“And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”
but you were sanctified,
“Sanctified” means set apart. God sets apart the believer with the indwelling Holy Spirit so that he has the capacity to walk in the Spirit and live a different life. This is positional sanctification, not experiential sanctification. The believer has perfect sanctification at the moment he places his trust in the finished work of Christ. There are three kinds of sanctification: past, present, and future. The sanctification here is past sanctification.
PRINCIPLE:
God gives us positional sanctification by His grace.
APPLICATION:
Positional sanctification is complete and finished at the moment of our salvation. This is not sanctification that we can attain; it is a state that God gave us by His grace in the past. It is total sanctification in God’s eyes. This total sanctification is not experiential but judicial or positional.
Acts 26:18, …to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.’
2 Timothy 1:9, …who has saved us and called us with a holy (sanctified) calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began,
Hebrews 10:10, By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Hebrews 13:12, Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.
1 Peter 1:2, …elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.
