Is Sanctification My Work Or God's Work?

[Socialite]

I've written plenty in recent posts about salvation being God's work done for us, and something we receive by faith in Jesus. Many that I interacted with would always confuse sanctification with salvation. Even then, the question is asked, "Is sanctification my work or God's work?"

Philippians 2:12-13—

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Jonathan Edwards writes,

In efficacious grace we are not merely passive, nor yet does God do some and we do the rest. But God does all, and we do all. God produces all, we act all. For that is what produces, viz. [namely] our own acts. God is the only proper author and fountain; we only are the proper actors. We are in different respects, wholly passive and wholly active.
(The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 2, p. 557)

John Piper writes,

…it is a good fight because we are not left to our own strength in the fight. If we were, as Martin Luther says, "Our striving would be losing." In other words, when a child of God fights for joy in God, God himself is the one behind that struggle, giving the will and the power to defeat the enemy of joy (Philippians 2:12-13). We are not left to ourselves to sustain the joy of faith. God fights for us and in us. Therefore the fight of faith is a good fight.

God's work in us does not eliminate our work; it enables it. We work because he is the one at work in us. Therefore, the fight for joy is possible because God is fighting for us and through us. All our efforts are owing to his deeper work in and through our willing and working.
(When I Don't Desire God, pp. 38, 41)

[Aquila]

Those who have received biblical grace are partakers in the divine nature of the Holy Ghost dwelling within. When we sin it is that divine nature within us that is troubled and "convicted". As we walk the Christian walk we are sanctified as we surrender to that inner prompting of the Spirit (this is walking in the Spirit).

Sanctification is indeed the work of God. All we have to do is learn to surrender.

[LUKE2447]

Originally Posted by Socialite

I've written plenty in recent posts about salvation being God's work done for us, and something we receive by faith in Jesus. Many that I interacted with would always confuse sanctification with salvation. Even then, the question is asked, "Is sanctification my work or God's work?"

Philippians 2:12-13—

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Jonathan Edwards writes,

In efficacious grace we are not merely passive, nor yet does God do some and we do the rest. But God does all, and we do all. God produces all, we act all. For that is what produces, viz. [namely] our own acts. God is the only proper author and fountain; we only are the proper actors. We are in different respects, wholly passive and wholly active.
(The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 2, p. 557)

John Piper writes,

…it is a good fight because we are not left to our own strength in the fight. If we were, as Martin Luther says, "Our striving would be losing." In other words, when a child of God fights for joy in God, God himself is the one behind that struggle, giving the will and the power to defeat the enemy of joy (Philippians 2:12-13). We are not left to ourselves to sustain the joy of faith. God fights for us and in us. Therefore the fight of faith is a good fight.

God's work in us does not eliminate our work; it enables it. We work because he is the one at work in us. Therefore, the fight for joy is possible because God is fighting for us and through us. All our efforts are owing to his deeper work in and through our willing and working.
(When I Don't Desire God, pp. 38, 41)

it is called synergism

[Socialite]

Originally Posted by LUKE2447

it is called synergism

Explain.

And where do you see this in the Story of God (the Text)?

[LUKE2447]

Originally Posted by Socialite

Explain.

And where do you see this in the Story of God (the Text)?

depends on if sanctification and justification are different as many would argue they are not.

[Socialite]

Originally Posted by LUKE2447

depends on if sanctification and justification are different as many would argue they are not.

Interested in what you believe about that and why.

[LUKE2447]

Originally Posted by Socialite

Interested in what you believe about that and why.

also depends on if you view them the same way. Some would reverse them of which I tend to in part agree.

http://theogeek.blogspot.com/2007/09...ification.html

discussion on it being virtually the same....


http://en.allexperts.com/q/Lutherans...tification.htm sorry forgot this link.

[LUKE2447]

My personal view is more you are viewed as justified as you respond to his Word which sets you apart. Which is a progressive view and they are coincident with each other. in reality they cannot be without the other as they are results of each other and whymany people consider it the same. Which I guess I could to depending on what is meant.

[Socialite]

From that blog:

- The familiar disagreement with "forensic" justification, and instead an offering of "you are saved if you are faithful to the teachings of Jesus" at some future event. (Which leads me to question if salvation has a present reality at all?

- Quote from the blog: The New Testament writers are not of the view that a supernatural cosmic saving event took place on the cross - ie they don't believe that Jesus 'did' anything on the cross in the normal sense. They see the death of Jesus as being part of the story of his life, teachings, resurrection, and followers. Christ's death alone by itself accomplished nothing, but rather it is the overall story that is special.

I see the above as such minimizing and muffling of what would have been good news that it's hard to know where to begin.

I will instead go to a blitzkrieg-type highlighting of Paul's Romans:

(Notice Paul's style of rhetoric and what he says in the whole of Chapter 3)

3:3 What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? 4 Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written:

vv21-31

This righteousness is given through faith in[h] Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement,[i] through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. 28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

CHAPTER 4

What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? 2 If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. 3 What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. 5 However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.

We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. 10 Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before!

He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

I could really quote the entire Chapter 4. Worth a study in itself.

CHAPTER 5

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.


You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

5 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16 Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.

The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21 so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Chapter 6 becomes a qualification to most-likely Jews. We've been justified -- but we won't just go on living in sin, because we are now slaves to righteousness (before we were slaves to sin). AND... is a picture of sanctification!

Later in his letter, on similar subject:

So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh,[a] the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

[Socialite]

God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.[c] And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[j]

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Context of above is not God justifying us, it's because we are justified ("in view of God's mercy" the indicative clause... our good action is "reasonable worship," and it's really God's work in/through us as well. So we STILL can't take credit.