The third cornerstone of our salvation

 

3.         Jesus Christ our Sanctification

The third cornerstone of our salvation is Jesus Christ our sanctification which came as the result of His resurrection from the dead, and His appointment as High Priest who lives forever and has a permanent priesthood. Therefore He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them.

Such a High Priest meets our need – one who is holy, blameless, pure, and set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Both righteousness and holiness (sanctification) is a state which has been conferred upon believers because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Hence we are admonished to “Put on the new man, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).

As living stones we are integrated into the cornerstone of holiness (sanctification) by “God the Father who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him.” This spiritual state has to be perfected by cleansing one’s self from all defilement of body and spirit, andperfecting holiness in the fear of God.

This necessitates our separation from everything that defiles as we have been duly admonished saying; “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For, we are the temple of the living God.”

As God has said, “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people. Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:14-18).

Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of our sanctification has called His people out of the world, and prayed to the Father on their behalf saying; “I have given them Your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but to protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth. As you sent Me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify Myself, that they too may be truly sanctified” (John 17:14-19).

It is also by the authority of Jesus Christ our sanctification that Paul issued a letter to the church saying; “I have written to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people – not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler, with such a man do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? God will judge those outside: Expel the wicked man from among you” (1 Corinthians 5:9-13).

A messenger of Christ our sanctification has issued a warning saying; “Come out of her, My people so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues"(Revelation 18:4).

I therefore beg to ask the question, how could the church of God , the body of Christ be regarded as a sanctuary for sinners? When, "This is what the LORD spoke, saying: ' By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; And before all the people I must be glorified" (Leviticus 10:3).

And since the Lord must be regarded as holy, when appearing before Him, worshipers also must be as obedient children, not conforming themselves to the former lusts, as in their ignorance; but as He who called them is holy, they also be holy in all their conduct, because it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy"  (1 Peter 1;1-16).

The crux of the matter is, light has absolutely no fellowship with darkness as we have been duly admonished saying: "This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1: 5-7).

And it is by the breaking of bread that believers, as a holy, sanctified and a people set aside by the Lord come to have fellowship with one another and with the Father and the Son. For we have again been admonished saying; "The bread which we break, is it not the communion  (fellowship) of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread" (1 Corinthians 10:16-17).

Truly, these times of ignorance God has overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. The choice is yours, let each be fully convinced in his / own mind.

With brotherly love

Lucius Joseph