Sanctification

Holy Spirit was refining people to resemble more of Jesus and less of themselves. Wesley saw this stage of Grace as one that leads the believer to perfection. It is this portion of Wesley’s doctrine of Sanctification that many Methodists have never heard of or understand. Harper writes, those who understand this portion of Wesley’s beliefs either choose to neglect it completely, or live a life focused on extreme perfection.16 As one dives into the grace of Sanctification he/she will discover Wesley’s understanding of the Holy Spirit leading one to Christian perfection. This perspective is one in which he/she is being sanctified from conversion on until death. 17 For the perfection that Wesley wrote about was not one in terms of how the world would define it. For if one was to define perfection, by the worlds standards one would quickly discover infallibility, and flawlessness is un-attainable. The perfection in which Wesley wrote about was Christian perfection, which does not align with the interpretations of the world. Wesley wrote, that Christians still have the potential to sin, for they do not possess absolute judgment, knowledge or performance. 18 Though worldly perfection was not something at the believers grasp Wesley did believe that once the believer reached Sanctification, they had the choice to sin or not. For he believed that the power of God’s grace was always stronger than the power of temptation. The key to it was to abide in Christ, to stay connected to the…

life, death, and resurrection. Prevenient grace is always wooing people to God. Justifying grace allows a person to be forgiven of any sins in order to be in right relationship with God. It is the Sanctifying grace that has seemed to create a divide among John Wesley followers. Within the Holiness movement, people are taught that God does a work in their life that can lead to them living a sin-free perfect life. In fact, that type of entire sanctification is the goal. Striving to meet this…

• Sanctification gap is a gap of knowledge, teaching, and practices of spiritual transformation between the real spiritual life and ideal spiritual life. The five typical responses to the sanctification gap are pretense, despair, programmatic and personal solutions, moral formation, and ministry activism. Pretense is pretending that one’s spiritual life is going smoothly, even though one feels the emptiness due to sanctification gap. Despair is the feeling that results from the sanctification…

Sanctification; Redcrosse's Journey to Holiness “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Paul’s words, written to the church in Philippi, reveal that God works through his people to constantly purify them with the Spirit; this process of purification is, exactly that, a process. God’s work in his followers is a divine divine undertaking in which man becomes more like Christ and less like the world. The procedural…

Sanctification: Finally, after working through the meat of the ordis salutis, I arrive at the heart of soteriology: sanctification, a union with Christ, and a covenantal partnership with God to be kingdom-bringers. Although sin nature still affects us as Calvin notes, the election and mercy of God, the imputation of Christ, and the impartation by the Holy Spirit lead me to a point in which I no longer am defined by my sin nature. Literally, my sin nature died when Christ died. When Jesus died…

Calvinism vs. Wesleyans on Sanctification When many Christians here the words entire sanctification, perfect love, Christian perfection, and holiness. They often either try to avoid the issue because they say it is too complicated or they challenge those who are addressing them by saying it is not scriptural. Many Calvinists take a stand today that a person cannot achieve holiness, sanctification or Christian perfection in this life time. But is that truly what the scriptures teach or are…

The Doctrine of Sanctification There are a series of events that succeed the redeeming work of Christ on the Cross, His Resurrection and Ascension, which apply to all believers; the majority of which can solely be attributed as acts of God and not of any human. These events include: the call of God to sinners for salvation, the impartation of new life, to legally be able to stand blameless before God, and to be adopted in the family of God. Interestingly enough, there is an applicable part of…

Describing progressive sanctification and the three steps of change can be challenging no matter who the audience is. Place an adolescent girl recovering from an alcohol or drug addiction into your audience and the challenge has been increased exponentially. Yet, one must remember as fervently as we work to spread the Gospel in a way for all to understand, it is still the work of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 12:3b, ESV). Today’s audience is Jaime, a Native American 16 year old girl from…

In the Via Salutis, the saving work of Christ is shown with justification and sanctification through several sermons of John Wesley. The Via Salutis is very dynamic because John Wesley had relationships in mind throughout it. The Wesleyan Via Salutis is a journey that means the way of salvation in English. We understand that the natural man, from birth, is not inclined to do or be good. In the sermon Original Sin; natural man is described “Now God saw that all this, the whole there of, was…

Paper Powell introduces the thought that perfect love is the determining factor in entire sanctification. My question to Powell would be what is his definition of perfect as he is using it in his statement? Powell (2008) has written, “To be entirely sanctified is to love God with perfect love” (p. 250). Powell characterizes perfect love as being “a pure devotion to God” (p. 250). The word perfect in the Bible can mean mature, of full-age, finished, or completed. The word can be used as an…