Sinclair Ferguson: Progressive Holiness

0:00 I'm going to ask you as we turn from what Dr. Reeves was speaking about, which we sometimes call definitive sanctification, the fact that there has been a radical sanctification in our lives, and in the New Testament, the language of sanctification by and large appears in the past tense, as though the big work has been done, and now it is the progress that is taking place. The very famous New Testament scholar around the time I was a student in the 60s, that is the 1960s, not the 1860s, just in case you're wondering, who used an illustration from the end of the Second World War. And he spoke about D-Day taking place in the 1940s when the Allied forces essentially won the war. But the distance time-wise between D-Day and V-Day was considerable when the final victory and triumph was completed.

1:18 and during that period of time there was much conflict and many lives were lost. And he used this as an illustration of where we are in the history of God's purposes. D-Day has already taken place. Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ has ascended. Christ is reigning. Christ has won. and yet the consummation of that victory is still to take place when he comes again in majesty and glory and brings all things under his lordship. And it's between those two dates that we live the Christian life. And there is a kind of echo of that in our experience. The decisive victory has been won. We are Christ's. Our faith is the victory. Christ is the conqueror. Christ is Lord. And yet there are mopping up operations in our lives day by day. There are battles to be fought.

2:27 There is progress to be made. And it's that theme which we're turning our attention to for these few minutes this afternoon. And I want to read to you a couple of verses from Colossians chapter two, and then in a moment or two, we will turn to Colossians chapter three and bed down in Colossians chapter three to think about what it means to make progress in sanctification. And the words I want to read from Colossians two, verses 6 and 7 are these. Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. We might say there are three stages to our sanctification.

3:31 There is the decisive initial stage that we were thinking about before lunchtime. There is the final climactic stage when regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification all come to their final consummation in our glorification. When the sanctification that began in our regeneration is consummated, when God's purpose for us, that we should be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers, the day for which the apostles longed when we see the Lord Jesus face to face and are finally made like him, that day will be the consummation of sanctification. And what we are thinking about is the space in between, the progress in between, between the D-Day of our conversion and the V-Day of our final glorification.

4:43 And one of the wonderful things to think about as Christians is the note that the New Testament strikes that we will actually be glorified together with Christ. Yes, we will enter into glory when we die. We will be with the Lord. but the final glorification, which is not simply the transformation and purification of our spirits so that we become the spirits of righteous men and women made perfect in the great present assembly in the heavenly Zion, but when we are glorified as whole people, body and soul, that will take place not only instantaneously when Christ comes, but it will take place corporately.

5:38 We will be glorified together. Every saint in this room, no matter when we pass into the Lord's presence, will experience that final consummation of our sanctification in the resurrection of the dead, of our meeting with the Lord. And we will be then body and soul in the new heavens and the new earth together with the Lord. And because together with the Lord, together with one another. And in the New Testament, that is one of the great motivations to live holy lives, isn't it? constantly when the New Testament speaks about the consummation of sanctification in our glorification, in the return of the Lord Jesus,

6:33 it pauses to say, in the light of that, what kind of men and women should we be? If we are going to be transformed into his likeness, then our great passion in life is to be progressively transformed into his likeness here and now. And it's that that we're going to be thinking about. And I want to try and think about it with you under two headings. And as those of you who were here for the pastor's conference will know, that's a masked way of saying under about seven or eight different headings. Okay? And the first thing I want us to try and think about is this, that there are general principles for us to learn from Scripture about how this progressive sanctification works. The first of them, I think I could put this way.

7:33 We are today in Christ, but we're also in Malaysia. And some of us later on in the day will still be in Christ, but we will be in Singapore. And Mike Reeves, who is in Christ today, in a couple of days, will be in Christ in Oxford and England. And Nathan W. Bingham and I, who today are in Christ in Malaysia, will be in Christ in Australia. So we are citizens of two different kingdoms. We are citizens of the heavenly kingdom in which we are united by grace and by faith to Jesus Christ. But we live out our lives united to Jesus Christ in worlds that are often inimical to the Lord Jesus Christ. and so long as that is true there are going to be multiple layers of conflict in our lives about which we can say very little today. One is that we do not belong to the world in which we live. Our citizenship is in heaven. Another is that there is a remaining conflict in our own lives because we are in Christ and have died to sin, but we're also conscious that sin has not died in us. And we are in Christ, in the location in which he has placed us, and we're not only conflicting with our own flesh or with the world, we are also conflicting with and conflicted by the devil. And so the Christian life from the beginning in our union and communion with Jesus Christ is a battle. It is a warfare. But it's a battle and a warfare as we've seen in

9:41 which the victory is secured for us in Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul puts this very interestingly in his letter to the Ephesians, doesn't he? Which many scholars have thought was a general letter to the churches. There are no personal greetings at the end. And what we may have is the copy that went to Ephesus. And you remember how Paul says at the beginning there, when we are in Christ, we are raised up into these heavenly blessings. Indeed, we experience every spiritual blessing, he says, in the heavenlies. That's how he begins the letter. But then you remember how he ends the letter. He says, we're not wrestling against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies. The very sphere into which we have been raised by our union with Jesus Christ is a sphere in which we are battling to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and to grow in holiness.

10:53 And as Chris was reminding us earlier on in the discussion period, that means if we are united to Christ, we're united to a crucified as well as a risen Christ. And we share in his death and resurrection, not only spiritually in terms of our own dying to sin and rising to new life, but as especially the reformers underlined and they knew what they were talking about, that union with Christ in his death and resurrection works its way out not only internally but also externally in our lives. And so Simon Peter, you remember, says we shouldn't be surprised by the fiery trial that overtakes us. And this is the importance, brothers and sisters, of recognizing that fundamental to our Christian lives is this principle that we are united to the Lord Jesus.

12:00 And we're united to the whole Lord Jesus. The incarnate, suffering, crucified, buried, raised, ascended, and coming Lord Jesus Christ. And understanding that makes all the difference to the foundation of our Christian lives. It has often struck me that many Christian believers, I personally rather suspect most Christian believers never, ever think about themselves as being in Christ. But the moment they notice it, they find it everywhere in the New Testament. It is absolutely fundamental, as we will see, to our identity. And that means, as we've already hinted, that while we have died to the dominion of sin, the presence of sin has not yet been vanquished from our lives.

13:11 And so long as that is true, there are going to be certain features of our Christian lives that are absolutely essential. I think we could put it this way. We must always learn to live the Christian life in rhythm and communion with what it means to be united to a crucified Savior and a risen Savior. And so when you read the New Testament's teaching on sanctification, this is very obvious in Paul, as we'll see in a moment, there is always a yes and there is always a no. There is always the yes of being united to the triumphant risen Christ. And there's always the no to ourselves of participation in and fellowship with the crucified Christ. And so if you ask the Apostle Paul what is his ambition, his ambition is that he might so share in the outworking of his union and communion with the crucified and risen Christ that the death of Christ might work in him in order that the life of Christ might work in others and that he might share in the fellowship of his sufferings in order that he might share in the fellowship of his resurrection. And it's almost as though if one can think of the Apostle Paul as a kind of spiritual optometrist, what he is seeking to do is to craft lenses into our understanding of what it means to be united to Christ. Lenses that enable us to see everything that happens in our lives through the sense that the rhythm of everything in our lives and indeed the rhythm of everything in our church fellowships will be our participation

15:18 in the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus and our participation in the resurrection triumph of the Lord Jesus. And when we understand that, I think something becomes very clear to us, that when the apostle Paul expounds this, he always expounds it in terms of what I personally call a proper understanding of the grammar by which the Christian gospel works. What do I mean by that? Many of you have tried to learn another language. And when you learn another language, especially a language that doesn't belong to your own language family, one of the things that you discover is that languages work in different ways. Their structures, the sentence structures, can be very different.

16:16 And in some languages, the verb needs to come at the beginning, or you don't know what you're talking about. In other languages, the verb can be delayed to the end. And if you don't get a grasp of the way the language works, the structure, the inner structure of the language, what we call its grammar, then you will never speak that language properly. And there are certain fundamental elements in the language of the Christian gospel. And one of those fundamental elements is every single imperative of the gospel that tells us to do, to obey, to trust, is rooted in the indicatives of the gospel. That is to say, the Christian life is lived out of the foundation of God in his grace.

17:19 that grace is not given to us on the basis of our fulfilling of the imperatives. And that discovery for many of us was the first light that went on that brought us to Christ. That it's not because of what we accomplish that we can be justified, but it's because we have been justified in Christ that we begin to accomplish things for Christ. I wasn't brought up in the church going home and my parents didn't start coming to church until after I was converted but I was brought up in the old-fashioned way. The old-fashioned way in Scotland was you were never allowed to have anything to eat until about four o'clock in the afternoon, by which time you might have amassed enough virtue to qualify for something nice to eat. I come to Malaysia and what do I see at breakfast time? I see bread pudding for breakfast.

18:35 No bread pudding in the Ferguson house until well after four o'clock if you have achieved enough virtue. And I think somehow or another the gospel has invaded the very way that Malaysians eat food, you can live the whole day on the grace of bread pudding.

18:55 And that's the only time I think in my life, and it will be the only time in my life, I've used bread pudding as an illustration of how the gospel works. But as we've already been reminded, we do have the temptation to fall back, don't we? so much so that many Christians at least seem to function as though their justification before the Father was grounded in the level of their sanctification. And then they begin to fear and to doubt and become paralyzed. and this is why the Apostle Paul is constantly refreshing us in the gospel as he teaches us what it means to live for the Lord Jesus Christ. We live the Christian life energized by the bread and butter pudding of the grace of God in Jesus Christ and this is his great argument in this letter to the Colossians.

20:07 And it's a very significant letter, I think, when we're discussing sanctification. Because it seems to me that the backstory to this letter to the Colossians, which has some mysteries attached to it, is that here are a group of young Christians who have been taught the gospel by somebody who knew Paul, but not actually Paul himself. And often as young Christians, this may be your experience, what happens is there is such an outbreak of joy and release and relief and forgiveness and freedom.

20:52 That it's quite easy for us to think the next step is glory. and then I sometimes think that the Lord who carries his lambs in his bosom then he lets us down. We have many sheep and many lambs therefore in Scotland and sometimes you you see these young lambs taking their first steps and and they discover that it is not so easy to walk as they assumed and and we find that there is there is a challenge in the Christian life. There are difficulties. Many, many pastors will have the same experience of young Christians coming to them and saying, why is it that it's now that I've become a Christian that things seem to be more difficult in my life? I don't know why, but I thought things would be easier in my life, but now I see that things are more difficult in my life. And the answer is because the Lord has let you down to the ground to teach you to walk by faith and not simply on the basis of the joy of your experience and to discover there are still battles to be fought and victories to be won.

22:10 But just when we are in that situation, and maybe this has been your experience, there are false teachers around who will come and they will say, well, what you were taught was fine, and it is true, but don't you feel there is something missing?

22:32 Didn't you think that life would be so much easier now? Now, we can show you the way to be released from some of these struggles. and it's very interesting in what we see in the Colossian letter that the way in which this could be done was either by a series of cult-like laws. What you really need to do is to keep these laws and also have these special experiences and when you have these special experiences These were the original higher life teachers. We can help you have these special experiences that will raise you above the present level of Christian experience that the apostolic gospel gives to you. It was its own version of the prosperity gospel.

23:39 We can give you more. Is it fullness you're looking for? And if you know the letter to the Colossians, you can see how Paul echoes that idea. Is it fullness of life you're looking for? Because in your present condition, your life is not yet full.

24:00 And these young Christians, perhaps not clear enough on the fact it's not going to be finally full until we're in glory, but we can give you that fullness. and Paul's great message is God has deposited all fullness for us in his son Jesus Christ and so what we need to understand and this is what he begins to speak about in chapter two and then at some length in chapter three what we need to understand is how it is first of all, that being united to Christ makes a difference, and then secondly, how that difference progressively works out in our lives. And if you know Colossians, you'll think that sounds very like what he says in Colossians chapter 3, and it's exactly what he says in Colossians chapter 3.

24:59 And if you have a modern version, almost certainly Colossians chapter 3, verse 17 verses will be divided into three sections. And the three sections build on each other. In the first four verses, Paul is helping us to understand what it really means to be a Christian. From verse 5 to verse 11, he is telling us, because we are united to the crucified Christ, there is going to be an ongoing crucifixion of the flesh. and since we are also united to a risen Christ, there is also going to be an ongoing and progressive transformation into the likeness of Jesus Christ in which we will participate until glory.

26:02 And the first four verses are really significant because I think we can put it this way, that what the Apostle Paul is teaching the Colossians here is that in Jesus Christ, we've been given a new identity. He says, you notice, beginning of chapter three, if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above. That's an exhortation, that's an imperative, but you'll notice immediately it's based on an indicative. Seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ who is your life appears, you also will appear with him in glory. More than once during the course of the conference, we've come to this question, who am I really as a Christian? And in this letter, Paul's answer is this.

27:06 As a Christian, you're a man or a woman in Christ, united to Christ. And that means your identity is defined by these realities. You have died with Christ to the reign of sin. You have been buried with Christ in your baptism. You have been raised with Christ in his resurrection to new life. Your true life is now hidden with Christ in God. And indeed, you are so united to Jesus Christ that Jesus Christ will not leave glory. unless on the last day you will also be united to him. And so he says, not only are you united to the risen Christ as he is now ascended in heaven, but verse four, when Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

28:08 I mean, what a thought. What a thought that you might be standing, watching the glorified Jesus and asking the question, who is that beside Jesus? It looks like somebody I know.

28:31 And then you recognize, of course I know who it is. It's me. he is not going to appear in glory without you if you belong to him and Paul is saying brothers and sisters in Colossae that's who you really are that's your identity don't let these false teachers mask the glory of the new identity that's been given to you. But Satan wants us to lose sight of that. That's his point, isn't it? Satan wants us to focus on thinking about ourselves the way we see ourselves and not seeing ourselves as brothers and sisters who have been united to Jesus Christ. But when that dawns on us, it makes all the difference in the world. I spent many years of my life teaching in the other Westminster Seminary from the one that Joel Kim is president in. Of course, I missed having him as my president as a result. But I remember one day as I was just walking across campus, the president of the seminary paused beside me and he said, have you become an American citizen yet?

29:50 And I said to him with a sense of horror, an American citizen? He said, yes, have you not become an American citizen yet? And I said to him, before I thought about the words, I blurted it out. I said, but I'm Scottish. Why would I want to become an American citizen? And it was only then it dawned on me that my identity went as deep down into my soul and psyche as that. And you see, for the Apostle Paul, this is one of the great defensives of the Christian believer against Satan, the world and the flesh.

30:40 I know who I am. why should somebody like me want to live like that? And of course when we speak to people who have fallen in one way or another what does it often come back to? It comes back to the fact that if they were genuine Christians they forgot entirely who they really were in Jesus Christ. and this is why for Paul this is such a powerful reality. We saw it earlier on in Galatians 2, we saw earlier on in Romans 6, we see it also in Ephesians, we see it in Philippians, we see it in Colossians. And what a glorious thing this is incidentally if we are young people in the contemporary world where at least in the West young people are being told they need to find their identity. They need to create and invent their identity. To be a young person in that world who knows who he or she really is, is to stand out in grace and stability and maturity and understanding and Christlikeness.

32:00 and you see it's that that is the basis for what Paul goes on to say in the verses that follow isn't it when you understand who you really are in Christ then you have all the motivation and encouragement that you need on the one hand to put to death to put off what is earthly and on the other hand, as he says in verse 12 through verse 17, to put on what is Christ-like. I think maybe we could put it this way.

32:41 I believe in the United States nowadays, they call it dating when a young man asks a young woman to whatever. In my day in Scotland, they called it going out together. In previous generations, they called it walking out together, because that's all that you were allowed to do, to walk out together so that everybody saw what was happening. And that was probably quite a good arrangement. And I don't know the answer to this question, because I've never been in the position of being a young woman attracted to a young man and asked, will you walk out with me? But in my imagination, granted this is just the male imagination, in the imagination I imagine that girl going to the mirror and looking at herself and looking at herself in all her obvious beauty and attractiveness, deciding these clothes are not suitable. I need to wear better clothes.

33:54 And going to the wardrobe and putting on clothes, not that will make her look more beautiful than she really is, but that will make her look as beautiful as she really is. And then she will be ready to walk out with the young man. And secretly, young men do it as well, just in case you're interested in what happens to the opposite sex. Now, brothers and sisters, we are all invited to walk out with the Lord Jesus, aren't we? That language is used several times in the New Testament, that the Christian life is a walk and it's a walk with Jesus. And the way Paul is coming to it here is, then look in the mirror of the Scriptures and see the Scriptures reflecting to you your true identity in the Lord Jesus Christ and therefore get rid of that old clothing that mars your beauty in Christ and begin piece by piece, as it were, to put on the new clothing.

35:13 And so you'll see he deals with very private things and painful things, put to death what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. Why does the Bible focus so much on these sexual areas? Its answer is because it wants with all its heart to safeguard you. Because these are intimate areas and the memory of them may haunt you for the rest of your life. as was true of David and as been true of many.

35:57 And the scriptures are wanting you to put that off. It's actually so interesting. I find it so interesting here in these verses that we can't go into in detail. That's your homework after the conference. What's so interesting in these verses is Paul actually mentioned some things that elsewhere, he says, shouldn't even be mentioned among us.

36:21 Isn't that interesting? He says we shouldn't be talking about these things, but he talks about them. What is he saying here? I think he's saying this. that there are expressions of sin that if we are really going to get rid of them and conquer them, we actually need to name them before the Lord. I think that's why he goes into such detail, because he understands that the way our lives work in the presence of God, it isn't going to be an adequate rejection of sin to say to the Lord, O Lord, I'm a sinner, will you help me? And that what is essential is that I name the sin and the very naming of the sin in his presence.

37:17 And you'll notice that he describes some of these things as the reason the wrath of God is coming. The very naming of it, the sense of naming it. means that we have really brought it before the Lord as someone who wants to be delivered from it. You know, in the United States, there was a movement years ago and it was called Name It and Claim It. Name It and Claim It. And I thought, I want to start a new movement called Name It and Slay It. because spiritually, without naming it, we may never be able to slay it. But as we do that, as we, our forefathers used to speak about that as keeping close accounts with God, so that we might be progressively delivered from what afflicts us.

38:17 And he goes through the list, some of it private, some of it social. Verse nine, don't lie to one another. And he's not just speaking about bare-faced lies. He's actually speaking about pretending to be something you're not or not pretending to be something you are. And this is the great thing about understanding who you really are in Christ. If that's who you really are in Christ, then you can be that with me as well. You don't need to wear the mask. you don't need to pretend to be something you aren't or pretend not to be something you are because we're united to Christ together and embrace one another so that when we understand this in our progress in holiness and in putting sin to death we're not just left to our own resources. We are rooted in the gospel and we are able to embrace each one another as we go on in this way. And then there's the positive. There's the putting on. And there's this pile of things we're to put on. But it's no more complex than getting dressed, is it? I mean, I don't want to go into details about how I got dressed this morning, but if I were to pause and think about the number of things I put in my body, it was quite a lot of things. The things I mention and the things I don't mention. And so he is not complicating life here. What in essence he's doing? Don't you think what in essence he's doing? And he does this several times with lists.

40:06 in 1 Corinthians 13, in Galatians 5, when he speaks about the fruit of the Spirit. Here, when he tells us what to put on, what is he describing? Better, who is he describing? He's really saying, in essence, look to the Lord Jesus and be like the Lord Jesus. Brothers and sisters, it's not rocket science. He's not saying to you, make sure you get to speak at a Ligonier conference in the Far East sometime. He's speaking about the most basic life transformation. Sweet things like humility and meekness and patience and bearing with one another and forgiving each other and putting on love, which binds everything together in harmony and making sure, I think this is his meaning here, making sure that in our relationships with one another, there is always an umpire.

41:20 There's always a referee. And the referee is what is going to promote the shalom, the peace of the Lord Jesus in our relationship with one another. And if you're going to ask, well, how does the Holy Spirit enable us to do this? Then his answer is in the last couple of verses, isn't it? He says very similar things to the Ephesians about singing and about the Word of God. But he says, this is the way in which you're to be filled with the Spirit as you sing Psalms and make melody to the Lord in your heart. And here he explains how the Spirit will do that in this parallel passage, when we let the word of Christ dwell in us richly, and when we share that word of God with one another, and when we sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness to the Lord and seek to do everything in the name of the Lord, giving thanks to God the Father through him. And this is surely the wonderful thing about being a Christian. The gospel works everywhere and anywhere because Christ, by his Spirit, through his word, makes all of his children like this progressively until we see him face to face and are made like him.

43:07 And when you see this in a brother or sister Christian, it makes you say, doesn't it, I'd love to be like that. And Paul is saying to these Colossian Christians, by God's grace, you can be like that. And through his spirit, you will be like that. And one day you will be perfectly like him. I wonder what you're going to look like when you're perfectly like him. I wonder how it is that I'll recognize you when you're perfectly like him. that the one thing we can be sure of is I will be able to recognize you.

44:04 And the reason I'll be able to recognize you is because you're so like him. And if that's where it ends, then that's where everything between now and then must lead. Let's pray that it will. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the opportunity in these hours of sitting together under it, for the encouragement of being together. We thank you for the beauty and the simplicity as well as the profundity of the gospel. and we pray just now very consciously and deliberately not only for ourselves but for the friend to the right of us or to the left of us that together we may grow in our appreciation of what it means to be united to the Lord Jesus and encourage one another through your word and through our singing and the way your truth dwells in us richly day by day to make progress in becoming more and more like the Lord Jesus, that we may encourage each other, that we may glorify you, and that we may shine as lights in this dark world to point our friends, our family, our neighbours, even those who are hostile to us, to our great Savior Jesus Christ.

45:42 And we pray that you will bring this to pass more and more in our lives, in Jesus name.