Sanctification and Victory

Sanctification is not our own work, it is done by God for us: "Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered without the gate" (Heb. 13.12); again, "for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified" (Heb. 10.14). Sanctification is a completed fact. We are sanctified because Jesus has died. However, in 1 Peter 1.15 we are commanded: "be ye . . . holy." Why does the apostle say this? Because in spite of the fact that believers are already sanctified, this sanctification is only God’s fact, it is not yet the believer’s life experience. To be sanctified, it is necessary to draw upon the sanctification which the death of Jesus has prepared for us. We must take that sanctification as our sanctification before we can live a holy life.

The matter of overcoming the world follows the same principle. First is the work which Christ has accomplished—the fact of God. Jesus said: "I have overcome the world" (John 16.33). Second is our faith, for God’s word also declares: "this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith" (1 John 5.4). And lastly, we draw on the victory of Christ as our own victory, and so we overcome the world. This third step is our life experience after we have believed. Fact is God’s work; faith is our trust in God’s work; and experience is our having God’s work practically in life.

Yet not only sanctification and victory follow this principle, even all the other major teachings of God’s dealing with men follow it as well.

All God’s facts are the works of God, not the efforts of men. These are not accomplished through the believer’s prayer, work, sacrifice, self-denial or plotting. God’s facts are done by God himself. All of His enterprises are accomplished in Christ. Faith is the only way by which to get to these facts; there is no other way.

Now let us illustrate how far apart from each other are God’s fact and man’s experience. According to God’s fact, the assembly in Corinth was comprised of "them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus" (1 Cor. 1.2). They were the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6.19), even "washed . . . sanctified . . . justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6.11). But so far as their experience, what do we find? "Nay, already it is altogether a defect in you . . . Nay, but ye yourselves do wrong, and defraud" (1 Cor. 6.7,8); "ye sin against Christ" (1 Cor. 8.12). Why was there this state of affairs among them? It was because they had failed to draw upon the grace (fact) that God had provided for them. And hence such failure was theirs. The lofty position we have in fact is not to be experienced in life through our own attempts, diligence, affliction, pretension or effort. To experience the reality of God’s fact for us, we only need to exercise faith to draw on that which the Lord has accomplished for us, taking it as our own. Daily confess what the Lord has done (fact), acknowledge it as truth, and draw it out with true faith. In ordinary times, drawing out means to confess that the work accomplished by Christ is factual and effectual in our life. In times of temptation, however, we must act upon this faith as though we have already possessed what He has given us. And thus shall experience happen in our lives.