The Complex Process of Sanctification

I am sure that many times, out of a misguided and simplistic desire to glorify God and defend his faithfulness at all costs, we preachers end up impoverishing and diluting the wonderful and multifaceted experience of sanctification. We refuse to admit that sanctification is an arduous, winding, long-term process. That sublime path is riddled with hesitations and falls. It includes victories, but also great defeats. Sometimes we can take tremendous leaps toward maturity. But we can also crash into the walls of our fallen humanity and experience serious setbacks.

In a moment of great candor, the apostle Paul wrote about his own agonizing experience with sanctification. He had discovered that the desire to please God was within him. But he had also discovered another impulse, another “law” within him that frequently led him to violate his best intentions and offend the God he loved so much.

Compulsively, many Christians try to hide everything that seems to contradict the clear promises of power, victory, and assurance that the word of God provides us in our struggle against sin. They seek to suppress or conceal any element of the Christian experience that reveals the true complexity of the path toward perfection. We mistakenly think that if we admit into our experience any element that complicates or casts doubt on the faithfulness and simplicity of the Word of God, this is tantamount to questioning the Father’s character or integrity. By doing this, we ignore the fact that God does not seem overly concerned that his processes are sometimes elusive, complex, and apparently contradictory. He is completely sovereign. We easily forget that it is he who has said (Isaiah 55:8, 9):

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

The methods and ways God employs to lead his children through the experience of sanctification are often strange and unpleasant. At times, they might even seem grotesque and unjust to us. We must remember, however, that he is sovereign. God always knows what he is doing! Like a supremely experienced and self-assured craftsman, he never apologizes for the materials or processes he uses to produce his masterpieces.

At times God will use the defeats, failures, and falls along our journey to forge for himself broken and humble men and women who reflect the simplicity, grace, and mercy of Jesus Christ. Every work of God in our lives is good by definition. For those of us who are in Christ, every experience along our spiritual journey—even failures and spiritual downturns—is used by God for our perfection, although at the time we experience them they may seem chaotic or unjust to us. Only at the end of the journey, when we can look back from the divine and eternal perspective, will we be able to see that what at the time seemed grotesque and meaningless to us was perhaps the greatest demonstration of God’s love and mercy toward us.