THE CHRISTIAN IS SANCTIFIED IN CHRIST
In the Epistle to the Hebrews, when discussing our sanctification often does not make mention of the Holy Spirit, it is regarded as directly the work of Christ Himself (Heb. 2:11). Jesus was as stated 'sanctified' i.e. make perfect for His work for and by God, especially by means of His sufferings (Heb. 2:10). It is later in the epistle that the writer brings out the thought that it is through the sanctification of Jesus that we are sanctified (Heb. 10:10,14). John takes up the same thought in his gospel. We are sanctified or consecrated to the service of God in and through Jesus Himself. He describes Himself as the one whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, and He sanctifies Himself so that the disciples of whom He is sending out might be sanctified by the truth (John 17:17-19). Paul takes us further into these thoughts on our sanctification as being already completed in Christ. He refers to Jesus as the second Adam to show that he regarded Christ's human nature as representing the whole people of God, and indeed the human race in general. In this Paul had no doubts following up Jesus' reference to Himself as being the 'Son of Man' throughout the Gospels. Since Jesus included us in what He was doing Paul recognises not only our reconciliation and justification as being completed in Christ, but also our sanctification. With this in mind -i.e. speaks of Christ as being the one 'whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and our redemption (1 Cor. 1:30)' To the Colossian Christians he writes "and you, that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath HE reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight" (Co. 21:22). It is obvious that Paul expected all those who read his letters to make every effort to make progress in working out their sanctification by the grace of Christ. Paul gave every help so that they could understand that Christ had already worked it out for them in His own life. So to encourage the Corinthian Christians who were so far from becoming Christ-like, and yet to help them persevere reminded them that Jesus had already achieved it for them. "But ye are washed, but ye are justified, but ye are sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God" (1 Cor. 6:11). The way Paul speaks of this mystery implies that it is not merely a pattern of our sanctification, but an accomplished reality - our actual sanctification itself - that we find worked out in Christ. Calvin in his attempt to express this said that Christ was not simply the "instrument" but the "matter" of our salvation. This means that when we seek our sanctification we do not need to strive to work it out from scratch within ourselves.
Rather we put on what is already there in Christ to be given to us as His gift, and we receive our sanctification as we receive Him, coming to have Him in us, and coming to be ourselves 'in Him' What we have said in this section, and what has already been said about the work of the Holy Spirit in our sanctification, underlines that the Spirit brings into our lives only what was first in Christ Himself and reproduces within us nothing that was not first in Him. The Spirit does not merely come to occupy the place of Jesus, but only wholly to unite the disciples with their Lord more closely than when He was on earth! Paul often dwells on the thought of our participation, or our fellowship with the dying and rising of Christ. He can speak of himself as not only being united to Christ but as being 'crucified' with Christ and our having died and risen with Christ (Gal. 2:20, Rom. 6:5-8, 2 Cor. 5:14). It is perhaps difficult to know if Paul when referring to our having died, risen and ascended with Christ or in Christ. This thought is further developed in the Epistle to the church at Philippi where Paul expresses his desire to know Christ 'and the poser of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering, being made conformable to His death' (Phil. 3:10). He obviously believes that the future pattern of His life, in which his salvation will be worked out, will repeat the pattern set in the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul also speaks of himself as 'always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body (1 Cor. 4:10). He implies that there is saving activity which is given to the Christian to enable him to be more like Christ. Paul in his epistle to the Colossians discusses this subject in a most difficult and controversial passage (1 Col. 1:24). He is speaking of how he rejoices in his sufferings for the sake of his readers, and he adds 'and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the 'church'. Though some aspects of what Paul calls Christ's afflictions for the sake of his 'body' has yet in some way to be undergone to make up its full account, we need not therefore conclude that Paul regards the sufferings of Christ on the cross as themselves insufficient or incomplete. Paul's thoughts here can be linked up with Jesus' own words about His baptism and cup, and with the Old Testament idea of the remnant as it was fulfilled in the life of Jesus. For Jesus, the road to the cross became a road of ever increasing loneliness, and at the end of it Jesus is absolutely alone. From this point onwards there is an increasing fellowship of the sufferings of Christ.
The prophecy of Jesus is fulfilled. 'The cup that I shall drink, and with the baptism that I am baptised with withal shall ye be baptised' (Matt. 20:22). This prophecy could not be fulfilled during His lifetime here; it is fulfilled after and through His death and resurrection. Whatever view we take on these passages He is the one who died and rose again and we should leave our lives open to the power that is promised to us as we seek day by day to be like Him.
The Sanctification of Death in Christ
Paul speaks of death as a natural enemy of human life. God's original purpose for mankind may have included some kind of transition from this present world to another life, but such a transition was never meant to be accomplished by our being subjected to such corruption and dissolution as we see taking place when death strikes human life. For Paul death has a sting from which we need to be delivered. Christ has altered death itself; He has removed its sting so that in effect death has been abolished for those in Christ (1 Cor. 15:55). Our experience of dying on earth can itself become an important part of our sanctification forming the completion of our own 'dying with Christ' and as Martin Luther pointed out, of our baptism into Christ. Paul looked upon the passage through death as a glorious completion of his life. 'The last enemy to be destroyed is death' (1 Cor. 15:26). Christ conqueror of death "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (1 Phil. 1:21). Yet for Christ to die was the demand of sin and the cost so great that only the sinless Son of God could pay the price. He tasted death for all men (Heb. 2:9). In the Garden He prayed "Father if thou be willing remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will but thy will be done" (Luke 22:42). We are meant, when we read these descriptions to think of the cup from which He shrank in Gethsemane. Speaking of Jesus' resurrection Peter affirmed that it took place because God loosed Him from the pains of death (Acts 2:24). Apart from the fellowship of Christ in and through death, it still remains dreadful, and more especially because it brings people who know not the salvation of God in Christ nearer to exposure and judgment of their lives before God's throne. When the book is opened and all stand before Him only those whose names are written in it will find that the One who died as the advocate, friend and justifier of His own people whose names are read out. "And I saw the dead, small and great stand before God, and the books were opened and another book was opened, the Lamb's Book of Life (Rev. 20:11).