The Spirit's Ministry to Believers
Sanctification
Growing in Holiness by the Spirit
Description
The Holy Spirit is the primary agent of sanctification in the believer's life. We are sanctified by the Spirit. He produces holiness by conforming us to the image of Christ, transforming us from glory to glory. The flesh and Spirit are at war—the Spirit helps us mortify the deeds of the body. If we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. The Spirit produces His fruit in us: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. Sanctification is not self-improvement but Spirit-empowerment.
Key Verses
But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.