Image of God

Opening the third major division of the series, 'The Salvation We Receive and Proclaim,' Pastor Martin demonstrates that the work of salvation is the central activity of God in Scripture and identifies its primary object: man. He treats man as created in the image of God (Genesis 1-2), man as fallen in Adam (Genesis 3; Romans 5; 1 Corinthians 15), and man as ruined in sin under four realities — guilt, pollution, bondage, and impotence. He closes with two searching questions: have you ever felt the weight of these facts, and do you maintain the remembrance of them in the presence of a vigorous faith in the Redeemer?

Pastor Martin turns to Ephesians 4:17-24 as a third key passage on definitive sanctification. After establishing both the larger and immediate context, he defends the indicative translation of verses 22-24 (ye have put off... and have put on...) against imperative renderings, then shows the same vivid imagery, profound analogy, and decisive tenses he exposited in Colossians 3. He draws four conclusions: the saving instruction of Christ always results in definitive sanctification, definitive sanctification forms the basis and reference point for progressive sanctification, definitive sanctification places us in a position to become what we were originally created to be, and this work is an exercise of gracious omnipotence.

Pastor Martin turns from the agency of sanctification to the pattern of sanctification, asking by what standard the believer is to evaluate growth in grace. He unfolds the first three strands of the biblical fourfold pattern: God Himself (Be ye holy for I am holy), the moral law of God epitomized in the Decalogue (Romans 7:12 — holy, righteous, and good), and the entire spectrum of God's revealed will in Scripture, including the apostolic instructions, Old Testament biography, and even the principles woven into the civil and ceremonial law (1 Corinthians 9, 10; 2 Timothy 3:16). The fourth strand — Christ as the law incarnate — is held over for the next message.

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.