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Justification, Sanctification, and the Holy Spirit: Difference between revisions
Justification, Sanctification, and the Holy Spirit (view source)
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*Will living piously simply make you a Christian Pharisee? | *Will living piously simply make you a Christian Pharisee? | ||
=Commentary from Bible Scholars= | |||
==Justification vs. Sanctification== | |||
The purpose of the gospel is to get you to walk into the presence of God knowing that you’re not liable, knowing that he finds you blameless. If you don’t have something that enables you to look God in the eye, to stand on your feet and look him in the face in his presence, you still haven’t gotten the gospel. You may have religion, you may have morality, but you don’t have Christianity. | |||
===Imputed righteousness and imparted righteousness=== | |||
The Scripture always talks about two kinds of righteousness. There’s imputed righteousness and imparted righteousness. | |||
Imputed righteousness is the legal righteousness that comes to you fully and wholly the minute you believe. Then imparted righteousness is the real, actual, supernatural maturity that’s put in your heart, the Holy Spirit, that actually comes into your life and begins to change your heart so that you love, so there’s self-control growing, so there’s courage growing, so there’s gentleness growing, so there’s power growing. | |||
God never, never, never divides imputed from imparted righteousness. The imputed righteousness is first, and on the basis of the fact that you’re legally righteous, he puts his actual Holy Spirit in you to make you actually righteous. He imparts it. A religious person bases your imputed righteousness on your imparted righteousness. In other words, you say, “Because I’m being a pretty good person, I can stand in the presence of God.” | |||
A Christian, however, bases his imparted righteousness on his imputed righteousness. He says, “The reason I’m growing in grace is because I am already legally accepted by him.” That’s the reason why it’s so absolutely critical for you to realize that a Christian bases your sanctification on your justification, not your justification on your sanctification. A moralist says, “The reason I’m just in God’s sight is because I’ve had a pretty good week.” A Christian says, “The reason I can have a pretty good week is because I know he accepts me.” | |||
There’s a huge difference between the way a Christian repents and a moralist repents. The moralist says, “I have to repent or he’ll reject me.” The Christian says, “I have to repent because he won’t reject me. I can’t. I am afraid of grieving a person who at infinite cost has put himself in a relationship with me so that he will never reject me. Anybody who has done that, I’m afraid to grieve.” | |||
A Christian has this great desire for holiness because he’s afraid of grieving the person who would never reject him. A non-Christian, or a moralist, a religious person, has to repent because he’s afraid he will be rejected. Utterly different.<ref>Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).</ref> | |||
==More quotes of William Branham== | ==More quotes of William Branham== | ||