How Does God Make His People Holy?
Every believer wants to be holy, and every believer wants to know God's will. Pentecostalism has offered answers to both longings that center on experience: a crisis experience that sanctifies, a Spirit baptism that empowers, and a Spirit-led reading of Scripture that hears God directly. This study weighs those answers by Scripture.
Two questions run through it. First, how does God make His people holy: in a single moment after conversion, or throughout life? Second, how do we know what God is saying: by impressions and feelings, or by His Word rightly divided? Scripture gives one answer to both. God sanctifies His people through His Word, and His Word judges every experience.
From the Greek hagiasmos, a setting apart for God. Believers are sanctified positionally the moment they trust Christ, set apart as holy in Him; progressively throughout life, as the Spirit uses the Word to make them more like Christ; and finally when they see Him and are made like Him.
When what you feel and what is written seem to disagree, which one has the final word?
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For Deeper Study
- HolinessAmazon J. C. RyleA classic call to practical holiness, written partly in answer to the perfectionist teaching of Ryle's day. Ryle was a bishop in the Church of England.
- The Pursuit of HolinessAmazon Jerry BridgesA clear, practical book on the believer's part in progressive sanctification (1978).
- Balancing the Christian LifeAmazon Charles C. RyrieA dispensational Bible teacher's study of spiritual growth, the Spirit's filling, and Christian maturity.
- Five Views on SanctificationAmazon Melvin E. Dieter, Anthony A. Hoekema, Stanley M. Horton, J. Robertson McQuilkin, and John F. WalvoordWesleyan, Reformed, Pentecostal, Keswick, and dispensational writers state and answer one another's views (1987).
- Strange FireAmazon John MacArthurA biblical critique of the charismatic movement (2013), including its reliance on experience over Scripture.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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The Sufficiency of Scripture
Scripture contains everything God requires us to believe and obey for salvation and godliness, so no new revelation, tradition, or experience is needed to complete it.
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