Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Subject: Re: Thoughts on sanctification and Purgatory.
From: comjohn@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Mr. John T Jensen)
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 21:28:10 GMT
Organization: University of Auckland, New Zealand.

"DRCV06::GRAHAM" <GRAHAM%DRCV06.decnet@DRCVAX.AF.MIL> writes:

>Now, the issue of receiving the results of our sins in our mortal bodies is
>completely different.  So long as we live here on earth, we will feel the
>results of sin, Adam's and ours.  If we fornicate, we may get AIDS.  If we
>be a drunk, we may get Cirrhosis of the liver.  These are of the flesh.
>Paul, in 1 Cor. 15, makes it clear that at the second coming we will
>receive immortal bodies, those living and those departed will all receive
>immortal bodies.  In those bodies, there cannot be any further course for
>sin.

>According to Paul, we are already sanctified, which means set aside.  Any
>physical results of our sins will vanish at the last trump, or the grave,
>whichever comes to us.

Hmm.  This appears to me to assume a sort of absolute distinction between
physical and non-physical aspects of a person.  I wonder whether this is
Biblical.  I also wonder whether the results of sin in the present life are
limited to our physical bodies?  If we are regenerate, and fornicate, is the
only thing we risk getting sick?  Is there no effect on our non-physical
nature?  If there is, does this become instantaneously wiped out at death?
Well, I confess I don't know, but I would be ashamed to have the net know of
what appears to me to be deep corruption in my own soul (though I hope by
God's grace to be found amongst His elect).  I don't know how God will deal
with this.  I had rather thought that one effect of my learning to exercise
physical self-control was that it would improve the internal state of my
soul, and indeed I think I have experienced this.  If, then, it requires
experience in this life to sanctify (in the sense, now, not of 'set aside
for God,' as, for example, Achan and his house were, but in the sense of
'make fit for companionship with God') a believer in this life, and if a
person hasn't reached such a state in this life --- why will it require no
experience after death to complete the process?

Perhaps a disclaimer is in order here.  I call myself a Calvinist and attend
a Reformed church.  Yet it seems to me that the church --- and I include in
that Calvinists, Catholics, Orthodox, and Evangelicals --- is Christ's body,
and that the whole body is necessary for health, that the body suffers when
the foot says Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body.  I don't know
what we Protestants have to say about this issue of sanctification --- in
the sense of purification, purgation, in fact --- perhaps it is connected
with the popular concept of after-death rewards for believers.  But it seems
to me that there are real questions here that should not be brushed under
the carpet.

When all is said and done, God doesn't require us to have answers to these
questions.  What is required of us is to be faithful.  What we need to know
will be shown to us.  It's hard enough just being consistent with what I am
sure of!  But I would like to know if I can.

Love, in Christ,

jj

John Thayer Jensen                      64 9 373 7599 ext. 7543
Commerce Computer Services              64 9 373 7437 (FAX)
Auckland University                     jt.jensen@aukuni.ac.nz
Private Bag 92019
AUCKLAND
New Zealand