“To understand the benefit of sanctification correctly, we must proceed from the idea that Christ is our holiness in the same sense in which He is our righteousness. He is a complete and all-sufficient Savior.
He does not accomplish His work halfway but saves us really and completely. He does not rest until, after pronouncing His acquittal in our conscience, He has also imparted full holiness and glory to us.
By His righteousness, accordingly, He does not just restore us to the state of the just who will go scot-free in the judgment of God, in order then to leave us to ourselves to reform ourselves after God’s image and to merit eternal life.
But Christ has accomplished everything. He bore for us the guilt and punishment of sin, placed Himself under the law to secure eternal life for us, and then arose from the grave to communicate Himself to us in all his fullness for both our righteousness and sanctification (1 Cor. 1:30).
The holiness that must completely become ours therefore fully awaits us in Christ.”
–Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, Ed. John Bolt, and Trans. John Vriend (vol. 4; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 248.
Hello My name is Arthur and i want to say i totally agree, and i want to hear from you about your comment, “He does not rest until he, after pronouncing his acquittal in our consciences. He has also imparted full holiness and glory to us. …… Christ thru his HOLY SPIRIT has been teaching me this for about 7 years now. So it is refreshing to hear from someone who believes just this. If i may could you please explain, what you meant by your last sentence in this short but to the point on Christ is our holiness, and Thank you in advance. I know it has been a few years since writing this, and this is the first one of yours i have read, but i hope you still have this blog on wordpress. Thanks.