Statement of Faith Changes: The Crisis of Sanctification
Joel Van Hoogen
Many professing Christians believe they are coming into the crisis of sanctification when, in fact, they are being born again. Is this possible? My father asked me to consider the prospect. We can’t know with certainty, but the two events look very much alike. In one, a person is coming to the gospel of salvation through repentance and faith. In the other, he is coming to the gospel of sanctification in the same way.
In Romans 7, Paul lets us in on his struggle to live a God-pleasing life. Before he was saved, he thought he could do nothing wrong. After he was saved, he began to feel he could do nothing right (Phil 3:6, Rom 7:7–8). His testimony of confusion is found in Romans 7:14–23, “For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do” (Rom 7:15, NKJV). Paul’s desire for holiness of life changed post-conversion. He no longer chased righteousness as credit with God. His new impulse to please God rose from the new man that Christ had made him. Greeks identified the spiritual essence of a person as pneuma (spirit), and the faculty of that spirit was the nous (mind) [1]. Paul had a new spirit and mind. These were being overwhelmed by his old, sin-prone body: “For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members” (vv.22-23).
Do you relate to Paul’s struggle? Maybe you’ve been there. Or maybe you are presently. It is a necessary pathway the Christian must come through to live the triumphant, regenerate life Christ gives to us. That is why Paul shared so personally—that we might walk in Christ-like holiness. Let us learn from him.
First, the sanctified life comes with a crisis and a cry.
“O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24).
The Crisis: Paul struggled to live a holy life. Yet, he did not give up and live in mediocrity. He didn’t rename his failings as indiscretions or mistakes. They were sins. And he hated them. Counterintuitively, this was evidence that he had truly been born again. Before regeneration, people have a sin problem. Those sins are driving them toward hell. They are under God’s condemnation. After coming to Christ, one no longer has a sin problem. They are forgiven; their judgment has been accomplished in Christ. But, like the regenerate Paul, we have a problem with sin—we hate it!
With this new animosity toward sin, Paul determined to root it out and to set himself straight. What did Paul do? Paul took his former pharisaical skills and directed his physical energies against his sin. He would be better than he had ever been before. Yet, as he labored against sin with new fervor, he was only getting worse. Sins were springing up from his flesh and overwhelming this new Christian. His Pharisee-trained energies could not produce the Christlikeness for which he longed. What his heart or mind desired, his flesh and its members were not producing. Trying to do right, he consistently did wrong.
Praise God! Paul could not be a Christian Pharisee. He could not live the Christian life by better-regulated human powers. His body, long honed to do his legal bidding, was dead weight to his spirit. It was a body of death. The Romans executed certain criminals in a most cruel way. A murderer might have the body of his victim strapped to his own body—leg to leg, arm to arm. Under the sun’s heat, that decaying body ate away at his until he too died [2].
This is the crisis that Paul had to pass through. The only contribution fleshly powers make to a pursuit of holiness is death. Just as the Lord Jesus must save from the penalty of sins, so he must save from sin’s power. This crisis issues in a cry.
The Cry: “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (v. 24). Paul abandoned seeking an answer for a holy life in himself. We get desperate for our bodies to cooperate with our attempts at holiness. We seek better moods, healthier attitudes, and improved behaviors. Failing, we grab at remedies: vitamin supplements, career change, accountability partners, a good therapist, etc. Paul’s desperation passed the stage of thinking “What can I do to improve my behavior? Is there a book to read!?” These had failed. He cried out, “Who?” Paul, as it were, was driven out from his own body. He pointed at it, saying, “Who can deliver me from this wretched body?” He gave up on his own ability to be a better Christian. He abandoned trying harder. He looked for someone to deliver him.
This is a cry of repentance and faith. A person is saved from guilt and condemnation through repentance and faith in Jesus. They repent of their sins as well as their attempt to save themselves. They must repent of their self-confidence.
The Laodicean church thought themselves rich, clothed in good works, needing nothing. God saw they were wretched, miserable, blind, poor, and naked (Rev 3:17). Christ commanded them, “Repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” (Rev 3:19b–20). Unbelievers need to repent, turning from their own efforts to be righteous. They must, in faith, receive Jesus as their savior. Yet this letter was written to Christians who trusted their own abilities to live in holiness. The gospel of sanctification demanded the same response as the gospel of salvation: repentance and faith in the one who delivers all who come to him. As they had received Jesus Christ as their Lord, they must walk in him (Col 2:6). They must still receive with meekness the engrafted Word that is able to save their souls (James 1:21).
Second, sanctification comes with increasing composure and clarity.
“I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin” (Rom 7:25).
The Composure: The answer to Paul’s cry came to him with composing assurance. The answer for his crisis and cry was Jesus. He is the answer for every cry for rescue. When we try in ourselves to do what Jesus would do in us, we get in his way. We will not rest ourselves in Christ until we throw ourselves upon Christ. The crisis of sanctification is the discovery that my sanctification is found in a Sanctifier. Having come to this crisis, we continue onward in this pattern of crisis and cry and composure. More crises will come. But that first violent breaking loose of the door of submission and surrender to his life for our holiness must come.
The Clarity: A crescendo of clarity enables us to move ahead in victorious living. Many believe Paul summed up his struggles in verses 7–24: “So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin” (v. 25). I, however, don’t think that is the case.
Paul sees the gap between his failing flesh and the new creation he is in Christ. He makes a distinction that births hope and strength as he goes forward to deal with the temptation and sin that will continue to express itself in his body. He says, “With the mind I myself serve the law of God.” Paul emphatically singles out his authentic, regenerated self [3]. “The new me—the redeemed and regenerated me—serves God’s laws.” But with a side glance he adds, “but with the flesh [I serve] the law of sin.”
This realization and distinction position him for victory over sin. Paul, as it were, comes outside his body in his crisis and his cry. He composes himself on Christ. Jesus is his answer. As a regenerate man resting on Christ, he is “I myself,” looking down on his flesh, ready to gain victory over its impulses. Soon he will show us the way forward into holiness. By the Spirit he will put to death the deeds done in his flesh (Rom 8:13). In this sense, Paul is standing apart from his own body, and, as the new man he is in Christ, he rests himself upon Jesus. Jesus will give him victory over the impulses of his flesh.
Do you know this crisis? Is this your cry? Have you found your composure in Christ? Do you see clearly and confidently what is before you?
Strangely, many of us hold to the gospel of our salvation (“Christ in my place, dying for my sins, bearing their penalty—he is my only hope of salvation”) and yet draw back from the gospel of our sanctification. “I’ll take it from here!” is our stubborn instinct. Why lean on the arm of flesh? It is time to repent and return and believe in him alone. To believe in him as the answer, not only for the penalty of our sins but for its power over us as well. Let us declare the gospel of sanctification, crisis and all. Let us bring the gospel to professing Christians. What if the crisis looks like they are getting saved all over again? So be it!
Our Statement of Faith
This path has been expressed in the long-standing C&MA statement of faith: “It is the will of God that each believer should be filled with the Holy Spirit and be sanctified wholly, being separated from sin and the world and fully dedicated to the will of God, thereby receiving power for holy living and effective service. This is both a crisis and a progressive experience wrought in the life of the believer subsequent to conversion.” Under this teaching, untold numbers of God’s people have been guided into the Christ-life.
A proposed change is before us, reading, “. . . positional sanctification occurs at conversion while experiential sanctification follows and involves both decisive points of complete surrender and a progressive experience through which Christ is formed in the life of the believer by the Spirit.”
Does this as clearly call for abandonment of self and reliance upon Christ alone for sanctification? Will this more faithfully guide new generations into the Christ-life? We will answer these questions at the coming General Council. Pray we will answer correctly.