The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
Christianity in the Long Run
Acts 6:31 tells us “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” At that point of belief through which we enter into Salvation, we are redeemed, adopted, and sanctified. Our lives don’t freeze in that moment. Except in the case of eleventh-hour deathbed conversions, we generally aren’t carried to Heaven in that moment. We continue to live on this earth as spiritual newborns in Christ growing in the knowledge of God.
Scripture makes it clear that our salvation is not a one-time experience that we can look back on and say “Well, that happened”, and then continue on as if it had no lasting effect. The moment of Salvation is the beginning of Christ-centered living and growth to spiritual maturity based on the presence of the Holy Spirit in us (Eph. 1:13). When we talk about sanctification, then, it is a past (clothed in the righteousness of Jesus at the point of salvation –1 Cor. 1:30), present (living out the faith planted in us – 1 Cor. 16:13), and future (“absent from the body, present with the Lord” – 2 Cor. 5:8) dynamic in the life of the Christian.
This redemption, adoption, and sanctification puts us on speaking terms with God the Father in His very presence. The Ark of the Covenant was built in precise obedience to God’s directions to the Israelites involved in its construction and maintenance (Ex. 25:10-22). It was then sanctified when “a cloud covered the tent of the congregation and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Ex.40:34). Representing God’s presence, it was safeguarded and hidden in the “Holy of Holies” from the sight of everyone except the High Priest once a year (Ex. 26:31-34, 40:21) until the fulfillment of generations of prophets foretelling the coming of a Savior/Messiah.
As Jesus Christ was dying on the cross as the final sacrifice to eliminate all other sacrifice for sin, the temple curtain that separated the Ark of the Covenant from the lesser priests and the general public tore from top to bottom (Luke 23:44-46). God’s presence was now visible, accessible, and represented in the temple in terms of the physical Holy of Holies and spiritually in Heaven through belief in the Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 1:13-23 gives us the template of sanctification as patterned by the life of our Lord Jesus Christ: “Wherefore [since what the prophets foretold has been revealed in us], gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance. But as He which has called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of living because it is written, ‘Be ye holy for I am holy.’ And if you call on the Father who, without respect of persons, judges according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in reverent awe. Forasmuch as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain lifestyle received by tradition from your fathers but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot who, verily, was foreordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you. You by Him do believe in God that raised him up from the dead and gave Him glory that your faith and hope might be in God. Seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently, being born again, not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which lives and abides forever.”
As Peter pointed out, it is the intentional commitment of our minds, our bodies, and our hearts to the present and future hope that we have in Christ. In practical terms sanctification involves learning what Salvation means in the real-life scenario each of us lives each day, even when it involves adversity (Phil. 1:27-29). The outcome of this habit of obedience is an increasingly close walk with God, the personal embrace of God’s perfect will and ways with the servant heart that Jesus modeled.
