Already Sanctified

J. Payne Don

Description

How does the doctrine of sanctification shape the Christian life? Offering a fully developed treatment of "accomplished" sanctification, Don Payne explains that the primary biblical focus in sanctification is not progressive growth but that which has already occurred for Christians to make growth possible, necessary, and grace-driven. As Payne explores the significance Scripture attributes to the accomplished aspect of sanctification, he helps us understand that we are already sanctified. Sanctification is not synonymous with transformation but undergirds strategies and resources related to Christian discipleship and formation.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 16 juin 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781493423750
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Cover
Half Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2020 by Don J. Payne
Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-2375-0
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations labeled ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2016
Scripture quotations labeled NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
Dedication
To Thomas A. Noble, whose life and scholarship embody the artful synthesis of grace and rigor that reflects God’s sanctifying presence.
Contents
Cover i
Half Title Page ii
Title Page iii
Copyright Page iv
Dedication v
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Part One: How We Got Where We Are 11
1. The Sanctification Mutiny 13
2. New Ventures in Sanctification 27
Part Two: The Biblical Story Line Revisited 39
3. A Potent Backstory: Consecration in the Old Testament 41
4. A Shocking New Story: Sanctification in the New Testament 57
5. Unexpected Instances of Sanctification 73
6. Sanctification as Liberated Responsibilities and Compelling Promises 87
7. Transformation 107
Part Three: The Doctrinal Profile Reanimated 123
8. Sanctification as God’s Transforming Power 125
9. Sanctification and the Process of Transformation 137
10. Accomplished Sanctification in Action 147
Conclusion 155
Bibliography 159
Scripture Index 169
Subject Index 173
Back Cover 179
Acknowledgments
The list of people who have influenced this project could almost be a chapter in itself. Even to attempt giving proper credit is to risk the embarrassment of overlooking someone. To those whose names I forgot to mention, I beg their forgiveness and hope they will know of my gratitude.
The unnamed include a long train of students, colleagues, and friends who have sharpened my thinking on the subject of sanctification with their patient listening, insightful questions, affirmation, quizzical expressions, and disagreement. I am grateful to the board and administration of Denver Seminary for a generous sabbatical to focus on this work. Two deans under whom it has been my privilege to serve, Dr. Randy MacFarland and Dr. Lynn Cohick, have been particularly encouraging.
For twenty-one years Denver Seminary has proven to be a most congenial and fertile environment for theological work such as this. Across the institution—board, administration, faculty, and staff—numerous individuals have offered more than merely polite interest and encouragement for this project. I honestly cannot think of a place I would rather serve or better colleagues with whom to serve.
A special thanks to four who devoted significant measures of their personal time to reading and commenting on an early and extremely rough draft of the manuscript: Laura Flanders, Andrew Hay, Knut Heim, and Jim Howard. I make no claims for the finished product, but it is better by far than it would have been without their insightful input. As much as I would love to divert the blame to them for any shortcomings in the work, alas, I must take responsibility for what I have chosen to say and how I have said it.
Dave and Kathleen Sherman generously, and twice, offered the use of their cabin so that I could write undisturbed. Thanks to Baker Academic and Bob Hosack for accepting this project and to Julie Zahm and others on the editorial team for being so easy to work with throughout the process. My wife, Sharon, deserves my unqualified gratitude (and she actually read the manuscript). She has relentlessly believed in me and encouraged me. More than any person I know, she embodies what I argue for in this book. Theologians should always look for experiential validation of their claims, and she is my source of that in this case.
Finally, thanks to our sanctifying God, whose gracious, empowering presence I have sought and relied on, in hopes that this book will shine a glimmer of encouraging light on what it means to have been made holy.
Introduction
For those who try to be serious about the Christian faith, the subject of sanctification can be inspiring, intimidating, intriguing, puzzling, frustrating, or guilt-inducing—or all of these on different days! Why another book on sanctification when so much has already been written about this doctrine?
For centuries the doctrine of sanctification has been a theological battleground. Interest in sanctification stretches across disciplinary lines, perhaps because it seems to have more immediate and practical bearing on every Christian’s life, including the personal lives of the scholars who write about it. For at least that reason the doctrine of sanctification holds widespread interest for Christians of all traditions and in all places.
With or without the technical, scholarly vocabulary, our beliefs about sanctification affect how we live in response to God and others. They directly relate to the first and greatest commandment and the second commandment, as Jesus stated them: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:37, 39). Those who take these words seriously face the lifelong task of working out the possibilities and practicalities of those words in both the interior and the exterior domains of life.
Since the language of sanctification or holiness often depicts the nature and pursuit of these goals, questions and challenges continue to arise. What is a holy person and how do I (and we) become holy? What is my role and what is God’s role? What do my failures, shortcomings, and ongoing struggles mean for my relationship with God? Where do I find the resources for faithfulness to God even through failure, discouragement, and seeming lack of progress? What should be my expectations for spiritual growth and transformation, especially in light of chronic struggles and areas of bondage? Christians routinely ask at least some of these questions in one form or another. These constitute, or at least illustrate, some of the challenges of sanctification—what it means to be holy.
Ambiguities, tensions, and challenges will never go away entirely until the Lord returns. However, some symptoms that commonly encumber the faith journey stem from inherited patterns of reading the biblical texts about sanctification. Those patterns include underattending to some aspects of sanctification while overdeveloping others. This has resulted in a sort of chronic disproportioning of the doctrine that, like some physical abnormalities, can seriously affect one’s stride. Every bit as serious, this disproportioning has become so familiar that it seems not to be recognized as problematic.
The complex challenges involved in the doctrine of sanctification require patient reexamination of the biblical material, honest identification of assumptions that have been read into certain texts, and particular attention to the pattern of the doctrine as it unfolds and functions in Scripture. What we can find, I contend, is a doctrine of sanctification that is actually encouraging and empowering without being simplistic or formulaic.
Questions and controversies about what it means to be sanctified tend to fall into some general categories. Is it already completed and behind us? If so, how do we not become morally complacent? Is it primarily something out in front of us and out of reach within this lifetime? If so, how is it meaningfully to be pursued and can assurance ever realistically come our way? What role do other grand biblical themes such as grace and faith play in sanctification?
The dizzying array of opinions on the subject is matched only by the complexities and enigmas within our personal experiences. At the practical level, all Christians have a theology of sanctification that undergirds the ways we actually try to live out our faith, or think we ought to do so. Our practical theologies of sanctification powerfully influence our lives, whatever language we use for it.
This book addresses the need for a constantly renewed theology of the Christian life. Like many significant subjects, this is as complex as the people involved. Thus, the definitive and “last word” on sanctification may never be written. That’s all the more reason to write another one: to keep probing and inching our way incrementally toward whatever clarity God will grant us on a subject that affects the core of our relationships with both God and others.
I know the need for this clarity first and foremost as a Christian for whom the subject of the Christian life has been central—always challenging and often problematic—as long as I have been a consciously committed Christian (at least forty-six years at the time of this writing). That’s a reasonably lengthy stretch of time in which to ponder what it means to live the Christian life—to be holy. Eight years of pastoral ministry and over twent