Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

It is believed that depravity is repressed by regeneration, but removed or destroyed by
sanctification. We believe that the latter "eliminates" that which is morbid and abnormal from the
soul, and impresses and regulates that which is healthy and normal in our nature. Paul's "old" or
"carnal" nature was "crucified," but his new or normal nature was, through divine grace, repressed
or "kept under" -- his innocent but blind appetites and passions being controlled through the
Christ-life in him.
3. How do we interpret those Scriptures which seem to teach that the soul is thoroughly saved in
regeneration? Such passages as the following are confidently relied on to support that theory: 2
Corinthians v. 17; Galatians v. 24; Ephesians iv. 24; I Peter i. 22, 23. We answer (1) that those to
whom the apostles refer may have been fully saved in regeneration. Or (2) the apostles may have
been giving the ideal of a true Christian in this life -- what God would have him be, and what he has
arranged for his becoming in his early religious history, by receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. To
be "Christ's," to be "in Christ," to "put on the new man," and to "love one another with a pure heart
fervently," may involve states of grace reached after we are "born again," through the baptism of the
Spirit. In commenting on Galatians v.24, Dr. Steele says:
"It is evident that Paul here presents the ideal of a true Christian in the present world after he has,
through faith in Christ, entirely crucified the flesh ... The apostle portrays all Christians on earth at
this climax, being viewed in their concrete actuality, having appropriated their full heritage in Jesus
Christ."
In calling attention to an ideal American, would a writer point out a diseased, deformed, or
dwarfed specimen? Would he not, rather, select one who, having been well born, thoroughly trained,
and healthfully developed, shows our manhood in its best state? So Paul and Peter, in giving to the
churches ideals of true Christians, select those who had been well "born again," had had their "hearts
purified," their "affections and lusts crucified," their natures thoroughly "renewed," by being "in
Christ" and having "Christ in them." In a word, they seem to have taken them from the class who,
like Barnabas, Stephen and the other deacons chosen with him, as well as the one hundred and
twenty at Pentecost, were "full of the Holy Ghost," rather than from those who were partly "carnal,"
and hence did not reach the scriptural ideal.
(3) As we have noticed elsewhere, learned critics say that this "putting off of the old man," and
this "putting on of the new man," and this "crucifixion of the passions and lusts" is subsequent to
conversion. Paul in the seventeenth verse of this same chapter of Galatians refers to the conflict that
was going on between "the flesh and the Spirit," before the former was "crucified." The
"thorny-ground" hearers did not have these things crucified at regeneration, though they might have
been afterwards.
(4) It was possibly with them as Professor Beet says it was with the apostles' application of the
terms "holy" and "sanctified" to those who were not fully saved, indicating their privilege and duty,
and what God has called them to be. They might and ought to have "all things new," etc.
(5) As we have already seen, nearly or quite all experience seems to contradict this construction
of these passages -- "all things have" not "become new," etc. [Transcriber Note: To me, the author's