| Bahnsen Quote For Discussion
From Theonomy In Christian Ethics:
To be sanctified is to be "set apart" by and unto God, so that the Christian is recreated after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness and empowered by the Holy Spirit to die progressively unto sin and live more and more in conformity with God's will. It is easy to see that sanctification, then, requires of the law of God as the standard for God's holiness and will; it defines that sinfulness unto which we are to die. Therefore, the necessity of sanctification and the validity of the law mutually imply each other.
To summarize what has been said to this point, we can say that salvation is not exhaustively circumscribed by God's pardon of, and the imputation of Christ's righteousness to, the sinner; salvation continues beyond the point of justification into the process of sanctification, a process which begins with a definitive break with the bondage of sinful depravity and matures by progressively preparing the Christian to enjoy eternal life with God by the internal purifying of his moral condition. (pg. 160-161) |