Bully's Blog

Sanctification is not a progressive improvement of the Adamic nature, but a growing maturity of sound judgment. From Sanctification: What Is It? by C.H. Mackintosh:

…This leads us to the second objection, to the erroneous theory of the progressive sanctification of our nature, namely, the objection drawn from the truthful experience of all believers. Is the reader a true believer? If so, has he found any improvement in his old nature? Is it a single whit better now than it was when he first started on his Christian course? He may, and should through grace, be able to subdue it more thoroughly; but it is nothing better. If it be not mortified, it is just as ready to spring up and show itself in all its vileness as ever. “The flesh” in a believer is in no wise better than “the flesh” in an unbeliever. And if the Christian does not bear in mind that self must be judged, he will soon learn by bitter experience that his old nature is as bad as ever; and, moreover, that it will be the very same to the end.

It is difficult to conceive how anyone who is led to expect a gradual improvement of his nature, can enjoy an hour’s peace, inasmuch as he cannot but see, if he only looks at himself in the light of God’s Holy Word, his old self — the flesh — is the very same as when he walked in the moral darkness of his unconverted state. His own condition and character are, indeed, greatly changed by the possession of a new, yea, a “divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4), and by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, to give effect to its desires; but the moment the old nature is at work, he finds it as opposed to God as ever.

We doubt not but that very much of the gloom and despondency, of which so many complain, may be justly traced to their misapprehension of this important point of sanctification. They are looking for what they can never find. They are seeking for a ground of peace in a sanctified nature instead of in a perfect sacrifice — in a progressive work of holiness instead of in a finished work of atonement. They deem it presumptuous to believe that their sins are forgiven until their evil nature is completely sanctified; and, seeing that this end is not reached, they have no settled assurance of pardon, and are therefore miserable. In a word, they are seeking for a “foundation” totally different from that which Jehovah says He has laid, and, therefore, they have no certainty whatever.

The only thing that ever seems to give them a ray of comfort is some apparently successful effort in the struggle for personal sanctity. If they have had a good day — if they are favored with a season of comfortable communion — if they happen to enjoy a peaceful, devotional frame, they are ready to cry out, “Thou hast made my mountain to stand strong; I shall never be moved” (Psalm 30).

But, ah! These things furnish a sorry foundation for the soul’s peace. They are not Christ; and until we see that our standing before God is in Christ, there cannot be settled peace. The soul that has really got hold of Christ is desirous indeed of holiness; but if intelligent of what Christ is to him, he has done with all thoughts about sanctified nature. He has found his all in Christ, and the paramount desire of his heart is to grow into His likeness. This is true, practical sanctification.

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Charles Henry Mackintosh, known world wide as “C.H.M.,” was born in 1820 in Country Wicklow, Ireland. He was spiritually stirred when he was eighteen by letters from his sister after her conversion. But is own peace was resolved by the sentence, “It is Christ’s work for us, not His work in us, that gives us peace,” in J.N. Darby’s Operations of the Spirit.