Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our program. I'm glad
you could join us today. And if you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching, starting out in
the book of Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. The verse
that I'm going to launch out from is verse 14, where it says
in Hebrews 10, 14, for by one offering, he hath perfected,
now that's speaking of Christ's work, doing His work, He hath
perfected. And the word perfected there
means completed and finished. Forever, He hath perfected forever
them that are sanctified. Sanctified. Now I have several
messages that I'm going to preach revolving around the truth, the
biblical doctrine of sanctification. And today's message is entitled,
They Who Are Sanctified. sanctified. You know I speak
a lot on this program about the doctrine of justification because
justification is the heart of the gospel and justification
refers to the legal declaration of Almighty God and we speak
in metaphors but we're describing eternal truths here It is the
declaration of a just God. God as the judge, in his role
as a judge, a sovereign, righteous judge, who we're told in the
book of Romans chapter two, always judges according to truth now.
There's no false judgments. There's no judgments based upon
anything but truth and righteousness, justice. And that's what justification
is. It is the legal declaration of
God to His people. He declares them not guilty of
their sins. Now, they are sinners. And this
is not, we need to understand about justification. Justification
is not a pretend matter. God is not pretending that I'm
not a sinner. When God justified me, he's not
pretending that I'm not a sinner. He's not dealing in what the
Catholic Church calls a legal fiction. And that's because they
don't know the gospel. Justification is a real, significant,
substantial declaration of God who is judge of all, that his
people are righteous in his sight, but based upon what? Now, how
can God do that? Now, that's what the gospel teaches
us. How can God do that? How can
God do that justly? How can God justify a sinner,
a person who's a real sinner, who deserves nothing but condemnation
and death? Well, the gospel is the good
news of how God can do that. and it's through what the Bible
calls the righteousness of God, which is the righteousness of
Christ as the surety, the substitute, and the redeemer of God's people. Christ, before the foundation
of the world, the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit, the
Trinity, covenanted to save a people from their sins in a just way. And in order to do that, God
chose His people and gave them, we'll say, to Christ. Christ
speaks of that in John 6, 37. All that the Father giveth me.
He calls them His sheep. He calls them His brethren, in
Hebrews 2. He calls them His church. He
calls them the seed of Abraham. They're the elect. Bible in Romans
8, 34 says, Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
It is God that justified. And what happens here, we have
a legal exchange, a credit, where Christ took upon Himself the
sin debt of His people. He said, put it on my account,
I will repay it. I'll pay the debt. And then He
came in time to become incarnate. That's what the incarnation of
Christ, the birth of Christ is all about. He had to be made
like unto his brethren, like unto the children of God. They
were human beings, sinful human beings, and he had to be made
a human being without sin. Christ was not a sinful human
being. He was a perfect sinless human
being, but he's also God. God manifests in the flesh. And in that capacity, as God
manifest in the flesh, God-man, if you will, He obeyed the law
perfectly, even unto death, as the substitute of His people,
having been made the surety of His people to pay their sin debt. And He did it on the cross with
His blood. The blood of Jesus Christ is
the full payment of the dead, and that's why it says here in
Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 14, for by one offering, the
offering of himself, the offering of his body upon the tree, having
been made sin, is 2 Corinthians 5.21, meaning the sins of his
sheep, imputed, charged, accounted to him, their sin debt, All right,
he went to the cross and offered himself without spot unto God,
and it was a just transaction now, wasn't fake, it wasn't illegal,
it wasn't dishonoring to God, because the sins of his sheep
were imputed, charged to him, the debt, and he hath perfected,
he finished the work, completed it, John 19 30, it is finished,
the debt's paid, sin is put away. He made an end of sin, finished
the transgression, and brought in an everlasting righteousness
which God has imputed to all of His chosen people in Christ.
So I stand before God, a sinner saved by grace, and Romans 5
21 says this. Romans 5 21 says grace reigns
through righteousness. unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. As sin hath reigned unto death,
grace reigns through righteousness. Now that's justification and
that's a legal, purely legal transaction. But out of that
comes the fruit of spiritual life, the new birth, faith, repentance. How do I know that God has declared
me righteous? How do I know that my sins were
put away at the cross? I was redeemed by the blood of
the Lamb. Well, in time, God's going to bring me, by the Holy
Spirit, under the preaching of the gospel. and give me spiritual
life. Remember Christ said in John
3, he said, you must be born again or you cannot see the kingdom
of heaven, kingdom of God. You must be born again or you
cannot enter. He told the disciples, blessed
are your ears for they hear, your eyes for they see. They
had spiritual ears and spiritual eyes given to them by God in
the new birth by the power of the Spirit from Christ. Some
old writers say that's the resurrection life of Christ imparted to a
person. And it's based upon Christ's
righteousness, the entire merit of his whole work of redemption
imputed, accounted to them. So you understand now there's
justification and all of that is the work of God. Well, here
we come to sanctification. For by one offering, he hath
perfected forever, who? By his one offering. Now this
tells us who Christ died for. And he says, them that are sanctified,
they who are sanctified. Now that word sanctified, sanctification,
you have justification, which is the legal realm of salvation. I wrote a book about this. What
is salvation? You can order it or you can download
it or read it on our website, free. Divide salvation into four
realms. The eternal realm, God chose
us before the foundation of the world, that's election and predestination. There's the legal realm, that's
justification based upon his righteousness imputed. There's
the spiritual realm, that's the new birth. bringing sinners to
hear the gospel and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and repent
and persevere. And then there's the glorified
realm. That's the end of all things when we go to be with
Christ and are made perfect in ourselves. All of those things
make up what the Bible calls complete salvation. And so you've
got those realms, all right? So by one offering, Hebrews 10,
14, by one offering, he, Christ, hath perfected. Christ did the
work. You say, forever, not partially,
not for a given time, but forever, them that are sanctified, they
who are sanctified. Now, who are they? And what does
it mean to be sanctified? Now, as I said, justification
is the legal realm. Justification is the heart of
the gospel. provides the foundation upon
which God justifies his people. Blessed are those to whom God
imputes righteousness without works. That's what Christ did. But sanctification in the Bible
is a broader term. It involves much. We can speak
of sanctification in a legal way, a positional way. Legally
or positionally sanctified. We can speak of it in a spiritual
way, experienced in that sense, in an eternal way. And so what
is this word sanctify, sanctification, sanctify? Well, one of the things
that you need to understand about the word is that it is oftentimes
in scripture, both Old Testament and New Testament, you have the
Hebrew word, for sanctified or sanctification. Then you have
the Greek word in the New Testament. And oftentimes in the Old Testament
and the New Testament, the word is translated as holy, H-O-L-Y,
made holy. And for that reason, many people
have a gross misunderstanding of what sanctification and what
holiness truly is. And that's what I wanna deal
with beginning in this message, and I'm gonna preach other messages
on it in the coming weeks, Lord willing. Because when most people
think of holiness, for example, or some people, when they think
of sanctified, they think of people who are either morally
pure or close to it. They see somebody who claims
to be a Christian, for example, This is a person who is exemplary
in their character and their conduct. They're moral, they're
responsible citizens, they're kind, they're generous, charitable. And they look at that person,
they say, well, that's a real holy person, or at least close
to it. But that's not what holiness
and sanctification is. And here's what I want you to
know. If you really want to understand biblical sanctification, biblical
holiness, you can't deny that these are scriptural terms. The
Bible, Peter wrote, be ye holy as your Father which is in heaven
is holy. Hebrews 12, 14, over on another
page, it talks about holiness without which no man will see
the Lord. All right? What is that speaking
of? And here's what I want you to
know. Now, before I make this statement, I want you to understand
something. True believers and everybody
else, even unbelievers, should try to be as moral and kind and
generous and charitable as they can be, especially true believers. True believers, sinners saved
by grace, have more reason to strive for perfection in their
character and conduct than anybody else. And the reason is because
if we are sinners saved by grace, we have been blessed, so blessed
by above all people by the grace of God. And consider this, not
one blessing, there's not one blessing that we can say we have
earned or deserved. Not one. Now I know that goes
against the grain of a lot of people who call themselves Christian,
but my friend, there's a lot of false Christians out there. The blessings of salvation, whatever
they are. Now God bestows blessings by
using means sometimes. For example, reading and studying
the word of God is a means by which God blesses his people. but I don't earn the blessing
of knowledge and growth and encouragement. I don't earn it because I read
it by my reading. That's just the way God gives
it. There's not one blessing. The Bible in Ephesians one and
verse three says that we who believe, we who are saved by
God's grace are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. Whatever blessings I partake
of, whatever blessings I have and enjoy, I didn't earn them,
and I don't deserve them, but Christ earned them for me. He's
my surety, my substitute, my redeemer. He's my representative.
He's my Lord and my Savior. He earned it. You understand
that. So when we speak of blessings,
we're talking about the blessings of God's grace for God's people. Now, getting back to what I was
talking about, everybody, but especially true believers, ought
to strive to be like Christ. That's what the Bible says, to
love like He loved, to obey like He obeyed, to be moral, There
is absolutely no part of God's blessings of grace, God's salvation
by grace and mercy that allows or encourages or excuses a person
to not strive for morality and goodness and charity and love. Now believers are sinners saved
by grace, we sin, but we have no excuse for it. And we can't
use God's grace as an excuse for it. So the statement I'm
gonna make is not saying that we as believers should not strive
to be good people, we should. All right? But to be sanctified
does not mean human morality, or even reformation
of character and conduct, because false religion can accomplish
that. Think about it this way, and mark this down in your minds.
When the Bible speaks of sanctified, or holy, it means this, it means
set apart. Set apart. Distinguished, in
other words. Separate from the world. I'm gonna deal with this later
on, how in Romans 12, the apostle says, do not be conformed to
the world. Well, certainly that would, and
he's talking to believers there. Don't be like the world. Be set
apart from the world. That's what he's saying. And
certainly that would mean the world's immorality. Sure. I mean, if you're a believer,
you're not to jump in with the world's immoral behavior and
attitudes. We think about today's culture
and what people call good evil and evil good, just like back
in the days of judges. We're not to join them in that.
But that would also, now listen to this very carefully. That
would also include not being conformed to the world's false
religions. Understand that. We're not to
be conformed to their false religion. We're to be separate from that
if we're believers. If we're sinners saved by the
grace of God. We're to separate ourselves. Peter said that in
Acts chapter two. when those who were brought to
Christ and into preaching at Pentecost. And he told them to
repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the
remission of your sins. In other words, you're to confess
Christ before men. That's not talking about baptism
in order to attain forgiveness. It's Christ who gave us forgiveness.
We're to be baptized to confess it. And he said, separate yourselves
from this untoward generation. And the generation that he was
speaking of there in Acts chapter two was a religious people, trying
to keep the law, the Jews, who had perverted the law of Moses.
But I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about, a
very plain example. I've all, growing up as a young
man, and I was in false Christianity, actually. But you know, as you
get older, and you're teenagers, and they get older, and they
go to parties, and people drink alcohol and get drunk and all
of that, And they would always tell us that you're to separate
yourself from that and not do that. Well, that's true, but
that's not sanctification and that's not holiness. If you were
to go into one of those parties and everybody but one person
was drunk and you said, boy, that person's a real Christian,
go up and talk to that person. What if that person turned around
to you and said, well, now I'm a Muslim. and the Muslim religion
does not allow drinking alcohol. Well, that's not sanctification,
you say. Sanctified and holy means to
be set apart as a follower of Christ, a disciple of Christ,
a sinner saved by grace. And if you go back to that Hebrews
10 passage, You look at this, he says in verse 14, for by one
offering. Now that's the offering of the
body of Christ for the sins of his people. That's how he gave
himself a substitute, a sacrifice, a sin offering, a sin bearer
to put away their sins. And it was by his one offering
that he hath perfected, he completed the work. Well, what work? Well,
I quoted earlier from a passage, a prophecy of Daniel, Daniel
chapter nine, verse 24, where Daniel spoke of the Messiah coming
to finish, to make an end of sin. That is to put away sin,
to die for the sins of his people and pay the penalty, to finish
the transgression and bring in everlasting righteousness. That's
the offering of one person the work of one person, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he did this in an eternal
way. You know, back under the old
covenant, Hebrews chapter nine tells us that the blood of bulls
and goats sanctified to the purifying of the flesh. You can look at
it back over there in Hebrews chapter nine, in verse 13, listen
to this. For if the blood of bulls and
of goats, this is Hebrews 9.13, if the blood of bulls and of
goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifyeth
to the purifying of the flesh. What that means is those animal
sacrifices under the old covenant that were done in the tabernacle
and the temple and all of that, that set the Jewish nation apart
from the Gentile nations in a purely temporal, physical way. not in an eternal, spiritual
way. Because many of them who partook
of those physical blessings for a while, died in unbelief and
perished. The book of Hebrews tells us.
So you see, they were set apart. You could even say holy. The
Bible even speaks of the tabernacle furniture and the furnishings
as being holy. What that means is, for example,
you look at the golden candlestick that was in the holy place, that
had the candle, the fire burning. That candlestick was set apart
and made holy in this sense alone. It was to be used for no other
purpose than for the service of the tabernacle. It was set
apart for that use. And to take that and use it in
other ways was an abomination. It was a picture of Christ, the
light of the world. So you see that? So when he says
here in Hebrews 9.13 that the sprinkling of the unclean, the
sprinkling of the blood of bulls and goats, sprinkling the unclean,
sanctified to the purifying of the flesh, he's talking about
a temporal, physical, ceremonial purification. Not eternal salvation
and eternal sanctification. Not eternal forgiveness. And
the proof of it is in verse 14. Look at Hebrews nine and verse
14. If that animal blood accomplished that physical, temporal, ceremonial
sanctification, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who
through the eternal spirit, not temporal, not ceremonial, but
eternal, Spirit, offered himself without spot or without blemish
to God, purged your conscience from dead works to serve the
living God. And so Christ, what the blood
of bulls and goats could not accomplish, as he says over in
Hebrews chapter 10, when he says in verse four, it's not possible,
for the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin. Well,
how are sins gonna be taken away? How are they gonna be paid for?
By the blood of Christ. And he did it by one offering,
Hebrews 10, 14. Back up in Hebrews 10 and verse
10, listen to this. By the which will, that is by
the will of God, we are sanctified, set apart eternally and spiritually
and legally. We are set apart legally eternally,
spiritually, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once. Now that for all there is in
italics. And a lot of people will read
these verses like this, they'll say, well, by the body of Jesus
Christ once for all without exception. No, that's not what it's saying. If you want to leave the for
all there, which was not in the original manuscripts, it could
be once for all of his sheep. As we go back to John 10, who
did Christ die for? He died for his sheep. It could
be once for all time, as in Hebrews 10, 14. By one offering, he hath
perfected forever them that are sanctified. And who did he do
it for? They who are sanctified, they who are set apart. Now I'm
gonna go over this again. I'm gonna continue from this
verse here, this will be part two of this one, and I've got
other messages that I'm gonna preach on this, on sanctification
and holiness. For by one offering, he, Christ,
hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, they who are
set apart. Now, how are they set apart?
Hope you'll join us next week for another message from God's
Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
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today, and may the Lord be with you. you