Search
Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:14; 4:30; 1 Pet. 1:2; Luke 15:8-10, 17-21; Heb. 13:12; 2 Cor. 5:17; John 1:12-13; Rom. 12:2b; Eph. 4:23; Gal. 6:15; 2 Cor. 4:16; 1 Cor. 3:12; 2 Cor. 3:18; Phil. 3:21; Rom. 8:23
In chapter 11 we pointed out that there are three aspects of the divine sanctification. Now we want to see seven steps of the divine sanctification. In this chapter we want to see the truth concerning sanctification from another angle. Sanctification, or being made holy, has been a great subject through the centuries in the study of the Bible. We are standing on the shoulders of many who have gone before us and have helped us to see more. They were our “ladders” and still are, so we have been unveiled to see some things that they never saw.
In this chapter we want to see that the divine sanctification is the holding line in the carrying out of the divine economy. It was not until the 1980s that I began to use the word economy frequently. Formerly, we used the word plan as a replacement for economy. God’s economy is His plan, but the word plan does not mean as much as the word economy. Economy is anglicized from the Greek word oikonomia.
God’s economy is the intention of His heart’s desire, and God made this intention a purpose. This purpose became and still is God’s economy. Sanctification is a great point in God’s economy. It is the holding line in the carrying out of the divine economy. We need to see what the term holding line means. When a person goes fishing, he needs a line. That is the holding line for his fishing. The line holds his fish. In other words, the line directs his fishing. We say that sanctification is the holding line because every step of God’s economy in His work with us is to make us holy.
God created the universe. Not one part of it was holy. Then God created man. Even before man’s fall, he was not holy. In the whole universe, only One is holy, that is, God Himself. Regardless of how perfect and good someone is, this does not make him holy. The angels are perfect and good, but strictly speaking, they are not holy as God is. In order to be holy, you must have the holy essence. If something is called steel, it must have the essence of steel. Thus, if you are holy, you must have the holy essence, and the holy essence in the whole universe is God Himself.
The New Jerusalem is called the holy city (Rev. 21:2). It is built with gold, pearl, and precious stones on the gold (vv. 18-21). The pearls are for the gates, and the precious stones are for the wall with its foundations. These are built upon gold. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3 that he laid Christ as the unique foundation and that now we must build upon this foundation. If we build with wood, grass, and stubble, we will suffer punishment. But if we build with gold, silver, and precious stones, we will be rewarded (vv. 11-15). Here Paul says that gold is a material.
Strictly speaking, however, gold is not the material for the building. Gold is the site of the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is built on gold. When a person builds a house on a plot of land, the land is not the material for the building. The city proper of the New Jerusalem is gold. The street is gold. On this gold the gates are built. On this gold the foundations are laid, and the wall is built. Gold signifies God in His divine nature. In the whole universe, only God is holy in nature.
Some may argue by saying that the angels are holy and that in the Old Testament there were God’s holy people with the holy city. The temple was holy, and the gold was sanctified by the temple (Matt. 23:17). The priests were holy, the altar was holy, and the offerings were sanctified by the altar (v. 19). In this sense something that belongs to God can also be considered holy. Even the garments of the priests were made holy by being anointed. After being anointed they became holy because they became something for God and something belonging to God. But that is not the genuine holiness in nature. The tabernacle and the things related to it were not God Himself but were something belonging to God.
When we are speaking of sanctification in its highest sense in the New Testament, we are speaking about something not merely belonging to God but something that is God. Ephesians 1:4 and 5 speak of being holy unto sonship. We were chosen to be holy so that we can become God’s sons. Since we are God’s sons, born of God, we do not just belong to God. We are sons of God who have God’s essence, God’s life and nature.
The garments of the high priest belonged to God, but they did not have God’s life and nature. Today, however, we are sons of God with the holy nature and the holy life of God Himself. We have the holy essence of God, so we are holy. But we were not created or born this way. We were created as common human beings, but we became fallen sinners, even God’s enemies. However, one day we were born of God, and this new birth revolutionized our essence.
Regeneration is a reconditioning. Regeneration reconditions us with something essential. This essential matter is God Himself. When He regenerated us, He was born into our being, so He became our essence, our nature and our life. Now we are holy, exactly as He is. He is gold, and we also are gold in nature. In this sense, only the ones who are born of God as His sons can be called holy people.
On the one hand, we are all holy, but our holiness is at various levels. One brother who has been in the church life for many years is more holy than a new one who has been recently regenerated. This new one’s spirit is regenerated by God as the essence, but just a little part of his being is holy. His soul has not been touched much by the essence of God. But another brother may have the experience of being made holy for over forty years. His spirit has been sanctified, and his soul is greatly sanctified.
Our being made holy will be consummated at the redemption of our body, which is the transfiguration of our body. Thus, the sanctifying work of the Spirit first issues in our repentance and continues all the way to our glorification. In between our repentance and our glorification are regeneration, renewing, transformation, conformation, and the transfiguration of our body, which is the glorification of our entire being. This is the line of the divine sanctification to make us holy, so this line holds the carrying out of God’s economy.
Today we all have been “hooked” by the line of the divine sanctification. We were in the “ocean” of humanity, but this line reached us, and we have been hooked. Our being hooked will be consummated when we are transfigured. Then the line will be completed. A number of us were studying in school when someone came and spoke something about Christ to us. There was a “hook” hidden in this one’s speaking, and a hook got into us. We were convicted, and we repented and believed. Then we were regenerated in order for us to continue on the holding line of the divine sanctification.
The divine sanctification holds all our spiritual experiences from our repentance to our glorification. It goes through our regeneration, renewing, transformation, and conformation unto the redemption of our body (Eph. 1:14; 4:30). Unto means “resulting in.” The redemption of our body is the consummation of the divine sanctification.
Such a sanctification is to “sonize” us divinely, making us sons of God in order that we may become the same as God in His life and in His nature (but not in His Godhead) so that we can be God’s expression. Hence, sanctification is the divine sonizing. We are sons to our parents humanly, but we have been sonized by regeneration divinely. We do not have and we cannot have God’s Godhead, but we do have God’s life and nature so that we may be God’s expression. A son, in principle, is the expression of the father. God the Father sanctifies us to sonize us, to make us His sons for His expression. In regeneration we were sonized, but that sonizing is just a start, an initiation. After being regenerated we need to grow to reach maturity. We become mature when our soul is fully sonized. Eventually, our body, which is still full of weakness, sickness, lust, and sinfulness, will be transfigured, glorified in full.
God in eternity past made an economy, and in that economy He decided to have many sons. After He created man, man became fallen. Then God the Spirit came to sanctify man (1 Pet. 1:2). We were lost in Adam, in sin, and in death. We were in a heap of collapse, full of sin and death. But the Spirit came to seek us out, and He found us. Then He convicted us and stirred up our spirit to repent. This was our initial sanctification unto repentance (Luke 15:8-10). This seeking sanctification resulted in our repentance to bring us back to God (vv. 17-21).
The redeeming sanctification, the positional sanctification, is through the blood of Christ (Heb. 13:12) to transfer us from Adam to Christ. This changed the place where we were. This is the positional sanctification, having nothing to do with our disposition.
Our regeneration is a kind of sanctification. Regeneration is the beginning of the dispositional sanctification to renew us from our spirit (2 Cor. 5:17). God renewed us from the very center of our being, which is our spirit. In God’s salvation He first touches our spirit to regenerate it, that is, to renew it. This makes us, the sinners who were the enemies of God, sons of God (John 1:12-13).
The renewing sanctification continues our dispositional sanctification by renewing our soul from our mind through all the parts of our soul (Rom. 12:2b; Eph. 4:23). Romans 12:2 says that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, and the mind is the leading part of our soul. Our soul has three parts: the mind, emotion, and will.
Ephesians 4:23 speaks of our being renewed in the spirit of our mind. This means that our regenerated spirit has entered into our mind to make us renewed entirely in our soul. This makes our soul a part of God’s new creation (Gal. 6:15). Our spirit has become a part of God’s new creation but not our soul. Through the renewing, our soul will be made a part of God’s new creation.
Second Corinthians 4:16 says that day by day our outer man, our old man, is decaying, and our inner man, our new man, is being renewed. We should be renewed not merely day by day but also hour by hour and even minute by minute, continuously. Our entire environment, including the people around us, is the best instrument used by God to renew us. He is transforming us inwardly and metabolically with the divine element all the time.
The transforming sanctification is the daily sanctification, which reconstitutes us with the element of Christ metabolically to make us a new constitution as a part of the organic Body of Christ (1 Cor. 3:12). This is a kind of reconstitution, to discharge the old and to add in the new replacement of the element of Christ. In order for us to be the living members of Christ, we need to be constituted with Christ’s element to make us a new constitution for the building up of the Body of Christ.
The conforming sanctification is the shaping sanctification to shape us in the image of the glorious Christ (2 Cor. 3:18). A fruit tree has the shaping principle of life within it. When a peach tree bears fruit, the fruit is shaped in the particular form of a peach. The regulating law of the peach life shapes the peach. In every life there is a regulating law. When the sanctifying Spirit sanctifies us, there is a shaping element to shape us into the image of the glorious Christ. This shaping makes us the expression of Christ. This is why we can manifest Christ. We express Christ because we have been shaped by the sanctifying Spirit.
The glorifying sanctification is the consummating sanctification, the completing sanctification to redeem our body by transfiguring it (Phil. 3:21). Our vile and fallen body will be redeemed from sickness, from weakness, from death, and from lust and sinfulness to make us Christ’s expression in full and in glory (Rom. 8:23). At this point God’s salvation and God’s sanctification to carry out God’s economy have reached the highest level. This is the revelation of the divine sanctification in seven steps.
The divine sanctification, from its beginning to its ending, is altogether the fine work of the consummated, compound, life-giving, and indwelling Spirit of Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God.
