Biblical Words Used

Introduction: The Gospel and the Pool of Biblical Words

0:04 The words of that angel who was sent to Joseph to announce the birth of the Lord Jesus spoke words to Joseph that are very familiar to many, if not all of us. Those words recorded in Matthew 1.21, Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he it is that shall save his people from their sins. In those simple words,

0:33 all of two of which have just one syllable, you have in a real sense the very heart of the gospel message. In those words, we have a declaration that man is in a desperate state of sin from which he cannot extricate himself. He needs to be saved or rescued. And the second great truth of the gospel, Christ in the uniqueness of his person and work,

1:02 is the one who has been appointed of God to do that gracious work of deliverance. But although that work of Christ can be summed up in the simple little word, save, the Bible teaches us that it was no simple thing for God to save. And furthermore, the Bible teaches us that salvation is

1:28 has not effected a simple or a restricted deliverance for man. In a very real sense, the measure of the largeness of God's love, the magnitude of His grace, and the perfection of His wisdom is to be found in the breadth of the salvation provided in Jesus Christ. And therefore, all who cherish the God of the Bible in His name grace, His wisdom, and in all of His other glorious attributes. And all who love the salvation brought by the Savior find their delight in meditating upon the richness of that salvation. And so that is precisely what we have been doing for a number of months

2:21 as we are considering together the cardinal blessings of the salvation which we as the people of God receive and seek to proclaim to others. Having examined the biblical teaching concerning the two blessings which initiate us into the kingdom of God or into the possession of salvation, calling and regeneration, we are now considering the the biblical teaching with respect to those wonderful provisions that are ours when we enter into that salvation. Justification, adoption, and now the great blessing of grace called sanctification. Last Lord's Day in our initial study, we considered sanctification in relationship to the human problem of sin and sought to bring into sharp focus the fact that unlike

3:16 justification and adoption, which have to do with our relationship to God as judge and as father. They have to do with legal aspects of our relationship to God. Sanctification has to do primarily with our guilt and our pollution. It has to do with God's dealings with us, not as a judge or as a father, but as a physician. And then we sought to feel something of the impress of the overall testimony of Scripture concerning the centrality of sanctification in the plan of salvation. And we noted that from the initial expression of God's saving purposes in election to the final manifestation of His saving power in glorification, the sanctification of His people is fundamental and central.

4:16 And then we concluded by bringing this all home to our consciences with those two basic warnings. We must beware of any doctrine of salvation which either downgrades or omits the necessity of sanctification. As surely as there is no biblical salvation without Christ or without a work of Christ which provides justification and adoption, There is no biblical salvation which avoids or does not make necessary this gracious provision of God's sanctifying power. And then the second great warning, and on that note we closed our study, beware of any teaching of sanctification which holds it forth as a possibility apart from union with Christ. Sanctification by self-help

5:13 without union with Christ and the very dynamics of the redemption of Christ is a sanctification that can only damn a man. It will never be part of that which prepares him and ultimately takes him to heaven. Now today, we proceed in our study of this great and indispensable part of salvation in Christ, And as we do, I have but one goal for the time that is allotted to us this morning. And that goal is to give to you, as you sit here in this place, a working acquaintance with the meaning and significance of the biblical words used to describe this aspect of saving mercy.

Why Word Study Matters for Pastor and People

6:01 we're going to consider for the time that we're together this morning the meaning and significance of the biblical words used to describe this saving mercy. Now, why am I doing this? Well, for the simple reason that along with the great task of actually expounding and applying the Scriptures, no little part of the task of a true preacher and teacher of God's peoples

6:31 is to impart to the people of God the tools for understanding their own Bibles when they read their Bibles on their own. You see, I am not only to stand here and expound what is in this book and apply it to your consciences. I am to do that. I am to preach the Word, to reprove, to rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering and teaching. But I am to do something else.

6:59 I am also to furnish you with the tools that will enable you, when you read the Word, to discover its true and proper meaning. And I remind you of the words of Peter who said, It is the ignorant as well as the unstable who rest the Scriptures. And so ignorance is never the handmaiden of truth and of sanctification.

7:25 And furthermore, Ephesians 4 says that one of the great ends for which pastors and teachers are given to the church is that the church should no longer be like a bunch of little children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. And then notice the next terminology, and the slight of man. What does a slight of hand artist do? Well, he plays tricks on you right before your eyes.

7:52 Now, the great concern of the apostle is that pastors and teachers should so function in the church so that no one can pull a sleight of hand trick on a child of God who has his Bible before him. And so it is in pursuit of that pastoral duty that I give myself this morning to trying to ascertain with you the meaning and significance of the basic things family of biblical words. Now, this discipline is very necessary. Although it is not glamorous, seldom is it exhilarating. And so it means that I've had to engage in some arduous acts of self-denial, both in my preparation and also be prepared for self-denial in my preaching. Seldom do I get blessed silly while engaged in a word study. Occasionally I do, but seldom do

8:50 But you see, if we are so irresponsibly pursuing a blessing that we'll not take the time to think hard and accurately about the biblical words which describe the blessing, we deserve to be led astray by the sleight of hand of false teachers. And the preacher who will not engage in the self-denial necessary deserves to have his people

9:20 led astray, and then he'll have to answer to God for being a poor shepherd. Now, you'll never make sense of the biblical terms sanctify, sanctification, holy, and holiness, if every time you see them you immediately say, well, the word sanctify, sanctification, holy, holiness mean to make pure and clean, to cleanse from the defilement and the pollution of sin. No, you'll never make sense of many passages in the Bible

The Basic Concept: Set Apart from Common Use Unto God

9:50 Because although the doctrine of sanctification has to do with that, it is not a doctrine that we arrive at simply by taking all the words, holy, holiness, sanctify, sanctification, and then pouring that meaning into them. So consider with me, as we work through this project this morning, the fundamental concept of the Hebrew and Greek families of words. You have one basic family of words in the Hebrew language, and translated sanctify, holy, and make holy, and you have one basic family of words with several different first and second cousins in the New Testament in the Greek language. And the basic notion of both the Hebrew and the Greek families of words is this, to sanctify or to make holy

10:47 is to set apart any person or thing from a common usage for a special religious purpose or function, especially to set it apart for God. One has accurately described it this way. To sanctify anything is to declare that it belongs to God. It may refer to persons, places,

11:15 Days and seasons and objects used for worship. Now in the Old Testament, the primary emphasis is upon the external, the ritual, and the formal sanctification of people, places, objects, or things. Not exclusively, but primarily.

11:38 And then as the doctrine of sanctification more and more unfolds through the prophets and then on into the New Testament, we find that same pattern that we find with so many things. First that which is natural, then that which is spiritual. Until when we come into the New Testament...

11:57 Apart from several very limited and very clear references, the New Testament knows nothing of a mere external sanctification of people, places, objects, and things, but it knows only that sanctification which has as its essence being set apart unto God from sin with a growing conformity to His image and to His will. Now let's look at the illustrations of this so that you know that I am not simply asserting out of the stuff of my own imagination. We'll look primarily in the book of Exodus. We could perhaps just as well have parked in Leviticus. But let's turn now to several passages in Exodus. And all we're trying to do at this point in our study is to ascertain the fundamental concept of

Old Testament Illustrations in Exodus

12:54 of the Hebrew word for sanctify or holy or to sanctify or to make holy. Exodus chapter 3, and I turn to this deliberately because most of you children will remember this incident. If you know anything about the Old Testament, you know something about Moses. You know how one day he came when he was out tending sheep and saw a bush burning, but it wasn't consumed. Some of us would like to have some kind of fuels of that nature in our day with the so-called energy crunch, one that burned and obviously gave forth light and probably heat, but was not consumed. Well, it's in this context that we see this idea of being set apart unto God, pressed to the forefront. Verse 1 of Exodus 3. Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian,

13:51 And he led the flock to the back of the wilderness and came to the mountain of God unto Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush. And he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will turn aside now and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see

14:21 God called unto him out of the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not nigh hither. Put off thy shoes from off thy feet. For the place whereon thou standest is holy, is sanctified ground. Now, was God saying,

14:52 That all the little bugs that were there in that little piece of real estate where the bush was, and all that would render that earth in some sense unclean, that the fire that was in the bush actually purified the soil and made it holy soil?

15:11 Is he saying that there was actually an influence of the Holy Spirit permeating the soil, making it holy soil? You say, of course not, Pastor. It can't mean that. Well, obviously. Of course it doesn't mean that. Well, what does it mean? It is called holy ground. Well, you see, it is made holy because at that point, that little piece of real estate on the backside of a wilderness was marked out as the peculiar piece of real estate in which...

15:41 God would reveal Himself to Moses. So because it was marked out and set apart for God's special use, it was called holy ground. So you see, the concept that holiness, something to be rendered holy, means to be set apart from an ordinary use to a special use, stands on the very surface of this passage. where once that little piece of real estate was the place where any of the sheep could graze and walk, it was common ground. Suddenly, it is holy ground, because it is ground marked out for God. Now turn to Exodus 13 for another passage, which indicates the same line of thought in a totally different context. Exodus 13, verses 1 and 2.

16:39 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Sanctify unto me. And this is that same root word, a different form, but the same root word. Sanctify unto me. Make holy unto me all the firstborn. Whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of beast, it is.

17:08 is mine. Now, do you see the obvious meaning? God is saying to Moses that you are to be my mouthpiece to make known to my people that everything that is firstborn, whether of human beings or of animals, is to be sanctified unto me. That is, it is to be set apart from a common significance and common usage of and is to be regarded my peculiar possession, it is mine. And that's the essence of its sanctification. Now it obviously can't mean moral renovation, because not every firstborn in Israel proved to be of true Israel. Many of the firstborn were not, a la Esau.

17:57 He was the firstborn, but he obviously never knew any sanctifying grace. This is the clear teaching of the New Testament as well as the overpowering implication of the Old. But he's called a profane person in the New Testament, yet he was sanctified unto the Lord. He was the firstborn. And subsequent to this revelation that we have to Moses, it is evident that certain of the firstborn were not

18:27 In that sense, peculiarly the objects of saving grace. Likewise, animals are not the object of sanctifying grace. Nothing of the work of the Spirit permeates the nature of an animal. Well, you say, Pastor, why do you labor the point simply to establish that this is the biblical concept that emerges in the Old Testament? The primary connotation is sanctification has nothing to do initially with moral understanding It has to do with being set apart unto God. You find the same emphasis in Exodus 19. Let's turn together to Exodus 19. Verses 10, 14, and 23. Exodus 19, verse 10. And the Lord said unto Moses, Go unto the people and sanctify them today and tomorrow...

19:24 and let them wash their garments and be ready against the third day." Now, how can Moses sanctify the people? He has no power to impart grace, but he can sanctify them in terms of commanding them to put aside the common relationships of life. In this context, the normal husband-wife sexual relationship was to be suspended. Normal contacts in relationship with men and things were to be altered.

19:53 They were to be set apart from the ordinary unto God in terms of the special dealings that God was about to have with them in revealing to them His law. Verse 14, And Moses went down from the mount unto the people and sanctified the people, and they washed their garments. Then turn to Exodus 28, if you will, for another incident. Exodus chapter 28.

20:22 Verses 1 to 3. And bring thou near unto thee Aaron thy brother and his sons with him from among the children of Israel, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office, even Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, Eliezer, and Ithamar, Aaron's sons. And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, and thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, for glory and for beauty. And thou shalt speak unto all that are wise-hearted, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they make Aaron's garments, and sanctify him, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office. Now here you have the command to sanctify Aaron. Well, here again, Moses has no power to impart purifying grace to Aaron's heart,

21:11 But he can demand that Aaron be set apart in a peculiar way unto God for the service he is to render in the tabernacle. You find a similar emphasis in Exodus 29, 43, and 44. Now, what does this tell us? Well, it underscores what I've already announced to you, that the primary idea, the fundamental idea...

New Testament Echoes in Matthew 23 and 1 Timothy 4

21:36 of making something holy, sanctifying it, is its being set apart unto God. Therefore you, in reading your Old Testament, will find pots and vessels sanctified. You'll find garments and pieces of real estate sanctified. You'll find mountains sanctified, tabernacles sanctified, all kinds of things and people sanctified. But if you read into that, that they were actually made participants of the work of the Spirit in purifying grace, you'll be reading nonsense into the Bible and thereby extracting nonsense out of the Bible. And this emphasis is found predominantly in the Old Testament, but there are a couple of traces of it in the New as well. Look at the words of our Lord Jesus in Matthew chapter 23.

22:30 Speaking to the scribes and Pharisees, exposing the folly of their externalism, our Lord says in Matthew 23, verse 16, Woe unto you, ye blind guides that say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing. But whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor. Ye fools and blind, for which is greater? The gold...

22:58 or the temple that hath sanctified the gold. Now that's exactly the same word used of the sanctification of people later on in the New Testament. But here you see, it partakes of that whole Old Testament connotation. Which is greater, he says, the temple or the gold, I'm sorry, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold. Here they had this strange custom that if someone swore by the temple, he wasn't bound to keep his oath.

23:27 But if he swore by the gold in the temple, then he was bound. The Lord says, now look how stupid you are. Which is greater, the gold as an object in itself, or the temple, which the moment the gold becomes a part of it, sanctifies that gold. It changes it from gold that may be common coinage, common currency, or common precious metal. And once it becomes a part of the temple, it is set apart forever.

23:56 for a special religious significance, it's now holy gold. It is sanctified gold. And then you have the same thing in verse 19, He blind for which is greater the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift. Here a man had a gift, whether it was of something material or something agricultural, the moment he placed it upon the altar, it was sanctified. It was no longer common meal.

24:25 It was no longer a common animal. It was no longer a common element of food or drink. The moment it touched the altar, it was set apart unto God, and that setting apart is called by our Lord, sanctification. And the Apostle Paul uses the same idea in 1 Timothy chapter 4. 1 Timothy chapter 4. You had people who would teach in that day, and they do to this day, that certain foods and drinks are evil in themselves. Pork is evil. Other foods are evil. They ought to be abstained from on religious scruples. Certain drinks are evil in themselves. Well, that doctrine does not come from hyper-spirituality. Paul says it comes from another source.

25:24 comes from demons. Do not take heed, he says, and do not give heed to seducing spirits, doctrines of demons. Others will. But now notice, what is wrong with that idea? Verse 4, for every creature of God is good. All meats and drinks are God's gifts and are good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving for

25:53 It is sanctified through the word of God in prayer. Here we have food and drink being sanctified. Now, in what sense are they sanctified? When we pray and give thanks, I don't mean to be blasphemous. Does God come and purge all the BHT and all of the steroids that may be remaining in the flesh of the meat that have been pumped in by the meat people and all the other carcinogenic materials? Well, I wish that were so.

26:22 but we know otherwise. It's not so. Well, in what sense then is our food and drink sanctified by the Word of God in prayer? Well, the moment we consciously receive it as a gift of God, and we pray that in eating and drinking we may be strengthened to do the will of God, it is no longer just common food and drink. It has been set apart to the service of God in our experience. So it's sanctified food. In spite of the BHT that may be in it, and some of the steroids that may be in it, it's still holy food. It is sanctified food. All right, do you see then the overarching emphasis of these passages establishes the assertion I've made that the basic concept of

Image of the Mountain Pool and Its Streams

27:11 of something being sanctified and holy is set apart from common usage, primarily set apart unto God and His use. Now then, having established the basic significance of the word, consider with me this second division of our study this morning, the rich and varied streams that flow out from this fundamental concept. And I want you to think with me in terms of an image.

27:40 Try to picture high up on a mountain a natural and very deep pool. Some of us have seen that on certain mountains. Pools very, very high up in the mountain. Try to picture such a pool filled with clear, refreshing water. And then at certain points coming out of that pool where there are crevices in the rock, there are little rivulets and streams that flow down in different directions from that pool.

28:10 Now as the water flows down from that pool, it's precisely the same water, same basic constituent elements. But because some of the rivulets in streams flow down over certain rocks and others flow under certain kinds of soil, impurities will either be gained, mostly filtered out, As the river flows down, or as the streams flow down, there are different courses. Now that's how I want you to picture this part of our study. We've been examining the pool at the top of the mountain. The overall biblical concept of sanctifying, making holy...

28:53 means in its essence set apart from common use under God. You say, Pastor, you've said it so often now, you're getting tedious. You must be tired. Well, I am tired, but I hope it's tedious enough to the point where it gets riveted in. I've not gone foolish in my weariness. I'm trying to rivet it to your consciousness. But now, from that pool, with that basic idea regulating, there are wonderful nuances there.

Stream One: The Sanctification of God Himself and by His People

29:20 richness, diversity seen in the usages of these biblical words. And as I've labored to try to organize them into their different categories, I believe there are three fundamental categories that at least will help you as you read the scriptures. First of all, you have the sanctification of God, you have the sanctification of man, and then you have the sanctification of the Redeemer. First of all, the sanctification of God. God Himself is said to be sanctified. First of all, by Himself and then by His people. Turn please to Exodus chapter... I'm sorry, Ezekiel chapter 36. My EZ looked like an EX. Ezekiel chapter 36. Notice the language of verse 23. Verse 23.

30:16 Ezekiel 36, and we can begin with verse 22. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God, I do not this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for my holy name, which ye have profaned among the nations whither ye went. And I will sanctify my great name. which has been profaned among the nations, which ye have profaned in the midst of them, and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. Now in what sense does God need to be sanctified? He's already perfectly holy. The seraphim, the cherubim cry one to another, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts.

31:12 Only for God to be sanctified cannot mean that He becomes more pure and more holy. What does it mean when God says He will sanctify Himself? Well, it means precisely this. That because God was ill-thought of among the nations, because of the idolatry of the Israelites, the nations thought God to be simply one other among many.

31:41 We've got our gods. You Israelites have your God. You call Him Jehovah. Our gods are mightier than your God because we beat you and we take you into captivity. That was the heathen mentality. And so God was not a part, alone.

31:58 Set off at a distance as the one true and living God to be adored and magnified by all the earth. He was simply one God among many. He says, you've profaned my name among the nations, and that's how they profaned it. By worshipping idols, God had to punish Israel, and in so doing, God ran the risk. I say it again reverently. God ran the risk of having people think he was just a tribal God like the gods of the nations.

32:26 But God says the time is coming when I'm going to reverse that. And I will sanctify my name in your midst to the wandering sight of the nations. And how does God do it? By bringing His people to acknowledge Him as the only true and living God. And when they do, then the nations realize God is set apart from all that is called God.

32:52 And so the concept, you see, of being set apart is there at the foundation, even when God speaks of the sanctifying of Himself. You have a similar reference in chapter 38 and verse 23 of Ezekiel. Chapter 38 and verse 23, And I will magnify myself and sanctify myself. And I will make myself known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am Jehovah. The verse is self-interpreting. God sanctifies himself by causing men to know that he is what he is, the one true and living God. But not only is the sanctification of God spoken of as an activity which he will effect by his own power,

33:45 but it is an activity to which he calls his people. He calls his people to sanctify him. Leviticus 10 and verse 3. Leviticus 10 and verse 3. Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is that the Lord spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified. It is my will to

34:14 that those who come before Me in the office of a priest will sanctify Me. Now, can it mean that they will make God more holy than He is? No. It simply means that in their functions as priests, they will make it known that there is the One true and living God into whose presence they come in the way of His appointment, with the sacrifices of His appointment, as revealed in the very law given to Moses. And this is laid upon the people of God as a duty in Isaiah 8 and verse 13. Isaiah 8 and verse 13. The same concept of the sanctifying of God by the people of God. Isaiah 8 and verse 13. The Lord of hosts, Him shall ye sanctify.

35:11 And let him be your fear and let him be your dread. A parallel passage in chapter 29, 22, and 23, but we'll pass over it in the interest of time and come all the way into the New Testament. And what do we find Peter saying in 1 Peter 3, 15? And you want a good passage to use with your Jehovah's Witness friends. Show them the Isaiah passages where we're told Jehovah shall be sanctified in your eyes and in your heart.

35:40 Jehovah shall be your fear and your dread. Lo and behold, in the Jehovah-ism of Jesus, Peter is able to say in 1 Peter 3 and verse 15, But sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord. Christ as Jehovah. Christ as the Kurios of the New Testament, who is the Yahweh of the Old Testament.

36:09 But here is the duty of God's people now. God says in the Ezekiel passages, I will sanctify my name. Now he says you sanctify it. Well, how do we do it? Very simply, by giving God that place in our esteem and affection, which he both commands and of which he is worthy. We don't treat God like a common person.

36:35 And the shame of some of you in your sins is you treat God with less decency than you treat your fellow human beings. If you snubbed your neighbors and your friends and relatives the way you snubbed God, they would have long since turned their backs upon you. God is God deserves to have the place that is His by right of making Him. He is your Creator.

37:06 And having sent His Son for sinners, and having commanded you to repent and to believe, this in a real sense is a gospel command as well as a directive for believers. So you have then, as you read through your Bibles, this strain of thought that comes out of that one big pool of the concept of being set apart from the common and the ordinary to the holy, to the special use of God,

37:33 this first stream, the sanctification of God himself. And if you want an interesting study, you read about the disobedience of Moses in smiting the rock instead of speaking to it. And again and again in Numbers 20, verse 12, Numbers 27, 12 to 14, and then in Deuteronomy 32, 50 and 51, when God indicts Moses and reviews what he did, He said, the reason you will not go into the promised land is you did not sanctify me in the eyes of my people. When you struck the rock, you did not sanctify me. And he says, in one place, you did not obey me. In the second place, he says, you did not believe me. It is by impenitence and unbelief that we fail to sanctify God.

Stream Two: The Sanctification of Man as Responsibility

38:27 in the sense of the biblical command to do so. Well then, there is a second stream coming down another side out of the pool. And as it comes down and passes over rocks and under bits of earth, it picks up different perspectives. It's what we are calling for our use this morning, the sanctification of man. And you have verses in which man is responsible...

38:58 to sanctify himself, so that this sanctification of man is set forth in Scripture as man's responsibility and activity. Leviticus chapter 11. Here God is commanding his people to be a sanctified people. Leviticus chapter 11, verses 44 and 45. I am the Lord your God. Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy.

39:28 for I am holy. Neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping things that moveth upon the earth, for I am the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. Ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy. And the root word for the command to sanctify themselves, and the statement, ye shall be holy, for I am holy, it's in that same family of Hebrew words.

39:55 Now here, you see, it was a separation from those things which would ceremonially defile the people. He's speaking in the context of unclean animals. Every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth is an abomination. God says, don't touch it, don't eat it, don't come near it, you're to be holy. But you see, it was a sanctification that involved the responsibility and the activity of the people of God.

40:23 At this point, it was ceremonial sanctification, being set apart from the ordinary contact with any ordinary beast or animal or creeping thing, and to be in touch only with that which God had declared clean. Now that concept is carried right over into the New Testament. We don't have time to trace out all the parts of it. When you come to 2 Corinthians chapter 6, this responsibility...

40:53 of purification from that which defiles, is now internalized. It is taken out of the realm of unclean beasts and animals, and is made a description of the very essence of true spiritual sanctification. 2 Corinthians 6, beginning with verse 17, Wherefore,

41:18 Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch no unclean things. See the language of the Old Testament extracted right from the Old Testament, the book of Isaiah. And I will receive you and will be to you a father and ye shall be to me sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Having therefore these promises, beloved,

41:42 Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement. See the Old Testament language? But now where is that defilement? Of flesh and of spirit. Not the defilement of a creeping thing or a beast or an animal, but the defilement of flesh and spirit with this goal in view, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

42:12 And again, the language of the Old Testament. I am God, sanctify me in your hearts. And this is the first dimension of the sanctification of man, man's responsibility and activity. Then it is set forth as man's privilege and position. There's a sanctification of man that has to do not with an inward work of grace, but with an outward relationship of privilege. 1 Corinthians 7.

Sanctification of Man as Privilege — Mixed Marriages

42:41 a passage, again, that has baffled many and has been abused by many others to try to support an unsupportable doctrine, namely the doctrine that we ought to baptize our infants. But in the context of dealing with the subject of marriage, Paul says in verse 12, I say, not the Lord, that is, there's no previous revelation on this point, but as an apostle I now speak by way of revelation, and If any brother hath an unbelieving wife, and she is content to dwell with him, let him not leave her. Now you have what we would call a mixed marriage. One partner's been converted, the other has not. Shall the converted spouse leave the unconverted? Paul says no. The woman that hath an unbelieving husband, and he is content to dwell with her, let her not leave her husband. Well, why? The next verse tells us. For.

43:39 The unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife. It's the same word used for the inward work of sanctification. But Paul can use it because we go back to the pool. The basic concept of the word is set apart from ordinary uses and relationships.

44:01 The unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife. The unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother. Else were your children unclean, but now are they holy. Now are they sanctified. What is he saying? I think the meaning is obvious. He is saying, don't unnecessarily break up the marriage because one partner has come into a state of grace, because by so doing, by the very nature of the intimate relationship of marriage and the family, the unconverted spouse and the children are brought into a relationship of wonderful privilege. They will be in contact with a living demonstration of the power of the gospel, with someone who can bear witness to the truth of the gospel,

44:51 He cannot mean that the unbelieving is actually set apart unto God inwardly and experimentally. If that were so, then we'd believe in evangelization and conversion by contracting mixed marriages. So we'd get all the saved women to say, look, you want somebody to get saved? Marry them. And when you do, they are sanctified in that relationship.

45:14 Well, you see, if you're going to make the sanctification of children mean that they are automatically within the covenant of grace because there are children, you've got to do it with the unbelieving spouse. The same family of words is used. I don't know anyone that's prepared to go out and say, let's all get the Christian gals to marry non-Christian men so we bring them within the orbit of the covenant of grace and therefore we can...

45:37 presume or claim their salvation. Let's get them baptized because they're within the... That's ridiculous. I don't know anyone advocating that except perhaps the Church of Rome. No, what he's saying is there is a sanctification of man that has to do with a place of privilege. And may I say in passing to some of you sitting here, what a privilege. What a privilege. God in His inscrutable wisdom

46:08 So ordered your marriage that when you were married to your spouse, he or she was yet in her or his sins. And God has saved that husband or wife, much to your irritation perhaps, because it's transformed her or his lifestyle, and consequently your patterns as a husband and wife. But my friend, what a merciful thing for God to put as it were the light of His truth. right in your own living room, right in your bedroom, right in your kitchen. What an evidence of mercy. And for you children of Christian parents, you get the message, don't you? What a privilege. The very thing you kick against. God said it's a sanctifying relationship. There are people living on your block who will live and die and go to hell having never known

47:03 what it is to have had one person pray for one hour for their salvation. And some of you who have parents who God alone can number the hours they've wept and cried to God for your salvation. What a privilege to be sanctified, set apart from the common paganism of our day, and to be brought within the orbit of the gospel, But that sanctification won't take you to heaven. It will make you go to the hottest place in hell unless you repent. For to whom much is given, of him shall much be required. But then there is a sanctification of man that is not only man's responsibility and activity, and oh, our time is gone, man's privilege and position, but God's promise and activity. God says to his ancient people in Exodus 31,

Sanctification of Man as God's Promise and Activity

48:01 I will sanctify the nation. He says in 1 Thessalonians 5, 23, the God of peace Himself. And in the original it's emphatic, the God of peace Himself. Sanctify you wholly. But I want to close on this note that takes our attention away from man and places it on the sanctification of the Redeemers.

Stream Three: The Sanctification of the Redeemer

48:27 three key texts or two key texts in the New Testament, John chapter 10 and verse 36. Our Lord is in debate with the religious leaders of His day, and they're upset because He claims to be the Son of God, and in the course of His argument with them, He says this in verse 36, Say ye of Him, John 10, 36, whom the Father is, sanctified and sent into the world, thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of God. Here Christ describes himself, our Lord describes himself as the one who has been sanctified by the Father and sent into the world. Now keep that in mind and turn to John 17. Sanctified by the Father, sent into the world.

49:20 Now he prays in John 17 and verse 17, Sanctify them in the truth, thy word is truth, as thou didst send me into the world, even so sent I them into the world. Now notice, for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.

49:48 Now bring these two witnesses together. Jesus says, the Father sanctified me and sent me into the world. Now in what sense did the Father sanctify the Son? He was forever in the mystery of the one in three and the three in one, equal sharer in the very holiness of the Godhead. He could not be made more holy, more pure, nor more morally perfect than but he was set apart in the purpose and counsel of God. Having been set apart for the work of a Redeemer in the fullness of the times, he was sent into the world. Now, having been sent, his entire life was not one of a robot-like, pre-programmed response to the will of God. No, no. It was a constant act in life of obedience.

50:44 Every successive step of the unfolding of the will of God demanded a response of obedience even to the point of that agonizing experience of Gethsemane in which all that is true of him as a man recoils from the specter of drinking that cup and he cries, not my will but thine be done. What has he done? He tells us. He says, for the sake of my people I have saved Set myself apart to the work of a Redeemer. And I have committed myself to the performance of that work at any cost. To what end? Look at the text. Verse 19. To this end, he says, I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. In other words...

51:39 Jesus says that the end for which He sanctifies Himself as our Redeemer is that He might have a sanctified people as His redeemed. He did not set Himself apart for the agonizing, arduous labors of a Redeemer simply to have a people who are justified and adopted.

52:08 and who can irresponsibly flit through life rejoicing in their justification and adoption, while yet wedded to their idols and their pollution. He said, I sanctify myself, set myself apart for this work that will demand the agony of Gethsemane and the awful mystery of the abandonment of Golgotha that I might have a people. who are set apart from the bondage and defilement of sin unto God and to His service, so that I, as I was in the world, the verse sandwiched in between, so they will be in the world as those sent by me to do my will to bring praise to the Father. And surely on this first Lord's Day of the month, as it will be our privilege to gather to the Lord's table,

53:07 How it should fill us with praise that we can know the grace of sanctification. Because the Redeemer was sanctified and sent to the Father. And because he sanctified himself in this succession of loving obedience to the will of the Father. Obedience even to the death of the cross. Now Paul can say, he is.

53:35 Christ is made unto us sanctification. Why? Because He sanctified Himself. Set Himself apart for that task. Committed Himself to fulfill it. Not sparing Himself. And how we should bless God that as we gather to the Lord's table tonight, we can sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts. The Lord who loved us.

54:04 gave himself for us to the end that we, by the dynamism of redemptive privilege and power, might be set apart unto him as his sanctified people. Well, I hope you haven't found this exercise tedious as we've tried to trace down several of these main streams from that great pool. And I hope it has furnished you with material that when you pick up your Bible now and you're reading, you say, oh, That's stream number one. Oh, that's stream number two. Oh, that's stream number three. Oh, I see it. And if that end has been accomplished, then my labors have been more than rewarded, and together we shall bless God. Let us pray. Our Father, what can we say when we contemplate Your act?

Closing Prayer

55:03 in sanctifying and in sending your beloved Son. We thank you that your love for lost, undone sinners was so strong as to cause you to deny yourself the luxury of that unbroken face-to-face communion with the eternal Word, which ever was and would have gone on uninterrupted in all of its

55:32 pre-incarnate glory had you not sanctified and sent your Son. And we bless you, Lord Jesus. We bless and praise you that you sanctified yourself. Set yourself apart by that loving act of obedience to do the Father's will that we might be saved from our sins, that we might be set apart from the service of sin and the devil and lust unto you, the living God. O Lord, write these things upon our hearts. Protect your people from errors on the left hand and on the right, from misunderstanding of your word. We pray that our study this morning may result in our being better furnished to be accurate students of your word and participants in its promised blessings.

56:32 Hear our prayer and receive our thanks, and be with us the remainder of this day we plead. In Jesus' name, amen.