What is Sanctification?

Sanctification can be defined as the process where we undergo a progressive work of making ourselves less prone to sin and more Christ-like in our daily lives. In simpler terms, we are making ourselves more like what God intends us to be and this is done through the help of God and the influence of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification is the second step in our ‘career’ as a believer of Jesus as the Christ and it is also the longest. The process of sanctification is a continuous action that we undertake after we become justified, and it does not conclude until we leave the physical world and enter the Kingdom of Heaven (as it is a continuous process, to refer to ‘being sanctified’ alludes to an act completed, whereas while we are still on earth in our physical bodies, we are not done with the process yet). What transpires is that we find ourselves moving more and more away from the desire to sin as we get older. This progressive nature of sanctification will also orient ourselves to Jesus as the model for our behavior as noted in 1 Pet 2:21, ‘For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in His steps’.

When a believer receives Jesus, he is instantly justified. The Holy Spirit dwells within the believer and the guidance of the Spirit begins. The Spirit provides a moral compass of sorts that begins to work the love of God on the individual. Through this action the individual will be more responsive to direction by the Spirit away from the love of sin and towards God’s love. The result of this is the believer begins to feel a moral shift in their conscious selves. However, this is not to say that the person is totally immune from sin. A typical life of sanctification will be a series of peaks and valleys where the believer is strong in sanctification some days and on other days, they may struggle to keep their fleshly desires at bay.

The belief is that the process of sanctification requires both the person’s efforts and God’s. The person is sometimes believed to have a just a passive role, but this is not the case. We are to seek out, submit to God’s will and pray to God to sanctify us and to continue the sanctification through the Holy Spirit working in ourselves. Paul understood that we are dependent on the Holy Spirit for our growth in the sanctification process. Accordingly we are to see our selves as a temple for the Holy Spirit per such verses as Rom 12:1, ‘Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship.’ However, the believer will still have the responsibility to obey God’s will for us and to avoid the temptation of sin. Paul pointed this out in Rom 8:13 that we have to be actively looking to get away from sin: ‘for if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.’

Most importantly, sanctification is to bring great joy to us. It takes our sinful bodies and souls and prepares them for the moment when we are standing with God. The more we undergo the process, the more joy and love we feel as we become more like Jesus. This gives us a glimpse of what our lives are to be like when we are with the Father in Heaven.