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| PentecostalTheology.com
THE VEIL IS GONE – Ray E Horton
GRACE HAS BEEN AND IS AT WORK IN YOU
Not only have we been forgiven – washed – we have been made holy and righteous unto God if we are Born Again. In Jesus we have received an “abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness” (Rom 5:17). Yes, more than forgiven, “…you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).
Your spirit was sanctified
Once the veil has been removed in the rebirth, our eyes are opened. We can look into the Word and can see in ourselves the glory of the Lord there, as in a mirror
Here the scripture tells us that if you have been justified, you have been sanctified. Who did it? Not you! It was “in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” What was sanctified? It was your spirit. Obviously, your flesh isn’t sanctified; it is in process. Our spirits ARE sanctified. Our souls ARE IN THE PROCESS of sanctification. Both are true when rightly understood.
“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23). We are triune beings, spirit, soul and body. Paul prays that we be sanctified “completely.” That is because the “God of peace Himself” sanctified who we are by nature, our spirits, and that was “complete” when we were Born Again, and that is then developed in our souls if we allow our relationship with Christ and indwelling Holy Spirit to change our lives.
We then gradually become “whole” and “blameless,” which is “preserved” until the end, as we “…run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1), working out that salvation (Phil. 2:12) that has been won for us and placed in our spirits, and are steadily being transformed by the renewing of our minds to discern “his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Rom. 12:2) for our growth in Him as we steadily abandon conformity to the world.
That only happens as we are motivated through His Word and Spirit to allow Christ to work in us, recognizing His glory within to change us from glory to glory. Then we can, as Paul tells us in Eph. 4:23, “be renewed in the spirit of your mind.”
And while our bodies must wait until their glorification in the end (“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye...” (1 Cor. 15:51-52)), we have the down payment of the Holy Spirit, whose temples we are, and healing is even now available to us.
The veil removed
Of the patriarchs of old, we read in 2 Cor. 3:14, “But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ.” Vs. 16 tells us “when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.”
Concerning the gradual transformation unto sanctification of our souls (mind, will, emotions), it has to do with discovering and growing in the recognition of who we have become in Christ. Let us look at verse 18: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Once the veil has been removed in the rebirth, our eyes are opened. We can look into the Word and can see in ourselves the glory of the Lord there, as in a mirror, and that is what transforms us from glory to glory. The renewal of our minds to this truth of who we are in Christ gives us the confidence to walk in faith and be changed, becoming steadily more Christlike in our daily living.
