Chapter 4
Today, in the New Testament age, the Christians, the ministers of Christ, have the responsibility of leading people to be reconciled to God. For this purpose, He has given gifts to each one, especially the gift of speaking. Nevertheless, these gifts need to be perfected in order for Christians to carry out their ministry in the best way. There are two good "methods" that develop our gifts: exercising it through the many opportunities the Lord gives us and accepting the perfecting from the gifts given by Christ to the church (Eph. 4:8, 11, 12). In this way we will be ministers who are more and more able to proclaim to men that they can be reconciled to God.
In the previous chapter we spoke about reconciliation, especially in its second aspect, by which we are brought into the Holy Place to serve God. In this chapter we will speak about justification and sanctification.
Why do we need to be justified? Our situation before God was unrighteous because of sin, the sinful nature that is in us, and sins, our sinful deeds. Our sins offended Him and were opposed to His righteous nature. Because of this we could not draw near to God. For this reason, Jesus Christ the Righteous shed His blood for us to purify us from our sins. This precious blood answered the righteous demands of God and Christ became our righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30).
Regarding sanctification, in Matthew 23 we find a passage that clearly illustrates this process. Verses 18-20 say, "And, whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift which is upon it, he is bound. Blind men, which is greater, the gift or the altar which sanctifies the gift? Therefore he who swears by the altar swears by it and by all the things upon it." These verses reveal that it was the altar that caused the offering to become holy. Offering here refers to the animal sacrifices. For example, before a bull could become an offering, it was in the field where it was used for plowing the earth. It was a common bull; its position was common. But once it was selected to be presented as an offering in the place of a person who had sinned, it was taken from its common position and brought to the altar where it became holy.
The same thing happened to us. When the blood of the Lord Jesus justified us, that is, when His cross sanctified us, we were brought to God from a common, worldly position, apart from God and our position became holy. Hence, in Christ we are justified and sanctified. Paul wrote his first Epistle to the Corinthians addressing it to "the church which is in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, the called saints." Paul called them saints because they were separated from the world and had changed from their fallen, common position. We may call this positional sanctification because it is related to a change in position. Nevertheless, there is still the need of developing this sanctification. Hence, Paul said that the Corinthians were those who had been "sanctified in Christ Jesus," that is, they were those who were being sanctified gradually. They were placed by God in a holy position so that they could become more sanctified. We may call this gradual sanctification a dispositional sanctification because it takes place within us, in our soul, and depends on our disposition, our desire to be sanctified and allow God to do this in us.
Once more we may use the figure of the tabernacle to illustrate this process. Hebrews 9:1-4a says that the tabernacle (strictly speaking, the covered part of the tabernacle, not the outer court which was open to the sky) was divided into two parts by two veils. When a priest passed through the first veil, he left the outer court and entered into the Holy Place where there were the table with the bread of the Presence and the lampstand. Within the second veil was the Holy of Holies. According to Exodus, the incense altar should have been in the Holy Place, but in Hebrews 9 it is said that it was in the Holy of Holies. We will make this matter clear further on.
The priests were continually in the Holy Place carrying out the holy service, but only the high priest could enter into the Holy of Holies on the day of expiation in order to purify his sins and the sins of the people. In the Holy Place, the priests had contact with the light of the lampstand, the bread of the Presence and the incense altar. In the Old Testament these were merely physical items, but in the light of the New Testament we can understand that they actually represent deep spiritual realities. By participating in these realities, the New Testament priests receive more and more of God's holiness and by being infused with them they are sanctified dispositionally. We will see this in a more detailed way throughout this book.
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