Entire sanctification is a term used in 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 by Paul, to describe how we should consecrate ourselves completely to God so that He sanctifies us completely, body - soul and spirit.
Sanctification means that something is given to God, so that God purifies it and can use it for His purposes. In relational terms, it is surrendering for instance a part of our life to God and letting God guide us and rule over this domain. This implies that we then listen to God and do what he tells us to do in this domain, not acting anymore independently from him in this domain. The notion of sanctification can be directly connected to the notion of lordship, how we are invited to have Jesus be the Lord (the master) and us be his servants.
Entire sanctification implies that we surrender the mastery of our lives in all the domains to Jesus, the Son of God, to the Father and to the Holy Spirit.
What Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5 is that this entire sanctification, this total surrender followed by a guidance from God in all domains is not only possible but what God desires for each of us.
This means that we can indeed listen and follow God in all domains, thus accomplishing the goal of our creation. The goal is not in a specific task to accomplish, but the way we walk in this world. As sin was described in the previous text on Sin, original and personal, it meant missing the mark, not listening to God and not doing what he wanted us to do. The deliverance from sin is not so much a list of things we don’t do, but rather what we do: to listen to God and to obey Him, so that we learn to love God and to love our neighbor. Jesus clearly stated in Matthew 7:21: It is not the one who says to Jesus Lord, Lord who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of his Father who is in heaven. To do the will of God, we need to hear, listen and obey to God, not only in the teachings received in the Bible, but in the guidance of his voice every day. Entire sanctification is about this listening and following in all domains, that involves an every moment intimacy with God - the unceasing prayer that is clearly emphasized by Jesus (Luke 18:1-8) and by Paul (1 Thessalonians 5:17, just before the verses 23-24). This unceasing prayer is a way to describe this continual intimacy with God that Jesus so beautifully demonstrated to us on earth, he who did not say anything without the Father telling him (John 12:49-50) and did not do anything without the Father showing him (John 5:19-20).
This life with God, this sanctified life, can also be described as knowing Jesus and the Father, as Jesus tells us in John 17:3, “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.“ Jesus spoke in Aramaic, and in aramaic the verb for ‘to know' is the same as in Hebrew (yada, ידע). This verb does not mean an abstract knowledge but a relational knowledge, like when we say that we ‘know' someone. What we mean when we say that we know someone is that we spend time with the person, that our will is harmonized with their will enough to have peaceful times together. To know God means that we spend time with him in prayer, speaking and listening.
A key element of the sanctified life is that Jesus becomes really our Lord and teacher, which means that we don’t only say ‘Lord' but that we do what this implies: we obey him and the Father. In a relationship between a servant and a master, who is the one speaking the most? The master (= lord). In a relationship between a student and a teacher, who speaks the most? The teacher. If we want to call Jesus our Lord (=master) and teacher (read Matthew 23:8-10), it means that we start by listening to him more than speaking. In our prayer life, this implies that we speak less and listen more.
The entirely sanctified life involves a consecration of all of the domains of the life, which implies that at a practical level we will live every moment in the presence of God (entire sanctification of the time). This is exactly what God wants, that we walk with him. As Abraham walked (imperfectly) with God and became his friend, as Jesus walked a perfect life with the Father, always saying and doing what the Father wanted, we are invited to this amazing walk with God. We are invited, as individuals and as community, to live as bearer of God’s kingdom, as temples of the Holy Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 3:16 or 6:19). Jesus does not want only that we learn to obey as servants, but as we learn to be servants he wants us to become friend with him and the Father, as mentioned in John 15:12-15. This means that we are really united with God, in constant fellowship, with us listening to God and God listening to us and doing what we ask. This is the amazing authority that God wants for every one of his children. It was first accomplished in Jesus through his atonement (for more clarity, read a text on this subject here), and the Holy Spirit has been sent by Jesus to replicate this miracle of love in each of us, as children of the heavenly Father. The entire creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God (Romans 8:19). The creation has been subject to futility, to our futile plans, but God wants us to come to this total surrender of our self-centeredness, for us to be then filled with his Holy Spirit, so that we become mature children of God.
The picture of a heart with the fiery dove in it reminds us that entire sanctification is about welcoming the Holy Spirit to rule in all domains of our life, in all the moments of our lives. This involves the purification symbolized both by the white dove and by the fire. It also involves power - as the fire gives energy. It also involves guidance (the dove has a will, it is not a thing). The Holy Spirit wants to guide us in all domains, so that we learn everything from God, as Jesus clearly taught us: the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you (John 14:26). This continuous sensitivity to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, this entirely sanctified life, implies both obedience and love, they are two facets of a same reality. The love of God is poured in our lives through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us (Romans 5:5), and the Spirit wants to guide us in all things.
This is the goal of the creation, this is what was accomplished in Jesus Christ. This is what the prophet Jeremiah promised would come through a new covenant - a new testament (see Jeremiah 31:31-34, the text from which we have the term ‘New Testament’). This is what the prophet Ezekiel promised (see Ezekiel 11:19-20, 18:31, 36:26-27), tying strongly together the coming of a new spirit in us with a complete listening and obedience to the Father.
Being filled with the Holy Spirit implies obeying to God. There is stability and joy in this. Yet, disobeying God implies that we reject the guidance of the Holy Spirit who will then move away, as the Spirit departed from the temple (see Ezekiel 10:18-19). This departure happened after Israel’s repeated disobedience, as it could happen after our repeated disobedience. If we continue to communicate with God in prayer, to listen to him and do what he tell us on a daily basis, we have stability in God and don’t need to be concerned. As Jesus said, knowing him and the Father, walking as children of light is the assurance of eternal life, the life with God. Will we sometimes struggle with a specific direction the Lord wants us to take? Probably. Yet, if we struggle with God and don’t close the door to the Lord, we will remain in this blessed fellowship with God and learn.
In the New Testament, Jesus and Paul often speak of maturity (also translated ’perfection’, the Greek word teleios - τελειος). This maturity is about a mature relationship with God, when we listen and do what he tells us. It is another way of describing the kind of relationship with God we reach after ‘entire sanctification.’
There is necessarily a moment when we surrender all the moments of our lives to God and learn to walk with Him at all times. Like when a person dies, there is a process but there is also a moment when the death is declared. This moment can be called entire sanctification. In itself this moment is not the goal, it is the door to the goal. The goal is what we can call Christian holiness, or the ’Spirit-filled life,’ or more simply ‘life with God.'
The previous text, about justification-regeneration-adoption, spoke about the entry in this blessed relationship with the Father and with Jesus as our Lord and Savior. As we learn to walk with God as our Father, with Jesus as our guide, we can realize that some of the areas of our life are still places were Jesus is not Lord, and we need to surrender these areas.
The motivation for justification is to be reconciled with God and to receive the life of the Spirit in us. Then, the motivation for this radical consecration and entire sanctification is death to our independence, death to self-centeredness and life without God. It is logical that you have or will experience these two key steps in the blessed life of communion with God as separate moments. Yet, what is the most important is not so much these moments but the sanctified life - the holy life - in which you walk with God, the joyous and continual fellowship with Jesus and the Father through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Christian holiness is about the stability in this relationship, how we can welcome walk with Jesus continually, in all the areas of our life. It is not a matter of us being strong, but rather for us to learn that without Him we are weak (2 Cor 12:9-10) and decide to keep our hand in the hand of God - so that with him we are strong. When we are with God, all things become possible (Mark 9:27). We can know God and inherit eternal life when we walk with Him. As we learn to listen and obey God, through the Holy Spirit in us, we then discover that God obeys us in return. The miracles of God’s love can become the norm in our daily lives. It is what Jesus demonstrated so clearly in his life (see for instance John 11:41-42), it is what Jesus promised to us if we learn the obedience of faith in God (read Mark 11:22-25, John 14:12-14, and Romans 1:5 for the important expression ‘obedience of faith’). The clear guidance and power of God's love is then manifested through our purified and sanctified hearts. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matthew 5:8). The clarity of communication with God, through His voice, visions, dreams and all the means of His grace is a manifestation of this purified relationship with Him.
This entirely sanctified life, this Christian holiness, implies that we have learned indeed to keep a listening relationship with Jesus and his Father through the Holy Spirit. Holiness implies that we are separated from sin and united with God. This means that we don’t listen to God only in one area or in one way, but that we learn to listen to God through the Holy Spirit in all domains and all the time: when we read the Bible, when we pray, as he speaks to us through the whole creation, through humans, through sermons, through all the situations we experience. This is this life of prayer that Paul emphasizes in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. This is the life of uninterrupted prayer that is the clearest manifestation of a real faith in him - an obedient faith, as described in Luke 18:1-8.
Have you reached this simple and radical faith of every moment, where you not only believe with your head but also with your heart? Have you learned to live all your life in the presence of God, with the testimony of the Holy Spirit remaining in your heart?
If it is not yet the case, if this is what you want, I encourage you to take a moment of prayer with God, to surrender all the domains of your life to Him. Ask him in prayer if there is a specific domain that needs to be surrendered, and then surrender it in faithful obedience and ask him what He wants you to do and do it. Ask him if there is something you need to forgive to someone, so that he forgives to you also (see Mark 11:25). Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you, as Jesus promised us He would (Luke 11:13). Then learn to practice listening and obeying to the soft and beautiful voice of our Lord, as his sheep, as his servant, so that one day you will be called a friend of God, a pure temple of His love, a shining child of God. This is the promise for every human, this is the desire of the heavenly Father for every human, this is the goal from the creation of the world.
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