Sanctification Cooperation

"Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God. ⁸ And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the LORD which sanctify you."

Leviticus 20:7-8

God gave Moses His laws to deliver to the nation Israel so they might keep His covenant.  The context of these verses follow God saying He would set His face against those who did wickedly, defiled His sanctuary, or profaned His holy name.  The peoples of the ancient world worshiped demons and not God, even burning their children alive on altars before images made by hands of men.  God's people were not to imitate these abominable practices of the heathen, and were forbidden in the Law of Moses to make images or representations of man or beast lest their hearts turn from God in idolatry.  God sanctified His people, and thus they were to sanctify themselves.

To "sanctify" is to "cleanse, purify, make holy, to set apart, or appoint for sacred use."  The mistake people can make is to believe sanctification can or must be earned, yet scriptures reveal God sanctifies people by His grace--not based on performance.  God made a covenant with Abraham and his descendants not because he, Isaac, or Jacob were more worthy or pious than others.  God called Abraham out of His goodness and Abraham responded with faith in God.  The sanctification available to whosoever will repent and trust in God must be received first, and only then can we sanctify ourselves.  Like a marriage relationship requires cooperation, communication, and contribution of both parties so does our relationship with God.  The Jews in the Old Testament were under the covenant of Mosaic Law, and Christians today relate to God through the new covenant made with the shed blood of Jesus.

We are justified by grace through faith and our sanctification is also a gift freely given we receive.  No effort of our flesh, no volume of sacrifices could earn such favour from the holy, almighty God.  God has made us holy and sanctified by the sacrifice of Christ, and therefore we ought to aim to live a life that is sanctified--set apart and appointed for God's use.  Paul wrote in Galatians 3:1-3:  "O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? ² This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? ³ Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?"  After we are born again and converted there must be a continual reliance and trust in God marked by humility, not imagining we become worthy or acceptable by ourselves.  Gentiles in the early church, misguided in their zeal to please men, began to teach keeping the Law of Moses was critical to sanctification and salvation.

Now the Law remains good but God did not call Gentiles to live as Jews or for Jews to put aside their observance of Law as legalism.  Jesus kept the Law of Moses, but Christians are not sanctified by keeping the Law:  it is Jesus who sanctifies us by the indwelling Holy Spirit in real time.  It is the Holy Spirit who guides us into all truth in keeping with the Bible and the law written on our hearts, no longer governed by words written on tablets of stone.  Remember the message Jesus preached on the mount when He called His followers to a standard far higher than that of Law, and we can only sanctify ourselves to achieve such humility and surrender to His will only after He first sanctifies us.  Having been sanctified by God, we by His grace and strength sanctify ourselves.  We do not receive the Holy Spirit by grace and then are perfected by our efforts.  It is God who works in us both to will and do of His good pleasure, and thus we crucify the flesh and mortify the deeds of the flesh in surrender to Him.

Human sacrifice to idols is an abomination before God, but having been raised to new life with Christ we are called to be living sacrifices.  Romans 12:1-3 says, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. ² And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. ³ For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith."  Let us not think there is any power in our flesh to sanctify ourselves, but having been sanctified through the Gospel we are transformed and helped to do God's will.  The sanctification partnership works when we die to self and the life of Jesus is lived through us.