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Jesus Christ is my sanctification. Christ in me is the
expression of Christ in my personality. Christ, not my parents, not my
friends, not even my church, but Christ in me is my sanctification.
Here is the way Oswald Chambers says it:
SANCTIFICATION
"This is the will of God,
even your sanctification."
1 Thessalonians 4:3
The Death Side -
In sanctification God has to deal with us on the death side as well as on
the life side. Many of us spend so much time in the place of death that we
get sepulchral. There is always a battle royal before sanctification, always
something that tugs with resentment against the demands of Jesus Christ.
Immediately the Spirit of God begins to show us what sanctification means,
the struggle begins. "If any man come to Me
and hate not his own life, he cannot be My disciple."
The Spirit of God in the process of
sanctification will strip me until I am nothing but "myself," that is
the place of death. Am I willing to be "myself," and nothing more -
no friends, no father, no brother, no self-interest - simply ready for
death? That is the condition of sanctification. No wonder Jesus said: "I
came not to send peace, but a sword."
This is where the battle comes, and where so many of us faint. We refuse to
be identified with the death of Jesus on this point. "But it is so stern,"
we say; "He cannot wish me to do that." Our Lord is stern; and He does wish
us to do that.
Am I willing to reduce myself simply to "me,"
determinedly to strip myself of all my friends think of me, of all I think
of myself, and to hand that simple naked self over to God? Immediately I am,
He will sanctify me wholly, and my life will be free from earnestness in
connection with every thing but God.
When I pray - "Lord, show me what
sanctification means for me," He will show me. It means being made
one with Jesus. Sanctification is not something Jesus Christ puts into
me: it is Himself
in me. (1 Cor. 1:30.)
"Of Him are
ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us . . . sanctification."
1 Corinthians 1:30
The Life Side -
The mystery of sanctification is that the perfections of Jesus Christ are
imparted to me, not gradually, but instantly when by faith I enter into the
realization that Jesus Christ is made unto me sanctification. Sanctification
does not mean anything less than the holiness of Jesus being made mine
manifestly.
The one marvelous secret of a holy life
lies not in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfections of Jesus
manifest themselves in my mortal flesh. Sanctification is "Christ
in you." It is His wonderful life that is imparted to me
in sanctification, and imparted by faith as a sovereign gift of God's grace.
Am I willing for God to make sanctification as real in me as it is in His
word?
Sanctification means the impartation of the
Holy qualities of Jesus Christ. It is His patience, His love, His holiness,
His faith, His purity, His godliness, which is manifested in and through
every sanctified soul. Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to
be holy; it is drawing from Jesus the holiness that was manifested in Him,
and He manifests it in me. Sanctification is an impartation, not an
imitation. Imitation is on a different line. In Jesus Christ is the
perfection of everything, and the mystery of sanctification is that all the
perfections of Jesus are at my disposal, and slowly and surely I begin to
live a life of ineffable order and sanity and holiness: "Kept
by the power of God."
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