Entire Sanctification

I hope to outline in a simple short post what I understand to be entire sanctification.

The believers experience after conversion…

We all have had to endure some degree of an up and down experience after conversion. Why? because there is a "something" hidden within us that wars against the Spirit in us. This places a glass ceiling on your best moments of devotion and faith and keeps your heart vulnerable to temptation. This is because a portion of the heart is still occupied with the loves and hates we have had before you were saved, this causes a persisting inclination towards sin.

What God requires from his people.

God has always required and expects nothing less for a wholehearted love and service and from his people. To love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul these words are often repeated. Deut 6:4-5, Deut 10:12, Deut 11:13, Deut 13:3, Deut 26:16, Deut 30:2. to name only a few.

What God did so we his people could meet his requirement.

Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart this is the first and great commandment” This is the sum of that law that he came to fulfill for us and to enable us to fulfill. "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk after the Spirit."

Entire Sanctification

The righteousness of the law fulfilled is “loving God with all the heart”, for love is the fulfilling of the law. This righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us, who walk after the Spirit.

To walk after the Spirit simply means to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” and this is entire sanctification as I understand it…

The believers experience after conversion…

We all have had to endure some degree of an up and down experience after conversion. Why? because there is a "something" hidden within us that wars against the Spirit in us.

This hidden thing is called Flesh. See before we accepted Christ (I don't use the term Saved as Salvation cannot be of past), we live according to our flesh, what all the Flesh desires we give it immediately, because we don't know it is Sin and we don't know God's way of life. Now when we accept Christ, his commands are now written into our heart through the Spirit. So we want to live by his commands but the old Flesh which we used to entertain freely is overtaking us time and again. Though we do not want to feed it, we end up feeding it because we are not strong enough to withstand it. This is life explained in Romans 7. Every Christian believer would have experienced it and most of them are actually still living in it for all their life.

What God requires from his people.

God requires us to keep his commands that are now written into our heart instead of writing them into Tablets. To love the Lord with all our heart is the top most command that covers all the commands and is much higher standard than any other life lived by Command. We cannot take it easy and say 'yes I can love the God with all my heart'. We cannot love him by our strength. If one truly loves God then he will keep all his commands and will please him in all possible ways.

What God did so we his people could meet his requirement.

God gave us his Spirit so that we can keep his requirements. But we instead of listening to the Spirit, we listen more to the Flesh because we are born of the Flesh and we have nourished it so much in our past life. So God kills us by breaking us, so that we are dead to Flesh and alive in Christ. This is a stage that happens only when we are longing for him and badly want to come out of Romans 7 like how Paul cries out -"Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from [r]the body of this death?".

The problem with most Christians is they think they are already saved and they do not worry about their Wretched life in Romans 7. They keep enjoying their Flesh lead life. If God kills you when you are actually enjoying a life then will it not be a Murder? Only when you hate that life and cry out to God to save you this brokenness will come.

Entire Sanctification

The righteousness of the law fulfilled is “loving God with all the heart”, for love is the fulfilling of the law. This righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us, who walk after the Spirit.

To walk after the Spirit simply means to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” and this is entire sanctification as I understand it…

To walk in the spirit means to live according to the Spirit without yielding to the Flesh. We are dead to the Flesh. God does not kill the Flesh, but he kills us so that we will not yield to the Flesh. So the Flesh will still keep tempting us but we do not yield to it, but we yield to Spirit.

Romans 8-4:-
so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

Romans 8-4, clearly states that walking in Spirit is to set our mind on the spirit which will enable us to keep the requirements of the law. If we set our minds on the flesh we can never keep the commandments of God.

This is Sanctification, where you walk according to Spirit and without yielding to Flesh. The Spirit keeps revealing to you the Truths about the life of Jesus Christ so that we will be transformed into his image gradually.

The reason that such threads on Sanctification invites less attention from people while head covering does is a clear proof that people have rejected Sanctification totally. They either think they are already Sanctified which is a false faith or they do not want to get into it as this process requires one to die.

1 Thessalonians 4-7:-
For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.

Holy Spirit is given to us so that we might be Sanctified but in Today's Christianity who talks about Holy Spirit with respect to his Sanctifying work.

"Oh wretched man that I am, who will set me free?"

Jesus Christ, so with the mind (Christ) I serve the Law of God.

With the flesh (flesh) I serve the old memory of sin, the law of sin and death.

Don't walk after the flesh, but walk after the Spirit where there is no condemnation. The Spirit in whom we walk is the Spirit of Christ who is my life and the power of this life is the Holy Spirit that teaches me Christ and what He says and does as my life.

Who has delivered us, who is delivering and who will yet deliver? Praise God through Jesus Christ I can do all things for the Kingdom of God By The Spirit of Christ who is now my life.

In Christ: Phillip

What is “Flesh”

Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.

Three things stand out here when describing the flesh.

1. Nothing Good dwells in it----this is Sin. Paul points this out in Rom 7:17

2. To will is present--------our own will this is self…

3. But how to perform what is good I do not find-------powerless to do good.

Sin is lawlessness 1 John 3:4, Sin will always fight and resist God, Paul stated “I delight in the law of God according to the inward man” but he found that Sin in him fought against the Law of God which he delighted in…

Self we are according to scripture made up of Spirit, Soul and Body… 1 Thess 5:23. I will briefly focus on the Spirit and Soul in this Post….

Spirit

When we are regenerated “Born Again” it is the spirit of the man that is born again of the Spirit. The man who is “born again” will find that he delights in the Law of God in the “inward man”. Rom 7:22

Soul

The Soul is made up of Mind, Will, Emotions, the Soul is the seat, source, reservoir, and instigator of our thoughts, attitudes, desires, character, and motivation. The soul (mind, will and emotions) is the battlefield where Sin wars against Spirit we can agree with Spirit that the law that it is good Rom 7:16 and we can delight in the Law of God according to the inward man (Spirit) Rom 7:22 and with the mind agree that the law is good Rom 7:25 and you can have the will to perform good Rom 7:18…

So we are left in a position that with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. Rom 7:25.

Meaning that we agree with God that the law is good, but are powerless because of the weakness of the flesh to perform the good that we would do.

Edited:- For spacing

The Cure or the Deliverer

Who can deliver us form this Body of death?----I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Rom 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Jesus has made us free from the law of sin and death but how… God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh. Rom 8:2.. Sin in the flesh was condemned that carnal nature the “old man” has been put to death!!!!!!

Paul asks a good question in Rom 6:2 How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Then it dawns on Paul as he is writing his letter to the Romans or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Paul then goes on to tell the Romans we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Rom 6:6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

“Knowing this” in places where Paul says “don’t you know” or "knowing this” or other words like that, I have to say the majority don’t know. So you check on yourself if you know this.

Rom 6:11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What does that mean dead indeed to sin? Sin has no more power over you. Sin has no more attraction for you. Sin produces no more reaction from you. That’s what it is to be dead to sin. Paul says reckon yourselves to be dead to sin. Why? On the basis of what took place on the cross. Because God executed the old man in Jesus. Our old man is executed. But we have to know it and we have to reckon it. God not only deals with the past it’s great to have your past forgiven but it still doesn’t solve the real problem if there’s a rebel living inside you. Why? Because the rebel will cause you to go on doing rebellious acts. So the provision of God is not merely to forgive us of the past, but it’s the execution of the rebel inside.

Here is another don’t you know… Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? Rom 6:16 So present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness Rom 6:19

But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness and the end, everlasting life. Rom 6:22

It all starts with a knowing, then reckoning and then presenting of yourself to God…

1. Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him
2. Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin
3. Present your members as slaves of righteousness

The Fruit of this will be Holiness or Entire Sanctification……