Self-sanctification. What is that, exactly? For that matter, what is sanctification?

Let’s walk through this. In our faith journey, the first step is salvation: being saved from the penalty of our sins by accepting God’s grace, which consists of him sending his son Jesus Christ to forgive our sins and reconcile us to God. This is done by faith in Christ’s ability to save us. Did we earn salvation? Absolutely not. What did we do to earn God’s grace? Nothing. Otherwise, it isn’t grace.

It’s important to remember this as we move into the second step: sanctification. We are believers in Jesus Christ. We are brand new in him (2 Cor. 5:17). There’s a period of time—maybe years or decades—between our past salvation and the third step: our future state of glory where we will be with God forever in heaven. Right now we’re in step 2: the sanctification period. Sanctification is the period where our hearts are changed to become closer to Christ.

Obedience and Worship

Sometimes Christians talk of this time on earth in terms of right obedience and action. After all, the non-believer cannot obey, and the Christian can. The conclusion is that Christians need to obey and act rightly. There must be abstinence from sinful behaviors, outreach to the world, time in prayer, etc. These tasks propel us along and bring us closer to God.

Is this correct? Of course. The Bible is very clear that Christians are to walk worthy of their calling (Eph. 4:1). But it’s not the whole story. Sometimes this obedience is presented in such a way that we are the primary agents of initiating and following through on this obedience. It’s as if we feel compelled to wake up in the morning and say, “My main duty today is to obey God.” We have to keep it going.

And there’s the idea that unless this obedience is taking place, we won’t be fully enjoying God or pleasing him. While this is accurate, it’s incomplete. This implies that obedience always leads to worship, and always in that order. In order to worship, we must obey.

Hear the alarm bells? This is self-sanctification. You sanctify yourself to please God. If you stop obeying, you’ve stopped earning worship and have broken the sanctification process. Though you are saved by grace through faith, you must obey out of duty for God and keep this thing going. You have to prop it up. You have to obey. For as long as you stop obeying, this whole thing comes to a halt. That’s a lot of pressure.

Can You Really Sanctify Yourself?

Thinking of the Christian life primarily in terms of duty and obedience sets up the Christian for a particular danger of self-salvation and self-sanctification that undermines the Gospel of grace, which emphasizes that we cannot obey on our own. Instead, the Christian life must be primarily one of looking to Jesus and letting our gaze on him change our hearts. This will then change our motivations and inspire us to actually want to obey. We will realize that worship can actually lead to the very obedience we need.

God doesn’t sit up in heaven with his arms crossed, saying, “Okay Christian, obey me now, by your own effort. Good luck.” God says, “You can’t obey me with your effort alone. Look to Jesus who can motivate and equip you to obey me.”

If you didn’t save yourself, what makes you think you can sanctify yourself? The Gospel is the good news which reminds us that, although we can’t do, God can do and has done. Does this somehow change with sanctification? Are we in need of grace any less now? Sanctification depends on us looking to Jesus (Heb. 12:1-2). Did Jesus say in John 15 that we have to obey in order to abide in him? No. He said, “Unless you abide in me, you can do nothing.” It begins with Christ. Now, obedience is an important objective, but it isn’t the catalyst. In my experience, focusing so heavily on obedience to Christ actually removes the focus on Christ himself. Remember Mary and Martha?

A Heart Change

In the book Rewire Your Heart, author David Bowden says, “Christian culture often prizes behavior modification over heart transformation. We think the most important thing is to act rightly, often at the expense of being rightly motivated.”

All this talk of duty and obedience misses the importance of the heart and motivations. Does a parent simply want a child to obey out of cold duty? No, the parent wants the child to obey because he’s part of the family and is loved. The child doesn’t have to continually earn his keep. If he did, that would be self-sanctification.

God doesn’t just want our obedience; he wants our  hearts.

You cannot truly obey God without a changed heart. In fact, having a changed heart is part of obedience. Paul tells the Colossians they “have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Col. 3:10). God doesn’t just want our obedience; he wants our  hearts. He wants our motivations and affections. He wants us to be red-hot in our desires for him. This means far more than just avoiding pornography and other bad things.

John Piper says, “If we treat obedience as something we do first and then all joy in Jesus follows, we will have turned obedience into a work of the law, or a legal external performance in it that has no Christ-exalting worth and therefore will not result in a true enjoyment of Jesus.”

Remember, we don’t have to rely on ourselves to keep our sanctification going. Rather, we look to Christ who then changes us and motivates us, which is what “keeping it going” actually looks like. And he will help us. Remember Paul’s words to the Philippians – “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).