Sanctification is the process by which we overcome sin and are made into the image of God. The church is full of believers who have struggled without end, often for decades, without any viable evidence of change in their lives. They often wonder if God is angry at them; if they are no longer saved; or if they are so flawed not even the power of the Holy Spirit can give them victory over thoughts, attitudes and sinful practices. We are justified by faith in the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins. Often that is as far as believers get. Before we can talk about sanctification (being made holy) we need to understand the difference between belief and faith; faith and hope; and how they relate to justification and sanctification.
It may help to say that faith, belief, and hope are tools which enable God to transform our walk with him. Some people get tools because they are required for their profession. Others get them and keep them stored away in case they may ever need them. Justification and sanctification is the profession itself. Their purpose is to make us holy.
FAITH AND BELIEVING
I took a Strong’s Concordance and look up how often the words faith and believe occur (1).
In the Old Testament Strong’s only mentions faith two times (Duet. 32:20, Hab. 2:4. Hab. 2:4 is quoted 3 times in New Testament: Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11; Hab. 10:38). There are other Hebrew words that have some equivalence, but it is clear that believing dominates the Old Testament, even though the eleventh chapter of Hebrews provides us with the heroes of faith from the Old Testament.
Faith and believing are derived from the same Greek root.
πιστευω pisteuo pist-yoo’-o
to have faith (in, upon, or with respect to, a person or thing), i.e. credit; by implication, to entrust (especially one’s spiritual well-being to Christ):–believe(-r), commit (to trust), put in trust with.
Faith is the noun we employ when we stand in truth. The action of our faith, believing is a verb. It is possible to have one without the other.
Jas 2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
Devils have no problem believing in God, but they have no faith in him. Their knowledge of him has not led them to a desire to love him and walk in his truth. This is why I am taking the time to consider the difference between the words (2).
There is an important difference between a noun and a verb. A noun is a person, place or thing. A verb explains the action between the noun and a situation. We mix belief and faith together and this sometimes causes us to get confused about our position in Christ. In the Synoptic Gospels we see the word faith 29 times (Matt. 12, Mk. 12, Lk. 5). Belief is used 35 times.
The Bible presents faith as something we should admire and desire. Faith varies with each person. Paul says we have each been given a measure of faith (3).
Jesus noted that some people had a lot of faith; others very little. He marveled at the Centurion because he had not found such faith in all of Israel (Matt. 8:5). In Matthew 9:22 when the woman touches the tassels on his rob he said “Woman your faith has made you whole.” In Mathew 9:29 he told the blind man “According to your faith, be it onto you.” Jesus frequently pointed to faith as the catalyst that allowed God to work among them.
When he chastised his disciples he added a prefix to the word faith. For example, in Matthew 14:31 Peter was walking on the water and began to sink. He cried Lord save me. Jesus replied “O you of little faith.” The Greek word for faith is:
πιστις pistis pis’-tis
persuasion, i.e. credence; moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation; abstractly, constancy in such profession; by extension, the system of religious (Gospel) truth itself:–assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity.
When he spoke of Peter having little faith, such as Matt 6:30 where man could see by faith how God had clothed the creation but had no confidence that God would so clothe him he used this word.
ολιγοπιστος oligopistos ol-ig-op’-is-tos
incredulous, i.e. lacking confidence (in Christ):–of little faith.
He frequently addressed his followers with this phrase because they had traveled with him; witnessed his faith in the Father; heard his teachings; seen the many miracles he did; and so, for their faith to be so small he used a word that means credulity. Credulity is an absence of evidence for the thing you have faith in. Jesus expected that for all that had been revealed to them their faith would abound.
In Matthew 17:20 Jesus said if you have faith the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mountain be removed and it would be cast into the sea.
In each of these instances faith is a noun. It is a substance which some people had a lot of it (like the Greek mother who wanted her daughter healed (Math. 15:26,27), and others who had very little.
Heb 11:1 ¶ Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith here is described as being both a substance and an evidence of something that is not real. It is something hoped for. (4) God told Abram to go and look for a city which was promised to him. He looked his whole life and died still believing God would take him to it. (Heb. 11:10). God told him he would have a son through Sarah even though she was both old and Sarah was barren (Gen. 17:17). Everything in Abraham’s world said this was impossible. Abraham and Sarah stood on this word of promise for 25 years before it was fulfilled. (Heb. 11:11). The evidence and the hope that they stood on was the word of God. God’s word is the substance that creates all things and holds all things together (John 1:1-3, Heb. 11:3, Col. 1:17). This kind of faith in God’s word is the foundation upon which everything else must be built.
In the synoptic gospels Jesus took note of those who had faith in him and his ability.
In the synoptic Gospels we see a long time span of the ministry of Jesus. During that time he was grooming his disciples so they would grow in their faith. He frequently concealed his identity from the religious leaders (Mk. 1:40-45; 8:29-30) for this reason. If he had declared himself to be the Son of God right away he would have created a crisis where everyone would have had to either believe he was God or seek to stone him to death for blasphemy (Lev. 24:16). An example of this is John 8:59 when Jesus said “before Abraham was I Am”. When the people heard this they took up stones to kill him.
John writes primarily about the last week or two of Jesus life. Chapters 13-19 are about one day of his life. He is about to die so he emphasizes his true identity to his followers. The Gospel of John makes no mention of faith. The whole Gospel is aimed at getting the reader to believe in Christ’s deity as the Son of God. The time for concealing his identity demonstrated in the synoptic gospels was over.
When Moses asked God what his name was, God said I AM. Jesus used this in John 8:59 when he told the people “before Abraham was, I Am.” In John he makes seven I AM statements.
I AM the Bread of Life (6:45-38); I AM the Light of the World (8:12-9:5); I AM the Door (10:7); I AM the Good Shepherd (10:11-14); I AM the Resurrection and the Life (11:25) ; I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life (14:6); I Am the True Vine (15:1-5).
The Gospel of John is about what we need to believe about Jesus in order to be saved and walk in truth. Here is a random sampling of the 46 times believe is used in John.
Joh 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
Joh 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
Joh 6:69 And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.
8:24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins
Joh 9:35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; (the man born blind) and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?
Joh 17:21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
Joh 20:31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
In all these verses Jesus is pressing them to make a decision about his identity. Faith needs an object. What saves us is having the right object for our faith. Jesus Christ is God. His life was truth in the flesh. In him we see the true character of humanity and divinity for he is God walking in human flesh (4).
Ro 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Acts 16:31 “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.”
Believing is an action. It is where we have directed our faith. Believing in what Jesus did on the cross and resurrection is what saves us.
Ga 3:22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.
Now we might believe, but have very little faith. Faith is something that grows in us. Faith is tested by God and that testing is intended to make our faith get stronger. God gets pleasure from our lives when our faith grows. Consequent he is always testing our faith to make it stronger.
Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Jas 1:2 ¶ My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
Jas 1:3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
Jas 1:4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.Ro 5:1 ¶ Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
Ro 5:2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Ro 5:3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
Ro 5:4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
Ro 5:5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.God honors our faith. Faith is what the Holy Spirit uses to reveal Jesus in us. In Jude 1:3 we are told to earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered onto the saints. When we invest our faith into true belief the result is transformation.
2Co 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Believing saves us. Faith changes. The truth as God reveals it never changes. We change as we learn more about him. Truth is our foundation. Faith however can be misappropriated. Satan frequently gets Christians to put their faith in lies, so that he can injure their faith (5). We can grow in faith or we can compromise and bring injury (6) (7) or destruction to our faith (8).
JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION
Now we need to consider how justification and sanctification work. A lot of Christians believe they are saved because scripture says we are justified by faith in Christ; but they do not move beyond that to where they gain any significant victory over sin. Sanctification is victory. It is the process by which we are made holy.
Most people think of justification as something Christ did for us to make us acceptable and therefore pleasing in God’s sight. Then after justification they think of sanctification as doing something to show their gratitude or to show that they take their faith seriously. It is seen as an option. We separate these two words when we talk about grace. We say I’m saved by grace through faith, but then we may add ‘I’m not ready to change’. ‘I’m not ready to give that up certain things?’ People hold onto areas they know are sinful. They will dismiss change by saying ‘God knows I am weak.’ So we need to realize that justification and sanctification are part of a single goal; our holiness. Justification comes from what we believe; sanctification grows from the application of our faith to what we believe.
HE CANNOT SIN
1Jo 3:8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
Sin is always an offence against God. Just as Satan tempted Eve, James says we are drawn away by our own lust, and when lust is conceived, it brings forth sin…. Conception is what happens when a man and woman join together and produce life. James (Ja. 1:12-16) says it is how Satan draws us into an act where we bring death into a situation. Paul affirmed this when he said “to whomever you yield yourself to, his you are (Rom 6:16)”. They are both speaking of a partnership we enter into that produces fruit either onto life or death, depending on the partner we obey. Christ came into the world to destroy the partnership we make with the devil through our sins.
John continues:
1Jo 3:9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.When I read this verse my reaction is that nobody is saved. But in 1 John 1:10 John tells us if we say we have no sin we make God a liar and his word is not in us. What is verse nine saying: The Greek word for “cannot” is:
δυναμαι dunamai doo’-nam-ahee
to be able or possible:–be able, can (do, + -not), could, may, might, be possible, be of power.
It is related to the Greek word for power, from which we get the word dynamite. The point John makes here is that if you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, you have the power to turn away from your sins. You are not a slave to them. Jesus Christ wants you to take the victory he has provided for you. This is sanctification. Whoever is born of God has the power to not commit sin. We are going to look at how this works because it is not something we here much teaching about.
The ministry of Christ was to destroy the works of the devil. We are born into a war. Life is not neutral. It is a battlefield in which the righteousness of God is being contested against by the wickedness of the devil. How does Christ destroy the works of the devil- first he overcame sin and death by his crucifixion and resurrection. But on the personal level of a believer, how is the works of the devil destroyed?
INCORRUPTABLE SEED
1Pe 1:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
What is the incorruptible seed? If we take Jesus parable of the sower we know that the seed is the word of God.
Lu 8:11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
Lu 8:12 Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.
Lu 8:13 They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.
Lu 8:14 And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.
Lu 8:15 But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.Jesus explains that the devil tries to prevent the seed (the incorruptible Word) from getting into the good ground in our heart. The word of God is received with joy and becomes a plant (Mk. 4:26-29). In the parable we see many examples of how the seed does not produce faith. Only the one who received the seed in good ground became fruitful. The parable explains how the Devil snatches or stops the seed from growing. He stops some people from getting saved. He stops others from being fruitful in their lives. John says: “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him.” Theology aside, a plain reading of the text says the word abides in us and we will bear fruit. God expects that the Word in us will bring us to a renunciation of our sin. The alternative, which we see everywhere in churches today, is to make peace with our sin and as my friend Greg says “learn to cohabitate with them”. This is how faith becomes shipwrecked.
Sanctification is the goal. We want to be made into the image of Jesus Christ in this life. God justifies us so we can be in his presence without sin but his purpose is not simply to cover our sin; it is to make us holy. Sanctification is a continuation of this purpose wherein God frees us from sin.
1Co 1:30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
This is all one work of Christ. There is no separation. “The preaching of the cross makes the wisdom of the world foolish”. “The preaching of the cross is the power of God onto our salvation”. Believing this justified us. Those who are justified are also sanctified. You can’t have one without the other. The whole work is Christ’s. No man is our mediator. Christ is the author and finisher of our faith Heb. 12:2). Our redemption is complete when we are presented to Christ as a bride without spot of wrinkle.
Paul identifies the problem:
Ga 3:2 This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
Ga 3:3 Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?We are justified by faith, but we are also sanctified by faith. The problem is we do not grasp the significance of what it means to be new creatures.
2Co 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
God has freed us from sins; old things are passed away; everything becomes new. When I was a new convert I believed this and began to walk in newness of life. I walked in relationship to God and wanted to be holy. I had no theology. I believed that the Lord Jesus Christ was sufficient to save me and deliver me from all my sin. It was working. My faith produced fruit everywhere. I walked in the gospel of our sanctification. Then I started reading all these books that taught me to try to earn a righteousness that was already mine by faith (Rom. 3:28, 5:1, Gal. 2:16, 3:11, 3:24) . When I believed them I fell from grace. I became empty and felt abandoned by God. My pastor told me this was because I was a rebel and needed to submit to the church more. The true problem was allowing the church to become an idol and to insert itself as the mediator between me and my relationship with Christ. My faith was severely damaged.
When I talk to Christians, even ministers who have followed Christ for any length of time, I find so many of them have deep struggles with sin. They know they have a problem, but they don’t have a clue about how to overcome it. They know that others are being hurt by the attitudes and behaviors they engage in. The list is legion: bitterness, anger, hatefulness, jealousy, and gossip, or behavior like drunkenness, drugs, pornography, gluttony, or indifference. There are so many ways to numb pain; so many ways to check out of misery; but we know Christianity is supposed to give us victory.
Those who lack victory ask me if God is mad at them. They presume that a particular sin of theirs is so bad that they don’t have the chance others do? I think they see themselves as a babies that have soiled themselves and God is holding them at arm’s length until they will clean themselves up. So many people seem to be stuck here. We cannot make ourselves clean.
CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST
What Paul wants us to understand is that our self- the flesh we serve in self-centered devotion is already dead. We don’t need to humble it; abuse it; crucify it; we need to move on in new life.
Let’s read Romans 6 like we have never read it before. Listen to what it says. Don’t judge it by your experiences. Read it in faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Consistently in scripture God has called people to believe his word without any proof. The proof is his word and the faithfulness of his character is the assurance that his word is true.
Ro 6:1 ¶ What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
Ro 6:2 God forbid.That is the question- here is the answer.
How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Paul is not asking if we should continue in sin, he is saying how can we? Does this say we need to die to sin? No. It says we are already dead to it. But we have experiences…. We are not talking about our experiences- we are looking at how faith is a substance that changes us regardless of what our reality tells us. Remember Abraham. He had no physical evidence that Sarah could have a child. He believed God and God reckoned him to be righteous because of his belief (Rom. 4:16-25). It doesn’t say he was righteous; it says God imputed righteous to him because he believed and God called him his friend (Jam. 2:23). Without faith it is impossible to please God. Everything was created so we could have faith in God. God’s desire is to have a companion who has a free will but always chooses to love and trust him. Read that sentence again. That is why everything exists. God wants a lover who believes him and therefore does his will. But God has already done everything so we can abide in his will. It takes the eyes of faith to believe it when we read it.
Ro 6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
Ro 6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death:This is talking about Jesus physical body. His body was put in the ground. If we believe in Jesus then we died with him on the cross and were buried with him in his tomb. If we want to be free from our sin, here is the answer. We don’t try harder. You don’t die to our self. We don’t humble our self. We don’t spend the next ten years in a healing community reliving all our experiences trying to make sense of them. We accept our death in Christ.
Ga 5:1 ¶ Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
If we have given up the calling to be sinless in this life, this is unacceptable.
God killed us on the cross with Jesus.
His solution to the problem of our flesh is that he nailed it to the cross. That sounds ludicrous. Our personal experiences are contrary to it. That is why God loves faith. God wants us to hear him; believe him and act on his truth.
Ro 6:4 that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Ro 6:5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likenessof his resurrection:
Ro 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him,….Whatever you think it is that makes you sin; it was crucified (9). Paul uses the present tense. It is crucified. This is why Christianity is different from every other religion. Religions have codes, beliefs, moral values, they worship something, they sacrifice for their faith; even kill for their faith, and when Christianity is reduced to a religion it is all of this; but only God can cancel our old life and give us a new one. That’s what he did.
Ro 6:6….that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
Ro 6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.That is how faith brings us into a new life. We believe these words; we own them; we bring them to mind when we are tempted; and we claim the power that is already ours. God has freed us from sin. He crucified us. The old body that made us sin is dead. If we are sinning now it is the new man that is sinning. We always have our free will. God has made it possible for us to be changed into the image of Christ, but it is our faith that must stand in the truth. “Fight the good fight of faith” (1 Tim. 6:12, 2 Tim. 4:7) .
Php 2:12 ¶ Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Php 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.This is what Paul wrote to the Galatians:
Ga 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Ga 2:21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.We don’t try to fix what is broke; we leave it in the grave. We believe God when he tells us we are a new race of people.
1Co 15:20 ¶ But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
1Co 15:21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.Ro 6:8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
Ro 6:9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.We have been crucified, buried, and raised to new life in Christ. How can this be? What about all our experiences….. This is about our faith. We can listen to God and believe him or find an excuse to not hear him. Paul said Jesus died so death cannot have any more authority over him. He rose in a physical body. Man’s problems are sin and mortality. Jesus solved them both on the cross. God’s cure for our sin is for us to see our self as dead with Christ. Furthermore we are to see our self as part of his eternal body, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh.
Eph 5:30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
The only evidence we can have for this is God’s word. Heaven and earth will pass away but his word abides forever.
Ro 6:10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
Ro 6:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.We need to change our mental furniture. Paul said in 2 Cor. 10:5 we need to bring into captivity every thought that exalts itself above the throne of God. Recon means to acknowledge the truth of something. We have already said that God loves the trial of our faith. He wants us to live by hope. Faith and hope are what build the character in us that God loves. So have faith that you are dead, buried and raised to new life. Hope that what you don’t see will be made real because God honors faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God .
There are so many scriptures that tell us to hope (10). Hope is faith in what is not seen. If we don’t see it we patiently wait and expect it. Patient is how we worship God.
Ro 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
The whole point of Hebrews chapter eleven is that faith and hope necessarily exist in an environment where we do not see the reality.
Heb 11:5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Heb 11:7 By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.Noah and his sons spent 120 years building the ark. When they went inside it did not rain for a week. This is patient endurance.
Abraham, went out, not knowing whither he went.
Heb 11:10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Heb 11:11 Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised..
Heb 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
Abraham sacrificed Isaac accounting that God was able to raise him up, Heb 11:39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:
How does this relate to us being sanctified in Christ?We started this study by considering believing and faith. Believing is acknowledging the truth of something. Faith is putting your feet down and saying ‘here I stand’. We must trust and hope that God will be pleased by our faith and work the deliverance the Law and flesh could never accomplish. Romans 5 says “hope does not make us ashamed”. God wants us to turn our back on the kingdom of darkness and live here and now in the kingdom of light. How? Faith is always a choice. Everyone has a measure of it and everyone lives by it. It is something we have and we put it where we choose.
In the habits of our life we can stop and say that behavior or thought does not represent who I am in Christ. That is not what I am about. Capture it and take it to the Lord in prayer, every time with patient endurance. We have been given the authority and power to identify with Christ in his death and accept his finished work as the reason God will transform us.
Ro 8:12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
Ro 8:13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
Ro 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
Ro 8:15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
Ro 8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
Ro 8:17 ¶ And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.We do not owe our flesh anything. We have no debt to it. Paul tells us to make no provision for it.
Ro 13:13 Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.
Ro 13:14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the luststhereof.We have this chance now, to lay hold of holiness; to love it and desire it above all things. The church desperately needs a revival of holiness. Christ in us is the hope of glory (Rom. 5:2, Eph. 1:18, Col. 1:27).
What is the sum of the matter? We must believe the word as absolute truth. Whatever the plain sense of it says, here we must stand. Faith is the substance by which we take hold of this unseen truth that is more real than any reality we experience here in this earth. That was the faith once delivered to the saints. That is how they turned the world upside down.
FOOTNOTES
1) I organized what I found in these columns. If you print them and they do not line up your font size may be off. I am using 16.
OLD TESTEMENT NEW TESTEMENT
BELIEVE FAITH BELIEVE FAITH
100 2 Synoptic Gospels:
(Hebrews 11 commends 35 29
those in the Old Testament Gospel of John:
who were individuals of great faith) 46 0
Acts:
10 10
Epistles and Revelations
35 186
2) Believing is a verb. It is the act of choosing or standing for something. We say “I believe in God.” When we learn new things we try to approach them with an open mind and even with doubt. We want to be convinced. Once we consider something we act in belief or disbelief towards it. Agnostics refuse to decide. They think it is safe to be non-committal. If you hear and believe then you act on that belief and put your faith in it. Everyone in the world lives by some kind of faith. This is the process by which scientists develop hypothesize; governments develop social order; people get in their cars and expect them to start when they turn the key. God designed us to be this way. I hear people talk about faith as if it is some kind of badge of merit. Faith is the natural way that people live their lives. It is only when we put our faith in the truth that it makes a difference.
Ro 10:16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?
Ro 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.The process here is first hearing God’s word, then believing it, and then, because God honors our belief; he increases our faith. Faith needs an object. You see people putting faith in everything. What makes us grow in Christ is having him as the object of our faith. This is where believing comes in.
3) Ro 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
2Co 10:15 Not boasting of things without our measure, that is, of other men’s labours; but having hope, when your faith is increased, that we shall be enlarged by you according to our rule abundantly,
Eph 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
Eph 4:12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
Eph 4:13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:What we see in these verses is that God gives ever saint a measure of faith; that faith is something that increases or grows; and the goal of faith is unity as perfect people in the full stature of Christ. This is the goal of sanctification. Faith is the vehicle that moves us in this life towards transformation. Occasionally in scripture we are told that we are members of the faith. We will see this as we recognize that faith must have an object that it is defined by.
4) Jesus was fully God and fully man. Theologians have knit picked this identity trying to decide which aspects of his life should be man and which should be God. They have divided him into a duality and say he is two persons in one. This is unnecessary. Jesus was always God, but he did not use his divinity; he subordinated it to the Father, so that he could walk and act in faith as a man (Php. 2:7). He was in every point tempted as man is and therefore he entered the world as a baby and received wisdom and grace from the Father (Lk. 2:40). It was necessary that he live as a perfect man so he could become our High Priest ( Heb. 3:1; 4:14-15; 5:1, 5, 10; 6:20; 7:1, 26; 8:1, 3; 9:7,11,25) and the intercessor (Rom. 8:34) for those who put their faith in him.
5) Once a person becomes a follower of Christ he has been brought out of the Kingdom of Darkness and into the kingdom of Light. Satan cannot take our salvation from us. We are saved by the truth we believe. At that juncture Satan’s concern is to prevent us from being fruitful in our own lives or bearing fruit for the kingdom of Light by our witness to the faith. He will seek to get us to invest our faith in things God will not honor and so disillusion us. This is the great damage the Health and Wealth doctrines produced in many believers.
Jas 4:3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
Jas 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
Jas 4:5 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
Jas 4:6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
Jas 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.6) In fact a lot of bad doctrines exist to give believers an excuse to keep sinning. We don’t find these doctrines in scripture; we find them in theology. Theology began as a means of helping us to clarify the true meaning of Biblical truths. Theology, like all things is a potential. Potential is always neutral and cuts both ways equally. Whatever capacity it has to do well; it has an equal capacity to harm. Paul praised the Bereans because they took everything he said and searched the scriptures to validate his teachings.
Unfortunately over time many have reversed this order and validate scripture by their theology. A lot of theology teaches false doctrines. Some of these doctrines seem small and inconsequential, but larger doctrines require them for their foundation. Theologians teaches that believers have a duel nature; that their flesh and spirit are at war and sometimes one wins; sometimes the other. This is based predominately on one scripture that tells us the flesh seeks the world and the spirit is about God and these two things cannot be reconciled. God solved that problem by crucifying the flesh. If we are dead in Christ there is no duality, only ignorance of the truth. We’ll look at this more. Theologians have taught that after the fall Adam got a different nature; that his ability to reason changed; that he lost his free will; that man’s spirit died; that he became totally depraved; that his children deserve hell for being born depraved; and that man is marked with an original sin which requires a duel salvation. He must first be baptized as an infant to be saved from Adams sin and then when he is old enough to be accountable he must be saved from his own sins. This doctrine is how they explain the virgin birth of Jesus. They say he could not have an earthly father or he would have had the nature of Adam. Jesus was born of a virgin for the simple truth that his father is God. If sin is passed on by birth, then the concept of original sin also required Mary to be born without original sin in order to keep Jesus pure. What about her parents? This notion or her being born without sin then led to the doctrine that she could not die (the wages of sin is death) and therefore she too had to ascended to heaven. In each denomination they have small doctrines that lad to giant doctrines that separate and define them. The things they identify with the most are generally the things that are least defendable by scripture. I mention them just to say they either divert our faith away from our savior or they become excuses that offer a pass for not growing in Christ and becoming his servants. They were doctrines used to make people citizens of State Religions; or members of particular denominations; but they do not make disciples for Christ. As we will see Jesus did that himself through sanctification.
The extent to which deception goes is dangerous. Some people are so convinced that their doctrines are true that they alter the scriptures by writing their doctrines into them. Believers are fond of accusing Jehovah’s Witnesses of this, which they have done, but they do not see it in their own translations. Those who teach that we have a sinful nature use this argument to justify any sin they choose to identify with. Some translations deliberately promote toleration and so soften texts that may be politically incorrect. In the NIV the word flesh (sarx) was retranslated “sinful nature” twenty one times. If Paul wanted to say sinful nature he would have said hamartia phusis, not sarx.
This change has allowed many sinners to say I know I am sinning, but this is the nature I received because of the fall. In this way they say God winks at their sin. Nature cannot change. You cannot order a dog to act like a chicken. You cannot expect wood to have the nature of metal. Their nature defines and sets them apart. If we had a sinful nature God would be unjust to condemn us. In my old Strong’s there is one definition for flesh. A few years ago I was in Costco and they were selling new copies of Strong’s. Out of curiosity I looked up flesh and they had added a second definition: “2. Sinful nature.” This is a deliberate deception. What they seek to do, twisting scriptures to soften or justify sin, Paul condemns.
Ga 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
Ga 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
Ga 5:18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
Ga 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
Ga 5:20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
Ga 5:21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Ga 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Ga 5:23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
Ga 5:24 And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
Ga 5:25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
Ga 5:26 Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.I will have more to say about this conflict of flesh and Spirit.
7) Unfortunately about a hundred and fifty years ago a movement began (known by various names including the Keswick Movement and the Deeper Christian Life that said we are responsible for our maturity. Over the years at least sixty popular Christian writers from this movement taught, (there books are still very popular), that we cannot be changed by God until we are humble enough to warrant it. We have to be broken. We have to crucify ourselves. They tell us we must learn to die daily; we need to empty ourselves so Christ can fill us; we need to get our self off the throne of our heart. This is a process which they call the deeper Christian life. It is the devils way to stop us from becoming sanctified in our walk by faith. This is all legalism.
Basically it is a form of Buddhism. Buddhism is about the negation of the soul through the Eightfold Path. All the efforts Christians put into dying to their selves leaves them in the same emptiness as the Buddhist. It is misplaced faith. If your focus is on denying your flesh, what are you using to deny it? You’re using the flesh to perfect holiness. This leads to pride for some and condemnation for others who lack the temperament to meet the codes of a denomination. Our attention needs to be elsewhere other than what we think we did for Christ. Who came to destroy the work of the devil? Christ. It is not what we do for him; it is what he did for us on the cross that will bring us to holiness.
8) 1Ti 1:19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:
1Ti 1:20 Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.Hymenaeus and Alexander joined with Philetus oppose Paul preaching that the resurrection had already passed. Paul’s effort to shame them into repentance failed. Their false doctrines opened the way for licentious behavior in the church. Paul likened their doctrine to gangrene. He warned Timothy about Alexander stating that he had done a great deal of harm to Paul (2 Tim. 4:14). Jude referred to those of their ilk in this way:
Jude 1:4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jude said ungodly men became leaders in the churches without the people being aware they were being deceived. Scripture is full of warnings against false teachers, doctrines, gospels, spirits, traditions, and even false Christ’s. It is vital that we examine all things in the light of scripture.
9) Part of the issue is our failure to realize we have been made into a new man in Christ. If the old man was crucified with Christ, then the new man is not fighting a duel existence inside us. The old man is dead. Our failure is due to a failure to understand who we are.
10) Ps 33:18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy;….Ps 33:22 Let thy mercy, O LORD, be upon us, according as we hope in thee.
Ps 147:11 The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.
Ro 15:13 ¶ Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
Jer 17:7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.
Jer 17:8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.La 3:21 ¶ This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
La 3:22 It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
La 3:23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
La 3:24 The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
La 3:25 The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
La 3:26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.Ro 8:17 ¶ And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together…… Ro 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
Ro 8:24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
Ro 8:25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.1 Cor 13 now abides faith, hope and charity.
Heb 3:6 But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
Heb 11:1 ¶ Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
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