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I am not sure that positional sanctification is what I agree with, I simply know that some aspects of sanctification start at salvation, and because of that, can be confused with the salvation process.I am glad you are seeing 2 Thessalonians 2 as referring to local believers.
But this is not a commentary I copied from another. They are my own words based on what I see what the Bible says.
Yet, a moment ago you said, "I stress not using commentaries in general as they are man's words. I don't typically honor commentaries."
It sounds like you are contradicting yourself, my friend. Either you are for using them or you are not for using them. You read 8 commentaries and then you turn around and tell others not to use them. So you can use them, but others cannot? Doesn't sound fair. Again, in order to properly understand just try reading the text over and over in several different translations and it will become clear that Paul is referring to Sanctification as in one's actions. Look at the last two verses in the chapter. It mentions good works and it does not refer to some kind of Positional Sanctification (Where you can sin and still be saved).
"Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given useverlasting consolation and good hope through grace, Comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work." (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17).
While the word "sanctified" can be used to refer to the Justification Process sometimes, Got Questions is wrong on their view of Soteriology. They believe that a person can go prodigal or backslide and still be saved while doing so.
Is a backsliding Christian still saved? | GotQuestions.org
This supports their unbiblical view on Positional Sanctification (in that a person can sin and still be saved). But is that what Jesus taught? Jesus said just looking upon a woman in lust is enough to cast a person's body entirely into hell fire (Matthew 5:28-30).
In fact, when Jesus told us about the "Parable of the Prodigal Son," we learn that when the son came home to the father and sought forgiveness with him over living a riotous life in sin, the father said two times that his son was "dead" and he is "alive again" (See Luke 15:24, and Luke 15:32). This is speaking in spiritual terms. The son was "dead spiritually" while living a prodigal life of sin, and he was "alive again spiritually" when he came back home to his father and sought forgiveness with him. The father said twice that his son was "lost" and he is now "found." When Christians refer to the lost in the Bible, they are referring to unsaved people. In fact, the son was sleeping around with harlots (Luke 15:30). This is why he was dead spiritually and he needed to be made "alive AGAIN" spiritually.
James 5:19-20 also teaches that you can die spiritually by backsliding into sin, and you can come back to rededicating your life to Christ by seeking his forgiveness with Him and in living for Him. A faithful brother can lead a backslidden brother back to the faith (as long as they did not deny Jesus) to seeking forgiveness with the Lord (Whereby the faithful brother should know that they are helping to save the soul of the backslidden brother from “death,” and they are helping to cover a multitude of their sins by pointing them to Jesus in seeking His forgiveness).
1 Timothy 5:6 says,
"But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth." (1 Timothy 5:6).
The believing widows who live in pleasure are dead spiritually while they live physically. This is what happened to the prodigal son when he was living in the pleasure of his sin. He was dead spiritually while he lived physically (during his prodigious sinful time).
So sin can still separate us from God.
In other words, I would rather stick with what Jesus and His followers say instead of what “Got Questions” says. My soul and the souls of others is too important to justify sin (as many like to teach these days).
Here is a section from a systematic theology on sanctification, by the way this is the most respected systematic theology in evangelicalism. I also have chafers systematic theology if you prefer, I know it's not the word of God however i was just using it to provide some more verses to spark our conversation, if you wish we can only adress the verses instead. Anyway, here is the section for you to check out....it's a very good work to purchase for your library if you haven't yet...Again I don't really agree with any one theologian, I have over fifteen thousand dollars in books, my view is probably in the one percent of that. Most are reformed, and the next group is dispensational, but rarely will you have a dispensational, Lordship advocate, that believes in apostacy, while that apostacy is not regarding sin itself. It's a very rare recipe I am afraid, but it's the only one that I think takes into consideration all of scripture.
Anyway here is a section on why some aspects of sanctification start at regeneration and can be confused a requirement FOR REGENERATION:
"B. Three Stages of Sanctification
1. Sanctification Has a Definite Beginning at Regeneration. A definite moral change occurs in our lives at the point of regeneration, for Paul talks about the “washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). Once we have been born again we cannot continue to sin as a habit or a pattern of life (1 John 3:9), because the power of new spiritual life within us keeps us from yielding to a life of sin.
This initial moral change is the first stage in sanctification. In this sense, there is some overlap between regeneration and sanctification, for this moral change is actually a part of regeneration. But when we view it from the standpoint of moral change within us, we can also see it as the first stage in sanctification. Paul looks back on a completed event when he says to the Corinthians, “But you were washed, you were sanctified you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11). Similarly, in Acts 20:32 Paul can refer to Christians as “all those who are sanctified.”2
This initial step in sanctification involves a definite break from the ruling power and love of sin, so that the believer is no longer ruled or dominated by sin and no longer loves to sin. Paul says, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus … For sin will have no dominion over you” (Rom. 6:11, 14). Paul says that Christians have been “set free from sin” (Rom. 6:18). In this context, to be dead to sin or to be set free from sin involves the power to overcome acts or patterns of sinful behavior in one’s life. Paul tells the Romans not to let sin “reign in your mortal bodies,” and he also says, “Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God” (Rom. 6:12–13). To be dead to the ruling power of sin means that we as Christians, by virtue of the power of the Holy Spirit and the resurrection life of Christ working within us, have power to overcome the temptations and enticements of sin. Sin will no longer be our master, as once it was before we became Christians.
In practical terms, this means that we must affirm two things to be true. On the one hand, we will never be able to say, “I am completely free from sin,” because our sanctification will never be completed (see below). But on the other hand, a Christian should never say (for example), “This sin has defeated me. I give up. I have had a bad temper for thirty-seven years, and I will have one until the day I die, and people are just going to have to put up with me the way I am!” To say this is to say that sin has gained dominion. It is to allow sin to reign in our bodies. It is to admit defeat. It is to deny the truth of Scripture, which tells us, “You also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11). It is to deny the truth of Scripture that tells us that “sin will have no dominion over you” (Rom. 6:14).
This initial break with sin, then, involves a reorientation of our desires so that we no longer have a dominant love for sin in our lives. Paul knows that his readers were formerly slaves to sin (as all unbelievers are), but he says that they are enslaved no longer. “You who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness” (Rom. 6:17–18). This change of one’s primary love and primary desires occurs at the beginning of sanctification.3"
Grudem, W. A. (2004). Systematic theology: an introduction to biblical doctrine (pp. 747–748). Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House.
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