Sanctification Part 5: Jesus Christ nourishes us to holiness

I was listening to a radio program about the relationship between plants and the sun the other day.  The plant specialist guy had nothing but praise for the sun as he talked about the suns role in a plants growth.  Sunlight is made up of electromagnetic radiation.  This electromagnetic radiation is the key in photosynthesis.  This photosynthesis is important because it is the way in which plants derive their energy to grow.

In the past studies we have been looking at how Jesus Christ helps us in sanctification.  We continue that discussion today by focussing on the truth that Christ helps us to grow in Christ-likeness by being our strength.  His blessing and strength flow to us for holiness.

Jesus Christ is the vine; we are the branches (John 15:1-15).  We the branches are engrafted into him and therefore we get nourishment and strength from him that we may work, walk, and grow as becomes the Christian.  He is our “sap” as it were. 

By faith we abide in him, and trust in him.  In faith we maintain that he is the fountain and source of all good things in us.  He is in a place in our life where he in his love purposes to grant us sunshine, rain, nutrients, etc, (grace and help) to make us fruitful Christians.  Look at Ephesians 2:10.  We are created in Christ Jesus for good works.  As the sun gives plants the light they need in order to grow, God has given us to be with Christ so we might grow in holiness and do the good works God has ordained that we do.

Yes, Jesus Christ is the nourishing, life giving vine.

We can know God even though he is incomprehensible

“What is God Jehovah Almighty?”  “Who is God Jehovah Almighty?”  People often wonder if these questions can be answered; especially when we in the Christian Church proclaim that the true God is eternal, infinite, and perfect in all his being.  I mean, if he is without beginning or ending when will we ever fully know, say his love or justice?  Would we ever come to the end of his perfect love or justice?  Well, if he is infinite (without beginning or ending) then of course not.  So then can we know him? 

Yes.  Let me explain.

First, it is true it is impossible for anyone to give a perfect description of God or know God completely as God knows himself.  God is incomprehensible because he is infinitely perfect. No human mind or word can fully know and express the perfections of God!  See these Bible verses Job 11:7; 27:23; Psalm 77:19; 145:3; Isaiah 40:28; 45:22; Romans 11:33.

But secondly, though God cannot be fully know or described by us, yet we may know and describe something about him.  He has revealed himself to us, and that which he makes known to us we can know for he teaches it to us.  For instance God sent his only begotten Son, Jesus to this earth to be the Saviour of sinners.  Now we see God in the flesh.  “He that has seen me, has seen the Father,” Jesus said (John 14:9).  Also God’s glory is set forth in the Bible.  The Bible is God’s Word.  In it God teaches us about himself as we read of his works in our world.  And then there is creation.  Our natural world reveals the attributes of God to us…so much so as to leave us without excuse!  See Romans 1.

You see in Jesus Christ, in the God-the-Spirit-inspired-Bible, and in creation God overcomes our darkness and finite mind.  We can know something of God, because God wants us to know something about him.  Yes, we cannot know God perfectly, but what we do know about God from Jesus Christ and the Spirit speaking through the Bible is perfectly true.  And we come to know what God wants us to know through the things I mentioned above through the Spirit and the faith he gives us.  Thanks be to God that “in his light we see light.”  (Psalm 36:9)

Faith is mental health

Faith is a gift of God to us; and that gift becomes, by God's grace, a natural habit of the Christian's mind.  Yes, often we do not believe and trust like we want to (Rom 7:22), yet we still think God's thoughts after him and delight in God's word in our inmost self. 

Bavink wrote, "Believing is the natural breath of the children of God.  Their submission to the Word of God is not slavery but freedom.  In that sense faith is not a sacrifice of the intellect but mental health."

Sanctification Part 4: Let Jesus Christ be your mould.

I continue on the topic of sanctification.  Remember sanctification is “the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.” (WSC Q.35)

Also remember in these posts we are listing the role and work of Jesus Christ in our sanctification.  Today we look at the forth way Jesus is involved in our sanctification.

Jesus Christ according to the will and purpose of God is our copy, our example of holiness.  He in his humanity and divinity sets before the pattern and path of Christian holiness.  Therefore, we must keep his Person always before us as the authority and pattern of holiness.  No man, no psychological advise, no man made law, and no mere moral resolution can be our example.  Only Jesus is the standard.  Look at 1 Peter 1:15 and 1 Peter 2:21.  We are to walk in his steps.

So, in your Christian life look with faith to Christ’s love, patience, long-suffering, mercy, humility, hatred of sin, zeal, and truth.  And then by faith pore your life into him and his way.  Let him be your mould!

Sanctification Part 3: Jesus Christ changes us to want holiness

We continue our discussion of Jesus' role in our sanctification. Today I will try to explain one more way Jesus works for us to form his holiness in us.

Let's think a bit about Philippians 2:12.  It reads, "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure." 

Obviously God is at work in our Christian lives.  The result of this grace is that we work out...live out our new life in Christ.  This brings us to Another of Christ's role in our sanctification.

He by his cross and resurrection not only brings us to be holy, but also to do holiness.  You see, Christ humbled himself to be a servant for our salvation - even to the point of the cross (Philippians 2:6-8), to open and secure God to work holiness in us so we will want to and can obey, grow, and mature in holiness in our lives.  God doing his part makes so we can do our part.  It’s not we doing our part first, and then God will do his.  No.  He does his work first and then and only then do we live out what being a Christian is.

So God by Christ working in us is the freedom, and argument, and motive for us to live obediently.  If Jesus is in our lives we will want to obey, and when we don’t we are saddened that God has not been glorified in us.  To put it another way Jesus by his Holy Spirit has so changed the sinner that the man or women saved by grace loves and longs to live holy.