C&MA 4-Fold Gospel: Christ our Sanctifier
Dr. James Smith
17 April 2005
Last week, we began our sermon series on the theological distinctives of the Christian & Missionary Alliance, which our church is a part of.
Our denomination was founded by Dr. A. B. Simpson in 1887. And he lived in a day when liberal theology and modernism was seriously questioning Biblical Christian beliefs.
Simpson and many others proclaimed the traditional message that Jesus Christ is the “only name under heaven by which we must be saved.”
During his life and ministry, Dr. Simpson became convinced that there were 4 basic messages in the gospel, which summarize what he called, “the complete blessings of Christ which should be emphasized among Christians.”
He called it the 4-Fold gospel and again, you will find it on the cover as well as the back of your bulletin this morning as well as throughout the series.
Simpson noted that Christ is our Savior, Sanctifier, Healer and Coming King and over the next few weeks I am going to speak on each one of these foundational aspects of Christ and the Christ life along with frequent reminders of the Great Commission to go and make disciples.
Last week, I spoke on this foundational cornerstone of the Christian life; Jesus is our Savior.
And instead of appealing to the traditional imagery of the courtroom; where Jesus is understood to be both our lawyer and satisfaction for God’s divine law that we have broken through our own sin and disobedience, I talked about Jesus as our great physician.
Jesus is also a skillful doctor and the cross of Christ is a surgical instrument in His hands. God cares so much for us that if we belief that His son can literally “save us,” he will cut away everything in our lives that is sick or dying and bring us into a new place of health.
In Christ, then, “salvation” has deep implications for not only our spiritual lives, but for our mental, emotional, psychological and even physical lives as well.
This morning, I want to build on this cornerstone doctrine of Christ as Savior, by talking about Christ as our Sanctifier.
“Sanctification” is also a very, very rich doctrine and often Christians in the West have appealed to a kind of tripartite or three tiered approach in discussing these things, again, making use of legal or forensic imagery.
Traditionally, Christians have talked about how we are justified or made right in God’s eyes through belief and trust in Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross and resurrection.
Then, the ongoing Christian life is one of sanctification or being made holy by ever increasing conforming to Jesus throughout our lifetimes.
Finally, the Christian life reaches its culmination in the idea of glorification; when we go to be with Christ after our death, which Paul says, “is better by far.”
And let me say, that all of this is good and right. But we all know that sooner or later, all images and illustrations begin to break down because such spiritual truths cannot be fully contained by such earthly concepts.
Instead of appealing to this framework, I’d like to build on the cornerstone doctrine of Christ as savior by using the image of a house or home.
In the spiritual life, Christians know that God is not interested in simply cleaning up our lives or “fixing up the old house.”
God isn’t even remotely interested in the “old shack” of our lives. He’s interested in the land, so to speak. And in salvation, Christ comes and tears downs the old shack of our lives, clears the land and then builds a completely new house.
Perhaps some of you have seen the T.V. show, “Extreme Home Makeover.” My family really likes it, though it’s a bit melodramatic for Stoic tastes.
Nevertheless, the crew chooses the biggest sob story that they can find in the nation. Often a poor and destitute family whose lives have been ravaged by disease, death or strange and random misfortunes.
They are sent away from their home on a fantastic vacation of their choice, while the crew absolutely demolishes their old home. Then, they rebuild into a one of a kind palace fit for a king, and completely stocked with items from Sears.
They incorporate precious family heirlooms and sentimental items into the new home so that when the family returns they all burst into tears and then say, “Oh my God!” not as praise, but more in vain, up to 30-40 times by my son Zachary’s count.
This shows a good picture of Christ’s work of regeneration or building a completely new house, but it doesn’t demonstrate sanctification.
After all, wouldn’t it be really interesting as well as instructive to see how these people lived a year or two afterwards in their new palace?
I have this fear that many of them would continue to live their old undisciplined lives in their “new digs” and actually end up worse then when started in some ways.
It’s like those people who win the lottery and then are usually bankrupt on an average of 2-3 years after, because there was no actual positive change in their heart life.
Sanctification then, is not simply concerned with constructing and filling the house but also with the builder and proper owner coming to permanently live and dwell in the house.
Just as we cannot do anything to save ourselves, so we cannot hope to sanctify ourselves either. All of this is the work of Jesus Christ Himself. In fact, Jesus is our sanctification, through His personal indwelling in our lives.
In other words, we are not saved by faith and then sanctified through good works or habits.
But rather as Simpson says, in sanctification we personally experience God in the flesh again. Jesus is the precious jewel that we carry in our hearts.
In sanctification, we invite Christ to have free access to all the rooms of the new house and His living presence in us separates us from sin, causes us to say “thy will be done,” conforms us to His likeness and perfect will and empowers us to be submissive, obedient and filled with the love of God and our neighbors.
According to Simpson and subsequent Alliance Christians, sanctification is experienced as both crisis as well as a progressive process in our lives.
I remember that it wasn’t until my seminary days, that it fully dawned on me that I had been saying all along, “Thank you Jesus for saving my soul, now I’ll take it from here.” “I’ll have my devotions, go to church regularly, fellowship with other Christians and through my own personal efforts, I will be sanctified.”
But I began to ask myself the question, that the old Alliance systematic theologian, Dr. George Pardington had asked, “Isn’t there something better than this old round of sin and failure?” Or have I unwittingly invited Christ over to “my” house as a guest rather than allowing Him to be the Lord of the whole manor & entire estate so to speak.”
Simpson said, “we need a divine revelation to see Jesus as our sanctifier, to effect our entire surrender to Him and believe that He has received our consecration.”
Do you understand and have you experienced this kind of initial crisis of the deeper Christian life? And yes, our sanctification is also very, very much a progressive process where we actively and with our entire will, engage in every spiritual discipline within our power.
Maturity in the Christian life is gradual provided we step out of the way and allow Jesus “to rule the roost.” And evidence of such growth will come in the form of the fruit of the Spirit.
Practically this implies an implicit obedience on our part, carefully listening to His “still small voice” and in times of conflict or temptation, that we choose to draw near to God.
Unlike “Extreme Home Makeover,” you and I do not own the new house. The builder owns it and desire to dwell in and administer it for you.
And sanctification isn’t primarily our work anymore than salvation is. Jesus is our Savior and our Sanctifier and His sanctification is experienced as both crisis as well as process.
Let’s Pray
