How Escape Leads to Endeavor - Hugh Binning
"But here is the grace and mercy of God in Jesus Christ — it removes the curse where the sin is, and takes away the condemnation where all is worthy of condemnation."
Posted at Reformation Scotland:
Those who flee to Christ for justification will also flee from sin in sanctification. But what does it feel like when you are being sanctified? In one of his sermons, Hugh Binning explores the blessings of both justification and sanctification. Justification doesn’t mean that we are changed on the inside — that’s what happens in sanctification. Yet as the inner graces are strengthened, this does not translate into any feeling of self-satisfaction. Instead, as Hugh Binning discusses in the following updated excerpt, what has prominence in sanctification is an awareness of our ongoing inner sinfulness, which makes us increasingly conscious of our own inadequacies alongside an increasing realisation of our absolute need of Jesus Christ, who is “made unto us [both] righteousness and sanctification …” Sanctification is not a flattering process but a humbling one which gives the glory to the Lord Jesus.It is difficult to decide which is the greatest privilege of a Christian — that he is delivered from condemnation, or that he is made to walk according to the Spirit, and is made a new creature — whether we owe more to Christ for our justification or sanctification (for He is made both to us).
However, it is more necessary to conjoin them together than to compare them with each other. One is not more necessary than the other — to be delivered from wrath or to walk according to the Spirit. I think it could be argued that a soul escaped from condemnation should have the great stream and current of its affections and endeavours toward sanctification, not so that they would be accepted by God, but because they are accepted by God.
