Is Sanctification Positional, Progressive, or Neither? - Part 4

Let’s continue to examine verses on sanctification as we seek to discover if sanctification is positional, progressive, or neither.

In Romans 6, Paul writes to the believers who are considering sinning all the more because they are not under law but under grace.

In Romans 6:19, Paul writes,

For just as you yielded your members in bondage to impurity and to lawlessness unto lawlessness, so now yield your members in bondage to righteousness unto sanctification.

In this verse, what does Paul mean by sanctification?

Sanctification in this verse is the act of a believer presenting (yielding) his body to God to be used for pure, moral purposes rather than impure, immoral purposes.

Presenting our bodies to God for his purposes is much like what Jesus said in John 17:16-19,

“They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.”

The word sanctify in these verses have nothing to do with being made holy through the cleansing of sins.

Rather, sanctify is presenting our bodies to God for his purposes to be fulfilled in us.

In the verses above, Jesus presents his body to God for God’s purpose of establishing the new testament of grace through the blood of Jesus, where sins are forgiven and so the Spirit can dwell within a believer, enabling the believer to know God as Father and to experience the Father’s love.

Jesus had met with the disciples in the upper room, telling them he would offer his body and blood to establish the new testament of grace for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:26-28; Luke 22:20-22).

As the conversation continued, he told the disciples the Holy Spirit would come and indwell believers so they could know the Father and experience his love.

Jesus sanctified or set aside his body for this purpose.

In the same way, Jesus prayed the Father would sanctify the disciples with the truth of his word.

What is the truth of his word?

In the context, the truth of the word of the Father is that Jesus is the Christ.

Ultimately, the word is Jesus (see John 1).

Through Jesus, the word, God would sanctify the disciples and all believers when Jesus sanctified himself that they may be truly sanctified.

Jesus sanctified himself by presenting his body to God so that the new testament could be established in his blood (Matthew 26:26-28; Luke 22:20-22; Hebrews 10:5-10).

Through the blood of Jesus believers are made holy (truly sanctified) and can now present their bodies to God for his purposes to be fulfilled through them.

This is what Paul is referring to in Romans 6:19 when he writes,

For just as you yielded your members in bondage to impurity and to lawlessness unto lawlessness, so now yield your members in bondage to righteousness unto sanctification.

Sanctification in Romans 6:19 is when a believer, who is considering using grace as a license to sin in context, presents his body (sets apart) to God as an instrument of righteousness so that purity and God’s purposes can flow through the believer’s body.

We discover in this verse that sanctification is not the process of become more and more holy; rather, sanctification is a decision to present (set apart) our bodies to God.

In Part 5, we will examine other verses on sanctification.

Click below for Part 5.

Part 5: Is Sanctification Positional, Progressive, or Neither?