Sanctification.

      I would like to share some excerpts on sanctification, taken from Adam Clarke's Christian Theology. His thoughts can be convicting, but they also can encourage us to take hold of what Christ has called us to.


     This perfection is the restoration of man to the state of holiness from which he fell, by creating him anew in Christ Jesus, and restoring to him that image and likeness of God which he has lost. A higher meaning than this it can not have; a lower meaning it must not have. God made man in that degree of perfection which was pleasing to His own infinite wisdom and goodness. Sin defaced this divine image; Jesus came to restore it. Sin must have no triumph; and the Redeemer of mankind must have His glory. But if man be not perfectly saved from all sin, sin does triumph, and Satan exult, because they have done mischief that Christ either can not or will not remove.


     A man may be said to be perfect who answers to the end for which God made him; and as God requires every man to love Him with all his heart, soul mind, and strength, and his neighbor as himself; then he is a perfect man that does so; he answers the end for which God made him; and this is more evident from the nature of that love that fills his heart; for as love is the principle of obedience, so he that loves his God with all his powers will obey Him with all his powers; and he who loves his neighbor as himself will not only do no injury to him, but on the contrary, labor to promote his best interests.



     The whole design of God was to restore man to His image, and raise him from the ruins of his fall; in a word, to make him perfect; to blot out all his sins, purify his soul, and fill him with holiness; so that no unholy temper, evil desire, or impure affection or passion shall either lodge, or have any being within him; this and this only is true religion, or christian perfection, and a less salvation than this would be dishonorable to the sacrifice of Christ, and the operation of the Holy Ghost.