the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Grace for Today
1 Corinthians 6:11
‘Ye are sanctified’
Read 1 John 3:1-10
C.H. Spurgeon made this statement, with which I fully agree, about the doctrine of progressive sanctification: ‘I do not admire the term “progressive sanctification", for it is unwarranted by Scripture; but it is certain that the Christian does grow in grace, and though his conflict may be as severe in the last day of his life as in the first moment of conversion, yet he does advance in grace, and all his imperfections and his conflicts within cannot prove that he has not made progress.'
A believers does not gradually become less sinful and more holy in the sight of God. Can there be degrees of righteousness and holiness in the sight of God? The very term ‘holiness’ implies perfection. Anything less than absolute perfection is not holiness, but sin.
The only holiness any fallen man can have is that holiness which God gives to all believers in Christ, and it is perfect holiness. God’s elect were sanctified in eternal election, when we were set apart for God and declared to be holy in God’s eternal purpose. In time we were actually perfected and made holy in the eyes of God’s law and justice, by the righteousness and shed blood of Christ as our Substitute. When Christ died at Calvary he ‘perfected for ever them that were sanctified’, those who were set apart by God for himself in election. Perfect holiness was legally imputed to God’s elect by the obedience of Christ. Then, in divine regeneration, a perfectly holy nature has been imparted to all who are born of the Spirit. To be born again is to have the divine nature implanted in us, so that we are partakers of the divine nature. This is sanctification. It is not progressive, but perfect and complete, in Christ.
While we live in this world we grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. We grow in faith and in love and in hope. But we do not grow in holiness before God. Christ is our only holiness before God. So long as we live in this world our old nature will continue to be nothing but sinful flesh. It never gets sanctified.
