Sanctification By Faith (Part IV): Who's Right & Why Does It Matter?

by Pastor Jacob Doran,
The Church of God in Flathead Valley (MT)

I think it good to say, from the start of this message, that my study of God's Word and time spent at His feet has inclined me to view of sanctification that departs in some ways from the generally accepted views of sanctification, finding in its truth a living God rather than a pall dogma or doctrinal postulate. For one, I passionately believe that Christians and theologians have spent far too much time dissected and defining something that is meant to be experienced (and experienced by faith) rather than fully understood.

In my own experience, the more that Christians struggle to define and understand sanctification, the further they are from actually experiencing it, with painfully few exceptions. The Bible was given to men and women who were mostly illiterate and, by our standards, simple people—not to Greek scholars or theologians with doctorates in divinity, although the Apostle Paul and Luke both appealed to the more scholarly minds of the Romans.

The diligent study of God's Word is always commendable, but the experiences it points us to must not be scrutinized until all of the life has been extracted and they become mere doctrinal points that are taught above must people's heads--to the intellect rather than to the heart--without producing any real fruit in the life and without any supernatural or lasting change that bears witnesses of its own divine nature.

One of the most striking instances of the rift between experience and understanding comes in the early days of the Pentecostal movement, here in the United States. I want to specifically refer to a man by the name of William Durham, whose teaching introduced a revolutionary—albeit not entirely accurate—view of sanctification that deviated greatly from the view accepted by Pentecostals from the Wesleyan or Holiness movements.

So different was Durham’s teaching that many were convinced he had launched an outright attack on the doctrinal foundations upon which the Pentacostal/Holiness movement was built. Much of Durham’s teaching was scripturally sound, and well in accordance with what the Lord revealed to me in my own searching of His Word, long before I had ever heard of Durham. However, on one major point we differ greatly.

A paragraph from one of the many histories of the Assemblies of God provides a fair summary of Durham’s teaching:

"Actually, Durham and those who grasped his message taught a crucifixion of the old nature, a crucifixion declared to be a fact by the Word (Romans 6 and Galatians 2:20), and made experiential within believers through faith, through reckoning on the historical fact of the Cross. If a lapse should come, through a failure to reckon constantly oneself dead to sin, the principle of reckoning must be placed into operation again. Whereas, one who is taught that the inbred corruption is completely removed is bewildered when sin reappears. If the root is eradicated, whence the fruit? Did it somehow return to its former soil? Must it be eradicated again? How many definite works must be wrought until deliverance is "definite"? Durham inquired: Would it not be much simpler and much more scriptural to observe that, whatever the inward condition, the definite fact of the Cross remained, and the inward condition can be rectified when the Christian begins to reckon again? By accepting sanctification as a work which is based on the finished work of Calvary, the believer starts on a high plane of holy living, and can maintain it by abiding in Christ. In this manner, the object of our faith is not in an experience of sanctification but in the Lord Jesus Christ 'who of God is made unto us... sanctification.'" (Carl Brumback, Suddenly… From Heaven: A History of the Assemblies of God, p. 102)

I will delve into this a little deeper in upcoming messages, because there is much practical merit to be found in several aspects of what Durham taught. I want to specifically address in future messages, the concept of temptation from without versus temptation from within, as well as the whole aspect of ABIDING in Christ and the fruit of that abiding.

However, suffice it to say for this message that the Bible teaches sanctification by faith and that without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith reckons us first to be justified based on the merits of Christ’s obedience and atonement on the cross, then to be spiritually crucified with Christ and so raised with him in newness of life—dead to sin and alive unto God.

One does not have to mentally go through the process to receive this experience by faith. One does not have to understand it to experience it. However, it IS the result of faith and the working of God’s Grace (ie. yielding oneself to “the divine influence upon the heart and it’s reflection in the life”—which is, by definition, the second aspect of Grace).

When we fail Him, the failing is not a failure of His Grace or deliverance from sin. The failure is a result of a weak faith. Remember: the enemy’s greatest power is to deceive, and he loves to convince Christians that God has not truly or completely delivered them from sin—that we are not in truth a new creation but an old one merely trying to reform. When we are convinced of this, we will fail and fail habitually until our faith is so shaken that we completely give up.

What happened? I ceased to RECKON myself (ie. to conclude beyond all doubt) dead to sin. My faith must now be recovered, in the reality and experience of Christ's definitive work in me, before I can be sanctified anew.

This much is true. Such faith and subsequent consecration may occur at the very moment in which I turn to Christ, but it may not occur until Christ reveals himself to me as the sanctifier as well as the forgiver of sins.

However, Scripture also tells us that, if any man comes to Christ in faith and repents of his sin, Christ will in no wise refuse him. Contrition is the key to relationship with Christ. (See Psm. 34:18, 51:17; Isaiah 57:15, 67:2; Matt. 5:3.)

Does repentance imply the forsaking of sin? Indeed, it does, as well as a turning to Christ, but that does not necessarily mean that an inward struggle will not persist until Christ is personally revealed to be our deliverer and sanctifier. (See Romans, chapter 7, describing the struggle of the individual who still believes he must by his own efforts fulfill the law of God and is frustrated when he ultimately fails.)

As stated in the last message, the book of I Thessalonians was obviously written to believers, as is evident in the first few verses and later reinforced throughout the epistle. Even so, the Apostle Paul entreated them to be sanctified and said that he prayed for their sanctification.

Reckoning by faith WORKS. Durham’s preaching proved that. Wesleyans who believed the DOCTRINE of sanctification were struggling to EXPERIENCE it, until they heard Durham’s teaching on the subject and for the first time embraced sanctification by FAITH, followed by an immediate change in heart, mind and life that attested to the freedom from sin in their nature.

Sadly, Durham’s followers contended with the Wesleyan (Holiness) Pentecostals over how and when a person became sanctified until the issue of sanctification became more theological than experiential.

The Holiness movement saw Durham as a heretic—and I would have to agree, when it comes to his teaching that Sanctification occurs when one is justified—but subsequently dwindled in their spiritual influence because many continued to struggle with sin in spite of a solid teaching that sanctification was a second definite work of grace, failing to accept and experience the blessedness inherent in RECKONING oneself dead to sin and alive to God, through the outworking of Grace by faith in what is indeed the finished work of Christ.

The southern Pentecostal groups (ie. The Church of God, the Pentecostal Holiness Church, the Church of God in Christ and others) continued their teaching on sanctification as a second definite work of grace, due to their history with the Holiness movement, but many failed to grow beyond the limitations inherent in mere doctrine.

On the other hand, Durham’s people were indeed confused, although their hearts may well have been in the right place, and the “Finished Work” was anything but finished because the Finished Work movement (ie. Assemblies of God and subsequent organizations) began to teach practical sanctification as a “progressive work” that merely begins with justification/salvation.

I realize, for those who are familiar with the progression of these organizations, that I have vastly oversimplified this. However, the bottom line is that organized religion can become so dogmatic about doctrinal definitions that the actual experience is lost and becomes nothing more than words in a statement of faith. Sadly, that is the reality of what is seen in most churches, including those with solid Biblical teaching.

Beyond doctrine, the Holy Spirit will lead the truly converted man or woman to genuine sanctification by faith. It is often a church’s doctrine or teaching on the subject that confuses and hinders converts from simply yielding themselves fully to the Spirit to reveal and “complete” the work.

For all of the frustration and futility of Romans chapter 7, it is all the more blessed to know that chapter 8 begins with these words: Romans 8:1-4 (1) There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (2) For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. (3) For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: (4) That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Romans 8:9-12 explains:
(9) But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. (10) And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (11) But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. (12) Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. (13) For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

How do we “mortify the deeds of the body”? By our own efforts to overcome sin?

Let me, again refer us to Romans 6:
Romans 6:11-14
(11) Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (12) Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. (13) Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. (14) For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

The chapter goes on to increase our faith in the work of God whose Grace does not abound in sin but in righteousness, declaring that we who were once the servants of sin, have a new master, whom we now obey—not because of our great willpower, but because of His Spirit, that “worketh in you, both to will and to do”. (More to come on this.)

Romans 6:22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.

Note: we are MADE free from sin. It is a perfect work, and not of our own imperfect doing. Nor is it a “progressive work.” As a result, we now bear the FRUIT of righteousness.

Paul compelled the Thessalonians to be sanctified (just as he had compelled the Ephesians believers to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost in Acts 19:1-6). He even prayed for their sanctification. They needed to experience the fullness of the perfect work of Christ, through sanctification (spirit, soul and body), by complete faith in Him.

These messages are intended to strengthen your faith in that work, so that you too may enjoy the transformation that results from reckoning oneself dead to sin and alive unto God. However, I implore you to seek that experience in your heart and yield yourself to the Spirit, rather than to attempt to understand and define it, because it is the will of God to give it as soon as you are ready to believe and receive it—whether it be at the moment of salvation or as the Spirit so reveals Christ to you.

Sincerely,

Pastor Doran