Let's keep, we'll finish sanctification, Lord willing. Definitive, progressive, and final sanctification. You say, okay, I see these charts. Make show me your case that faith is caused by initial or definitive sanctification. Okay, I'm glad you asked that. First, Peter one. Unfortunately, Peter uses his own vocabulary and we have to work with a little bit to figure out what he's saying. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout the five Roman provinces mentioned there, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through the sanctifying work of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood. It's not hard to figure out what the sprinkling by His blood means, it speaks of purification or forgiveness. That's not hard, but obedience to Jesus Christ is tricky. Does it mean obeying Christ in the Christian life? That's one meaning of obedience. Wayne Grudeman is good 10-day-all Bible commentary and first Peter takes it that way. The answer is it does not mean that in this context. It's rather, watch, if that were the case, four obedience, the sanctifying work of the Spirit is unto obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood. That could possibly be taken to teach as you obey Jesus in your Christian life, His blood sprinkles you, you're forgiven or so forth, which isn't right. I wanna try to show you that Peter uses obey and obedience as a synonym for belief and faith and disobedience as a synonym for unbelief, not always, but frequently. First Peter 122, now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth, it means believing the truth. First Peter 1, 22. First Peter 2, 8. They stumble because they disobey the message. Disobey the message means disbelieve the message. Reject the message. Here's one that's so strong, the NIV translates to belief. First Peter 3, 1, wives in the same way, be submissive to your husband, so that, if any of them do not obey the word, literally, believe the word, Peter uses obey to mean what we we call belief, at least many times. First Peter 3, 20, the Spirit's in prison. Disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, could well be taken for disbelieved. I'm positive of this one. First Peter 4, 17. It is time for judgment to begin with the family of God. And if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? Obeying the gospel means believing the gospel, thus because of Peter's use elsewhere, but more importantly, because of the very context here in 1 Peter 1, 2, obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood means initial saving faith in Christ and then purification or forgiveness. You say, wait a second. I still don't understand how believing the gospel could be called obedience. Yes, you can understand. The gospel is a command, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. As you obey that command, you believe if this is correct and I'm convinced it is apart from the issues we're talking about now, then we have in 1 Peter 1, 2, believers having been chosen according to God the Father's foreknowledge, unto a salvation is implied, something like that, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, unto obedience in Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood. That is the way the ideas are put together, the sanctifying work of the Spirit leads to. One of its effects is obedience to Christ, which is in my understanding is believing the gospel and knowing the cleansing that comes alone from his atonement. If this is correct, then initial sanctification is a third picture, the Apostle paints, the Apostle paints this time, Peter, the Apostle Peter paints a picture of Peter's pickled peppers, and this is getting to be ridiculous here, sanctification brings about, it's the cause of faith, spoken of in terms of obedience. How do I get myself into these tangles? I don't know, ah, sanctification is progressive.
First, Thessalonians 4, this is God's will for you, even your sanctification that you abstain from sexual immorality. I'll get my three proof passages from the Thessalonian literature. Second, Thessalonians 2, 13. The verse we looked at before, we ought always to thank God for you, brothers, loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. Since sanctifying work of the Spirit and belief in the truth are parallel, I would take that to be initial sanctification. Second, Thessalonians 2, 13, I'm just showing you all three of these tenses of sanctification, if you will, from the Thessalonian letters. Here, progressive sanctification is in first Thess for three and following, this is God's will for you, your sanctification, namely that you abstain from sexual immorality. Romans 12 to 16, all those chapters deal with the same topic. Final sanctification. I fought Hukama for neglecting this. I know why he does it. He tells us. His book is not about eschatology. He wrote another wonderful book on that, and he did, the Bible in the future, but it is artificial to separate out these final elements, these final aspects of these doctrines. It cuts them off and hinders us from seeing them holistically, which is the way we should see them. Final sanctification is easily shown from the end of first Thessalonians 5. May God himself, first Thessalonians 5, 23, the God of peace sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit so in body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. Psychification is thus initial or definitive. Initial speaks of it as beginning. Definitive speaks of it as, well, definitive, coloring everything else that follows, once and for all. Here's my own understanding. God, once and for all, sets us apart from uncleanness to holiness by a powerful working of his spirit in our lives that leaves us to believe in the gospel. Thus it is only because we have the Holy Spirit that we do believe the gospel. It's all at one time. But God makes the first move. He turns on the light switch. He turns the car key, turns on the faucet and he gets the glory accordingly. But God, spirit doesn't leave us. He works in us day by day to progressively sanctify us, to bring us in practice near this high position as saints.
And he's not gonna quit. He who called you is faithful. First, Thessalonians 5, 24 maybe. He also will do it. Okay, so what? You've got the three aspects here. So what? What's the biggest deal about the Holism? Oh, it's wonderful. It encourages us. First of all, it shows us the work of salvation here portrayed as sanctification. Is God's work from beginning to end? That gives me confidence. I don't know if I said enough. Well enough. At the work of the Trinity, the work of the Trinity. Yes, the work of sanctification is the work of the Trinity and of believers. One of the paradigms for my theology, as you know by now is divine sovereignty and human responsibility. I have erred. I emphasize the whole, the Trinity's work, but perhaps not enough the fact that we are active in our progressive sanctification. We are. Much of the New Testament is written to motivate us toward practical holiness. I apologize for that incompleteness. I was assuming it. What is the effect of seeing sanctification as initial progressive and final? Number one, it causes me to glorify God who does this from beginning to end. Number two, it encourages me because I will make it along with all other saints. He will do it. There, that is entire sanctification to borrow the Wesleyan phrase is biblical. As Warfield showed in his tome on perfectionism, it is biblical, these dear brothers and sisters just have the timing off. It's going to happen when Jesus comes again. But not before, although that should not give us license to sin and shame on us when we deliberately sin taking refuge in the fact that we can confess and our father will forgive us. That is taking advantage of the grace of God and we have all done it. We should be ashamed of ourselves. It is wicked. Well, there are other ramifications too but we need to keep going on. That wholism is most encouraging. God is not finished with me yet. Progressive sanctification, the fact that he picks me up, dust me off, and pushes me on again. That is a sign that I am a saint. Understand? The fact that the spirit convicts me is a very good sign because God sanctifies all those who have been once and for all sanctified. Understand? The spirit's work in my life is a good evidence. But I look to the future. I look to the past and I say, OK, Lord, sometimes it looks rough here, but you're telling me because I'm being sanctified in a process which means improvement and two steps forward and one step back and sometimes two forward and seems like three back. That's an evidence that you initially sanctified me because I wasn't concerned at all about this holiness business before you saved me and apprehended me by your grace, but Lord, I get discouraged. Lift up your head, he says, and look to the future. You are going to make it. The day will come when you never think another sinful thought. Lord, I can't imagine it. Of course, you can't, but that day will come and never say another sinful word. My family can't imagine. That one, but it's going to happen by God's grace. We are not schizophrenics with being old, old selves and new selves at the same time. At first, I thought this was merely a semantic business here and a theologian making much ado about a very little. In thinking about this for some years, I think St. Anthony is exactly right. Who come as exactly right? We are not old and new persons at the same time. We are new selves in Christ, but he's being realistic. We do have old natures. The diagram of the two people inside of us, which was what I was taught in my early Christian life, is confusing to say the least. What am I? We are saints. That's who we are. We are saints with sinful principles still within us. Perfectionism. I find summarized by Hukama very fairly. And furthermore, I appreciate his appreciation of perfectionism. He summarizes the teachings well from Wesleyan and holiness writings. It comes right from Wesley. There is. It is possible to reach a state of entire sanctification, the teachings, 216 and 217. Oftentimes it's taught in terms of a second blessing theology. Usually they're careful to also teach notion of process, but you get the second work of grace in a jolt, in an experience, as that is. I believe in a second blessing. I believe in a thousand blessings, but not in this sense. It said to be instantaneous and received by faith. And yet, footnote 66 on page 217 also shows a progressive matter sense as well. Entire sanctification for page 217 is said to involve the eradication of our sinful nature friends. That is full's gold. It is fooling yourself. The sin which those who are entirely sanctified said to be able to avoid is always carefully circumscribed. Wesley himself defines sin properly so called as a voluntary transgression of a known law. That is two week, a definition of sin. Sin is that and is also involuntary transgressions. It is also sinful thoughts. It is also impure motives. That is, I'm accusing, in a nice Christian manner, my brothers of weakening the Bible's definition of sin to make their perfectionist theology work basis 217 to 220, alleged biblical examples of perfect people, of people who are entirely sanctified. Secondly, passages in first John stating that the regenerate do not sin. Thirdly, the teaching of the passage, we just looked at 1st, Bessalonians 5.23. Fourth passages in which believers are commanded to be perfect. I've already dealt with those. They give an unattainable goal to drive us to God's grace. First, Bessalonians 5.23 will be realized when Jesus comes again as the passage indicates. Going backwards here from 4 to 3 to 2 page 218, the first John passages are not teaching sinless perfection. How could they, chapter 1, talk to that, confessing our sins as an ongoing normal part of the Christian life? But it's distinguishing between snapshot and motion picture, not because of the tenses. That is a linguistic fallacy that Hukama commits. But because of the language put together in those passages, first John is not saying believers don't sin, but they don't practice sin. They don't live a life of sin. The perfect people are godly people, but they're not sinless people. Criticisms to 20 to 25, Wesleyans weaken the definition of sin. It is true. Have a friend, a Baptist professor friend, who is a bachelor and who, for vacation, goes and sits in on other people's seminary classes. Everybody has their own hang-ups. Well, he's a good man. He sat in on mine. He was a great blessing. He entered into the prayer time with real fellowship. Counseled the students. It was great. We had a great time. We've had some fellowship since then. He has been a Roman Catholic seminary and Eastern Orthodox seminary and a fickle degree from Concordia Lutheran seminary. His own work is from Dallas. He's in a dispensational tradition, just a warmest brother. And we had good fellowship together. He told me he went to a Nazarene seminarian, Kansas City, Missouri, or Kansas, I'm mixed up. And he was astonished at a professor's answer to a student's question. Question was, if we were unloading heavy boxes from a truck and drop one on our foot and let out a terrible curse, and we're immediately killed by a car, would we be lost? You left. They didn't laugh. And the professor didn't laugh. His answer was telling, no, you wouldn't be lost. Not because you couldn't lose salvation, but because that was only a mistake and not a sin. That is a weakening of sin, a definition of sin. That whole framework was, I felt for those folks as he described that particular situation. My heart really went out to them. And here I've closed my book. Wesleyan's dilute the concept of perfection. And their own writers call it imperfect perfection. So I'm not sure what it really means after you do that to it. The claim that the carnal nature is eradicated top of 222 is not in fitting with the New Testament teaching. This notion of a second work of grace goes against all that we have concluded on these different doctrines. There's no second work of grace. And Hukamah's early chapters in this book really show how you get everything in union with Christ. It's all a package. There is no such thing as first degree Christians who have had the second lesson or even third that is in charismatic fellowships, baptism of the Holy Spirit's evidence by speaking in tongues. That makes you a first class Christian. If you don't have that, you're second class. The Bible knows of no such second class Christianity. And neither does it in this regard either. It knows those who receive the blessing of being