Consider 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7 “For this is the will of God, [even] your SANCTIFICATION / HOLINESS [G38 – hagiasmos], that ye should abstain from fornication. 4 That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in SANCTIFICATION / HOLINESS [G38 – hagiasmos], and honour; 5 Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: 6 That no [man] go beyond and defraud his brother in [any] matter: because that the Lord [is] the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. 7 For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto SANCTIFICATION / HOLINESS [G38 – hagiasmos].”
Now look at Romans 6:19 “I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto SANCTIFICATION / HOLINESS [G38 – hagiasmos].”
1 Peter 1:2 states (and is applicable to all of God’s people) that we are “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through SANCTIFICATION / HOLINESS [G38 – hagiasmos] of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.”
We were objectively sanctified by the sovereign will of the Father (what He thinks already IS even before it is made manifest in time; see Jude 1:1 and Hebrews 10:10); We were sanctified IN Christ [1 Corinthians 1:2] when the Father chose us in Him, and gave us to Him before the world was. We were sanctified at the cross when Christ completed His finished salvific work (1 Corinthians 1:30; Hebrews 13:12); we were sanctified upon our quickening by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:11); and this already perfect, objective, absolute sanctification is played out, day in and day out before men. Our objective sanctification is one act with multiple facets, points of view, played out temporally. We are to take that perfect sanctification after the inward man and make it manifest through our members as the verses above teach. We are to “Follow peace with all [men], and SANCTIFICATION / HOLINESS [G38 – hagiasmos] without which no man shall see the Lord” per Hebrews 12:14.
Finally, we see Hebrews 12:10-11 “For they verily for a few days chastened [us] after their own pleasure; but he for [our] profit, that [we] might be partakers of his HOLINESS/SANCTIFICATION. 11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” We are chastened unto holiness/sanctification, we are to yield our members unto holiness/sanctification, not to earn, obtain, or establish our sanctification before God but to increasingly make manifest that we already have perfect sanctification, through the Triune Godhead, acknowledging that Christ Himself is our perfect, objective, eternal sanctification.
Spiritual Wrestlings 