Can you please explain sanctification for me please....
What is it?
Why does it matter?
How does it happen?
What helps/hinders it?
What is your personal experience?
And...
How do you measure its progress?
Ta very much.
You will find many different views on this subject. I will attempt to provide a Lutheran perspective.
Sanctification, in a word, is the process by which one is made holy (Latin
sanctus, hence
sanctification). Another way to understand this is instead with the idea of Theosis (a term much more common in the Eastern Churches), or as Christification/
Unio Mystica (Mystical Union with Christ). One of the most common ways of describing this in the Bible is to speak of the Holy Spirit's work in conforming us to the image of Christ; making us more like Jesus.
In Lutheran thinking Justification and Sanctification are understood to be very different things. Justification is exclusive work of God, the definitive act of God by which the sinner is imputed with the righteousness of Jesus and is therefore reckoned, regarded as, just, as righteous, before God. That is, it describes how we have been
set to rights with God. Sanctification, on the other hand, speaks of the ongoing work of God in our lives, and our cooperation with God through living out our faith through sacrifice.
But something that's important here is that sanctification isn't about me scoring points on some kind of performance test, as though I am in myself becoming more righteous before God through my efforts, or winning some kind of prize through performance. It's not about me doing stuff for God; rather sanctification is the ongoing work of the Spirit in me. It's not that I somehow sin less, or that I become more "moral", or that there is some kind of report card by which a person can be graded. It is a divine fruitfulness working itself out in us; and this is simply God's promise. It may not look the same for you as for me. It doesn't mean looking more "spiritual", or sounding more "pious", or pretending that our closets have no skeletons, or thinking that what we leave in the porcelain bowl doesn't stink just as much as it did yesterday (because it still does).
But God has nevertheless promised that the work He began in us He will continue, even until the day Christ returns.
"
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." - Philippians 1:6
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For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers." - Romans 8:29
Out of this working, this fruitfulness of the Spirit, there is what is "the new obedience"; that is, where formerly we were hostile toward God by our sin, God has given us a clean and contrite heart, renewed in Christ, and out from this flows thanks, praise, and sacrifice. Where before we despised God, we love Him. It is precisely in this place of new obedience that we encounter the struggle between the old man and the new. The old man, sinful, spiteful of God, selfish, petty, malicious, dominated by the appetites of the flesh; the new man, that which has been born of God, the new creation that is in Christ.
The tension between the two can be seen in the 7th chapter of St. Paul's epistle to the Romans, where he speaks of the good he wants to do, but doesn't do; and the evil he does not wish to do but does anyway. That there is a war between the law in his mind of what is good and right, and the law of sin and death at work through his members, so that what he does is at odds with what he knows he ought to do. That is the struggle between the old man and the new.
Here is a statement from one of the Lutheran Confessions, namely the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord,
"
But how and why the good works of believers, although in this life they are imperfect and impure because of sin in the flesh, are nevertheless acceptable and well-pleasing to God, is not taught by the Law, which requires an altogether perfect, pure obedience if it is to please God. But the Gospel teaches that our spiritual offerings are acceptable to God through faith for Christ's sake, 1 Pet. 2:5; Heb. 11:4ff. In this way Christians are not under the Law, but under grace, because by faith in Christ the persons are freed from the curse and condemnation of the Law; and because their good works, although they are still imperfect and impure, are acceptable to God through Christ; moreover, because so far as they have been born anew according to the inner man, they do what is pleasing to God, not by coercion of the Law, but by the renewing of the Holy Ghost, voluntarily and spontaneously from their hearts; however, they maintain nevertheless a constant struggle against the old Adam.
For the old Adam, as an intractable, refractory ass, is still a part of them, which must be coerced to the obedience of Christ, not only by the teaching, admonition, force and threatening of the Law, but also oftentimes by the club of punishments and troubles, until the body of sin is entirely put off, and man is perfectly renewed in the resurrection, when he will need neither the preaching of the Law nor its threatenings and punishments, as also the Gospel any longer; for these belong to this [mortal and] imperfect life. But as they will behold God face to face, so they will, through the power of the indwelling Spirit of God, do the will of God [the heavenly Father] with unmingled joy, voluntarily, unconstrained, without any hindrance, with entire purity and perfection, and will rejoice in it eternally." - The Solid Declaration, Article VI, 22-25
As clarification, the phrase "the club of punishments and troubles" refers simply to temporal punishments, whether civil punishment or simply the trouble that follows a bad decision, which may teach us an important lesson.
Thus sanctification speaks to the ongoing work of God in our lives, in Christ, by the Spirit. Of a heart born anew by the grace of God, which in thanks goes out in love, in obedience to what God wills. And that we cooperate with God in this process. We fall, we fail, we mess up, but we are not looking to our own righteousness in relation to God, but to Christ; but we look instead to our neighbor that we might freely and voluntarily love others and serve them--not out of promise of reward or threat of punishment, but out of a thankful heart of praise and sacrifice. Being conformed to the image of Christ, sharing in the divine nature, partaking of God's life in Christ through the Spirit.
-CryptoLutheran
