The Son of God, Jesus Christ, consciously sought fellowship with lost sinners and despised marginalized groups on earth in order to heal and save. He repeatedly caused offense among the sanctimonious and hypocritical religious elite, whom he sharply criticized. However, when he forgave sins like the adulteress, he also asked not to sin again in the future.
The Holy Spirit, as the promised helper and comforter, also seeks fellowship with us sinners. He also wants to show us our sin and lostness and, according to God's will, transform us into his beloved children. Through our disobedient behavior we can sadden and dampen him.
God the Father in heaven is so holy that no man can see him face to face without dying. He who hates sin to the utmost should accept and tolerate it in his holy people, i.e. his own people?
Living according to God's standards is incredibly difficult on the one hand and very easy on the other.
Which Christian has not experienced this: during his conversion, he gratefully claimed Jesus' act of forgiveness for his sinful and ungodly past and allowed himself to be saved from eternal loss. He sets out on his new path with zeal, wanting to live a life that pleases God in a different way than before and to be a witness to Jesus in accordance with his mission. And what does he have to experience: the sins of the past catch up with him again, the old temptations press in with force, character weaknesses emerge again, the good intentions cannot be implemented permanently and the first love for Jesus and people grows cold. He becomes particularly painfully aware of his failure when, after making a mistake, he has to be reproached by those around him: “And you want to be a Christian?!” What went wrong?
Barely freed from the punishment of sin, the newborn Christian, albeit with the best of intentions, once again placed himself under the yoke of the law. The attempt to obey and serve one's new master through one's own strength, i.e. through "self-sanctification", sometimes even mortification, disregards his complete act of redemption by grace on the one hand and is doomed to failure anyway on the other.
This is what we achievement-minded people simply cannot understand with our human minds: we are saved by God's grace alone - all we have to do is accept His gifts with trust like children. Whatever God asks of us as his people, he wants to give us himself. Our contribution is our own total bankruptcy and unconditional surrender of our lives to him. We must sincerely open all the chambers of our hearts, even the darkest corners, to him and place them under his rule. When the Holy Spirit moves in, we receive a new heart, a new love from God and are fundamentally transformed. Through Jesus' death on the cross and resurrection, we have received deliverance not only from the penalty of sin, but also from its dominion and nature. Only in this way can we stand victorious against the temptations of the flesh, temptations and attacks of the enemy.
Of course, God wants his people, the ambassadors of his kingdom in this world, to be holy as he is holy. We are supposed to be the light of the world. Let our light shine before men, that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. We should be recognized by love. Rivers of living water will flow from our bodies. We are no longer to be under the dominion of sin. We are to love God with all our heart and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. We are to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect.
Can we do this on our own? Of course not! So just utopian, unattainable wishful thinking from God? Of course not! He himself wants to equip and transform us in this way, but not only in heaven! Everything he asks of us, he wants to give to us himself. After the Holy Spirit renews our hearts, God continues to educate us throughout our lives, making us more and more like His firstborn Son if we will let Him.
But why is the topic of sanctification so controversially discussed in Christianity? Why is there such a dispute over terms and their meanings such as “sanctification,” “perfect,” “pure heart,” “sin no more,” “free from sin,” “no longer under the dominion of sin”? Why is the Church's Babylonian language confusion particularly evident here?s?
The basic principle of world
events is very simple:
God wants to fill heaven and the devil wants to fill
hell.
Who is the most dangerous threat to Satan's goals? Of course, the most credible and powerful witnesses of Jesus through whom God can save people. The enemy's counter-strategy must therefore begin here: bring confusion to the people of God, destroy their unity, distort the gospel and paralyze their strength. The devilish thing about this tactic: Because the unbelieving and atheistic world poses no danger to either Satan or Jesus' disciples, he disguises himself as an "angel of light" and causes a Christian civil war that has already lasted 2,000 years through blinding and heresies. The fatal thing about it is that all sides are convinced that they are fighting for God and the right cause and rely on the Bible as the word of God.
For example, supporters of the holiness movement argue with “He who is born of God commits no sin; for God's children abide in him and cannot sin." (1 John 3:9), their opponents counter with "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us .” (1 John 1:8). Jesus' burden is light (Matt. 11:30) and heavy (Matt. 16:24). We should pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17; Eph. 6:18), but not babble like the Gentiles who think they will be heard if they speak many words (Matt. 6:7). Signs and wonders also happen today (Mk. 16, 17-18), we warn against this with reference to Matthew 24:24. “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Joel 3:5), but it also applies: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord! into the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). The carnal "(baby)" Christian (1 Cor. 3:1-3; Heb. 5:11-13; 1 Pet. 2:2) with the experiences of Romans 7 cannot believe that there is also one spiritual Christianity (1 Cor. 2:15+16; Heb. 5:14) with the successes of Romans 8.
The solution to this problem can only be:
If God sent or allowed this Babylonian confusion of languages so that we humans would not try to reach heaven on our own, then only God can reveal the true meaning of his word through his Spirit. But this requires a humble people who are not convinced of themselves, who live in total dependence on him and can hear the voice of their shepherd.