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's

described in Friskurinthians 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 are once dead in trespasses

and sins, fast bound in sin and nature's night does 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 memorise, its 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 far. Christ loved me and gave Himself

for me. And that's the foundation of everything, isn't it? Christ died in my place, the just

for the unjust to bring me to God. And you remember how later in these writings Paul says

that there are several dimensions to this death of Christ. He died for the guilt of sin.

Hold that thought and notice the second preposition. I have been crucified with Christ. And this

means that because by faith I'm united to Christ, of course in God's plan he united me to Christ

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