For The Truth

Thursday, July 07, 2022

The Puritan Practice of Sanctification

 Here are "several elements of the Puritan approach to living in Christ by faith:

  • Believers Must Pursue Trinitarian Likeness to the Triune God
Believers are first, to imitate the character of God the Father by walking in love (Eph. 5:1; 1 John 4:16).

Second, ... to conform to the image of Christ ... 

Pursuing Christlikeness is not a condition of salvation but a fruit of it.

Third, ... to submit to the mind of the Spirit as revealed in the Scriptures,


  • Believers Must Practice Both Mortification and Vivification
Mortification means continually pursuing to death every form of sin.

Vivification is the quickening or bringing to life, of the new nature we have received from God.

We must not only seek to kill sin; we must also seek to do the will of God. We must conform our lives to the standards God has given.

It is essential to balance mortification and vivification in our lives.


  • Believers Must Diligently Use the Means of Grace
Without the Scriptures, it is impossible to be sanctified (John 17:17).

To disregard the Word of God is to disregard God's directions on how to become sanctified.

To neglect or set aside the Scriptures in pursuit of sanctification promotes moralism, legalism, or vain efforts at self-improvement.

Holiness takes planning, hard work, and prayer.

'You can do more than pray, after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.' - John Bunyan


  • Believers Should Practice Holiness in Their Daily Vocations
Holiness does not mean leaving the busy world for a life of solitude, but engaging in business in this world with Christian wisdom, diligence, justice, truth, contentment, and constant devotion to God.


  • Believers Should Focus on the Benefits of Sanctification
'What health is to the heart, that holiness is to the soul.' - John Flavel


  • Believers should Remember That God Uses Holiness to Fit Them for Heaven
If you show no interest for holy living now, you will show no interest for it in the life to come.


God saves us to live in Christ and to walk in holiness."

From A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life, Joel R. Beeke & Mark Jones, Ch. 33, pp.531-35.

Friday, June 24, 2022

Sanctification

 "Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness." - WSC

"Living a life of holiness helps us more and more to delight in and relish peace with God."

Some considerations:

  • Sanctification is Rooted in the Nature of God.
            Holiness is "God's crowning attribute, which sheds light
            on all of His other attributes."

            "Because God is holy, His creatures cannot approach Him
            in their unholy state, unaided by sacrifice."

  • Sanctification Magnifies God's Holiness
            "Those who have a weak view of God's holiness are prone
            to fashion God after their own image."

            "Holiness is the life of God."

  • Sanctification is Comprehensive and Moral
            "All times and all things are meant for holiness,
             both externally and internally."

            "Sanctification propels the believer toward moral
             excellence and practical righteousness."

  • Sanctification is a Progressive Battle
            "We must battle for holiness in Christ's strength every step
            of the way, or we will fail in the attempt."

  • Sanctification Involves Both Repentance and Righteousness
            "Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner
            out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the
            mercy of God in Christ, doth with grief and hatred of his
            sin turn from it unto God, with full purpose of and
            endeavor after new obedience." - WSC

            "Repentance is essentially a changed life."

  • Sanctification Must Be Seen in a Covenantal Context
            "To be sanctified is to receive covenant blessing from a
            covenant God who has brought us to new birth to bring us
            to glory."

            "Sanctification is rooted in God's covenant with believers
            in Christ."

"It is the work of the Spirit to regenerate us, but it is our calling to bring forth the fruits of regeneration in our lives."


From A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life, Joel R. Beeke & Mark Jones, Ch. 33, "The Puritans on Living in Christ," pp.528-31.

Thursday, June 23, 2022

20 Hinderances of Conversion

 What follows are twenty human impediments to coming to Christ identified by Richard Baxter (1615-1691). This list is by no means exhaustive:

  1. the willful neglect of the means of grace
  2. bad company
  3. gross ignorance of biblical truths
  4. unbelief
  5. thoughtlessness
  6. hardness of heart
  7. great esteem & interest in the world
  8. habits of sin subduing the mind
  9. foolish self-love &presumption
  10. counterfeit conversion
  11. living among strong temptation to sin
  12. scandal & division in the church
  13. the poor education of children
  14. striving against the Holy Spirit
  15. half-heartedness in religion
  16. delay
  17. failure to follow through on good beginnings
  18. misunderstanding some Scriptures
  19. pride & unteachableness
  20. willful obstinacy
Richard Baxter, A Treatise of Conversion, in The Practical Works of the Rev. Richard Baxter, in "The Puritans on Coming to Christ," chapter 32 of A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life, Joel R. Beeke & Mark Jones, p.519.

Thursday, December 23, 2021

Longtime Baptist leader T.C. Pinckney dies

 https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/longtime-baptist-leader-t-c-pinckney-dies/

Faithful, Humble, Courageous, Brilliant

www.paigepatterson.org/TCPinckney

In memory of one who was faithful:

 Thomas Pinckney Jr

Sunday, April 25, 2021

 Many will come to God today with the assumption that He owes them something,. They will assume they deserve a good life, or that He owes them -- x. God owes man nothing, but He offers mercy. It is a gift of grace not a debt that is owed.

Thursday, November 12, 2020

How shall we treat false teachers when they arise?

  1.  So soon as we know their character, it is our duty to refuse to hear them or read their books.
  2. If a false teacher is already in an orthodox Church, it is right to disown him, and cast him out, not with maledictions, but with sorrow and prayer and firmness.
  3. False teachers must also be firmly and meekly resisted in all their attempts to lead men astray.
  4. While the Scriptures call on us to feed the hungry and to be kind to the poor, they forbid us to hold such social intercourse with false teaches, as implies sympathy with them or connivance at their wicked teachings. ... We should not show them those hospitalities, which the churches usually extend to Christ's ministers.
  5. In dealing with corrupt teachers, it is peculiarly important not to be intimidated by them.

From False Doctrines and Teachers: How to Know Them and How to Treat Them by William S. Plumer (1802-1880), pp.12-14, found in THE CHRISTIAN: To Which Is Added: FALSE DOCTRINES AND FALSE TEACHERS: How to Know Them, and How to Treat Them and ASSURANCE OF GRACE AND SALVATION: What it Is; How to Attain It; Why More Do Not Enjoy It and BALM FOR THE WOUNDED SPIRITS, Sprinkle Publications, 1997.