Christ Our Sanctification # 5

Life on the Highest Plane

The Believer a Saint by Condition

Sanctification is separation from sin and Christ is the Separator and He sanctifies by indwelling, possessing and controlling. Victory is not a mere blessing, doctrine, nor experience, but it is a Person. To have Him acknowledged as sole Proprietor of the whole being and allowed to act as such is to be assured of victory over sin. To have Him crowned as Lord and in control is to have victory already. This throws light on what real victory is and what it is not. Some of us may not have victory because we are altogether too superficial in our thinking. We trifle with this very important thing. We think we shall obtain victory by reading literature on the subject or by hearing messages at a conference, or by an interview with some Christian leader while all the time we are unwilling to face God alone that He may show us both what sin is and what victory is.

God does not speak of being dead to "sins" but to "sin." He does not talk of "victories" but of "victory." He does not command us to be troubled over our sin but to be "dead" to it. He makes it very clear that He does not mean mere control over outward expressions of sin but a definite dealing with inner disposition. Real victory is a glorious and marvelous change in the innermost recesses of the spirit which transforms the inner disposition and and attitude as well as the outward deed and act. "Real victory never obliges you to conceal what is inside." Nay, more than that, if one has real victory over sin he longs with intensity to let others know what his treasure is.

If we are to look to the Lord Jesus to make our freedom from sin actual and if "dead to sin" is to be lifted out of its doctrinal setting in Romans six and made an experimental fact in your life and mine, then we must know both what sin is and what victory is. satan blinds the minds, dulls the consciences, deadens the spiritual sensibilities so that countless Christians never think of calling some sinful things sin. Of course we are forced to call some glaring, outstanding offense against God and man that becomes more or less public, sin. But what about that black, defiling, evil thing, hidden away in the spirit, heart or thought which has not yet found its way out into a word or a deed, but which is open to the all-seeing, all-searching eye of our holy God? Is that sin? God would lead us to think it is.

Psalm 19:12,14, "Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer."

Psalm 51:6, 10, "Behold thou desirest truth in the inward parts; and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.  Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me."

2 Corinthians 7:1, "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord."

Let us face a few simple tests and see if we have been cleansed "from all filthiness of the spirit" and if there is freedom from sin "in the inward parts."

You used to lose your temper and give way to violent outbursts; now there is a large measure of outward control but a very great residue of inward irritation and secret resentment. Is that real victory?

Someone says something unkind or unjust to you; you do not answer back and outwardly you appear polite but inwardly you are angry and are saying to yourself, "I'd like to give her a piece of my mind!" Is that freedom from sin?

Someone has wronged you; you do not openly retaliate or seek to revenge the wrong but in your innermost heart you wish the person misfortune and rejoice when it comes. Is that having "a right spirit"?

You are a favored one through family, position or wealth. You do not openly boast but your heart is filled with secret pride, vanity and a sense of superiority. Is that counted as being "dead to sin"?

At a summer conference in China a woman came seeking help. She was unhappy and others around her were made unhappy. There was unlove in her heart; in fact, there was someone she hated. She was a Christian worker and recognizing the havoc this feeling was working in her own life and in that of others she tried to gain gradual victories over it. She had hated even the sight of the other person but she acknowledged finally the sinfulness of that. So she invited the person to dinner in her home but hoped she wouldn't come! When she came to me she had reached the point where she was "ready to forgive" but "would never forget!" Then she compelled herself to say that she "wouldn't hate" but she "couldn't love." Not until God, who is love, really possessed her heart did she become "dead" to that sin.

In Christ Jesus full provision has been made for you and me to be "dead to sin." But Romans 6:11 tells us that the believer must respond to God's act of grace by an act of faith. Man's  faith is the cooperative complement of God's grace. Through faith God makes real in experience what through grace He has made real in fact. Through grace God has reversed the believer's relationship to sin and now God calls upon him to "reckon" upon this reversal as a fact and so to act, walk and live.

Furthermore Romans 6:12-13 tells us that the believer must respond to God's act of grace by an act of the will.

Romans 6:12, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof."

This is a call, a challenge and a command all in one. It is a call to higher ground, to life on the highest plane. It is a challenge to take God at His Word and prove His power as Victor. It is a command to assert the rights of one whose real life is in the heavenlies in Christ.

Through the finished work of Jesus Christ God has done all He can do toward the believer's sanctification. If he enjoys in experience real separation from sin he must now act. His will must coalesce with God's will and work as a unit if he is to live as one "dead to sin." And God does not let this step be shrouded in misty vagueness but in Romans 6:13 tells in simplest and plainest language just what the believer must do to keep sin from reigning in his body.

Romans 6:13, "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God."

~Ruth Paxson~

(continued with # 6)