The believers are sanctified in the Holy Spirit as the sanctifying power. First Corinthians 6:11 tells us that we are sanctified in the Spirit of our God. The Spirit works in the believers to sanctify them, to separate them entirely for God’s purpose.
Second Thessalonians 2:13 says, “God chose you from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit.” God has chosen us unto salvation in sanctification, and this sanctification is of the Spirit. For us to be in sanctification means that we are in the process of being made holy. Day by day we are being sanctified in the Holy Spirit as the sanctifying power.
Romans 15:16 speaks of the believers being “sanctified in the Holy Spirit.” This is subjective, dispositional sanctification. The Holy Spirit is continuously working within us to sanctify us, to separate us unto God for His purpose.
The believers are sanctified with Christ as the sanctifying life. First Corinthians 1:30 reveals that Christ has been given to us from God as our sanctification. This indicates that the sanctifying life in us is the Christ who lives within us to sanctify us continually with His eternal life. With Christ as the sanctifying life we are being sanctified in our soul, that is, transformed in our mind, emotion, and will.
In John 17:17 the Lord Jesus says in His prayer to the Father, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” In verse 19 the Lord goes on to say, “For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.” These verses indicate that the believers are sanctified in the word of God as the truth conveying the reality of God the Father’s holiness-the attribute of the holy nature of God. The Father’s word carries with it the Father’s reality. Hence, His word is the reality, the truth. The word, being the truth, works as reality in the believers to sanctify them.
God’s living word works in the believers to separate them from anything worldly, separating them from the world and its occupation unto God and His purpose both positionally and dispositionally. This is what it means to be sanctified by the word of God as the truth, the reality. This sanctification not Only changes our position but also our disposition, our inward being.
The word of God as the truth conveys the reality of God the Father’s holiness, which is an attribute of the holy nature of God. Holiness is not God’s nature directly. Rather, holiness is an attribute of God’s nature, which is holy. The holy nature of God is conveyed in His word. Therefore, God’s word as the truth conveys the reality of God the Father’s holiness because it conveys the holy nature of God the Father. When we have the word as God’s reality, this word sanctifies us subjectively. This subjective sanctification is by the Spirit as the sanctifying power, with Christ as the sanctifying life, and in the word as the reality of God the Father’s holiness. The word carries God’s holy nature and imparts this nature into our being so that we may be sanctified subjectively.
Hebrews 12:10 tells us that God the Father disciplines us “for our profit that we might partake of His holiness.” This indicates that the believers are sanctified by the Father’s discipline that they might partake of His holiness-the attribute of His holy nature. To partake of the Father’s holiness is to partake of the attribute of His holy nature. The Father’s disciplining us so that we might partake of His holiness is related to the Spirit’s transformation work (2 Cor. 3:18), which is carried out through the divine dispensing inwardly and the environmental dealings outwardly.
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