Gospel Prism

What is the relationship between my election and my sanctification?

If sanctification means that a person is becoming more like Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, then election would certainly aid in that pursuit. Since a person understands that his salvation is never lost because he has been chosen by God Himself (Eph 1:3-4), his goal and greatest pursuit would always be to live to uphold the reality of Galatians 2:20, Christ living in me. B. B. Warfield addresses this point very well:

It is precisely in this that we have the salvation of our God. For it is in this that the salvation to which we have been chosen consists: that we should be God’s workmanship, created unto the good works which God has “afore prepared that we should walk in them”; that we should be holy; that we should be conformed to the image of God’s Son. Of course, when we are like Christ we are saved men. Certainly we do not yet see all that is included in this high destiny. But we already know that when he shall be manifested, “we shall be like him” (1 John iii. 2). And having this hope in us, we purify ourselves, “even as he is pure” (1 John iii. 3). Our eyes are set on the goal; and we run with steadfastness the race that is set before us, “looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. xii. 1), looking unto him not only as he who has framed the faith in us by which we live in him, and who will perfect it to the end, but also as the model to which we shall be conformed. For what we shall attain to in this salvation is nothing less than “the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The glory that he has shall be ours. And the way we shall attain to it is “in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.” For this, says Paul (2 Thess. ii. 13), is what God chose us to from the beginning — “salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.” And to this, he adds, God also called us — “to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” All that is contained in this glory which Christ possesses, and which we shall in him obtain, who can tell? No doubt we must cast our eyes forward to the world to come to see it all. When he shall be manifested, “we shall be like him.” But when we obtain it all, it is still the salvation to which God chose us from the beginning, “in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.” These are the means through which that is reached.

Clearly God has not chosen us to sloth. The salvation to which he has chosen us is a salvation “in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.” We have not been chosen to any salvation which does not stand in sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. If we do not believe the truth, if we are not being sanctified by the Spirit, we have been chosen to no salvation. What we have been chosen to is that we should be holy and without blemish before God. We cannot profess to be chosen of God, then, unless we are becoming holy and without blemish before him. It is not possible that there should be an “elect race” which is not also a “holy nation” — a holy nation which shows forth the excellencies of him who has called us “out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter ii. 9). Seeing that predestination is conformity to the image of God’s Son, we are not predestinated unless we are being conformed to the image of God’s Son. Unless we are like Christ, we cannot share in his glory. It is idle then to dream, profanely, that, being elected to bliss, we may be careless of good works. Precisely what God has prepared for his elect is good works that they shall walk in them, whereunto, in his grace, he has created them. Precisely what he requires of them who believe his gracious assurances, is, therefore, that they “be careful to maintain good works,” in order that they may give a good account of themselves in the world (Titus iii. 8). Faith and good works are the characteristics of God’s elect, and where faith and good works are not, there are no elect.

Without this great pursuit and longing to reflect the glory of Christ in our lives, then one’s election should be cast in doubt. Election is never an excuse to fail to pray, to fail to evangelize, to fail to read Scripture, to fail to live in holiness. Warfield’s last line sums up the biblical relationship between election and sanctification. If there is no faith that produces genuine good works (James 2), then there is no election.

Also, it is not my responsibility to know what only God knows, that is who is elected and who is not. My goal is to call everyone to know and trust in the name of the Lord, and to believe in faith by His grace (Eph 2:8-9) that Christ has called me to Himself (Rom 8:28-29). Sanctification is a life lived in light of this reality.