The Vision of the Tabernacle |
How to be an Overcomer |
We have already mentioned that sanctification has two aspects: positional and dispositional. The first takes place automatically when we are regenerated. We go from a common, worldly position to a holy position, separated unto God. After this, in the measure that the divine life grows in us, being dispensed into our soul, we begin to be sanctified in our disposition. In the first stage, sanctification was accomplished by God, whereas the second stage depends on our spiritual seeking and our willingness to allow God to work in us. Having this dispositional sanctification fulfilled in us is one of the requirements for us to become overcomers.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians that Christ Jesus "became wisdom to us from God, both righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1 Cor. 1:30). Christ became wisdom to us in three vital aspects of God's salvation. Firstly He became righteousness, referring to our past. Because of this righteousness we were accepted by God that we might be reborn in our spirit by receiving the divine life. Christ also became our sanctification, referring to our experience in the present, through which we are being sanctified in our soul, that is, transformed in our mind, emotion and will with His divine life (Rom. 6:19-22). Finally, Christ is our redemption which will take place in the future when we will be transfigured in our body by the divine life to have His glorious likeness (8:23; Phil. 3:21). All of this is God's work through which He makes us partakers of His complete, perfect salvation and through which all of our being -spirit, soul and body - becomes organically one with Christ and Christ becomes everything to us.
So, step by step, in every situation prepared by God for us, we have the opportunity of being more sanctified dispositionally. When Paul wrote the First Epistle to the Corinthians, he addressed it to "those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, the called saints, with all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place" (1:2). They were saints because they had been regenerated and were being sanctified by living in Christ. This shows that it is not enough to be holy, regenerated, taken out of the world by God and placed in a holy position. It is still necessary for Him to continually grow in us, spreading from our spirit into our soul. God is holy, and by living in His presence in the Holy of Holies, beholding His face, He adds Himself to us little by little, sanctifying us dispositionally.
An illustration of this process is filling a cup with water. For this, the cup must be under the faucet. The water is like the life of God and we are like the cup. There is water and there is a cup, but if the cup does not receive the water, it has no purpose. God's life is still there, it is available, but we must be within its reach, like the cup under the faucet. This is how we will be sanctified. On the other hand, if the cup is filled with other things, it must first be emptied in order to receive the water. There is an enjoyable spiritual principle that when we receive the life of God, because it is so sweet and attractive, we spontaneously want to have more of it. Then we seek God so that His life may grow in us and this growth causes us to want more growth that we might enjoy more living water.
As priests of God we have the privilege and right of serving Him in the Holy Place. There, as we participate in the table of the bread of the Presence and take care of the incense altar and the lampstand, we become progressively more involved with God. The more we serve Him, the more we feel the need to have fellowship with Him in order to know Him, His heart, His deepest desire. This brings us to the Holy of Holies where we behold God without any veils. Under His light we see the sins of which we have not repented, hidden interests and motives in our heart that offend Him and we confess and forsake everything. Through this continual process we receive more of God's holiness and are sanctified dispositionally. Eventually, if we remain under the heavenly "faucet," we will be filled with the divine life until we become overcomers. May the Lord have mercy on us to keep us faithful to this way until the end.
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