we welcome you back tonight to our 19th class meeting of Intermediate Biblical Counseling. It's a great joy to gather tonight in this webinar format and to continue our study of the Word of God. I just want to thank you for your faithfulness to this time, and thank you for your diligent study in the Word, and it's a great joy to be able to partner with you as you continue your training in biblical counseling.

We're so excited about what God is doing in the biblical counseling movement. As you know, tomorrow begins the ACBC National Conference, which is all going to be offered online this year, and if you haven't registered for that, I believe that there will be the videos made available after the conference is completed, but we are looking forward to a wonderful time hearing from the Word of God as a number of great speakers speak on the subject of spiritual warfare in biblical counseling ministry.

I'm thankful to have my own senior pastor, Pastor Philip DeCourcy, as one of the plenary speakers at that event, and we're looking forward to being ministered to by the speakers at that conference. So just a joy to be part of what God is doing around the nation in biblical counseling ministry, and thankful for your part in this training.

Tonight we have a wonderful subject. We're looking at the subject of past, present, and future sanctification, which is theology exam number 19, and I trust this study will be a very practical one for all of us to apply to our own lives first and foremost, and then use in counseling ministry as we minister to those who are dealing with the issues of life.

So we're marching right along in our study, and tonight we're looking at the doctrine of sanctification. Let me pray for us, and let's ask for the Lord's blessing on our study together. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you as your children, and we just thank you for the joy of being able to come with confidence and with boldness into your presence.

Thank you for the work of Christ, which is sufficient to pay for all of our sins, and thank you, Lord, that in Christ and because of Christ, we are accepted and beloved because of the work that he has done on our behalf. We thank you that you have given us not only the work of your Son, but we thank you that you have given to us the ministry of your Holy Spirit, who sanctifies us and makes us more into the likeness of Christ, and we pray that the Spirit would do a good work in our hearts and our lives today as we open your Word and as we study its truths.

Help us to become more like Christ. We're reminded of the words of the old saint who said that the greatest need of my people is my own personal holiness. Father, truly this is the greatest need of those whom we minister to. It's our own personal sanctification, our own walk with you.

We pray that, Father, you would help us to become more holy and that we would be sanctified instruments that you may use for your glory and for your purposes. So help us to understand this doctrine. Help us to apply it to our own lives first and then to the lives of others, and we give this time to you in Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen. Okay, we're going to dive right into our study for tonight. We are looking at theology exam number 19, past, present, and future sanctification. So I'll go ahead and read the question. The question on the exam is to explain the biblical categories of past, present, and future sanctification.

Just to put this question in its context, you'll remember that a few weeks ago we studied the great doctrine of justification, the blessing of justification which concerns the grace of imputed righteousness. This is the doctrine which deals with our positional righteousness before God in justification. As you remember, there is a double imputation.

All of our sins are reckoned to Christ at the cross. God treats Jesus as if he has sinned every single one of our sins, although Jesus Christ lived a perfect life. And then the double imputation is that God then takes all of Christ's righteousness, this perfect spotless record of human righteousness and obedience to the holy law of God, and God reckons it or imputes it to our account by grace alone through faith alone.

So that at the moment of conversion, when any sinner believes in Christ, the full record of Christ's righteousness is imputed or reckoned to that sinner at the moment of conversion. The justification, as you'll remember from that study, is a point in time declaration. It is a legal or forensic declaration in which God declares the sinner to be righteous in Christ.

So the full record of Christ's righteousness is granted to us at the moment that we believe in Christ. Now, that's a brief review of what we looked at a few weeks ago under the doctrine of justification, but you'll remember in that study I said to you that a proper understanding of justification will lead to a biblical understanding of sanctification.

If you truly understand the doctrine of justification and the full imputed righteousness of Christ that has been granted to us at the moment of our conversion, it will lead you to desire to live a holy life. No one who is truly justified before the holy law of God then turns around and says, "Well, I want to go ahead and sin all that I want.

I want to live a prodigal life. I want to live in disobedience to God's word." That is not the fruits of true conversion. Anyone who is truly justified before the holy law of God, who has received this amazing grace of this point in time declaration, then desires to live a holy life.

And so a right understanding of justification leads to a desire for sanctification. So these two graces go together. Anyone who is truly justified desires to be sanctified. You'll remember from that study a few weeks ago that I said to you we must take pains to distinguish between the grace of justification and the grace of sanctification.

We must always hold them to be distinct, but we must always take pains to hold them together, that no one receives justification without also desiring sanctification. And so all of that is a introduction and a segue into our study tonight. Having received the grace of justification, we now desire to be sanctified.

And so we're making a transition here from positional righteousness to practical righteousness. We are making a transition from the point in time declaration of God at the moment of our conversion to the practical aspects of the Christian life. How do we actually grow and change? How do we actually become more holy?

How do we actually become more like Christ? In justification, God saves us from the penalty of sin. In sanctification, we see the fruit of how God has saved us from the power of sin. Now, as we're going to see in this essay, the term sanctification is usually used to describe our present pursuit of holiness in our daily lives.

Now, if you look at that question, the question is explain the biblical categories of past, present, and future sanctification. Just to kind of coach you on this essay question, when we usually use the term sanctification, we're usually talking about that middle aspect, the present aspect of sanctification. When I usually in conversation talk to people in the church and say, "I'm dealing with issues of sanctification," or if someone says to me, "I'm dealing with an aspect of sanctification," we're usually in our common language referring to the present aspects of sanctification.

That's how the term usually is used. It's used to describe the Christian life. It's used to describe daily Christian living. It's used to describe how we're actually seeking to be more kind, be more forgiving, be more gracious, be less angry, be less anxious. It's usually just used to describe our continual growth in Christlikeness.

When we usually use the term sanctification, we're referring to the present aspect of sanctification. So, you might be saying, "Well, why does the question ask us to explain the biblical categories of past, present, and future sanctification?" And the answer is the essay question is asking you to stretch a little bit to see the present aspect of sanctification in its context.

So, they're not gonna let us get away with kind of being comfortable and just referring to the usage of the term that we're familiar with because we're familiar with using sanctification in reference to present daily growth in Christ, present daily growth in Christlikeness. What this essay is really asking you to do is to zoom out and to get a broader picture of sanctification and discuss the biblical categories of past sanctification, present sanctification, and future sanctification.

And we'll see how all of this fits together. But just a general approach to this would be one paragraph per aspect of sanctification would be a good approach to writing this essay. If you did perhaps an introductory paragraph dealing with just sanctification in general, the term sanctification and the meaning of sanctification, that would be a good introduction.

And then if you follow that first paragraph with one paragraph dealing with past sanctification, one paragraph dealing with present sanctification, and then one paragraph dealing with future sanctification, that would be a four-paragraph essay. That would be enough to get you to a page and a half, I'm sure. And so, that's just a very simple breakdown of one way of writing this essay.

But what are the three categories of sanctification? We'll do a little more detailed work on this, but just an overview that sanctification has a past aspect. The Bible uses the terms "sanctification" or "sanctified" in the past tense. We have been sanctified. And we'll look at some scriptures as we go along.

So, there is a past aspect to sanctification. Theologians refer to this as definitive or positional sanctification. This is the sanctification that we have already received. We have been sanctified. We have received sanctification. And so, that is referring to the decisive break between the believer and the power of sin that has occurred at the moment of our conversion.

So, there is a past aspect to sanctification. But you'll see the second usage is the one we're familiar with. It's the present aspect of sanctification. This is our daily fight against sin. This is our daily progress in Christ likeness. Paul said, "I leave what lies behind. I press forward to what lies ahead.

I'm daily seeking to know Christ. I'm daily seeking to be more like Christ." There are the present aspects of pursuing sanctification. So, the Bible not only describes sanctification in the past tense. We have been sanctified. But the Bible refers to sanctification in the present tense, that we are to pursue sanctification in the Lord.

And so, theologians refer to this as progressive sanctification, or we might refer to this as practical sanctification. And then we have the third aspect, which is the future aspect of sanctification, which is also known as ultimate or perfective sanctification. So, the Bible says we have been sanctified. The Bible says we are to pursue sanctification.

And then the Bible says we will be sanctified. And so, there is a future aspect of sanctification. We live in, as I mentioned, in that second category, the present aspect. We live in the aspect of progressive sanctification. And just for a moment, I want to make a note as to why the present aspect of sanctification is so important.

Just a word here. The ACBC essays, Theology Exam #19 and Theology Exam #20, both deal with the doctrine of sanctification. So, this is how important this doctrine is to the ministry of biblical counseling. ACBC wants you to write at least two essays on the doctrine of sanctification. We could make an argument that Theology Exam #21, which deals with the role of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life, we could make an argument that that essay also deals with the subject of sanctification for it is the Holy Spirit's ministry to make us more holy.

So, all of that to say that at least two essays, possibly three essays, are devoted to the subject of sanctification. That is how important this doctrine is to the ministry of biblical counseling. ACBC wants you to thoroughly understand this doctrine and be able to apply it to the issues that a counselee faces.

And the question would be, why is this doctrine so important for the ministry of biblical counseling? Why is it so important that biblical counselors understand the doctrine of sanctification? We might ask the question, what are we actually trying to do with people when we counsel them? So, when someone comes for counseling and sits down with me, and when we talk about life's problems, and when we open a discussion, what am I actually trying to do with this person?

What is the end goal of my meeting with this person? And we laid the foundation in year one of our basic training course that the goal of meeting with a counselee is not merely to help that person feel better about life, even though I'll make a statement that I do hope that a person feels better after they meet with me or any one of our biblical counselors.

That is not the main goal of our counseling ministry. It's not merely to allow the counselee to vent or to express emotions or to get something off their chest. You'll see many counseling models actually have this as a stated goal of their counseling practice. They want to help the counselee to merely vent or to release emotion or to let something off their chest, and I'm not doubting that there's an aspect of that to counseling ministry, but that is not the stated goal of a biblical counselor.

What are we trying to do with people in counseling ministry? And the simple answer is we want our counselees to be more sanctified. We want to help them to grow to be more like Christ. If I've met with a counselee for a number of weeks and I've allowed the counselee to release a large amount of negative emotion or negative thoughts, but I've never led them to the scriptures and helped them through a process where they can actually grow in holiness and grow to be more like Christ, then I really have not fulfilled my purpose as a biblical counselor.

My stated aim in counseling ministry is to help a counselee to become more like Christ. I pray and I converse and I open the scriptures and I listen well because I want to help the counselee to be more sanctified. Because that is the stated goal of counseling ministry, it is crucial that we have a biblical understanding of sanctification, and that's just an overview of why ACBC is asking you to write two to three essays on the doctrine of sanctification.

Let me just encourage you to do some really good work here. Dig deep and study well and read thoroughly. Just get as much knowledge and biblical understanding of the doctrine of sanctification as you can possibly accomplish. Make it a lifelong pursuit to study the doctrine of sanctification. Read good works on this subject.

Be alert to aberrant or inaccurate teachings that would hold a false understanding of sanctification. Those are always coming around, by the way. Aberrant teachings on the doctrine of sanctification are always coming around in the church, and there's always some form of teaching that says you don't really need to be sanctified, you don't really need to pursue sanctification, or you've somehow reached some level of sanctification after 20 or 25 years of becoming a Christian that you don't actually need to continue to pursue sanctification.

There's always these false doctrines, these false teachings that come around and infect the church that hold forth a wrong doctrine of sanctification, and so you want to make it your life's ambition to study this doctrine, to know it well, to know how it applies to life, and to know practically how to use it in counseling ministry.

So, I just want to encourage you along those lines. Now, on your handout there, I've listed some resources that will help you think through this doctrine. Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology has a good section on the doctrine of sanctification. Heath Lambert's Theology of Biblical Counseling also has a good section on sanctification.

I would highly recommend to you Anthony Hokema's book Saved by Grace. Get your hands on that book. It's well worth the price of admission, and the chapter on sanctification is worth the price of the entire book. It's just an excellent chapter that does a great job of especially distinguishing the aspect of past sanctification and the aspect of present sanctification.

Hokema does a great job dealing with the aspect of definitive or positional sanctification, and then contrasting that with the believer's pursuit of progressive sanctification. And he shows how you can't pursue present-day sanctification without understanding definitive or positional sanctification. So, I would highly recommend that book to you and ask you to get your hands on Saved by Grace.

And then, two journal articles that I've sent to you via the Dropbox. The first is Dr. Mayhew's article, "Sanctification, the Biblical Basics," in the Master's Seminary Journal. That has an excellent overview of the doctrine of sanctification. And then, Dr. Barak's article entitled, "Sanctification, the Work of the Holy Spirit and Scripture," is a very good treatment of how progressive sanctification takes place.

Mayhew's article deals more with the overview of past, present, and future sanctification. Dr. Barak's work zeroes in on that second present aspect, progressive sanctification, and shows how progressive sanctification is a work of the Holy Spirit and Scripture. And I think you would be greatly encouraged if you read that article, and it is a good treatment of present-day sanctification.

So, just some good resources there to help you think through this topic. Now, going back to the question, the question is, "Explain the biblical categories of past, present, and future sanctification." Let me move to the next page of your handout, and let's do an overview of this great subject.

I have a simple statement at the top of your handout there, and that is, "As believers, we are called to pursue sanctification. This pursuit is continuous, and it is lifelong. We never arrive at a level of sanctification where we no longer need to pursue greater growth in our spiritual lives, and we can define sanctification as simply the process of becoming more holy.

Sanctification is the process of becoming more holy. The term "sanctification" is derived from the Latin term "sanctus," meaning "holy," and "ficari," meaning "to make," and so the term simply means "to make holy." The Greek term "hagios" is translated by the English word "holy," and that word is used 230 times in the New Testament.

"Hagios" is the foundational root word for "hagiosune," meaning "holiness," "hagiosmos," meaning "sanctification," "hagiazo," meaning "to make holy" or "to sanctify," and it is also the foundational root word for "hagios," meaning "saint." All of those words have a foundational idea of being set apart or being made holy. The aspect of being set apart is really key to understanding the term "to make holy." To be holy is to be set apart for God's purposes.

It's to be set apart from sin. It's to be set apart from the world, and it is the idea of being consecrated or set apart unto the purposes of God, and so it does include the moral aspect of being set apart from impurity and being set apart from sin, but it has a broader aspect as well of being consecrated, of being devoted to the purposes of God, and all of that underlies the ideas of holiness, sanctification, and to be sanctified.

You have these terms used throughout the New Testament Scriptures. For example, Jesus prayed to the Father in John 17, verse 17, "Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth." Who is Jesus praying for? He's praying for all those who would believe in His name. He's praying for believers.

He's praying not only for the disciples in the upper room that night, but all those who would believe in Christ through the disciples' ministry in the future, and He is praying that those believers would be made holy, that they would be set apart, that they would be separated from the world and separated from sin and consecrated to the holy things of God.

He says, "Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth." So, Jesus dies on the cross. He rises from the grave. He gives to His disciples the Great Commission. He ascends to the right hand of the Father. The disciples go out, and they proclaim the Word of God, and sinners believe in Christ through the proclaimed Word.

They become believers. And what happens as a result of all these people coming to faith in Jesus Christ? Well, the church is born, and the church continues the work of the Great Commission in proclaiming the Word of God and making disciples. And you have at the end of Paul's apostolic ministry, local churches that have been birthed and formed in the Gentile regions, as the gospel goes from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth to the Gentile world.

And so, very interestingly, you have an example of the church at Corinth, and the Apostle Paul writes the epistle of 1 Corinthians, and how does he address the church at Corinth, those who have believed in Christ? Now, draw the connection between Christ's prayer in the upper room, where he prayed for all those who would come to faith through the disciples' ministry.

Draw that connection to the statement of Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 2. Paul says, "To the church of God that is in Corinth," and watch this, he says, "to those who," past tense, "sanctified in Christ Jesus," and then notice the noun form, "who are called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours." So, you see there that the church has been sanctified, past tense, definitive sanctification, and therefore the church has the identity of being saints, noun form, present tense, reality.

So, sainthood is not this upper level of spirituality that is gained through certain good works. Every believer, Paul says, is a saint of God. Every believer has been sanctified and therefore is a saint. Now, let me ask you this question. Did the church at Corinth struggle with their present-day sanctification?

Did they have present-day sanctification issues? If you read the book of 1 Corinthians, you realize that they had a lot of problems with their present-day sanctification. They had immorality and lawsuits and divisions in the church. They had doctrinal confusion. They had this unhealthy elevation of certain spiritual leaders. They had all sorts of present-day sanctification issues in the church.

Paul could have said as he opened the book, "Hey, you guys, you guys need to be more sanctified." But he opens the book by drawing their attention to their past sanctification, their definitive sanctification, which informs their identity as being saints. Now, I'm going to try to keep my comments short on this because we need to move on, but I do want to say that this has tremendous implications for counseling ministry.

When you are counseling someone who is struggling with sin, and most of our counselees are struggling with sin, most people don't come to us for counseling saying, "Actually, my sanctification is just going too great. It's going too wonderfully. I'm not struggling at all with sin in my life, and that's why I need counseling." I mean, that may happen every once in a while, but generally speaking, people come for counseling because they're struggling with sin.

And so when you are counseling someone who is struggling with sin, and you have come to a place where you have assurance that this person is a believer, this is a believer who is weighed down with temptation or is weighed down with sin, your temptation as a counselor may be to scold that believer or to kind of berate that believer or to say, "Get serious about your Christian life," or to just shame that believer into being more sanctified.

And I will tell you from 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 2 that if you do that, you are not following the pattern of the Apostle Paul, because Paul's approach was first to affirm the fact that this believer has received past-tense sanctification, affirm the fact that this person's identity is present-tense a saint of God, and then on that basis, then exhort that believer to present-day sanctification.

What does that mean? It means that when I'm sitting with Bill in a counseling session, and Bill is struggling with an anger problem, and Bill is seeking to become more holy, my temptation may be just to kind of shame Bill into getting serious about this sin. But instead, I need to go back to the apostolic pattern.

I just say, "Bill, based on your profession of faith in Jesus Christ, I just want to affirm, first of all, that you are a saint of God, and that sin has no dominion over you. You are not a slave to sin because of the grace you have received in Jesus Christ, and I have confidence, Bill, that if you are humble and you come under the Word of God, I have confidence.

I have every reason to believe that you can grow, and you can become more sanctified, because you are a saint of God, and that is the tone and the approach I want to bring in the counseling ministry. In fact, Bill, could I go so far as to call you Saint Bill?

I know that might be kind of a weird thing to receive, but I have the right to call you that based upon what the teaching of God's Word says, and I'm going to call you to sanctification because you are a saint. That's just a different approach than shame and guilt and just kind of berating a counselee into getting serious about the Christian life.

I need to move on. You see there in 2 Corinthians 7 verse 1, the same term, "Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God." And 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 3 says, "For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality.

For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness." Dr. Berrick writes this, "A proper view of the saint's sanctification must include an accurate understanding of the holiness of God. His holiness is the foundation of believers' holiness. Once the student of Scripture has identified the concept of holiness, he can develop the meaning of sanctification by applying the biblical concept of holiness to sanctification.

Sanctification is the process of making holy." 1 Peter 1 verse 14 says, "As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who has called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. Since it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy.'" Just a note there that if God's holiness is the foundation for the believers' pursuit of holiness, then what we are saying is that sanctification is the process of becoming more conformed to what is infinitely beautiful.

Just a word of encouragement. I won't have time to develop all of this, but sanctification is beautiful. Psalm 96 verse 9, "Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness." The King James Version has, "Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." Dane Ortlund has said, "To become a Christian is to become alive to beauty." John Piper writes, "What is this beauty of holiness in God?

It is the infinite worth of his transcendent, Trinitarian fullness, along with the perfect harmony between that worth and all his feeling and thinking and acting. The beauty of God's holiness is this perfect harmony between all that God does and the infinite value of all that God is." God is beautiful.

And so as a believer grows in sanctification, we are witnessing the beautiful work of God in that believer's life. That is why I am excited about counseling ministry is I get a front row view as to seeing God do a beautiful work in a counselee's life as that believer becomes more holy.

So with that said, let's move to the next page of your handout and just get a view of past, present, and future sanctification. And we'll look at the three ways that the word "sanctify" and "sanctification" are used in the New Testament. And we'll begin with the past tense. We have been sanctified.

We have been sanctified. This is a past act, as I mentioned, that leads to a present day reality. We notice 1 Corinthians 1 verse 2, the church at Corinth was sanctified in Christ Jesus. You have 1 Corinthians 1 verse 30 referring to a past completed act. And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, and sanctification and redemption.

1 Corinthians 6 verse 11, Paul says, "And such were some of you." Note the description here of completed action. Paul says, "You were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God." And then in Acts chapter 20 verse 32, Paul says to the elders at Ephesus, "And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified." Towards the bottom of your handout there, W.E.

Vine writes that every believer is sanctified in Christ Jesus. A common New Testament designation of all believers is saints, hagioi, sanctified, or holy ones. The sainthood or sanctification is not an attainment. It is the state into which God in grace calls sinful men. And in which they begin their course as Christians.

In other words, because you are a saint, you ought to live pursuing sanctification. John Murray says this, "It is a fact to frequently overlook that in the New Testament, the most characteristic terms that refer to sanctification are used," watch this, very important, "they are used not of a process, but of a once for all definitive act." What exactly does that mean?

Murray continues, "This means that there is a decisive and definitive breach with the power and service of sin. In the case of everyone who has come under the control of the provisions of grace, as we cannot allow for any reversal or repetition of the resurrection of Christ, so we cannot allow for any compromise on the doctrine that every believer is a new man, that the old man has been crucified, that the body of sin has been destroyed, and that as a new man in Christ Jesus, he serves God in the newness, which is none other than that of the Holy Spirit of whom he has become the habitation and his body, the temple." I love that statement.

Past tense, sanctification. We have been sanctified. What does that mean? There's been a decisive and definitive break of the power of sin over the believer's life. We no longer are slaves to sin because we have received sanctification. And what Murray is saying is that this past tense aspect of sanctification does not receive as much press as it ought to in the modern day church.

We tend to move straight into issues dealing with present day sanctification or present tense progressive sanctification, and we don't give enough thought and consideration to definitive or positional sanctification to the aspect of sin no longer has dominion over me, for I have received sanctification in Christ. Anthony Hokema says this, "We conclude that definitive sanctification means not only a decisive break with the enslaving power of sin, but also a decisive and irreversible union with Christ in his resurrection, a union by means of which the believer is enabled to live in newness of life." What an incredible statement.

Theology exam number 19 is tied together with theology exam number 18, the doctrine of union with Christ. You ask the question, how is it that we as believers have been sanctified? How is it that this decisive and irreversible break has occurred between the power of sin and the believer's life?

It is by virtue of the fact that the believer has been raised with Christ. We have been so united with Christ in his life, death, and resurrection that when Christ died, we died. When he rose, we rose. And because he has risen to newness of life, the power of sin has been broken over the believer, and we have received sanctification.

Now, friends and counselors in training, can I say to you that that is good news that you need to use in counseling ministry. You need to use this truth. You need to sit with a believer who's discouraged, who's tempted, who is weak in faith, who is just saying, "I've been struggling with a sin all my life, and I can't grow, and I'll never make progress." And you need to use this truth to help that believer have hope for their own sanctification.

You need to use this truth with a married couple who's just so embroiled in conflict, so embroiled with arguments that they just don't know their way out. And there may be anger issues there, or communication problems there. You need to bring hope to that believer, to those believers who are in that marriage, and just saying that you are saints, that you have received sanctification, and therefore, on that basis, you can pursue sanctification in the Lord.

So let me move to the next page to present day sanctification. Present day sanctification. Past tense, we have been sanctified. So present tense, we are being sanctified. This is what theologians refer to as progressive sanctification. We have received not only the grace of no longer living under the power of sin, but we have received imperatives, commands of scripture, exhortations, which call us to pursue sanctification.

Romans 6 verse 19, Paul says, "So now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification." Verse 22, "But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life." So notice this, friends, very carefully.

Paul does not say you have been sanctified and you have received sanctification, past tense. Therefore, you can kind of coast your way to become more holy. You can kind of just let go, let God. You can kind of just relax and you don't need to read your Bible. You don't need to go to church.

You don't need to take the Lord's table. You don't need to fellowship with anyone. It's all been done in the past. So just relax and coast your way to sanctification. Notice that that is not Paul's language in the book of Romans or in any of his epistles. What Paul does is he affirms past tense sanctification and then he calls the believer to pursue sanctification through the use and through the devotion to the means of grace.

So I have no problem sitting with Bill in a counseling session and saying, "Bill, you are a saint of God. Bill, you have been sanctified. Bill, you no longer live under the power of sin. And therefore, Bill, I want you to read the Bible every day this week. Therefore, Bill, I want you to go to church every Sunday that we meet.

As long as we are meeting in counseling sessions, I want you to go to church every Sunday. Therefore, Bill, I want you to go to a small group and I want you to pray for three people this week. Your identity as a saint does not mean you can relax and coast your way to sanctification.

Your identity as a saint fuels and is the foundation for present-day obedience to the commands of God." And so this is the tenor and the perspective Paul brings to our sanctification. It's a good battle. It's a good fight. You see there in Hebrews 10, verse 14, the writer of Hebrews says, "For by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are present-tense being sanctified." Millard Erickson writes this, "The Holy Spirit works sanctification in the life of the believer.

By sanctification is meant the continued transformation of moral and spiritual character so that the life of the believer actually comes to mirror the standing which he or she already has in God's sight. While justification is an instantaneous act, giving the individual a righteous standing before God, sanctification is a process making the person holy or good.

The work," I love this, underline and circle this. This is so good. "The work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification then is not merely the negative work of mortification, but also the production of a positive likeness to Christ." I believe many times we think sanctification more in terms of the negative aspect of not sinning, not being angry, not being lazy, not being anxious, and not in terms of the positive aspects of what God is doing in our lives.

He's making us to look more like Christ. So a number of verses there. I'm going to move on to the next page and just hit a couple points. I believe this is on page five of your handout. Just a couple bullet points there that you want to think through.

Read Dr. Barak's work on sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit and the Word, but just noting there that sanctification is ultimately a work of the Holy Spirit. It does involve our responsible participation, but I'm so glad that this is true, that ultimately sanctification is not based upon my effort or my resources, but it is the work of the Holy Spirit in conforming the believer to Christ, and therefore I have hope that the Holy Spirit can and will sanctify me.

A number of verses there that you can look at, but just again, use this in counseling ministry. Use this to encourage counselees. Bill, by the power of the Spirit, I know that you can grow in this area of your life. By the power of the Spirit, I know that God will use our counseling sessions to do a good work in your life.

That's what we as biblical counselors offer that no other counseling perspective or methodology offers. We offer the power in the ministry of the Spirit, and then you note there that the means of the Spirit is the Word of God. The Holy Spirit works through the Scripture. The Holy Spirit never works apart from the Scripture.

The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to convict us, change us, mold us, and make us more into the likeness of Jesus Christ. This is why we ought to pray every time we sit under the teaching of God's Word, every time we go to church and hear the Word of God proclaimed, "Lord, use your Word, and by the power of the Spirit, may my heart be convicted and changed so that I would become more like Jesus Christ." The Word of God is called the sword of the Spirit.

Why are people struggling in their Christian lives? Very simply, we notice in many cases in our counseling ministry that the common denominator here is that people are simply not in the Word of God. You'll find this as you engage more in counseling, as you get involved in people's lives, you'll find that the reason why they're struggling with sin or feeling overcome with sin is because they're simply not in God's Word.

They're not reading God's Word on a daily basis. They're not hearing God's Word on a Sunday morning. They're just not engaged with the Word of God, and they might have some kind of lip service to the truthfulness of God's Word, but they are not personally interacting with the Word of God.

Therefore, they're not experiencing the power and the ministry of the Holy Spirit in their lives, and they are not being sanctified, and so we want to help people with that in counseling ministry. Okay, moving to the last page, the future tense of sanctification. We have been sanctified. We are being sanctified.

Then the future tense, we will be sanctified. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 23, Paul's benediction, "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely." What a great statement. "May your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Just a word here.

This is the desire of every Christian's heart. I mean, this is what we long for. The Christian, we used to love our sin as an unbeliever. When we placed our faith in Jesus Christ, it's not that we never sin again, but it is that we no longer love our sin.

We hate our sin, and we love righteousness, and we long to grow, and we long to become more holy, and we live in this tension of Romans 7. We don't do what we ought to do. We do what we don't want to do. The flesh wars against the Spirit.

The Spirit sets its desire against the flesh, and so we're continually battling for sanctification, but the true longing of the believer's heart is for holiness, and we long for that day when we will be sanctified completely. When we no longer struggle with temptation, we'll no longer struggle with sin, and that is the great hope that is held out by Paul in this benediction that the God of peace will himself sanctify the church, and then there's the beautiful word, completely, completely.

One day the church will be presented to Christ, as Ephesians 5 says, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, and in all blameless glory, we will be presented to Christ and dwell with Him forever and ever. 1 John 3, verse 2, "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is." Anthony Hokema writes this, "The Bible indicates that the glory of God is the final end of our sanctification.

In other words, all the amazing blessings of our salvation, including our sanctification, have as their final goal the praise of the glory of God. Nothing in all of history will reveal the fullness of God's perfections as brilliantly as will the completed glorification of His people. God's purpose for us, in other words, is not just future happiness or a guaranteed entrance into heaven, but perfect likeness to Christ and therefore to Himself.

God could not, in fact, have designed a higher destiny for His people than that they should be completely like His only Son in whom He delights. Then we shall not only see Him face to face, but shall totally and undividedly live to the praise of the glory of His grace, world without end." That's the glorious hope of every believer in Christ.

One day, we shall perfectly be like Christ. So, I leave you with the words of Johnny Erickson Tada, who said this, and these words are so appropriate to year 2020 as they were in the days when she said these words. She said, "Suffering is the textbook that will teach you who you really are." I was just discussing this with a brother this week at church in fellowship after the service.

2020 has been a long year, and it is a year that has revealed where we really are spiritually. I mean, it is a year that has been designed to sanctify us, but first, it is a year that has contained many various trials which have been designed to show us where we really are spiritually.

And this echoes what Johnny Tada has said. Suffering will teach you who you really are. Suffering is the textbook that will show you the stuff of which you are really made. It will sandblast you. It will strip you bare. It will strip you of all your sinful ways, leaving your soul raw and exposed, but also that you might be better bonded to the Savior.

And then after she talks about the role of suffering in this life and making us more like Christ in our present sanctification, she begins to reflect on her future sanctification, what we've called ultimate or perfective sanctification. And she says this, "Don't be thinking that when I get to heaven, I'm most looking forward to a new body free from cancer or pain or quadriplegia.

Don't be thinking that when I get to be with Jesus, I'm going to relish mostly in jumping up and dancing and kicking and doing aerobics. What I'm looking forward to mostly is the new heart, the glorified heart that is free from sin, free from selfishness, free from self-centeredness, free of fear of the future, free of the fear of everything, a heart that no longer feels trapped by circumstances or resists God or looks for an escape or tries to justify itself when it is wrong.

That will be glory for me, glory for me, when by his grace I shall look on his face. That will be glory, be glory for me." And what she's saying there is that as you're in the battle for present day sanctification, you can never lose sight of our future sanctification.

One day we will be completely sanctified and live in a world without sin or temptation or worldliness or the pollution of this world or of the flesh. We will be completely set apart unto God without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. And we shall worship God in the splendor of holiness forever and ever and days without end.

And because we have that great hope, we engage in this battle daily for sanctification and holiness in the Lord. I want to encourage you to write a great essay on this topic. I want to encourage you that this is a topic that is worthy of your careful study of a precise language of biblical understanding.

And I want to encourage you that this is a doctrine that if you study well and you write a good essay on, that you will use in counseling ministry, both to counsel your own heart for many years to come, Lord willing, but also to counsel others as your counselees deal with the issues of life.

And so I just ask for God's blessing on your study on this topic. Well, that's all I have for tonight. Thank you so much for joining us on this webinar. And thank you for being part of this class. I do want to make an announcement that next Sunday, we will not be meeting next Sunday.

My wife and I are going to be on a vacation next week, and we're looking forward to that time with our family. And so we're going to take a one week pause from our weekly meetings. We will resume with theology exam number 20 the following Sunday, and look forward to rejoining with that time.

But no class next Sunday. We'll see you in two weeks, and we trust that you'll have a wonderful time of study. So let me close this in prayer, and we'll be dismissed for tonight. Father, thank you for this great hope, Lord, that we have just discussed, that one day we shall be perfectly like Christ, that we will be sanctified completely, and that we will worship you in the splendor of holiness, forever and ever.

Father, we are engaged daily in the battle for sanctification, and I pray that, Lord, we may take heart in that battle, and that we would take the Word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit, and that we would immerse our hearts and our minds in your truth, and that the Spirit of God, through the Word of God, would do a beautiful work of sanctification in our lives, and conform us to the likeness of Christ.

Thank you for each of my brothers and sisters in Christ who have joined us tonight. Bless each one, and grant us a fruitful time of study, and we commit this time to you in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. God bless you. We will see you in two