1 Peter 1:2

ELECTION

‘Elect … through sanctification of the Spirit’

1 Peter 1:2

The subject of Election is a difficult one, but as brought before us in our text it is one of great simplicity.

I. Election first shows itself in a man’s separation from the world which lieth in wickedness.—This is the first half of the meaning of the term ‘sanctification,’ if not the whole meaning, as used in the Old Testament, the phraseology of which has pervaded and tinctured every fibre of St. Peter’s mental constitution. The sanctification of the temple, its vessels, its priests, means their dedication to the service of God, and their withdrawal from secular purposes. And Christian believers are thus set apart by the Spirit, spiritually consecrated to Divine service. Bodily, we are not exhorted to come out and be separate, but spiritually a broad line of demarcation should distinguish us from men whose whole lot is in this life.

II. But more than separation from or nonconformity with the world is here intended—the moral purification of our nature. When Holy Writ speaks of Christ’s sanctification, obviously the meaning is His official consecration to the work appointed Him by the Father. But when it enjoins our sanctification, it incontrovertibly means the inward refinement and moral purification of body, soul, and spirit. Election then is indissolubly connected with holiness as the sphere in which it moves, the atmosphere in which it breathes. No holiness—no election in the past, no salvation in the future.

III. But the wording of the text leads us still further; this holiness is not a limited, circumscribed result of the inward operation of the Spirit, but an infusion into our nature of the very quality or attribute of holiness inherent in Himself. The holiness of the believer is not a created, finite thing, as that of the angel, but an active participation in the uncreated, infinite holiness of God, in virtue of the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Illustration

‘A firm persuasion of the electing love of God, coupled with an experimental proof in our own consciousness of the sanctifying, elevating influence of the Divine Spirit, acts as a powerful incentive, not to indolence, but to strenuous striving after greater devotedness to God and wider usefulness to man. Antinomianism may be the result, logical or otherwise, of the doctrine of election as it has been sometimes taught; but it is not the result contemplated in Holy Writ, nor the result reached in the lives of those believers who accept the Gospel in the fulness and the correlation of all its doctrines. The end in view, even in this high and mysterious doctrine, is not controversy but obedience, the obedience of the whole man to the whole Gospel, in the totality of its demands in respect both of thinking and living.’