Sanctification Part Three

Text: II Thessalonians 2:13.

             

Sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called:

Called by, sanctification of the Spirit.

           

This call, is the effectual call, which is the grant and positive gift of spiritual and eternal life to dead sinners, who died in Adam, I Corinthians 15:22. This work is everywhere in scripture ascribed to the Holy Ghost, who is the third sovereign person of the triune God. He is a sovereign agent, and acts as he will, upon whom he will, at what time he will, if he will, and all his workings are according to the terms of the everlasting covenant of grace, which was formed by the three persons of the one true and living God before anything existed but God himself.

Sanctification of the Spirit is that work of the Holy Spirit whereby he gives new life to dead sinners. The terms of the covenant are these “But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying know the Lord; for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Jeremiah 31:33-34, and in chapter 32: 39-40 “And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they will not depart from me. The sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost is also promised in Ezekiel 36; 26-27 “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. The Apostle Peter wrote to the “Elect according to the foreknowledge (foreordained to eternal life because beloved of God from everlasting) of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit” I Peter 1:2 this is that sanctification of the Spirit promised by the prophets, which gives a new heart to love the Lord God (Deuteronomy 30:6). It is the giving of the Spirit of adoption, whereby the children of God cry Abba Father (Galatians 4:5-6). It is the reception of the divine nature (II Peter 1:4, the nature of the children of God) with new desires of pleasing the Father, and a loathing of sin for what it is. 

The sanctifying operations of the Holy Ghost are those works; whereby he gathers together the members of the mystical body of Jesus Christ, and joins them together in one Body (John 11:52; Ephesians 1:10; I Corinthians 12:12-14, 27; 6:17 ) This is that new creation which is created in Christ Jesus, ( Ephesians 2:10) of which the old creation was a but a type, for “the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep, And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,” Genesis 1:2.The waters, that is, the matter prepared for the creative operations of the Holy Ghost, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Just so the elect of God are those that comprise that matter assembled for the creative operations of the Holy Ghost in the second and new and ultimate creation (that glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing). These are called darkness (Ephesians 5:8 ) and are said to have the understanding darkened (Ephesians 4:18).  The Holy Spirit is He who formed the human body of Jesus Christ in womb of the virgin, and just so, it is He who now gathers together the spiritual or mystical body of Christ, not one of his members shall not be sought out and joined to the body by the Spirit. “For ye are bought with a price (I Corinthians 6:20) the sufferings, blood shedding, and death of the Son of God; and are sanctified by God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

A.J.Ison