Beholding Christ

Pastor Martin completes his treatment of agency in progressive sanctification by showing that the believer himself, as a new man in Christ, is also an active agent. He surveys the general teaching of Scripture (Matthew 5, Matthew 26, Romans 8, 2 Corinthians 7, 1 John 3, 2 Corinthians 3:18, 2 Peter 1) and then expounds Philippians 2:12-13 as the pivotal text that epitomizes the whole biblical doctrine: God works in us both to will and to do, and therefore we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. He warns equally against sanctification by naked human effort and sanctification by the negation of human effort, insisting that God's working and our working are concurrent realities, neither negating the other.

Pastor Martin completes the fourfold pattern of sanctification by setting forth the Lord Jesus Christ as the supreme pattern for the believer. He establishes from both the self-consciousness of Christ (Matthew 10, Matthew 20, John 13) and the explicit teaching of the apostles (1 Peter 2, 1 John 2, Philippians 2) that Christ is the example believers must imitate, then explains why: in Christ the image of God is perfectly revealed in the concreteness of our human situation. He gives extended examples of Christ's holiness, love, and obedience to the Father, warns against the idolatry of inventing a Christ in our own image, and pleads that no one can be like Christ until they are first in Christ by repentance and faith.

Drawing especially from Hebrews 2 and 4, Pastor Martin shows that because Christ is truly man he is fully qualified to be a sympathetic high priest who, having suffered being tempted, can succor his tempted people. He then expounds 1 Peter 2 and 1 John 2 to show that Christ as true man is also the perfect pattern and example for believers in the use of body, soul, mind, will, and emotions, as well as in love to God and neighbor. The closing application from 2 Corinthians 3:18 urges Christians to behold the glory of the perfect human Christ in Scripture so that they may be progressively transformed into his image.