The Doctrine Of Santification by Pastor Dolapo Lawal: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

The Meaning of Sanctification

The Hebrew word for sanctification is kadosh. It appears 108 times in Scripture and carries the following meanings:

• To hallow
• To dedicate
• To prepare
• To consecrate
• To appoint
• To purify

The primary word is sanctify. Though it is used 108 times, it is translated as holy only seven times.

The Law of First Mention — Genesis 2:3

For the law of first mention, the word sanctified first appears in Genesis 2:3.

Three key observations from this text:

1. Sanctification is a product of the blessing.

   God blessed the seventh day, then sanctified it. This means sanctification follows the blessing — and the blessing of God is not primarily material things, though it can translate to them. The blessing of God is His presence on the inside of a person.

   In Galatians 1:6–8, Paul uses the word anathema — meaning to be banished, removed, cut off from the gathering. Curse, therefore, means the absence of God's presence. Blessing is the opposite: the presence of God in the life of a believer.

   When God said to Abraham, "In blessing I will bless thee," Abraham was not poor — he left his father's house with servants and cattle. The blessing God was referring to was connection to His genealogy and His story: the promise of Genesis 3, reiterated in Abraham, so that all nations would be blessed through his seed.

   Ephesians 1:3–4 confirms this: God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ, choosing us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy. That word holy in verse 4 is sanctified. 1 Corinthians 1:30 adds that Christ Jesus became for us wisdom from God — and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

   Sanctification is therefore a product of the blessing — the presence of God, the Holy Spirit, the Christ in us.

2. Sanctification was accomplished in rest.

   God sanctified the seventh day because in it He rested. This work of sanctification is to cease from works and trust God for provision.

   Exodus 20:8–11 commands the keeping of the Sabbath day. Note the distinction — He did not say make it holy; He said keep it holy. Holiness is not something we achieve; it is something we live out. It was first given to us.

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   Holiness means separated from and separated unto. A temple does not work or sin, yet it is called holy because it has been separated from every other building and set apart for God. When God takes something and separates it to Himself, that thing becomes holy because it is now unto Him. That is positional holiness.

   Exodus 16:23–30 reveals God's pattern: manna was provided daily, but on the sixth day God provided double — what was laid up carried over to the seventh day. The people did not work on the Sabbath; they ate what God prepared the day before.

   John 6 connects this directly — Jesus declared Himself the bread that came down from heaven. What He did in His works rolls over to our Sabbath — our rest. His work is sufficient to keep us in rest.

   Matthew 17:1 shows this in action: after six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John up on a high mountain apart. The seventh day. Apart. The revelation of Christ came on the day of rest — the day belonging to the Lord.

   The structure of Hebrews confirms this progression:

   • Hebrews 1 — Jesus is greater than angels
   • Hebrews 2 — Jesus is greater than angels (continued)
   • Hebrews 3 — Jesus is greater than Moses
   • Hebrews 4 — Jesus is greater than Joshua; He is the Sabbath. He is rest.

   The seventh day belongs to the Lord. The seventh day is Christ. You enter rest and appropriate the finished work He accomplished on the sixth day.

3. Rest does not mean inactivity.

   God rested in Genesis 2, yet He was forming man. Adam was a product of rest. He was given a garden and a job — to tend the ground. Rest is activity on God's terms.

   Paul wrote that he labored more than them all — yet not he, but the grace given to him. Grace — charis and charisma — is unmerited favor that produces inner empowerment to do work. Grace does not bypass work; grace wills and empowers us to do work. Grace is God working through us. Works is us trying to get it done by ourselves.

   The psalmist says He leads in the path of righteousness for His name's sake. The work of the one being led is to follow. John 8:12 renders it this way: Jesus declared Himself the light of the world, and that the one who follows Him shall not walk in darkness but have the light of life.

   That is how Jesus answered the woman caught in adultery after saying go and sin no more. The empowerment over sin is to follow the light of life. Galatians 5:16 confirms: walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

   Turn on the light. Start looking at Jesus. He has already done it — without sin. Just follow Him.

   That process of following Him — that is sanctification. It is looking at the Author and Finisher of faith as He purifies us to be like Him.

Defining Sanctification

Sanctification is the deliverance from the power of sin — and by deliverance, the meaning is movement, like a parcel being moved from one location to another.

Sanctification is the present and continuous process of believers becoming Christlike, accomplished by the Holy Spirit's power and presence.

The distinction between justification and sanctification is critical:

• Justification takes away the penalty and consequence of sin
• Sanctification breaks the power of sin

One can be declared righteous — the penalty of sin removed — and still be struggling with the power of sin. Sanctification addresses the power. And because God justified us, He is committed to our sanctification. His justification must be just — and what makes it just is the ongoing work of sanctification. For His name's sake, He will see it through.

Sanctification represents the believer's victory over:

• The world — 1 John 5:4: whatever is born of God overcomes the world, and the victory that overcomes the world is our faith — not merely personal charismatic faith, but the corporate faith: the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
• The devil — James 4:7: submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee.
• The flesh — the primary battlefield for sanctification, addressed below.

Romans 7 — The Inner Conflict of Awakened Humanity

Romans 7:24–25 closes Paul's account of inner conflict. He is not excusing sin or giving up. He is describing the tension of a believer who has been awakened by the law — who is not yet speaking from the standpoint of the victorious life in the spirit, which he introduces in Romans 8.

The structure of Romans:

• Romans 1–5 — Justification: the need for the gospel, the sinfulness of both Gentiles and Jews, justification through faith in the pattern of Abraham
• Romans 6–8 — Sanctification and life in the Spirit
• Romans 9–11 — God's redemptive plan for Israel and the Gentiles; the doctrine of mercy and engrafting
• Romans 12–16 — Consecrated living and practical Christian life

Within Romans 7, the progression moves through several stages:

1. Verses 1–6: Freedom from the law through death. Using the analogy of marriage, Paul shows that death releases a person from legal obligation. Believers have died with Christ and are no longer under the law as a covenant system.

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2. Verses 7–12: The purpose of the law. The law is holy, righteous, and good. Its role is to reveal sin — not to cure it. The law exposes what sin truly is.
3. Verses 8–11: How sin uses the law. Sin takes advantage of the law. What was meant to reveal righteousness became an instrument sin used to produce rebellion and death in fallen humanity.
4. Verses 14–20: The inner conflict of awakened humanity. A person who agrees with God's law inwardly but lacks the power to carry it out consistently. There is desire for good but inability to perform it — not merely mental agreement, but real striving that still falls short.
5. Verses 21–23: Sin as a ruling principle. The flesh — not the physical body alone, but the unrenewed human nature acting independently of the spirit — carries impulses and tendencies that respond to sin. The soul (will) is where sanctification engages: it is being saved, being renewed, being aligned with God.
6. Verses 24–25: Crying for deliverance. The desperate question prepares the transition to the answer found in Christ and the Spirit in Romans 8.

Romans 8:1–2 is the answer: there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made the believer free from the law of sin and death.

The law of sin and death had dominion. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has broken that dominion.

The Holy Spirit in the believer is not merely curative — He is also preventive. Titus 2:11–12 confirms: the grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. The law will punish; grace will teach. The law says, "If you steal, you will die." Grace says, "Stealing harms someone else — and that is not who you are."

What Is the Flesh?

The simplest definition of the flesh is: what is not of the spirit.

One can pray in the flesh, give in the flesh, serve in the flesh — if it is done to be seen, driven by self-seeking motives rather than the Spirit of God. Galatians 5:17 makes clear that the flesh and the spirit are contrary to one another — they cannot coexist in the same action.

The flesh is hedonistic, self-centered, impatient, unable to commit. Longsuffering is a fruit of the spirit; the flesh cannot produce it. The flesh lives by feeling. The Spirit lives by the word.

Romans 8:13 gives the instruction: if one lives according to the flesh, death follows — but if by the Spirit the deeds of the body are put to death, there is life.

To mortify — as the KJV renders it — is what a mortician does: ensures that what is dead stays dead. The flesh has been killed by Christ. The work of the believer is to enforce that death. When every instinct says to act from flesh, and one chooses to act from the Spirit instead — that is mortification. That is sanctification made visible.

How God Works Sanctification

1. By the Word — renewing the mind.

   John 17:17 records Jesus' prayer: sanctify them by Your truth.

   The word of God is not merely informational — it is transformational. When a believer hears truth that interrupts what they were about to do, that is sanctification at work. A couple on the verge of divorce can have their trajectory changed by a single message received in the right condition. The key word is received. God cannot help without the word, and the word cannot help if it is only heard and not received.

   Ephesians 5:25–26 places sanctification within marriage: Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her. The sanctification work shows most clearly in the closest relationships — marriage, family. It is easy to be pleasant to strangers. The real test is in the home.

2. By walking in the Spirit — Spirit-consciousness, not sin-consciousness.

   The believer does not rehearse past failure or define himself by his struggle. Longsuffering, faithfulness, self-control — these are fruits of the Spirit. If one is in the Spirit, the fruit is available. To say "I am an angry person" or "I will always struggle with this" is not faith — it is agreement with the flesh.

   Galatians 5:16: walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. The strategy is not suppression — it is direction. Walk toward the light. Look at Jesus. The darkness has no power where the light is present.

Consecration — The Response to Sanctification

Sanctification is God making a person holy. Consecration is that person living holy.

God engineers sanctification. He expects the believer to respond to it. That response is consecration.

Consecration is the practical outworking of positional holiness — the functional side of what has already been done. It is not generalized; it is specific to what God is dealing with in a particular life. What God asks of one person in consecration may not apply to another, because He is targeting different areas of the flesh in different lives.

• For someone whose flesh manifests as greed, God may require radical generosity for a season — not because generosity is a formula, but because the flesh needs to be broken at that point.
• For someone with unhealthy attachment — where the definition of happiness is built around one person — God may move that person away. Not because the relationship is evil, but because the disposition toward it is idolatrous.

What God cannot take from a person, He will not give to that person. Until one is ready to release Isaac, God will not give Isaac.

When God begins the work of consecration — making specific demands, allowing specific pressures — it is not lordship for its own sake. It is a Father removing impurities. To refuse that training is to refuse sanctification.

Romans 8:13: if by the Spirit the deeds of the body are put to death, there is life.

Evil is anything that draws a person away from God. Blessing is anything that draws a person toward God. If pain drives someone toward God, it is not evil. If a so-called blessing draws someone away from God, it is not a blessing.

Moses understood this. After everything — the Red Sea, the wilderness, the law — when told he would not enter the promised land, his response was not bitterness. It was: Show me Your face. Show me You. What am I doing in the promised land without You?

David, too: Cast me not away from Your presence. Take not Your Holy Spirit from me.

The end of the faith enterprise is not the gift — it is the Giver. That is the heart of consecration: not the blessing as a destination, but God Himself as the inheritance.

John 15:5: Jesus declared Himself the vine and believers the branches. The believer is not merely a recipient of life — he bears life for others. That is the nature of zoe — the life of God, the sacrificial life that scatters rather than gathers, that asks use me rather than give me.

The deepest fruit of sanctification is not just personal freedom from sin — it is becoming someone through whom God can reach others.