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Colossians 3:12–14
“As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved . . .” (v. 12).
Having considered the legal benefit of justification and the relational benefit of adoption that we enjoy through our union with Christ, we now take time to look at the next element of the ordo salutis: sanctification. The Bible talks about the benefit of sanctification in two senses. Perhaps more well known of these two senses is how sanctification deals with our ontological relationship to God, which entails our renewal in His image and cleansing so that we do what He commands. Today, however, we are going to focus on how sanctification deals with the problems in what may be called our religious relationship to God.
When God created Adam and Eve, He appointed them to religious service as priests. The garden of Eden served as a tabernacle in which the Lord met with our first parents, and He commissioned them to “work it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15). Commentators recognize that a more literal translation here would be to “worship and obey,” and that the combination of Hebrew words is used elsewhere to describe the work of the Levites regarding the tabernacle of Israel (Num. 3:7–8; 8:26; 18:5–6). In other words, Adam and Eve were commanded to be priests in Eden and thus set apart unto God for religious service. Originally, then, all people were priests who attended to the worship of the Lord.
Of course, the fall meant that all people could no longer be priests, for we were exiled from the garden tabernacle of Eden (Gen. 3:24). Happily, God purposed to restore the priesthood to some men and women through His gracious salvation. This occurs in what theologians have called definitive sanctification, the decisive setting apart of a believer unto God as holy and fit for His service that happens when we are converted to the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have seen in other studies that holiness belongs fundamentally to that which is set apart. Although moral purity is a consequence of holiness for human beings, even inanimate objects such as the old covenant priests’ clothing can be holy because they are set apart for the priests’ use in the worship of God (Ex. 28:2). In a similar way, texts such as today’s passage can refer to Christians as “holy” not because we have attained moral perfection but because we have been set apart unto God (Col. 3:12–14). In Christ, we are “a holy priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5), definitively sanctified in the sense that we belong to Him in a special way and are distinguished from what is unholy and thus not fit for His service.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
That God has set us apart unto Him as holy gives us assurance that we can actually become holy in practice. We are not seeking to attain a certain level of moral purity before the Lord will regard us as holy; instead, we are to live out the holy status that we have in Christ. We are, as many have said, to “become what we already are.” Because God already regards us as holy, our efforts to live holy lives will never ultimately be in vain.
For further study
- Deuteronomy 7:6
- Acts 13:2
The bible in a year
- Isaiah 43–44
- Colossians 3
- Isaiah 45–49
- Colossians 4
- 1 Thessalonians 1