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Morgan Books
The Three Meanings of Sanctification
THE THREE MEANINGS OF SANCTIFICATION
Thoughts on an oft misunderstood word
By Amos Morgan
THE THREE MEANINGS OF SANCTIFICATION
Copyright © 2008 By Amos Morgan
Do not duplicate without permission
THE THREE MEANINGS OF SANCTIFICATION
INDEX
Chapter I INTRODUCTION
Chapter II CEREMONIAL SANCTIFICATION
Chapter III SANCTIFICATION BY ASSOCIATION OR CONTACT
Chapter IV SANCTIFICATION BY THE OFFERING OF THE BODY OF JESUS
Chapter V BEING ONE WITH THE FATHER AND THE SON
Chapter VI CONCLUSION
THE THREE MEANINGS OF SANCTIFICATION
Chapter I
INTRODUCTION
For several reasons, the word sanctification is often misunderstood or misused.
A story that has been around since my childhood days helps illustrate one way
this happens. That story tells how some blind people were taken for a visit
to experience an elephant up-close so they could better visualize it. As they
were ushered into a group around the elephant, the first person to come in direct
contact with the huge animal found its tail. “Oh,” he said, “An
elephant is like a rope.” Another person at the opposite end commented
that he thought an elephant was rather like a snake, as he examined the trunk.
One who had found a leg differed, he said, “Its plain to me that an elephant
is like a tree.” The one who had bumped into the massive side of the elephant
said he could not agree at all, an elephant was very like a wall. And so the
story went, illustrating how that if we know something about a subject, and
we know that detail very well, still we might not understand the big picture
at all. That difference is tantamount to saying an elephant is like a rope instead
of saying an elephant’s tail is like a rope.
Another problem is our language itself. If you look in a dictionary for the
meaning of a word, you may find the same word has several different meanings.
For instance ‘work’ may be defined as an exertion, or ‘moving
an object through space.’ Work also means function, as in, “My wife
and I found a diet that really works.” A painting or a piano concerto
may be called a work. Context is a vital part of the meaning of words; so looking
in a dictionary for isolated meanings can be very much like examining one of
the parts of an elephant and then supposing that you have the whole picture.
Sanctification has more than one meaning and this seems to confuse far too many
people. We will explore three different meanings for the word sanctification.
Chapter II
CEREMONIAL SANCTIFICATION
One meaning of sanctification applies to inanimate objects that may be sanctified
by being set apart, or dedicated, to a religious service. This meaning applies
both in heathen religions and idol worship as well as in the Bible. Ceremonial
holiness certainly is one of the intended meanings of sanctification in the
Bible. We notice that Moses sanctified the brazen altar before any sacrifices
could be offered upon it, Leviticus 8:10-12. Ancient Greek theology was mythology
and idolatry, so the root meaning of sanctification in Greek is limited to the
ceremonial sanctification of inanimate objects. Those who try to confuse us
by saying that in Greek, sanctification just means ‘set apart’ are
correct, but at the same time they are very much confused about the meanings
of the scriptures.
Chapter III
SANCTIFICATION BY ASSOCIATION OR CONTACT
In the New Testament we find that the unbelieving husband is sanctified by
the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband (1 Cor 7:14).
Sanctification by contact or by association is a clear Biblical meaning. In
Mat 23:18 Jesus said to the Pharisees, “(Ye say that) whosoever
shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift
that is upon it, he is guilty. Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the
gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?” In the Old Testament,
when Moses turned aside to see the burning bush that was not consumed, he was
told, “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou
standest is holy ground.” So even the very ground upon which Moses stood
to talk to God was Holy. Still another example of this kind of sanctification
occurs when we are saved. It is the office of the Holy Spirit to convict us
of sin as God calls us to repentance. It is by the operation of the Holy Spirit
that the blood avails for us and a new name is written down in Glory. We are
sanctified by the presence of the Holy Ghost when we are saved. However, that
clearly is not the sanctification Jesus prayed for for us in John 17.
This may not be a perfect example, but it helps with the explanation. When
we are born, we are immune to all the communicable childhood diseases to which
our mother was immune. She provided that immunity to us. However, as we grow,
our body is renewed on a continuing basis. And since we obtained that immunity
by contact with our mothers and did not generate it ourselves, it is lost as
we grow. So before we start school, our parents are usually asked to supply
a record of our immunization to the school. Otherwise, they fear, the population
of the school may succumb to communicable childhood diseases. The sanctification
bestowed upon us at salvation is not from within our own heart, so we still
need to be sanctified as provided in God’s plan for us.
Chapter IV
SANCTIFICATION BY THE OFFERING OF THE BODY OF JESUS
In John 17 Jesus very obviously prayed for those who were already saved. He
prayed that the Father would sanctify them. This sanctification would make them
one with the Father and with each other. This is not for forgiveness of sin;
it is being made one with God. And being made one with God of necessity means
the replacement of the old nature of fallen Adam with a new sanctified nature.
We cannot be one with God and at the same time retain the fallen Adam nature.
In John 17, Jesus prayed, “I have given them
thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world,
even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out
of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not
of the world, even as I am not of the world.” If Jesus twice said,
“They are not of the world, even as I am not
of the world,” then no one has a right to call them unconverted.
They were already converted and now they needed to be sanctified. He continued,
“Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is
truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into
the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified
through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall
believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father,
art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may
believe that thou hast sent me.” Not only did Jesus pray for his
disciples that they might be sanctified through the truth, He suffered without
the gate that He might sanctify them with His own blood. Consider these scriptures;
- Heb 10:9-10 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away
the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
- Heb 10:14-16 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are
sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he
had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those
days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds
will I write them.
At the communion of the ‘Lord’s Supper’ He broke bread and
said, “Take, eat; this is my body.
(Mat 26:26) And he took the cup, saying, “This
is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of
sins. (Mat 26:28). If we eliminate the body of the Lord so we can give
more emphasis to His Blood, we have changed what he said and we no longer have
an accurate, or balanced, gospel. He also said, “Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink
his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood,
hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:53-54.)
Heart sanctification makes us one with God and displaces the fallen nature
of Adam with a new nature that is at one with God. It all happens as one instantaneous
operation. However, as clearly indicated in John seventeen, this is intended
for those who are not of the world even as Christ was not of the world.
Chapter V
BEING ONE WITH THE FATHER AND THE SON
If I needed a skin graft on my forehead and could find a willing donor who
was my age, complexion, gender, and ethnic background it would look good, but
it would not ‘take’ unless my immune system had been deliberately
‘doctored’ so that it could not recognize what happened. Otherwise
my system would ‘reject’ that graft as a foreign invader. Skin taken
from my own lower leg would certainly look funny with its different texture
and the straggly hairs growing there, but my system would accept it without
question because it is already a part of, or ‘one’ with me. It is
our DNA that identifies what is foreign and what is not foreign to us. The DNA
in each cell of our bodies is one and the same. Heart sanctification does something
inside us that makes us one with God so that our very nature is no longer foreign
to His. This is not scriptural, but I think God switches-off some of our genes
and switches-on others to alter our very personality when we are sanctified
as represented by the golden altar of incense in the tabernacle. Our joy is
greater than when we were saved and the ‘songs in the night’ are
also increased because we now enter a new phase of the grace of God. This is
not a sermon nor am I a preacher, but we need to identify what kind of sanctification
results from being ‘one with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ and
with our fellow saints’ which is different than the previous two meanings
of sanctification already mentioned. Incense offered at the golden altar is
now being reenacted by the praise that goes up to God from a sanctified heart.
Dying daily does not sanctify us in this third meaning of the word. Wearing
modest clothing does not sanctify us in this third meaning of the word. It is
up to us to wear modest clothing and to die daily, but only God can sanctify
us as in John seventeen. So then we see that it is impossible to come to the
correct meaning of sanctification as indicated by Jesus’ usage of the
word if we rely upon, or restrict ourselves to, the root meaning of the Greek
word based upon ancient Greek theology and mythology. (Which is the first meaning
of the word.) This widely used practice of limiting the interpretation of scripture
to heathen definitions is a travesty. Ancient Greek theology has no place in
Christian teachings.
In the wilderness, Moses reared up a tabernacle at the instruction of God who
told him to beware that he make it according to the pattern he had been shown
in the mount. First there was a court where sacrifice was made and where confession
and restitution were made. Next was the Holy Place with the golden altar of
incense. And thirdly there was the Most Holy place with the Ark of the Covenant.
Here in the Most Holy Place blood was offered on the Day of Atonement. Those
who object to a gospel with three steps have a quarrel with God and his plan.
It should be rather obvious that God does not gradually forgive our sins and
gradually save us and gradually write our names in the book of Life. It should
be obvious that God does not gradually sanctify us either. Nor are we baptized
with the Holy Ghost gradually. There is a specified pattern of gradual Christian
growth listed in Second Peter 1:5-8, where we add Christian graces one at a
time, but that pattern tells us the things that we must do. God gave a pattern
to Moses in the wilderness of three stages of holiness wherein it is God who
provides the action when we meet the specified conditions. Meeting the specified
conditions may be slow for us, but once there, the work of God is accomplished
at once in our hearts.
Chapter VI
CONCLUSION
Let no one deceive you about the true meanings of sanctification by reciting
the Greek root meaning which Jesus did not use nor imply in John seventeen.
It is better to study the scriptures for one hour than to study ancient Greek
for ten hours. Only scripture interprets scripture correctly. Heart sanctification
cannot be obtained by ceremonialism anymore than salvation can be obtained by
the ceremonial “putting away of the filth of the flesh.” (1 Pet
3:21). It is only by the offering of the body of Christ, and that meaning is
not found in ancient Greek mythology or idol worship.
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