Perfect (or ultimate) Sanctification is that aspect of Sanctification related to the final perfection of the children of God. It will not be realized while we are in this mortal body. Perfect Sanctification is the final step in the sanctifying process. Like Preparatory and Positional Sactification, it is wholly the work of God.
Paul wrote about this in closing his First Epistle to the Thessalonians. “And 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” (I Thessalonians 5:23). When Christ returns the believer’s Sanctification will be complete. The word wholly (Greek {olotelhs) is found only here in the New Testament and is made up of two words, “complete” and “end.” The ideas of wholeness and completion are in view, meaning entire Sanctification, through and through, the whole of you, every part of you. It means to be complete and sound in every part. Now this process of Sanctification goes on during the present life here on earth, but it will be perfected at (Greek en), not “until,” the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. This passage is not an attempt to analyze the constituent parts of man; therefore it is not a proof text in support of trichotomy (the three-fold nature of man). What is in view here is the perfect Sanctification of the whole man, the time of its accomplishment, at “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and the fact that God Himself will bring it to pass, for “Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it” (verse 24).
The Epistle of Jude commences and concludes with a similar emphasis. It was written “to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ” (verse 1), and all such are assured that God “is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy” (verse 24). This is Perfect Sanctification.
Perfect Sanctification is the goal God has set for every believer. “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Ephesians 1:5). The Adoption (Greek huiothesia) is not a word of relationship, not the making of a son, but son-placing. Some students make the mistake of confusing Adoption with Regeneration. In Regeneration the believing sinner is made a son of God. In Adoption the regenerated son of God is placed in the position of perfect sonship. The Adoption is not experienced in this life while we remain in this mortal body. All the redeemed are assured of their Adoption (Galatians 4:4, 5) by virtue of the indwelling Holy Spirit Who is called “the Spirit of adoption” (Romans 8:15); however, we do not actually experience it until Christ returns for us and our bodies are redeemed. Paul wrote, “. . . Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, that is, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23).
Perfect sonship is that for which we are waiting. If we had it now we would not be waiting for it. There is never any danger of Christians not becoming perfectly Sanctified. The Apostle Paul said that through the indwelling Holy Spirit “ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30). Because God did “predestinate (us) to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:28), the glorious goal of our Adoption is assured.
Before the ages God planned to bestow upon the redeemed a glory, unique and appropriate only to the Church in Christ. In ages to come the Church will display that glory because the God of all grace “hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus” (I Peter 5:10). Indeed this is a special kind of glory, even the perfection of our Lord Jesus Christ. “Whereunto He called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (II Thessalonians 2:14). In other words, when God called us it was with the view that we should obtain the glorified state. Verse 13 says that the Holy Spirit is the agent in “sanctification” to that glorious end. The glory of the revelation of the Lord from heaven will be shared by Christ’s Church at that day (Colossians 3:4).
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is” (I John 3:2).
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In God,For You!
Team, Spiritual Alerts
Source:http://bible.org/article/regeneration-justification-and-sanctification
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In God,For You!
Team, Spiritual Alerts
Source:http://bible.org/article/regeneration-justification-and-sanctification
