Climactic Sanctification

Using the illustration of a wide-angle lens on a three-peaked mountain, Pastor Martin surveys the biblical doctrine of sanctification in its three great dimensions. Peak one — definitive sanctification — is the radical, once-for-all cleavage with the dominion of sin (1 Corinthians 1:2, 6:11; Acts 20:32; Romans 6). Peak two — progressive sanctification — is the continuous process of mortifying sin and being conformed to Christ (Romans 6:22, 8:13; 2 Corinthians 3:18, 7:1; 1 John 3:3). Peak three — climactic sanctification — is the final deliverance from all sin at death and in the resurrection (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24; Philippians 3:20-21; Hebrews 12:23). He closes by insisting that no biblical salvation exists without all three dimensions, and no sanctification occurs outside union with Christ received by repentance and faith.

Pastor Martin moves from the second to the third peak of the mountain of sanctification — climactic sanctification or final glorification. He unfolds the essence (the actual realization of perfect conformity to the image of Christ in both inner and outer man, Romans 8:29, Philippians 3:20-21), the order (for those who die before the consummation, the spirit perfected at death and the body raised at Christ's coming; for those alive at his return, both perfected instantaneously), and the certainty of this great hope, grounded in the commitment of the entire Triune God — the Father's purpose and execution begun, the Son's sacrifice, intercession, and triumphant mediatorial reign, and the Spirit's irreversible pledge as the down payment of completed redemption.

Pastor Martin draws four practical implications from the doctrine of climactic sanctification. First, the Christian should not live in morbid dread or fear of death, since death's penal sting has been removed by Christ — illustrated by Stephen and Peter. Second, the believer should not give the disembodied state more emphasis than Scripture does, since the predominant biblical hope is the resurrection of the body (Romans 8, 2 Corinthians 5). Third, a biblically instructed Christian should neither deify the body (hedonism, humanistic health and birth theories, body worship) nor demean it (asceticism, fasting as more spiritual than feasting, doctrines of demons of 1 Timothy 4). Fourth, the Christian should not live with crippling discouragement over present imperfection, but with the confident refrain: I am not what I should be, not what I desire to be, not what I once was, and not what I shall be.