“Sanctification” is the English translation of the Greek word, hagiasmos… or purification. It is holiness; not partly holy but fully holy. The root word hagia means holy — entirely devoted to God.
God chose zealots for His mission
because they were totally committed to their mindsets. Christians should be… no
must be, zealots for God.
The apostles were zealots enough
that they were totally set apart by martyrization because of Jesus. Jesus said,
“If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross,
and follow Me (Mat 16:24). Jesus made that easier than to die for Him; “They
that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Gal
5:25).
Circumcision of the foreskin was only
part way holy, but all the flesh required circumcision. Born again, or “rebirth”
does just that, or it should (John 3:7).
The apostles relinquished their
fleshes but not their souls. A couple were crucified in much the same way as Jesus.
The others gave up their fleshes in different manners by death.
John was the lone hold-out when
he was rebaptized in boiling oil and survived. Like Abraham long before, who
survived the fires of Ur (in Nimrod’s kiln, according to The Book of Jasher),
John survived the fire of Caesar. They were not partly holy but holy
even in the face of the threat of death.
Martyred for Christ is the
realization of sanctification. It is all the way holy to the end. Most
of us will never be entirely sanctified, but God gives credit for the endeavor.
He is also full of grace.
Rather than literally die for Him,
He makes it easier — a Christian need only to die to the world. Like the snakes
that we are, to be regenerated, means that the beasts must shed their flesh,
not each year, but once, for all time. Knowing that we cannot shed our flesh
(genetics), to shed our flesh is to propitiate our desires — to favor a change from
carnal to righteous.
Sanctification begins with the sincere
desire to sacrifice desires to please Jesus. It is a new mindset focused, not
on each of ourselves, but on God. It is not that the desires are gone but that
the newborn soul desires to please God instead of himself. Sanctification is
the Way to eternal life with no shortcuts. You must be holy because He (God) is
holy, according to Peter:
As He which has called
you is holy, so be you holy in all manner of conversation; because it is
written, “Be you holy; for I AM holy” (1 Pet
1;15-16)
How to be holy? Be like God. How long
is holiness? In the manner of God, forever. You can’t be holy for one day but all
the time thereafter. God is always holy, so you must be. Holiness begins the
moment that you realize that you are helpless without God, and that Jesus is
God manifested. As God, He can and will save.
Salvation is the gift of entire sanctification.
You are meant to be set apart, not for any length of time, but until your presence
here on Earth ends by either death or rapture. “To die is gain,” as Paul said,
is so long as Christ is in you (Phil 1:21). Hence death is when holy ones are
entirely set apart… from what? From the world and the lust of the flesh.
Specifically it is written:
Forasmuch then as
Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same
mind for he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin; that he no
longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but
to the will of God. (1 Pet 4:1-2)
Suffering the flesh is it being the
master, rather than the will of God. Suffering the death of the flesh is
relinquishing lust so sin has no hold on you. Those who are sanctified are set
free from sin as lust is avoided.
Sanctification is set apart; from what?
The desires of the flesh and the world. Sanctification is a state set apart in safety
until salvation ensues at either the end of life or the end of days. Set apart
is a state until you are removed from the trials of the flesh. Sobriety and
vigilance are the states of that state (1 Pet 5:8); understanding that your flesh
is still a feast for evil ones. So long as you wear flesh, you are in jeopardy
even in a state of sanctification because the genetics of Satan remain in your
genes (John 8:44).
Sanctification would therefore be the
state of safety until holy ones are saved. When are they judged holy? When
their mind is one with God’s at the very moment of death. Now is always
the time of salvation (Rom 13:11). That now is the moment that you lose
your faculties.
Let’s say, I get brain damaged in the
morning. My mindset the moment before decides my fate. It matters not what I
was, or would be, but its state right now. The same goes for death. We
cannot wait until we decide… that would make us the gods; we must decide
whenever it is that God calls. Thinking, I will wait until next week is
not the now. It is not you who decides your fate, or you would be the
god others worship.
Now consider the Hebrew word for sanctify:
qof – dahlet – shin (qadas), meaning a path, or door (dahlet) to
what is beyond (qof), through consuming, or transforming power (shin).
Sanctification is the way to go beyond
the now to be transformed. What is transformation? It commences with rebirth
and ends with salvation; and those who endure to the end shall be transformed
(saved) (Mat 24:13).
Hence, sanctification is a state of
safety wherein the holiness of God covers those who remain faithful to Him.
Transformation begins with a desire to control the lusts and would end when
lusts are decimated by either death or resurrection.
Sanctification would therefore be a
process that terminates in salvation when the Christian is removed entirely
from the lusts of the world.
The English word “holy” in the Hebrew
is qodes: qof – dahlet – shin. Holy and sanctified are the same trilateral
word in the Hebrew. However, sanctified qadas means to be set apart from
things that are unlawful whereas holy qodes is basically zealousness for
God.
Implied therein is a hatred for worldly
things to begin the journey but because of holiness — the love for the God and
His things — the journey is the path taken all the way.
Being set apart from the flesh and the
world is just a beginning of the journey, but the journey itself is desire to please
God. Hence, consecration is before the journey (door), but holiness is through
the door to the end.
Where you are within the journey is
measured by the things to which you cling. Lot’s wife looked back at sin and clung
to sin, and her journey to safety ended at that very moment (Gen 19:26). It did
not matter that she began the set-apartness but that she never finished the journey.
She was sanctified to begin, but not holy for very long.
God even purified her with salt, but
she is still a pillar to this day; never reaching the state of holiness which
was her real journey!
Hers was more of a whim than a mindset,
so we all need to self-check to see where we stand each moment of the day.
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