SANCTIFICATION

"For by one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified" (Heb10:14)

Devotion 11 of 16

JESUS IS OUR SANCTIFICATION

"But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Cor 1:30). By saying God has "made" Christ our sanctification, the Spirit excludes human accomplishment as the BASIS for Divine acceptance. The qualities and virtues of Jesus are imputed to us through our faith. This imputation is a judicial act, performed righteously and willingly by the mighty God of heaven!

In the judicial sense, the possession of Jesus constitutes sanctification. That is what makes us usable to God, qualifying us to work together with Him (1 Cor 3:9). Personal setbacks must be confessed, and this truth seized with determination.
You can be sure, our adversary the devil will engage in an energetic initiative to turn you from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Notice, the text affirms God Himself put us into Christ! What a marvelous truth! You could never have come into Christ by your effort alone! That is too challenging an assignment. However, as we believed the Gospel, gladly receiving the Word and heartily responding in obedience, God placed us into Christ: "But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus . . . " (NASB). Then, God made, or caused, Christ to become our sanctification: "Who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption" (NASB). Apart from this Divine transaction, no person is sanctified--in any valid sense.

Christ sanctified us when He died

"Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate" (Heb 13:12). What a marvelous text of Scripture! "Without the gate" means outside the confines of the "holy city." God would not allow the city where He had placed His name (1 Kgs 11:36) to be defiled with the blood of His Son. He "suffered without the gate," in isolation and alone. He was also outside the circumference of corrupted religion, and apart from the course of the world. Our sanctification necessarily involves us partaking of those same conditions. Our usefulness to God is traced back to Christ laying down His life, "a ransom for many" (Matt 20:28).

Note, it is not our achievement that sets us apart, but Christ's blood! The thing that gives us Divine utility is not our view of ourselves, but God's view of us. That view was produced by the blood of Christ. This confirms that we were washed from our sins completely. They have only to be acknowledged and confessed to lose their power and dominance.

PRAYER POINT: Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask for grace to abide in Christ --to cleave to Him with purpose of heart, hear Him, and follow Him wherever He leads.

-- TOMORROW: OUR ROLE IN SANCTIFICATION --