Pattern of Sanctification

Pastor Martin turns from the agency of sanctification to the pattern of sanctification, asking by what standard the believer is to evaluate growth in grace. He unfolds the first three strands of the biblical fourfold pattern: God Himself (Be ye holy for I am holy), the moral law of God epitomized in the Decalogue (Romans 7:12 — holy, righteous, and good), and the entire spectrum of God's revealed will in Scripture, including the apostolic instructions, Old Testament biography, and even the principles woven into the civil and ceremonial law (1 Corinthians 9, 10; 2 Timothy 3:16). The fourth strand — Christ as the law incarnate — is held over for the next message.

Pastor Martin completes the fourfold pattern of sanctification by setting forth the Lord Jesus Christ as the supreme pattern for the believer. He establishes from both the self-consciousness of Christ (Matthew 10, Matthew 20, John 13) and the explicit teaching of the apostles (1 Peter 2, 1 John 2, Philippians 2) that Christ is the example believers must imitate, then explains why: in Christ the image of God is perfectly revealed in the concreteness of our human situation. He gives extended examples of Christ's holiness, love, and obedience to the Father, warns against the idolatry of inventing a Christ in our own image, and pleads that no one can be like Christ until they are first in Christ by repentance and faith.