“To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those
sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in
every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and
ours” (1 Corinthians 1:2)
Christians are
sanctified and are also called to be saints. To be sanctified means to be set
apart and devoted to God. Believers are sanctified when they are raised from
spiritual death to life in Christ and seated with Him in the heavenly places
(Eph. 2:5-6). Thus we are “in Christ” and adopted into the family of God. We
are set apart from the rest of the world and regarded as God’s own special
possession.
When Paul
addresses “those sanctified in Christ,” he uses the perfect tense which in
Greek signifies an action completed in the past that has a continuing effect in
the present. What God did for us in Christ when He regenerated, justified, and
adopted us still affects our lives today. But sanctification is more than just something
done in the past. It is also the aim and activity of our lives in the present.
Paul says “those sanctified in Christ Jesus” are also “called to be saints.”
The Greek word for saints is an
adjective that means holy ones. So we are sanctified (holy) in the past, but we
are also called to be saints (holy) in the present. God’s faithfulness in the
past is the basis of our faithfulness in the present. His promises prompt us to
obey His word out of gratitude and love (John 14:15). We are holy in Christ,
and in Christ we are commanded to pursue holiness (Heb. 12:14).
The word of God
includes both indicatives and imperatives. Indicatives are statements of fact,
what is or what God has done. Imperatives are commands, what ought to be. The
gospel calls us to a life of holiness, but it does so by reasoning from the
indicative (God’s sanctifying us in Christ) to the imperative (be holy, as He
is holy). We do not pursue holiness in order to become something we are not; we
pursue holiness so that what we are in Christ might be evident in our lives. We
are loved, forgiven, and accepted, not on the basis of our work, but on the
basis of Christ’s. Our lives should reflect the same. Be holy, not so that God will
love you, but because He has. -JME
