Word of Encouragement (7/1/2021)

Let’s continue our reflection on Paul’s prayer in 1 Thess. 5:23-24: “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.”

Today, let’s notice that Paul invokes the God of peace for sanctification. Why? Shouldn’t he have invoked the God of holiness instead? Jeffery Weima offers a good explanation: “The meaning of this ‘peace’ that God gives stems from the OT concept of shalom… and thus does not refer merely to the resolution of conflict but has a much richer meaning, involving the restoration of the fallen created order to its former perfection and glory, thus as eschatological salvation…” (p. 417). This shows that sanctification is at the center of our redemption. The ultimate goal of our salvation has to be to fix what is broken and make it what it was intended to be. And that is what our sanctification is about. Peace in the full biblical sense of the word cannot be achieved without the restoration and perfection of God’s image in man. This is why Paul invokes the God of peace for our sanctification. Our salvation is more than just going back to the Garden of Eden before the Fall. It is to usher us into the celestial paradise where everything will be, and do, exactly according to God’s perfect design.

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!” Therefore, “Sanctification, sanctification, sanctification is God’s will for us!” We can say that Jesus lived, suffered, died, and rose again from the dead for our sanctification, of which our justification is the beginning. And we can say that everything He does in our lives as our risen Lord is ultimately for our sanctification. That is why He brings into our lives all kinds of people and all kinds of situations, both good and bad, just as we need the rain as well as the sun. God brings us good people to cheer us on by comforting us, encouraging us, and inspiring us. God also brings us not-so-good people to build up our resilience as they challenge us, stretch us, and try our patience to the utmost. In all this, God’s goal is to sanctify us—that is, to bring us closer and closer to who we are already in Christ in our status as God’s children and what we will be in heaven when our sanctification is completed in our glorification when God will be our all in all—our joy, our happiness, our wealth, our security, our boasting, our health, and our life—and we will be delight and joy to one another. That will be a glorious day.

Does that mean we have to wait till then to experience the benefits of our sanctification? No. Greg Beale says, “… the title the God of peace is chosen to underscore that God’s sanctifying work is the instrumentation by which God gives peace” (p. 175). Just as going against the physical laws can lead to some serious consequences, going against the moral laws also leads to serious consequences, more so than breaking the physical laws. Violating the physical laws may cause physical injuries or even death; violating the moral laws can bring about eternal damnation. At the very least, we cannot have true peace when we go against God’s moral law. By God’s moral law, I’m not just talking about the specific rules, as they are summarily expressed by the Ten Commandments. I’m speaking of the pattern and structure of God’s moral principles in this world. Go against the grain of God’s moral principles, we lose any true sense of peace in our soul and life. Bring our lives into better alignment with God’s moral principles, we will experience greater peace. May God fill our lives and our church with God’s peace more and more as we are sanctified more and more by God’s marvelous grace—until that day when we will be completely sanctified in glory and be in perfect peace with God, with one another, and with ourselves and enjoy the goodness and beauty of the life God intended for us from the foundation of the world!