The term sanctification is not a distinct word in the Greek New Testament. The meaning of sanctification, expressed by a number of words, is related to holiness. The adjective “holy” refers primarily to God. The holiness of God the Father is evident everywhere in the New Testament as represented in Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit. Holy ones are God’s people, namely those who belong to Him, relate to Him, and are set apart by Him and for Him.

Over recent years, an intriguing phrase on social media relationship updates has caught my attention: It’s complicated! I’ve not known exactly how to interpret this ambiguous phrase. I assume that it may describe a struggling relationship or perhaps one’s uncertainty regarding the nature of a relationship. As we encounter the stories of our Old Testament ancestors, it is easy to imagine that our ancestors might also have described the status of their covenant relationship with the Lord as complicated.

For many of us, the word “sanctification,” like the word “justification,” has come to refer to one particular moment in the life-story of the Christian. We think of justification as that moment when we first come to faith and our sins are forgiven. In the last article in this series of three, we saw that, while that is correct, the word justification has greater depth than that.¹

I have fond memories of the church in Mozambique and the ways it shaped my life. The Church of the Nazarene in Mozambique invests a lot of time in teaching and preaching on holiness. A week or weeks of holiness revival were normal and intended to rekindle interest in, passion for, and practice of biblical holiness of both heart and life. Such revivals focused on three areas: prevenient grace, saving grace, and sanctifying grace.

I have never lived on a farm—never milked a cow, never plowed a field, never waited for the harvest. I am a city boy. This puts me at a disadvantage, at times, when I read the parables and illustrations of Jesus in the New Testament. Many of His images in preaching came from a context of farming—ancient Israel was an agrarian society. The people not only understood but lived their lives around the planting and harvesting seasons.

Every human is guilty before God because of his/her sin and cannot run away from this guilt and condemnation. Each of us is destined to death, but through our faith in the gracious intervention of the Son of God who took our sins on Him, we can be saved. On the cross, we were rescued and redeemed, freed from the slavery of sin.

The Articles of Faith of the Church of the Nazarene are statements of how we as Wesleyan-Holiness people understand God’s revelation to humanity through His Holy Word. Articles V to X describe the journey of humanity from sin to holiness.

The loud sobbing was coming from somewhere in the blackness of the sanctuary. In the darkness, I found a dear friend laying across the seats crying uncontrollably, pleading with the Lord for mercy.

The doctrine of justification encompasses more nuances than just the word itself. The Greek word “δικαιοσύνη” used for “justification” extends to a range of meanings in English, including justification, justice, truthfulness, and righteousness. In order to explain the concept of justification, we must capture multiple links between these various words in the δικαιο-family.

Interwoven throughout the testimonies of the Old Testament is the conviction that the Lord graciously initiated and freely established a unique relationship with the community called Israel. Frequently described in terms of covenant, this relationship between God and people finds its most common expression in the Lord’s validating words, “I will be your God, and you will be my people” (Leviticus 26:12). As our biblical ancestors spoke of being “rightly related” with God and each other through this covenant, they used words derived from a single Hebrew root: ts-d-q.