ultimate sanctification, and it is for that sanctification that we long. Come quickly,
Lord Jesus! Maranatha.
Appendix 1
NT Passages Dealing with Past, Present, and Future Sanctification (Total = 117)
Subject
|
Number of Passages
|
Percentage
|
1. Past Sanctification
|
90*
|
76.9%
|
2. Present Sanctification
|
24*
|
20.5%
|
3. Future Sanctification
|
3* |
2.6%
|
*N.B. See Appendices 2, 3, & 4, for a listing of these passages by type of sanctification.
Appendix 2
Passages Dealing with Present Sanctification (Total = 24)
- John 17:17, 19 (both hagiazō)
- Rom 6:19 (hagiasmos)
- 1 Cor 7:34 (hagios)
- 2 Cor 7:1 (hagiōsynē)
- 1 Thess 3:13 (hagiōsynē); 4:3, 7 (both hagiasmos); 5:23 (hagiazō)
- 1 Tim 2:15 (hagiasmos); 4:12; 5:2 (both hagneia), 22 (hagnos)
- 2 Tim 2:21 (hagiazō)
- Titus 2:5 (hagnos)
- Heb 12:10 (hagiotēs)
- James 4:8 (hagnizō)
- 1 Pet 1:15, 16; 3:5 (all hagios)
- 1 John 3:3 (hagnizō)
- Rev 22:11 (hagios and hagiazō)
Appendix 3
Passages Dealing with Past Sanctification (Total = 90)
Passages Dealing with Past Sanctification (Total = 90)
I. Pre-Conversion Sanctification (Total = 5)
- I Cor 7:14 (hagiazō [twice] and hagios)
- 2 Thess 2:13 (hagiasinos)
- I Pet 1:2 (hagiasmos)
- 1 Cor 1:30; 6:11 (both hagiazō)
- Col 3:12 (hagios)
- Heb 2:11 (hagiazō [twice]); 3:1 (hagios); 10:10, 14, 29; 13:12 (all hagiazō)
- 1 Pet 1:22 (hagnizō)
- 2 Pet 1:21 (hagios)
- Rev 20:6 (hagios)
- Rom 6:6 (concept), 22 (hagiasmos)
- Eph 5:26 (hagiazō)
- Heb 9:14 (katharizō)
- Rev 22:11 (hagios and hagiazō)
A. Passages Using Hagiazō (Total = 3)
- Acts 20:32; 26:18
- Jude 1
- Acts 9:13, 32, 41; 26:20
- Rom 1:7; 8:27; 12:13; 15:25, 26, 31; 16:2, 15
- 1 Cor 1:2 (twice); 6:1, 2; 14:33; 16:1, 15
- 2 Cor 1:1; 8:4; 9:1, 12; 13:13
- Eph 1:1, 4, 15, 18; 2:19; 3:8, 18; 4:12; 5:3; 6:18
- Phil 1:1; 4:21, 22
- Col 1:2, 4, 12, 26
- 1 Thess 3:13; 5:27 (in the Majority Text)
- 2 Thess 1:10
- I Tim 5:10
- 2 Tim 1:9
- Phlm 5, 7
- Heb 6:10; 13:24
- Jude 3, 14
- Rev 5:8; 8:3, 4; 11:18; 13:7, 10; 14:12; 15:3; 16:6; 17:6; 18:24; 19:8; 20:9
Passages Dealing with Future Sanctification (Total = 3)
- Col 1:22 (hagios)
- Heb 12:14 (hagiasmos)
- 1 John 3:2 (concept)
- The following are some representative works: J. Sidlow Baxter, A New Call to Holiness: A Restudy and Restatement of New Testament Teaching Concerning Christian Sanctification (London: Marshall, Morgan, & Scott, 1967) and Our High Calling (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967); G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Sanctification (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1952); Peter Toon, Justification and Sanctification (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1983); Jonathan H. Rainbow, “Double Grace: John Calvin’s View of the Relationship of Justification and Sanctification” ExAuditu 5 (1989): 99-105; H. A. Ironside, Holiness: The False and the True (New York: Loizeaux Brothers, n.d.); Philip Mauro, Sanctification: Notes of an Address (New York: Gospel Publishing House, n.d.). See also footnotes 2, 4, 6, 7, and 9.
- Arthur W. Pink, The Doctrine of Sanctification (Swengel, PA: Reiner Publications, 1966), 114–15.
- Ibid., 116. For similar statements about the importance of recognizing the primacy of past, objective sanctification over present, subjective sanctification, see also Mauro, Sanctification, 11, 15; and Baxter, Our High Calling, 16-19, 205-206.
- Melvin E. Dieter, et al., Five Views on Sanctification (Grand Rapids: Academie Books, 1987).
- I am indebted to a conversation I had with Zane Hodges and Art Farstad for this synthesis.
- I borrowed this term from an excursus on sanctification in Believer’s Bible Commentary, NT Edition, by William MacDonald (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1990), 860.
- While he does not use the exact expression “forensic sanctification,” James Denney clearly speaks of that concept in his book, The Death of Christ, edited by R.V.G. Tasker (Chicago: Inter-Varsity Press, 1951), 126.
- Interestingly, the leading lexicon of NT Greek, Bauer, Gingrich, Danker (BGD, p.8), after saying “Christians are hēgiasmenoi” cites Heb 10:14 (and Acts 20:32 and 26:18) as proof. While this may be an error (Heb 10:10 has hēgzasmenoi; 10:14 has hagiazoinenous), it seems that BGD may understand Heb 10:14 as having the same meaning as Heb 10:10, that is, “those who are sanctified.”
- Denny, The Death of Christ, 126; see also Thomas Hewitt, The Epistle to the Hebrews: An Introduction and Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1960), 71; and Pink, The Doctrine of Sanctification, 114–16.
- A believer may not outwardly manifest his inner self (see 1 Cor 3:1–3; Eph 4:1 ff). And an unbeliever’s works may outwardly appear to be those of a believer (see Matt 7:21–23).
- See Baxter, A New Call to Holiness. He argues (see 77 ff.) that Romans 6 concerns not experiential (i.e., progressive) sanctification, but positional sanctification, which he calls judicial (though I think intrinsic is a more accurate designation). Commenting on a common misinterpretation of Rom 6:6 he writes, “Misapplying the judicial to the experiential is as evidently wrong as saying that two and two makes five, or that a triangle has four sides” (104, italics his).
- While the word saints is used to refer to OT believers (cf. Deut 33:2–3; I Sam 2:9; Job 15:15; Ps 16:3; 30:4; 89:5, 7) and also to believers during the Tribulation (cf. Dan 7:18–27; Rev 5:8), neither of those designations looks to the positional sanctification which believers during the church age experience. Neither OT saints nor Tribulation saints are in the Church, the Body of Christ.
- BGD (see note 8 above) suggests that Heb 10:14; Acts 20:32; and Acts 26:18 are examples of the fact that “Christians are hēgiasmenoi” (p 8). I have not included Heb 2:11; 10:10; or 10:14 in this group because I believe the author of the Book of Hebrews uses hagiazō to refer to forensic sanctification. See section II B above (pp. 7–8).
- Majority Text reads hēgiasmenois (“to those who are sanctified”). Some early manuscripts (such as Aleph, A, and B), however, read ēgapēmenois (“to those who are beloved”).
- See, for example, BGD, 8; and NIDNTT, Vol 2, S.v. “Hagios,” by H. Seebass, 229–30. Seebass writes concerning the expression the saints (hoi hagioi) in the Pauline epistles, “This was primarily not an ethical expression but a parallel to concepts like ‘called’…’elect’… and ‘faithful.’ It implies association with the Holy Spirit” (229).
- For a different view see Jonathan Rainbow’s article, “Double Grace: John Calvin’s View of the Relationship of Justification and Sanctification,” 99–105. He argues that Calvin strongly rejected the idea that justification included an impartation of righteousness. Only imputation is in view. However, he also argues that Calvin believed in the inevitability of progressive sanctification because both justification and progressive sanctification proceed directly from the Cross. Both are seen as benefits of the crucifixion applied to all who believe.
- In his commentary on First John, Calvin wrote, “It hence appears that it cannot be but that the children of God are not free from sins, and that they sin daily, that is, as far as they still have some remnants of their old nature” (italics added). John Calvin, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles, translated and edited by John Owen, Calvin’s Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1948), 213. See also Institutes of the Christian Religion 3. 3. 10, 20.
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