This week on Things Unseen, we've been thinking about what the New Testament means when it talks about sanctification or holiness.

And we've seen its basic meaning is that we're now reserved for the Lord Jesus.

We now belong to him in order to be transformed by his spirit into his likeness.

Yes, we still remain ourselves. We don't lose our individual personalities.

But in those personalities, we become more and more like him.

And yesterday we saw what that looks like in fairly practical terms.

It means the life of love that is described in 1 Corinthians chapter 13.

Now today I want to look at this from a different perspective, but one that's also, I think,

very important.

What happens to people like us, people who were once dead in trespasses and sins, fast-bound

in sin and nature's night, as Wesley put it, what happens to us to turn us into saints?

I think a good verse to help us here is one that when I was a younger Christian we were

all encouraged to memorize.

It's Galatians chapter 2, verse 20.

I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me

and gave himself for me.

I sometimes say that these words give us sanctification in four prepositions.

So let me point them out to you briefly, although there's actually hours of meditation

in these words.

The first preposition to notice is the word for.

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