Dear Mr. Potts,

In your reply to Pilgrim, you stated:

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We are justified by grace, we are sanctified by grace, we are glorified by grace. All is of grace, from start to finish. And all is to be found in Jesus Christ. May Christ be our all in all.

I can certainly agree with this statement. The problem seems to be in the manner in which grace becomes evident in sanctification. We can certainly say that we are sanctified by grace in that sanctification is spoken of in the NT as being definitively constituted. Acts 20:32, "So now brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified." See also Acts 26:18, 1 Cor. 1:2, Eph. 5:26. The Bible clearly says here and elsewhere that there is a decisive point in every Christian life in which the power of sin comes under the control of the provisions of grace. The Christian is justified on the grounds of Christ's imputed obedience which the Christian partakes of through faith. The Christian's definitive sanctification also is based upon his real spiritual union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection--The Christian is also brought into this spiritual union by faith and at this point not only is he accounted righteous by Christ's perfect obedience to the law but he also is counted holy by God according to Christ's mastering of sin. This is not merely a positional holiness but there is an actual real parting or breach with the reign of sin. This is brought about by the spiritual union with Christ and is decisive and definite. If our view of sanctification stopped here, then you might have sound reason in throwing the law out and declaring it no longer relevant in the Christian's life and walk in Christ.

But, to stop here and base our view on the use and purpose of God's law only on our passive roll in definitive sanctification is a dangerous error. The Bible certainly doesn't cut short it's instruction on sanctification here. From the point of justification and (definitive sanctification) we still have a journey to make before fully partaking in glory. It is a journey traversed by a soul still attached to a fleshly body and until the day that soul reaches glorification; we all know (existentially and Biblically) that a war rages, as the fleshly desires are mortified and replaced with a growing degree of spirituality. (A process which brings a higher and higher sense of one's remaining sin problem). IOW sanctification is progressive as well as definitive. Paul clearly expects the Christian to conform his processive experience with sin to his definitive death to sin. The Christian is not passive in progressive sanctification. Romans 12:1-2 points to the believers active, participative, roll in both dying to sin and growing in holiness. Mr. Potts, your disregard of God's law, which Paul speaks of as being holy, just, spiritual, and good (Rom. 7:12, 14, 16) strikes a damaging blow to the Christians progressive sanctification.

Paul who speaks so often of justification by faith alone, completely apart from the works of the law, always maintains that the Gospel doesn't nullify the law but upholds it!

When Paul say's that the unGodly man cannot subject himself to the law of God (Rom. 8:7)--what are we to infer about the Godly man? Christ has redeemed us, to enable us to obey the moral requirements of the law. That moral law of God which we are to obey, is revealed in the Scriptures, especially (but not exclusively) in the Decalogue.

In Romans 13, Paul speaks on ethics. Then in verses 9-10, he quotes most of the second half of the ten commandments. Doesn't his appeal to the Decalogue as that which the law of love fulfills demonstrate the abiding relevance of the law? Doesn't his appeal to the love obligation also intertwine his standard for Christian ethics with that of Jesus, who gave His summarization of the ten commandments also as "Love your neighbor as yourself." Clearly, according to Scriptures, the Decalogue is to be the ethical norm for the Christian's covenant way of life.

Mr. Potts, the statements you have made throughout this thread indicate that you have a flawed concept of sanctification. The only way that your view can be consistent, is to take Paul's teachings and hold them in direct contradiction to themselves. You have placed the flow and continuity of the Bible as a whole on a dispensationalist chopping block and butchered it to pieces. Love finds its parameters within the law of God. Your view leaves the Christian with nothing more to look to as a guide along his pilgrimage to glory, than vague, undefined "feelings." If one is truly in Christ, then he wil truly appreciate the precepts God has provided for him in His Holy Scriptures, so that he can live out his life to the glory of Christ, his Redeemer and King.

Please sir, prayerfully review and reconsider these things.

Sincerely,
Stucco