The Spirit Of AdoptionSample

In the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount to an entirely Jewish audience. He said this: chapter 5 of Matthew, verse 45, “Be like your Father who is in heaven.”  If you forgive your enemy, those who harm you, you will be like your Father who is in heaven. That’s an Old Testament perspective on sanctification. Be like God. Be like God. 

Another one in the same sermon—chapter 5—is this: “Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.”  If you belong to God, if you are a child of God, there should be a family resemblance, right?  That’s the essence of understanding Old Testament sanctification.  

Sanctification in the Old Testament is seen as part of a true covenant relationship to God, and that covenant relationship is a family relationship. You’ve come into the family of God, and the process of sanctification is designed to make you more and more like your Father. That’s sanctification in the Old Testament, godlike. That’s what godliness is. The goal is the restoration of the divine image.

Now, what happens in the New Testament is very important but easy to understand.  In the New Testament, the emphasis is not so much be like God, but what?  Be like Christ. Why? Is that different? No. It is this, that Christ is the perfect representation of what a human being who is totally godlike looks like, right? This is a human being, fully human and still godlike in every way. This is what adoption into the family of God does.

Please read John 1:14 again: “We beheld His glory,” He was like God, He was full of grace and truth.  That’s the work of the Holy Spirit. He makes godly people Christlike people. Sanctification equals godliness equals Christlikeness. That’s what holiness is, separating from sin unto godliness, unto Christlikeness.

So the wondrous reality of a life of Christ lived here on earth is you get to see what godliness looks like, what perfect godliness in a human being looks like. And that’s the model, and that’s why the apostle Paul said, “Be followers of me as I am of Christ.”  Or Christ says, “Follow Me, I’m the pattern.” God spoke in time past, revealing Himself through the writers of the Old Testament, but in these last days, Hebrews 1 says “He’s spoken to us in His Son who is the exact representation of His person.”

So when somebody says to me, “I want to be godly.  What does that look like?”  I say, “It looks exactly like Jesus Christ.” You want to see godliness in a human form? Christ.  That’s why we’re told in 2 Corinthians 3:18 to look at the glory of the Lord because that is the standard of holiness and sanctification. And the Holy Spirit, as that vision becomes clear to us and dominates our minds, will move us from one degree to the next, to the next, to the next, even in this life.

Thus, the divine miracle of regeneration is done by the Holy Spirit. The divine miracle of glorification is done by the Holy Spirit. And the divine miracle in the middle of sanctification is also done by the Holy Spirit and it is no less miraculous. 

Remember: BEING CHRISTLIKE IS THE MOST SPIRITUAL BLESSING OF THE BORN-AGAIN LIFE!