Let us turn to God's Word once again and turn into the portion of Scripture we were reading in 1 Thessalonians. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, I'll read verses 23 and 24 for our text. Ephesians 5, 23 and 24, The very God of peace sanctify you wholly And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. I remember our late friend Sidney Norton saying on more than one occasion that it is easier to preach on the great doctrine of justification than it is to take up that other doctrine of sanctification.

We've tried to look at it on previous occasions but I thought we might turn to it again. It's mentioned of course several times here in the Word of God. Sanctification, the need for holiness of life and I was recently reading a book entitled The Spirit of Holiness, reading it with a view to attempting to review the book. So the subject has been somewhat on my mind over recent weeks.

And I was drawn again to this particular portion of God's Word at the end of this lovely letter to the Thessalonians. I find the two letters to the Thessalonians, the church, Thessalonica, really so wonderful in the way in which we see something of the pastoral hearts of the Apostle. His great love for them, his great concern. And of course here at the end of this first epistle we have this chapter that is principally made up of different exhortations, how we would exhort them and encourage them to godly living.

And here of course what we have in the words that I've read for our text is his prayer. He prays for them, the very God of peace, sanctify you wholly. And I pray, I know the word The words, I pray, are there in italics. They've been put in by the translators, but it is a prayer. I pray, God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithfully is he that calleth you who also will do it.

Well, we must begin, I suppose, with trying to give some sort of definition as to what we mean when we speak of sanctification and the doctrine of sanctification. What does the word mean? Well, the basic meaning, as I'm sure many of you are aware, is to set apart to holy use.

And we see it in the Old Testament with regards to the worship of God, the tabernacle, all its furnishings, the priests are all sanctified and set apart to the service of God there in Exodus 28 and 29 we read of Aaron and his sons it's from that family of course that the line of the priest is to come and in those two chapters we read of all that was involved with regards to their consecration and their sanctification you read through Exodus 28 and 29 it means then to set apart and I was struck really by a statement by Henry Cole, a minister back in the 19th century and he observed that election is the highest form of sanctification. Election, God's sovereign election is the highest form of sanctification and I would say there's truth in that. Remember the language that we have in the opening verse of the epistle of Jude, where Jude, the apostle, speaks of those who are sanctified by God the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ, and called.

How are they sanctified by the Father? They are set apart. The Father made choice of the people. He set them apart to himself. He set them apart to to holiness and so there is the basic meaning of the word to sanctify it literally means to set a thing apart to God and really to the service of God, to the glory of God but when it comes to our experience of course that setting apart also means that there must be a separation from sin and there must be the practice of holiness and we see that back in chapter 4 verse 7 God hath not called us unto uncleanness but unto holiness and in all of these exhortations that we have in the verses previous to our text this morning isn't Paul calling them to the practice of holy living, to the pursuit of holy things.

And so whilst the basic meaning is setting apart, there is also that call then to a separated life, a life separate from sin, a life in which there will be something of the pursuit of holiness. The Lord Jesus says concerning those who were his own, those that the Father had given him in the eternal covenant, they were chosen in Christ Jesus, and Christ says, by their fruits ye shall know them.

Well, let us come to consider this doctrine, and I want to take up the theme really of a threefold sanctification, a threefold sanctification in terms of the work of all the persons in the Godhead. It involves the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost as this great doctrine of sanctification.

And so we read in the words of these verses in 1 Thessalians 5, 23 and 24, the very God of peace sanctify you wholly and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. What do we read back in the earlier part of chapter 4 and there at verse 3?

This is the will of God. This is the will of God. Even your sanctification, God's will, God's sovereign purpose is what's being spoken of. Again in Hebrews 10 and verse 10 we read by the which will, that is the will of God, by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And so when we read of the will of God, the sovereign will of God, His decree, His purpose, we are reminded, aren't we, of that basic meaning of the word.

It's to set apart. God will have that, people. whom He has set apart, He will have them to Himself. And so, we have those various exhortations again, those commandments in various parts of Scripture. Remember the language of Romans 12, I beseech you, therefore brethren, Paul says, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Be not conformed to this world, he says. but be you transformed by the renewing of your minds that you may prove what is that good and perfect and acceptable will of God. Again the will of God, the perfect acceptable will of God. There to be those who conform them to the image of God.

And of course we can think of the language of Peter as well as those words of Paul. What does Peter say when he speaks of the need of holiness? In 1 Peter 1 verse 14, As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lost in your ignorance, but as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation and the word conversation there of course isn't just speaking it's to do with the whole manner of our living in all manner of our lifestyle we are to be those who are a holy people because it is written be ye holy for I am holy how important then are these things And again, going back to the language in chapter 4, the beginning of the chapter, he says, Furthermore then, we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, as you have received the vassal, you ought to walk and to please God so you would abound more and more for you know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus and then he utters those words or writes those words this is the will of God even your sanctification that you should abstain from fornication and so forth all the language of Paul is so clear with regards to the importance then of this doctrine. Difficult as it might be for us to understand, difficult as it might be, as Dersini Norton has said, to preach on the thing.

And yet it's here, it's set before us in the Word of God. And in these two chapters really, four and five, this I would say is the great subject matter of the Apostle's message as he concludes this first epistle to that church at Thessalonica.

Well, let us turn to this truth of a threefold sanctification. In other words, a sanctification that involves the three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And first of all, we think of the Father, we think in terms then of eternity.

Election by the Father. Remember that quotation from Henry Cole that I mentioned earlier, election is the highest form of sanctification. is what he said. And what a truth we have there. The great work of God's, the Father. There endued, sanctified by God's, the Father. And then preserved in Jesus Christ.

And then called, called by the efficacious grace of God the Holy Spirit but thinking in particular initially of that election by God the Father how the Father himself then has declared what his will is as we have it there in the opening part of chapter 4 and verse 3 this is the will of God this is the will of God your sanctification it's what the father has purposed and of course all the purpose of the father really centers ultimately in his son in the Lord Jesus Christ it is in and through the Lord Jesus Christ that the father reveals himself it is in and through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ that the father accomplishes all his goodwill and pleasure When the Son comes in the fullness of the time, He comes not to do His own will, but the will of Him who has sent Him. And what is the Father's will? That He will accomplish the sanctification of that people that were separated to the Son in the eternal covenant. How the Lord Jesus says, Behold I and the children which God has given me, He has come for them. He has come to do all that is necessary for their salvation and every aspect of that salvation, their justification, their sanctification, their redemption, all that salvation entails. But it all centers previous to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in that which the Father has willed."

Again those words in Hebrews 10 and verse 10, "...by the which will," says Paul, "...we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." There we are clearly reminded that the will of the Father always centers in the Son. and that great work that was committed to him in the eternal covenant. So we turn from what God has willed from eternity, God's great decree, His purpose of salvation, and we have to think then in terms of what was accomplished here upon the earth in time. And that is sanctification by the sun. the father willed it but the son is the one who worked it and he worked it here in time and he worked it as he comes to fulfill to accomplish his office as that one who is the great high priest of his people again Hebrews 10 14 by one offering we're told by one offering He hath perfected forever them who are sanctified that's surely referring to the work of the Son by His sacrifice it's by His sacrifice by what He did when He came to obey the will of the Father and to be obedient and obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

The whole of His obedience, His obedience in life, is so important. In that obedience, of course, we see Him as the One who is the Lord. Our righteousness is the justification of His people. But we see Him also as that One who is holy and harmless and undefiled and separate from sinners. In that sense, He's the sanctification of His people, is He not? But all culminates in His death. He is obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

And so Hebrews 13.12, Jesus also that He might sanctify the people suffered without the gate. He suffered without the gate. He suffered outside the walls of Jerusalem.

He suffered there upon Mount Calvary. in order that he might sanctify his people all we see him there then is that one who is truly a high priest and in his high priestly work in the sacrifice of himself he is sanctifying his people but when we think of him in his priestly work we think not only in terms of a sacrificing priest he is also of course a praying priest He ever lives to make intercession for all who call upon God by Him.

Oh yes, now, He has entered fully into that interceding aspect of the priestly work. But even when He was here upon the earth, He was a praying priest as well as a sacrificing priest. And remember how he prays there in the great high priestly prayer of John 17. What does he ask of the Father?

Sanctify them. He's praying for his disciples, he's praying for those who will come to salvation as they believe the word of those apostles. Even as many as the Lord our God shall call and Christ prays, sanctify them. and sanctify them by thy truth thy word is truth he sacrifices in order to their sanctification he intercedes for their sanctification and he himself is that one who in a sense is their sanctification Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus. Remember the language there at the end of 1 Corinthians 1, Paul says of Him, of God are ye in Christ Jesus.

Who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. All we can think then of this threefold sanctification, it is the work of the Father. in the sense that it is the eternal will of the Father to sanctify his people and it is accomplished here in the world in time by that ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ so those who were previously dead in trespasses and sins are now reconciled to God to the Holy One of Israel and they are made a holy people in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But then thirdly, we come to that sanctification by the Holy Spirit. And what is His work? Well, His work concerns the experiences of those who come to know the blessing of sanctification. It's eternal when we think of the will of the Father, it's in time when we think of the work of the Son, and so we have the record here in Holy Scripture, but how does it relate to us?

We must have a gracious application of these truths, and there we have to look to the Spirit of God. And in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and there at the end of verse 13, Paul speaks of sanctification of the Spirit. You turn to that verse, he says, We are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. Surely there he is Speaking of the blessed work of the Holy Ghost who makes this great doctrine a reality in the soul of those who are saved. And again we see it in the language that Paul uses when he's writing to Titus there in Titus 3 at verse 5.

He says, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. How has He saved us? How has He brought the truths of salvation into the souls of those whom the Father has separated to Himself from all eternity and the Son has come to to redeem and to reconcile by the washing of regeneration the washing of regeneration, the renewing of the Holy Ghost or the sinner must be born again, he must be born from above there must be that blessed work of the Spirit, the Spirit as Christ says there in John 3 as he likens the work of the Spirit to the circuits of the wind.

The wind bloweth with her every wood. And what does Christ say? So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. That's the illustration he uses. The mysterious windings of the winds. It bloweth where it listeth. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit of God. They're born from above. He is that one who is truly the Spirit of Holiness. The very title that the Apostle gives to the Spirit in Romans 1-4, the Spirit of Holiness.

And we have to recognize our complete, our utter dependence upon the Spirit if we're going to abstain from sin, if we're going to have any holy nature at all, if we're going to know what it is to mortify the deeds of the body, there's a complete dependence upon him. Whosoever is born of God is one who is born of the Spirit of God, and that seed remains in him and he cannot see, because he's born of God, he has a new nature. That's the language, isn't it, that we have in John's first epistle there in 1 John chapter 3 and the 9th verse. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God.

That's the new nature. That's the divine nature, we might say. and that nature can never sin at all because it's the holy nature that is the new man of grace and that's the result of regeneration that's the new birth if any man is in Christ Jesus he's a new creature, a new creation And so there is, as Paul says there in Romans 7, that conflict, isn't there? That conflict between the old man, the old nature, and the new man of grace. And the Spirit who has given that new nature in regeneration, born of the Spirit of God, And the Spirit must be there active also in the whole conflict of the life of faith.

If ye through the Spirit, Paul says, do mortify, do put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live. Oh, we have to live a life of dependency upon God, the Holy Spirit. And we have the exhortation here at verse 19, quench not the Spirit. We depend on Him. In regeneration, He has created that new nature, but He doesn't leave us, you know, to depend upon the inherent strength that's there in that new nature. It's interesting, isn't it?

Because Paul speaks to the Corinthians of the inward man being renewed day by day. the inward man, that new nature we constantly need the spirit we have to live a life in the spirit day by day, moment by moment it's the whole of the life of the child of God is one of complete utter dependence upon that blessed ministry of God God the Holy Ghost look at the language of the text and his prayer that God sanctify you wholly he says and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ interesting this word that he uses sanctify you wholly it's a it's a compound again one of those compound words two parts to it the first part really has the idea of the whole, the entire, the complete. And then the second part has the idea of being kept to the uttermost, to the end. Hendrickson, in his commentary, renders it like this, sanctify you through and through, through every part of your being, in other words, and through every part of your life. and in that sense he brings out the force of the word that's being used the believer is to be sanctified then in every part of his being your whole spirit and soul and body now that's interesting isn't it? he speaks of three parts there and there are those who say that man is tri-part Man is tripartite.

He has three parts. Body, soul, and spirit. But there are others who say that's not right. Man is bipartite. There are but two parts. Now, surely that is the truth. Man is not tripartite. He is bipartite.

When we go back to the beginning, when we go back to creation, what do we see in the manner in which God makes the man? Well, he forms his body out of the dust of the earth, Genesis 2, and God breathes into that body the breath of life, and he becomes a living soul. So we say man is body and soul. Man is body and soul.

And then, when we read in Ecclesiastes 12 at verse 7, we're told, aren't we concerning death then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit to God who gave it the body returns to the dust as it was solemn matter of our departure of this life and with the believer it's absent from the body present with the Lord but the body returns to the dust as it was the spirit goes to God who gave it. Soul and spirit then are really synonymous words. Sometimes we have the word soul, sometimes we have the word spirit, but it's not separate parts, it's a reference to the same thing really, it's a reference to man's soul. However, however, it's interesting, J.C. Philpott speaks of the spirit here, in this verse, as really referring to something that is super added in regeneration. So, when the believer is born again, he does have spirit. as well as soul. Dr. Gill says some by spirit understand the graces and gifts of the spirit in regenerate man.

Now in support of that idea we could turn to the words of Hebrews 4 and verse 12 where we're told concerning the word of God which is quick and powerful, sharper than the two-headed sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit." What does that mean? Well, I think it gives some support to the idea that we have in J.C. Philpott or in Dr. Gill. Word of God. be it the Lord Jesus Christ who is the Word, of course, the Word incarnate, and that seems to be the primary meaning there in Hebrews 4. It's a reference to Christ, the Word of God, quick and powerful, but also the Scriptures.

That's the Word of God. And that is quick and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. In other words, Christ and Christ by his words distinguishes between natural religion on one side and spiritual religion on the other side, piercing asunder soul and spirit. We know that the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God because they have foolishness through him.

But there in 1 Corinthians 2.14 the word natural is derived from the word for a soul literally it is the word soulish man the soulish man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned the soulish man is dead in trespasses and sins When Adam and Eve transgressed in the Garden of Eden, they were dead. But they were not dead physically, they lived. But they were dead in their souls. There was a separation from God.

That's the natural man. And you see, the spirit discerns between natural religion and real spiritual religion. The sinner must be born again. the sinner must be born again he must be a partaker of the divine nature and remember those words in 1 John 3, 9 whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed, the divine seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin, that new nature cannot sin because he's born of God. It's the divine nature.

What is Paul praying here? He's praying that these people be preserved in every part of their being really. He's writing to Christians. He's praying for the church at Thessalonica. And he's praying that God would sanctify them wholly. in every part of their lives. But not only that, as I said, it also has the idea, this word holy, of not just the totality of their being, but also every moment of their lives. Every moment of their lives. They're in Christ Jesus. They have a new nature.

Remember the language of Paul again there in in Romans 7 the good that I would I do not the evil that I would not that I do old wretched man that I am he cries out who shall deliver me from the body of this death and then he says I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord so that with the mind I myself serve the Lord of God but with the flesh the Lord of sin and I like the emphasis here at the end of that chapter the I myself the emphasis, this is the real me this is the real me, I'm the new man of grace who's going to deliver me from this body of death he seems to be burdened, he's carrying it about everywhere he goes through the mind, I myself, the real me serving the Lord of God but the flesh wants to serve the Lord of sin and so what is the life of the sanctified man? well his sanctification involves the mortification of sin Day by day he has to fight a good fight of faith.

He has to wrestle with himself. That's his calling. He has to mortify the deeds of the body. He has to put off. You remember the language of Colossians chapter 3? And there, particularly at verse 8 following, where the apostle speaks of not only of putting off, but of putting on. He says at verse 8, Now ye also put off all these.

This is mortification. Kill these, really. anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth, lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of him that created him." Well that's the life that these sanctified ones are living there. What are they doing?

They're growing in grace. and they're growing in the knowledge of our God and Saviour, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. And what is this growth in grace? It's not a growth in conscious goodness, in the language of our article, Article 20, of the Gospel Standard Articles, not a growth in conscious goodness, but in felt necessity. a life in which we feel our complete and utter dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ as we grow in grace and the knowledge of Him. We know Him more and more. We need Him more and more. We need His Spirit and we need His Spirit constantly, continually. We have such an increasing awareness of our sin and our need is greater now than when we first believed. And this is what Paul is praying for these people, that they be preserved, blameless, unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then this blessed assurance. This is the work of God. It's a Trinitarian sanctification, as I sought to emphasize. And what is the assurance? Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it. The Lord will do it. The Lord will do it. The Lord will in fact Himself accomplish it.

That eternal will of the Father, that blessed work accomplished by the Son here in time, it must become real in the souls of those who are in the Savior, the Lord Jesus Himself. Oh, the Lord then be pleased to bless this text, the words of this prayer to each and every one of us. The very God of peace sanctify you wholly and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you. You also will do it.

What a blessed sanctification then is that that we have in our Lord Jesus Christ. We're sanctified, we're complete, we're perfect in Him. There's a holiness that's imputed to us, who of God is made unto us, amongst many things, sanctification. May the Lord be pleased to bless His Word to us. Amen.