Conformity to Christ

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 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.

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 sets the doctrine of justification within the supportive framework of three indispensable truths without which it cannot be rightly understood: the character and position of God as holy and just Creator and Judge, the character and position of man as accountable creature and guilty sinner, and God's overall ultimate purpose to conform His people to the image of His Son. He warns that whenever justification has been wrenched out of this larger context, it has suffered grievously even at the hands of its friends.

Pastor Martin expounds the second experiential privilege of adoption — the reality and certainty of God's paternal discipline — from Hebrews 12:1-13. He sets out three principles: the Father's love for his true children constrains him to discipline them (making the mathematical equation Father's love + adoption = discipline), God's discipline aims specifically at conforming us to the family likeness of holiness, and the proper response is to expect, understand, and submit to it. He closes with a sustained exhortation on the goodness of loving parental discipline both in the home and from God's hand.