Who God is
113. The Purifying Effects of God’s
Word
When
we were born again, the Spirit and nature of God were inserted into us and
united with our spirit.
However,
our “mind” has to be renewed (Romans 12:1-2). We obtain our “new mind” little by little as we grow in
God’s Word and mature.
I believe that we are not a dual personality or two people,
i.e., a new creature in Christ who is always battling with the other bad person
running around inside of us. It
may seem that way in our experience, but look at what the Word says in
Galatians and Romans:
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who
live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live
by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
“Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized
into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with
Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by
the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in
the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His
resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the
body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we
believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been
raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For
he death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives,
He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin,
but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:3-11).
So what is this “nature” in us that is always struggling
after purity and so often gets off track
and gives us bad thoughts? I
believe that it is the unregenerated mind. The brain has memory capacity in the form of trained
electronic waves. It took years to
train these brain waves, and sometimes it takes years to re-train them. The Word of God will renew our minds.
Romans 12:2 says,
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and
perfect will of God.”
Romans 7:23 says,
“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.”
Romans 8:7 says, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against
God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.”
1 Corinthians 2:16 says, “For ‘who has known the mind of
the LORD that he may instruct Him?’ But we
have the mind of Christ.”
Ephesians 4:17 says, “This I say, therefore, and testify in
the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in
the futility of their mind.”
Ephesians 4:23 says, “and be
renewed in the spirit of your mind.”
Philippians 2:5 says, “Let
this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 3:15 says,
“Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything
you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.”
World-known author and Bible teacher, Derek
Prince, wrote in his book, “The Spirit-Filled Believer’s Handbook,” chapter 7,
about the authority of God’s Word.
Used by permission.
Purifying Effects of God’s
Word Cleansing
The seventh
great effect of God’s Word is that of cleansing and sanctification. The key text for this is Ephesians 5:25-27:
“Christ also
loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse
it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a
glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should
be holy and without blemish.”
There are a number of
important points in this passage which deserve attention. Notice, first, that
the two processes of cleansing and sanctifying are thinly joined together. However, although these two processes
are closely related, they are not identical. The distinction between them is
this: that which is truly sanctified must of necessity be absolutely pure and
clean; but that which is pure and clean need not necessarily be in the fullest
sense sanctified. In other words,
it is possible to have purity, or cleanness, without sanctification. But it is
not possible to have sanctification without purity, or cleanness.
Thus cleansing
is an essential part of sanctification but not the whole of it. Later in this study we shall examine
more closely the exact meaning of the word sanctification.
Turning again
to Ephesians 5 we notice, second, that one main, definite purpose for which
Christ redeemed the church is “that He might sanctify and cleanse it” (v. 26).
Thus the purpose
of Christ’s atoning death for the church as a whole, and for each individual
Christian in particular, is not fulfilled until those who are redeemed by His
death have gone through a subsequent process of cleansing and sanctifying. Paul makes it plain that only those
Christians who have gone through this process will be in the condition necessary
for their final presentation to Christ as His bride – and the condition which
he specifies is that of a glorious church, “not having spot, or wrinkle, or any
such thing ... holy and without blemish” (v. 27).
The third
point to notice in this passage is that the means which Christ uses to cleanse
and sanctify the church is “the washing of water by the word” (v. 26). It is God’s Word which is the means of
sanctifying and cleansing; in this respect the operation of God’s Word is
compared to the washing of pure water.
Even before
Christ’s atoning death upon the cross had actually been consummated, He had
already assured His disciples of the cleansing power of His Word which He had
spoken to them.
“You are
already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you” (John 15:3).
We see,
therefore, that the Word of God is a divine agent of spiritual cleansing,
compared in its operation to the washing of pure water.
Side by side
with the Word, we must also set the other great agent of spiritual cleansing
referred to by the apostle John.
“But if we
walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (I John 1:7).
Here John speaks of the cleansing
power of Christ’s blood, shed upon the cross, to redeem us from sin.
God’s
provision for spiritual cleansing always includes these two Divine agents – the
blood of Christ shed upon the cross and the washing with water by His
Word. Neither is complete without
the other. Christ redeemed us by His blood so that He might cleanse and
sanctify us by His Word.
John places
these two great operations of Christ in the closest possible connection with each
other. Speaking of Christ, he
says:
“This is He
who came by water and blood – Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and
blood. And it is the Spirit who
bears witness, because the Spirit is truth” (I John 5:6).
John declares
that Christ is not only the great Teacher who came to expound God’s truth to
men; He is also the great Savior who came to offer His blood to redeem men from
their sin. In each case it is the
Holy Spirit who bears testimony to Christ’s work – to the truth and authority
of His Word and to the merits and power of His blood.
John teaches
us, therefore, that we must never separate these two aspects of Christ’s
work. We must never separate the
Teacher from the Savior, nor the Savior from the Teacher.
It is not
enough to accept Christ’s teaching through the Word without also accepting and
experiencing the power of His blood to redeem and cleanse us from sin. On the other hand, those who claim
redemption through Christ’s blood must thereafter submit themselves to the
regular washing of His Word.
There are
various passages concerning the ordinances of the Old Testament sacrifices
which set forth, in type, the close association between the cleansing by
Christ’s blood and the cleansing by His Word. For instance, in the ordinances
of the tabernacle of Moses we read how God ordained that a laver of bronze
containing clean water was to be placed close to the sacrificial altar of
bronze and was to be used regularly in conjunction with it.
Then the Lord
spoke to Moses, saying: “You shall also make a laver of bronze, with its base
also of bronze, for washing. You
shall put it between the tabernacle of meeting and the altar. And you shall put water in it, for
Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet in water from it. When they go into the tabernacle of
meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn an offering made
by fire to the Lord, they shall wash with water, lest they die. So they shall wash their hands and their
feet, lest they die. And it shall
be a statute forever to them – to him and his descendants throughout their
generations” (Ex. 30:17-21).
If we apply
this picture to the New Testament, the sacrifice upon the bronze altar speaks
of Christ’s blood shed upon the cross for redemption from sin; the water in the
laver speaks of the regular spiritual cleansing which we can receive only
through God’s Word. Each alike is
essential to the eternal welfare of our souls. Like Aaron and his sons, we must regularly receive the
benefits of both, “lest we die.”
Sanctification
Having thus
noted the process of cleansing through God’s Word, let us now go on to consider
the further process of sanctification.
First, we must
consider briefly the meaning of this word sanctification. The ending of the word – ification –
occurs in many English words and always denotes an active process of doing or
making something. For example,
clarification means “making clear”; rectification means “making right or
straight”: purification means, “making pure,” and so on. The first part of the word
sanctification is directly connected with the word saint – in fact, it is
simply another way of writing the same word. Saint in turn is simply an alternative way of translating
the word which is more normally translated “holy.”
Thus, the simple,
literal meaning of sanctification is “making saintly,” or “making holy.”
The New
Testament mentions five distinct agents in connection with sanctification: 1)
the Spirit of God, 2) the Word of God, 3) the altar, 4) the blood of Christ, 5)
our faith. Following are the main
passages which mention these various agents of sanctification:
“God from the
beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and
belief in the truth” (2 Theses. 2:13).
Peter tells
Christians that they are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the
blood of Jesus Christ” (I Pet. 1:2).
Thus, both
Paul and Peter mention “sanctification of [or by] the Holy Spirit” as an
element of Christian experience.
Sanctification
through the Word of God was referred to by Christ Himself when He prayed to the
Father for His disciples.
“Sanctify them
by Your truth. Your word is truth”
(John 17:17).
Here we see
that sanctification comes through the truth of God’s Word. Sanctification
through the altar is likewise referred to by Christ. He told the Pharisees:
“Fools and
blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift?”
(Matt. 23:19).
Here Christ
endorses that which had already been taught in the Old Testament that the gift
which was offered in sacrifice to God was sanctified, made holy, set apart, by
being placed upon God’s altar. In
the New Testament, as we shall see, the nature of the gift and of the altar is
changed, but the principle still remains true that it is “the altar that
sanctifies the gift.”
Sanctification
through the blood of Christ is referred to in Hebrews 10:29. Here the author considers the case of
the apostate – the person who has known all the blessings of salvation but has
deliberately and openly rejected the Savior. Concerning such a person he asks:
“Of how much
worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled
the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was
sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?”
This passage shows that the
true believer who continues in the faith is sanctified by the blood of the new
covenant which he has accepted that is, by Christ’s own blood.
Sanctification
through faith is referred to by Christ Himself, as quoted by Paul as he related
the commission which he received from Christ to preach the gospel to the
Gentiles.
“To open their
eyes and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to
God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those
who are sanctified by faith in Me” (Acts 26:18).
Here we see
that sanctification is through faith in Christ. Summing up these passages, we arrive at this conclusion:
Sanctification, according to the New Testament, is through five great means or
agencies: 1) the Holy Spirit, 2) the truth of God’s Word, 3) the altar of
sacrifice, 4) the blood of Christ, and 5) faith in Christ.
The process
thus unfolded may be briefly outlined as follows:
Holy Spirit
initiates the work of sanctification in the heart and mind of each one whom God
has chosen in His eternal purposes.
Through the truth of God’s Word, as it is received in the heart and
mind, the Holy Spirit speaks, reveals the altar of sacrifice, separates the
believer from all that holds him back from God and draws him to place himself
in surrender and consecration upon that altar. There the believer is sanctified and set apart to God both
by the contact with the altar and by the cleansing and purifying power of the
blood that was shed upon the altar.
However, the exact extent to which each of these four sanctifying agents
– the Spirit, the Word, the altar and the blood – accomplish their sanctifying
work in each believer is decided by the fifth factor in the process; that is,
by the individual faith of each believer.
In the work of sanctification, God does not violate the one great law
which governs all His works of grace in each believer – the law of faith.
“As you have believed, so let
it be done for you” (Matt. 8: 13).
Let us now examine a little
more closely the part played by God’s Word in this process of
sanctification. First, we must
note that there are two aspects to sanctification – one negative and the other
positive. The negative aspect consists in being separated from sin and the
world and from all that is unclean and impure. The positive aspect consists in being made partaker of God’s
holy nature.
In much preaching, both on
this and on other related subjects, there is a general tendency to
overemphasize the negative at the expense of the positive. As Christians we tend to speak much
more about the “do nots” in God’s Word than about the “dos.” For example, in
Ephesians 5:18 we usually lay much more stress upon the negative, “do not be
drunk with wine,” than we do upon the positive, “be filled with the Spirit.”
However, this is an inaccurate and unsatisfactory way to present God’s Word.
With regard to
holiness, the Scriptures make it plain that this is something much more than a
negative attitude of abstaining from sin and uncleanness. For example, in Hebrews 12:10 we are
told that God, as a heavenly Father, chastens us, His children, for our profit
that we may be partakers of His holiness.
Again, in I Peter 1:15-16 we read:
“But as He who
called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is
written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”
We see that
holiness is a part of God’s eternal, unchanging nature. God was holy before sin ever entered
into the universe, and God will still be holy when sin has once again been
banished forever. We, as God’s
people, are to be partakers of this part of His eternal nature. Separation from sin, just like
cleansing from sin, is a stage in this process, but it is not the whole
process. The final, positive
result which God desires in us goes beyond both cleansing and separation.
God’s Word
plays its part both in the negative and in the positive aspects of
sanctification. Paul describes the
negative aspect in Romans 12:1-2.
“I beseech you
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable
service. And do not be conformed
to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may
prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
There are four successive
stages in the process which Paul here describes.
1.
Presenting our bodies as living sacrifices upon God’s altar we have already
seen that the altar sanctifies that which is presented upon it.
2. Not
being conformed to the world – that is, being separated from its vanity and
sin.
3. Being
transformed by the renewing of our minds – that is, learning to think in
entirely new terms and values.
4.
Getting to know God’s will personally for our lives. This revelation of God’s will is granted only to the renewed
mind. The old, carnal, unrenewed
mind can never know or understand God’s perfect will.
It is here, in
the renewing of the mind, that the influence of God’s Word is felt. As we read, study and meditate in God’s
Word, it changes our whole way of thinking. It both cleanses us with its inward washing and separates us
from all that is unclean and ungodly.
We learn to think about things – to estimate them, to evaluate them – as
God Himself thinks about things.
In learning to
think differently, of necessity, we also act differently. Our outward lives are changed in
harmony with our new inward processes of thought. We are no longer conformed to the world because we no longer
think like the world. We are
transformed by the renewing of our minds.
However, not
to be conformed to the world is merely negative. It is not a positive end in itself. If we are not to be conformed to the
world, to what then are we to be conformed? The answer is plainly stated by
Paul.
“For whom He
[God] foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son,
that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29).
Here is the
positive end of sanctification: to be conformed to the image of Christ. It is not enough that we are not
conformed to the world – that we do not think and say and do the things that
the world does. This is merely
negative. Instead of all this, we
must be conformed to Christ – we must think and say and do the things that
Christ would do.
Paul dismisses
the negative type of holiness as quite inadequate.
“Therefore, if you died with
Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the
world, do you subject yourselves to regulations – “Do not touch, do not taste,
do not handle,” which all concern things which perish with the using?”
(Colossians 2:20-22).
True
sanctification goes far beyond this barren, legalistic, negative attitude. It is a positive conforming to the
image of Christ Himself', a positive partaking of God’s own holiness.
This positive aspect of
sanctification, and the part played in it by God’s Word, is beautifully summed
up by Peter.
“His [God’s]
divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness,
through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have
been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these
you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is
in the world through lust” (2 Peter 1:3-4).
There are
three main points to notice here.
1. God’s
power has already provided us with all that we need for life and
godliness. The provision is
already made. We do not need to
ask God to give us more than He has already given. We merely need to avail ourselves to the full of that which
God has already provided.
2. This
complete provision of God is given to us through the exceedingly great and
precious promises of His own Word.
The promises of God already contain within them all that we shall ever
need for life and godliness. All
that remains for us now to do is to appropriate and to apply these promises by
active, personal faith.
3. The
result of appropriating and applying God’s promises is two-fold, both negative
and positive. Negatively, we
escape the corruption that is in the world through lust; positively, we are
made partakers of the divine nature.
Here is the complete process of sanctification that we have described:
both the negative escape from the world’s corruption, and the positive
partaking of God’s own nature, of God’s own holiness.
All this
– both the negative and the positive – is made available to us through the
promises of God’s Word. It is in
measure as we appropriate and apply the promises of God’s Word that we
experience true, scriptural sanctification.
Jacob once dreamed of a
ladder reaching from earth to heaven.
For the Christian, the counterpart to that ladder is found in God’s
Word. Its foot is set on earth, but
its head reaches heaven – the plane of God’s being. Each rung in that ladder is a promise. As we lay hold by the hands and feet of
faith upon the promises of God’s Word, we lift ourselves up by them out of the
earthly realm and closer to the heavenly realm. Each promise of God’s Word, as we claim it, lifts us higher
above earth’s corruption and imparts to us a further measure of God’s nature.
Sanctification is by
faith. But that faith is not
merely negative or passive. The
faith that truly sanctifies consists in a continual, active appropriating and
applying of the promises of God’s Word.
It was for this reason that Jesus prayed to the Father:
“Sanctify them
by Your truth. Your word is truth”
(John 17:17).
The following is the quote from Richard Wurmbrand’s
devotional book, “Reaching Toward the Heights”:
“Put on the
new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness”
(Ephesians 4:24).
Ordinarily,
men confuse holiness with goodness, though these are different virtues. “God saw everything that he had made,
and, behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). After this “very good,” followed something entirely
different.
“God blessed
the seventh day and sanctified it” (Genesis 2:3). Sanctification belongs to another sphere than goodness.
A man can be
very good, without being holy or put aside for God. There are extreme cases when men are holy without being
good. Where is the goodness of
Gideon, Jael, Joshua? They were fighters for the triumph of the chosen
people. By this they were
holy. Those who have read the
lives of Athanasius, Luther, and Calvin, see little trace of goodness in
them. These men fought ruthlessly
for a truth entrusted to them, hitting their adversaries relentlessly. The truth must be victorious.
We become holy
by feeding upon the right spiritual food.
In an
experiment it was found that worms which usually live in the darkness could be
conditioned to leave this habitat and to prefer the light. As often as they would withdraw into
darkness, they would get electric shocks, whereas if they came out in the
light, they found abundant food.
With time, these beings “put on a new worm,” to use the biblical
expression. Contrary to the habits
of their species, from that time on they preferred the light to darkness. Then these worms were cut into small
pieces and added in the food given to other worms: and, lo, these worms also
changed their habits. They had
increased, with the addition of the flesh of the new breed of worms, their Ribonucleic
acid, the depository of memory.
They would shun darkness and prefer light just as the beings upon which
they had fed. Similar experiments
have also been made with other animals.
If you wish to
put on the new man, a man of righteousness and holiness, feed upon Christ. He has become flesh in order that He
might become your daily food.
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