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| PentecostalTheology.com
UNDERSTANDING SANCTIFICATION – Ray E Horton
There are a number of Christian buzz words about which there is often controversy. One is “Sanctification.” Whole denominations have split over disagreement about whether and if we are fully sanctified. It’s a work of the devil to divide us by those who study the Bible intellectually rather than let it speak for itself with Holy Spirit enlightenment.
To understand sanctification, we need to understand our three-part make-up, spirit, soul and body
Some say sanctification is a one-time event, and some say it is a process, but it is both. To understand sanctification, we need to understand our three-part make-up, spirit, soul and body. Like God, we are a spirit; that’s our identity. But, we also have a soul, and we live in a body. When we are Born Again, we become new creations, seated with Christ in heavenly places, perfected and sanctified in our spirit, which is our identity. We are now sanctified saints.
Yet our souls and bodies are still in process. The sanctification of our souls (personalities, minds, wills, emotions) is gradual as we renew our minds in the Living Word, and it is a lifetime of playing catch-up, from glory to glory, to where our spirits already are. Our bodies won’t be transformed until their future glorification, but we have a down payment with the spiritual gifts, and our bodies can be healed.
We have undeservingly been made to be the “righteousness of God in Christ” (2 Cor. 5:21). Knowing we are new creations in right standing with God, we have the confidence to get up when our souls and bodies fail us, turn back to Jesus, and continue walking with the Lord in His love and forgiveness.
