The Scriptures consistently speak about sanctification as a sure gift for the Christian.
What does it mean to be holy? And how does one become holy? These questions are at the forefront of people's minds when considering the “Christian Life.” Holiness is a distinction in Christian theology that separates people and objects into those who are either working for God and his purposes or against them. That is to say, when something or someone is made holy, they are set apart from the ordinary or sinful for God’s particular uses and purposes.
In Christian dogmatics and confessions, the application of this distinction of holiness to individual believers is where the term "sanctification" is commonly used. Sanctification is a distinction first between the holy and the unholy, but it is also a distinction within the Christian life itself. Sanctification and its attributes are distinguished from justification, salvation, and glorification. One of the foremost attributes of sanctification, which distinguishes it from the righteousness of justification or the final deliverance of salvation, is its connection to good works.
The Scriptures consistently speak about sanctification as a sure gift for the Christian, resulting from faith in Christ. Hebrews 10:10 states, “And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all,” while 1 Corinthians 1:2 puts it this way: “to those sanctified in Christ Jesus.” Finally, Christ speaking to Paul in Acts 26:18 says this: “to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”
By faith, God makes us holy, sanctifying us so that we are set apart and can be used by him to accomplish his good works. However, this relationship between good works and sanctification can become disordered in Christian preaching and teaching, so that it’s either assumed or stated overtly that good works cause sanctification rather than the other way around. When this happens, the topic of sanctification becomes a hotbed of confusion and uncertainty, and even a dumping ground for statements and positions contrary to Scripture. One common example of this is the idea that our good works don't contribute to our justification but do contribute additively, or as a cooperative cause of our sanctification. This statement attempts a logical description of the relationship between good works and sanctification, but it confuses the fruits or results of sanctification with the act of being sanctified.
Good works are not in parallel with sanctification but follow after it.
In affirming both sanctification and good works, the Lutheran Confessions are careful to maintain a proper order among justification, sanctification, and good works. For this reason, the Formulators write in Solid Declaration Article III:
That neither renewal, sanctification, virtues, nor good works are to be viewed or presented tanquam forma aut pars aut causa iustificationis (that is, as our righteousness before God or as a part or a cause of our righteousness). They are also not to be mixed into the article of justification under any other pretense, pretext, or terminology…Therefore, the proper order between faith and good works, and likewise the proper order between justification and renewal or sanctification, must be preserved and maintained… Thereafter, once people are justified, the Holy Spirit also renews and sanctifies them. From this renewal and sanctification, the fruits of good works follow. [1]
Here, Lutherans confess two important distinctions: first, that sanctification follows justification such that personal holiness does not contribute to our righteousness. God does not love us, elect us, or save us because we exhibit holiness or do good works for God. When justification and sanctification are disordered, an erroneous view of salvation and election inevitably takes root, in which God’s choice and act are conditioned by the presence of good works in our lives or by our willingness to be useful to God. Instead, our Lord makes us righteous, chooses and accomplishes salvation in us before anything good or holy is present. It is for this reason that the Formula adopts a list of God’s gifts, which ends with good works. Good works are not in parallel with sanctification but follow after it. [2]
The second assertion of the Formula is that sanctification is the exclusive work of the Holy Spirit received by us as a gift. Even though sanctification results in good works, the “holy making” itself belongs to the Spirit. As the Formula states again,“renewal and sanctification are a blessing of our mediator Christ and a work of the Holy Spirit,” [3] and also “The Holy Spirit is given to those who, as has been said, are righteous before God (that is, have been received into grace) out of sheer grace because of the only mediator, Christ, through faith alone, apart from all works and merit. He renews them and sanctifies them, and he creates in them love toward God and the neighbor.” [4]
The sanctified person, by necessity, does good works not in contribution to the Holy Spirit’s task of sanctifying but “following” [5]. This happens after the Holy Spirit fully accomplishes his work.
The present-tense gift of sanctifying must be attached and credited to God. This is not just a feature of the New Testament but a refrain of God to his people in Israel when he declares “I am the LORD who sanctifies you” more than ten times including in Exodus 31:13, Leviticus 21-22, and Ezekiel 20:12, 37:28. The Lutheran Confessions speak of sanctification as a sole work of God belonging to the Holy Spirit in order to remain faithful to Scripture: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11); “to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:16).
To say that our good works accomplish or contribute to the act of sanctifying is an act of theft against the Holy Spirit. Luther put this simply in the Catechisms, “To this article, as I have said, I cannot give a better title than ‘Being Made Holy.’ In it are expressed and portrayed the Holy Spirit and his office, which is that he makes us holy.” [6] If we say or imply that our good works function to make us holy, then we take the office of the Holy Spirit for ourselves, violating the first commandment, taking that which belongs to God and assigning it to an idol.
In Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, good works are repeatedly positioned as following sanctification. This means good works are not sanctification itself but are done by the sanctified. By sanctifying us, the Holy Spirit makes us useful, calling us to do good works out of love for God and neighbor. Sanctification changes our relationship to the world and with our neighbors. To the world, we are now placed in the struggle against sin, not just generally, but our own sinful works and desires. “However, because the beginnings of renewal in this life remain incomplete and sin continues to dwell in the flesh even of the reborn, therefore the righteousness of faith before God consists of the gracious reckoning of Christ’s righteousness, apart from any addition of our works;” [7] God will not let his work go undone and will get it from us both by the force and coercion of the law against us a sinner, and from the holiness and love he has made in us as saints.
By the grace of God, we are at the same time driven both to good works out of love and to repentance and true contrition for our sins, receiving nothing other than the total and complete righteousness of Christ. This forgiveness is delivered to us through the Christian church. To speak, teach, and preach on sanctification with a focus on good works alone, apart from the work of the Holy Christian Church, is a grave mistake.
Sanctification is not an external measure of holiness that demonstrates your growth as a Christian to the world.
Sanctification and the church are inseparably tied together since the church is the community of saints, the gathering of the sanctified [8] brought together for the sake of proclaiming and receiving Christ. When the Holy Spirit sanctifies us, he changes our relationship to one another by gathering, “a unique community in the world, which is the mother that begets and bears every Christian through the Word of God, which the Holy Spirit reveals and proclaims, through which he illuminates and inflames hearts so that they grasp and accept it, cling to it, and persevere in it.” [9] The greatest work of the sanctified is the proclamation of God’s Word, where we are made vessels of forgiveness, delivering not our own works but the work of Jesus Christ to another.
Sanctification is not an external measure of holiness that demonstrates your growth as a Christian to the world. Instead, Sanctification is a great gift of the Holy Maker, the Spirit of God. Having been justified by faith in Christ, you are renewed and sanctified, placed into work within God’s kingdom of this world for the sake of the life and world to come. The Holy Spirit has made you to receive and deliver the works of God, and he gathers the sanctified together to proclaim Christ and his gospel until our Savior comes again to raise us from the dead.[1] Robert Kolb, Timothy J. Wengert, and Charles P. Arand, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), 569 Solid Declaration Article III [39]
[2] Solid Declaration Article III [41]
[3] Solid Declaration Article III [23]
[4] Ibid.
[5] Solid Declaration article III [40]
[6] Large Catechism article 3 [35]
[7] SD Article III [23]
[8] Large Catechism article 3 [47]
[9] Large Catechism article 3 [42]
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