P2 Getting Beyond The Christian Life’s Beginning.

Introduction:

Last time I began a short series that will cover the richness of beginnings of the Christian life here Growing Christian Resources: The Richness Of The Christian Life's Beginning. My goal in this series is to help readers to get a grasp of what not only takes place at salvation, but also what the Christian life actually is. Salvation isn’t only about the beginning (everything I just wrote about in the last post). Salvation is meant to be an ongoing experience of the Christian living and growing in Jesus Christ. The diagram below will illustrate what I am talking about here.

 

Getting beyond the Christian life’s beginning.

In 1971 Francis Schaeffer wrote a classic book on Christian living entitled “True Spirituality”. I was reminded of something he said near the beginning of that work that is relevant to today's post:

“We must also realize that while the new birth is necessary as the beginning, it is only the beginning. We must not think that because we have accepted Christ as Savior and therefore are Christians, this is all there is in the Christian life.”

Shaeffer continues later: 

“In one way, the new birth is the most important thing in our spiritual lives, because we are not Christians until we have come this way. In another way, however, after one has become a Christian, it must be minimized, and that we should not always have our minds only on our new birth. The important thing after being born spiritually is to live. There is a new birth, and then there is the Christian life to be lived. This is the area of sanctification from the time of the new birth, through this present life until Jesus comes or until we die.”

The Apostle Peter is one of my favorite authors in the New Testament. The reason I gravitate toward Peter is because we have the most detailed record of one Christian's life from the time He was born again in faith in Jesus Christ up until the near-end point right before his execution in 66 A.D. Peter wrote his first letter (1 Peter) under the Divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit sometime after 62 A.D. Peter helps us  to grasp this wondrous (and too often) neglected truth of sanctification. 

If we were to boil down the whole book of 1 Peter, it would be 1 Peter 5:12b “I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it!” That verb translated “stand firm” conveys the idea of having started something and remaining in it to this day. As I said in the last post, Sanctification speaks of the Christian life lived from its beginnings in regeneration until the believer’s homegoing at death or the rapture of the church.  

Another Apostle, Paul, emphasizes this doctrine of sanctification in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-10. Notice how often he mentions the word "sanctification" in the text:

 “Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more. 2 For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. 7 For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. 8 So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.”

As Paul stresses the importance of Christian sanctification, so does the Apostle Peter. In the next post, we will look more at what Peter says as he has us look at sanctification as it was planned by God in eternity.