From the biblical point of view, sanctification is not a matter of holiness as an end in itself. It would be selfish for us to focus our whole lives on our own growth and improvement, so the Scriptures constantly point us outside of ourselves, to love and serve God and our neighbor. Instead, biblical piety is concerned with working out the implications of what God has already done in Christ. So, tonight, as our first in a series on sanctification and the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, we want to take a look at the framework that the Bible itself gives us for understanding this vital link between Christ's life for us and his life in us. But first we have to get a lay of the land.
Categories are essential in understanding Scripture.
These are not categories that we simply impose on the text of Scripture, but categories that rise naturally out of Scripture. Our first category is the distinction between the indicative and the imperative in Scripture. Referring to moods in the Greek, the indicative is a declaration of what God has done and of who we are in Christ as a result. It defines us. How shall we who have died to sin live any longer in it.