On this page the question often comes up about when and in what sequence does sanctification happen and if and when should everyone speak in tongues. I came across this statement by Alan Watts; ” spiritual things cannot be defined, they are always just outside of human understanding.”
Then Watts goes on to say that words and concepts have certain meanings but time and further enlightenment change understanding and causes us to have to reevaluate our thinking. Our forefathers lived in a time when they thought all spiritual mysteries could be explained; ie, how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. In 1949 when I came into the CoG not much had changed in the Appalachian mountains of East Tenn. But in the past 2/3rds.century knowledge has doubled every two to five years and we must live by faith even more than then because mystery and the unknowable has increased as well.
So who is sanctified? I have met many people in and out of the CoG that seemed to me totally set apart unto God and I have met a small percentage of people who seem empowered and led by the spirit. Ask someone; what day did you fall in love with your wife or husband? Most cannot give you the date or the hour but there is evidence that they are in love.
Discussion
4 comments
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The COG clearly teaches that sanctification is (sequentially) subsequent from the new birth. You got saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost. Other Churches teach differently. Most churches teach differently.
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Thanks for sharing these thoughts
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I Thessalonians I can’t find anywhere in the Bible where ‘sanctification’ means a sudden experience that occurs after someone is salvation that frees him from sin. That idea grew out of the teaching of John Wesley, who was very much concerned with how a believer could live free from sin. A Pentecostal pastor on another forum wrote a brief article in which he argued that early Pentecostals confused sanctification with entire sanctification.
There is nothing in the Bible that indicates that a believer has to experience a crisis moment of sanctification after salvation before he can be filled with the Holy Ghost. In Acts 10, Gentiles heard the Gospel, and the Spirit fell on them and they received the Holy Ghost. In Acts 19, Paul baptized some men who had previously been baptized with John’s baptism, and layed hands on them and they recieved the Holy Ghost.
When I was in my early teens, I had moved from one state to another. In the prior state I’d gone to a Full Gospel church and I was not attending an A/G that had a Bible college. Our family had made friends with another family, the parents of friend of mine in class. We both had a parent in the Bible college. They were PH, and my parents were talking about their belief in sanctification, that you had to have a sanctification experience after you got saved before you could be filled with the Holy Spirit. None of us knew of anything in the Bible to support that.
Isn’t a believer sanctified at salvation?
I Corinthians 6
11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.If Paul were using ‘sanctified’ in the ‘Holiness Movement’ sense, would he have put these three things in this order. Are we washed at one point in our walk, then get sanctified, then get justified? That doesn’t make sense. It does make sense to see these three things as something that happens when we are made a new creature in Christ.
Paul goes on in this passage to tell the Corinthians not to become one flesh with prostitutes. Did Paul use ‘sanctified’ the way the Holiness Movement used it? Since many of these Corinthians practiced spiritual gifts, and Paul warns against sexual immorality, does the idea that someone must have a Holiness Movement sanctification experience before speaking in tongues fit with what Paul is saying in the passage?
And we have to walk in sanctification and remain sanctified.
If sanctification were something the believer experienced after salvation, would it be normative for new believers to fornicate?
I Thessalonians 4:3-7
3 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:
4 That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;Clearly, Paul doesn’t want new believers to fornicate. New Christians were sanctified at salvation, but also have to continue to walk in sanctification. Paul doesn’t treat the ability to abstain from fornication as something we have to struggle in prayer about, and just maybe we get zapped with something at an altar service and can abstain, but otherwise are hopeless. That’s not the way Paul is using ‘sanctification’ here. A believer can trust God, yield to God, and through faith in Christ overcome sin. Grace is available for us.
Hebrews 10:29
Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?Here the sanctification occured before. Sanctification here is not used to refer to a state of Christian maturity where one doesn’t sin anymore or has much more power over sin than other believers. This passage warns the already sanctified man not to sin wilfully.
The above is an article I have written on the subject, used with my own permission, copyright 2017.
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