Doctrine of the Believer

Doctrine of the Believer

Stephen E. LaFleur, ThD

2000

Doctrine of the Believer

JUSTIFICATION

That Christ’s death makes us acceptable before God is expressed in such doctrines as:

Redemption Rom 3:24

Reconciliation II Cor 5:19-21

Forgiveness Rom 3:25

Deliverance Col 1:13

Acceptance in the Beloved Eph 1:6

Assured Future Glorification Rom 8:30

JustificationRom 3:24

To justify is to “declare righteous”. It is a judicial term indicating that a verdict of acquittal has been announced, excluding all possibility of condemnation. In Scripture, justification is invariably set over against condemnation (Deut 25:1, Rom 5:16, 8:33-34).

The claims of God’s law against the sinner have been fully satisfied. Justification is not because of any overlooking, suspending or altering of God’s righteous demands, but because in Christ, all of His demands have been fulfilled. Chris’s perfect life of obedience to the law and His atoning death which paid its penalty are the bases for our justification (Rom 5:9). Justification could never be based on our good works, for God requires perfect obedience, which is impossible for man.

The means of justification is faith (Rom 3:22, 25, 28, 30). Faith is never the ground of justification; it is the means or channel through which God’s grace can impute to the believing sinner, the righteousness of Christ. When we believe, all that Christ is, God puts to our account; thus we stand acquitted. Then God can justly announce that acquittal, and that pronouncement is justification.

SANCTIFICATION

The word Sanctify mean to set apart. It has the same root as the Greek words for saint and holy. For the Christian, sanctification has three aspects. First, the believer has been set apart by his position in the family of God. This is usually called positional sanctification. It means being set apart as a member of the household of God. It is true of every believer, regardless of his spiritual condition, for this concerns his spiritual state. I Corinthians 6:11, deals with the carnal condition of believers. Hebrews 10:10 makes clear this positional sanctification based on the death of Christ.

Then there is the experiential aspect of sanctification. Because we have been set apart, we are to be increasingly set apart in our daily lives (I Peter 1:16). In the positional sense, no one is more sanctified than another. All the exportations of the New Testament concerning spiritual growth are pertinent to this progressive and experiential facet of sanctification.

There is also a sense in which we will not be fully set apart to God until our position and practice are brought into perfect accord, and this will occur only when we see Christ and become as He is (I John 3:1-3). This is our ultimate or future sanctification, which awaits our complete glorification with resurrection bodies (Eph 5:26-27; Jude 24-25)

ADOPTION

Adoption is a particularly wonderful benefit of Christ’s death for the believer. The doctrine is taught explicitly only by Paul. Every time you read “son” in relation to a believer in John’s writings, for instance, you should translate it “child”, for John never writes of the “sonship” of the believer. Only Paul reveals that we are adopted as sons. It is true that we are children of God by the new birth, but it is also true that we are adopted into God’s family at the same time.

In the act of adoption, a child is taken by a man from a family, not his own, intr4odued into a new family, and regarded as a true son, with all the privileges and responsibilities that belong to this new relationship. The imagery in the idea of a child of God is one of birth, growth, development into maturity; the idea of sonship is that of full-fledged privileges in the new family of God. Adoption bestows a new status on the one who receives Christ.

The results of adoption are deliverance from slavery, from guardians, and from the flesh (Gal 4:1-5; Rom 8:14-17), and it is the Holy Spirit who enables us to enjoy the privileges of our position. The fact that an adopted son could never be disinherited, whereas a biological son could be disinherited by his father, speaks clearly of our permanent position in Christ as a believer.