| How We Are Saved, Part 16: God's Viewpoint - God Made Us Holy |
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| Written by David Lawrence |
| Monday, December 01 2008 00:00 |
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Throughout the Bible we read of how the holy God makes His people holy (for instance Lev. 20:8). God loved us and Christ died for us when we were still sinners, so Paul tells us in Rom. 5:8). But God loves us too much to leave us in our sins. When we were justified we were still sinners (Rom. 4:5). We come to Christ just as we are, in our weakness, sin, ignorance, bad habits, selfishness, and foolishness. It was our recognition of these deficiencies that drove us to Christ (Gal. 3:24). But the same desire that God put in our hearts when He called and regenerated us now drives us in a pursuit of personal holiness. God will always see us as positionally holy in Christ from the time of our justification and forever, but our personal holiness develops over our lifetime as a Christian. Remember Rom. 8:29? "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers." Our predestination was to be changed into the very image of Christ, to come to resemble Christ as one of His many brothers (sisters). This life-long process that is never complete in our lifetime but will finally be perfected in glory is called sanctification. The key passage that helps us understand sanctification is 2 Cor. 3:18: "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit." Note that Paul says we "are being transformed" and the standard is the reflection of Jesus Christ. The divine power accomplishing this transformation is the Holy Spirit, the only place in Scripture where he is called "Lord." (to be continued) |
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