And sanctification is one of these
already-but-not-yet things in Scripture,
just like eschatology is.
That God looks at you as this is who you are.
You're not going to become this,
you are this.
How close or far away is imaging with sanctification?
I think they're, they're intrinsically related.
So I would say they're not far away at all.
What I'm going to suggest
as we progress through the class at different points,
is that sanctification, discipleship is imaging.
Okay, it's functioning like, it's being like God.
It's it's acting like he would in his place.
So, I think there's a really tight relationship
between the two.
But they say that sanctification is a process,
whereas image is not.
Well, imaging is a status.
Okay, but how we perform, how we perform...
It's the old Christian, you may have heard this, but
sanctification is the process of becoming what you are.
Okay, you are by definition a new creation in Christ.
You have been transferred into the kingdom of his dear Son.
There are places in the New Testament
were you will be described with verbs of sanctification
where they are past tense idea
as though it was already done.
But then you'll get other ones that it's in process.
And sanctification is one of these
already-but-not-yet things in Scripture,
just like eschatology is.
That God looks at you as this is who you are.
You're not going to become this,
you are this.
But yet there's a process of becoming
what you really are, in God's mind.
So the end of the road is when we are transformed
and we're made like Jesus,
you know, either at his coming
or after death, you know, that sort of thing.
We get the final, you know, consummation
of our sanctification
which you know, somehow passages are referred to
as glorification or some some language like that.
So you have this situation where,
we as believers, we are brought back into the family.
I mean, all humans are imagers. But
they're never going to image God,
if they're outside the family,
they have to be redeemed because of the fall.
So they have to be brought back into a relationship
so that they can, again, start living out
what God wants them to be.
But God leaves it to us in a salvation decision.
And you know, sanctification is a process
where we, we become more like Jesus.
You know, why, why does Paul,
why do New Testament writers exhort us
to submit, you know, ourselves
and to become, be conformed you know,
to the image of Christ and be sanctified
and if they already know, again, that we are going to be...
have this destiny anyway.
I mean, they certainly don't say "Don't worry about it.
You're gonna get glorified in the end anyway.
Just, you know, hang on to your faith
and do whatever you want."
No, they don't do that.
Because discipleship is the activity,
the participation with God of
behaving like one of his kids
and following the model of his capital "S" kid,
okay, if you will, Jesus, The Son.
So all these things are sort of intertwined
in New Testament thinking,
but it's an already-but-not-yet sort of situation. Yes.