278. Preserved Blameless
1 Thessalonians 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God will sanctify us wholly. We are sanctified wholly by faith, but that holiness is not yet whole: sin still remains, self still controls, death still rules, the world still influences us unto evil, the devil still walks about seeking to devour. These evil enemies are still attacking and tempting and lying. Sanctification is a done deal, but it is also a work in progress. God made Christ our sanctification, but God isn’t finished with me yet (though He promises to finish the job). We are accounted as wholly holy, but that holiness hasn’t yet touched every part of our soul and body. We must wait with patient faith until our body’s death and resurrection. Then the sanctification process will be complete. At the coming of Christ we shall wholly be preserved blameless. That’s a promise we can live with. We wait with patient faith.
Blameless means no blame, no guilt, no shame; and therefore, no sin. Sin is forgiven now and that forgiveness gives us a daily new lease on life, a new life every day. So we know we can face the Judge when He comes: we know we will stand blameless in the Judgment. We are declared innocent, righteous, pure and holy; and when the soul and body are wholly sanctified we are innocent, righteous, pure and holy. Only then can we stand in the blazing and beautiful holiness of God Almighty. In the Judgment all evil enemies will be cast out, and no taint of sin will exist in the new environment of the new heaven and new earth. Thus we also must be blameless in order to live forever in this perfect new environment. And so we shall be.
We can say that the spirit within us is entirely holy already when we are born from above. The Holy Spirit lives there, and He can only live in a holy place. By faith the human spirit is holy and alive. From there, the spirit influences and positively affects the soul and the body. We may quench the activity of the Spirit within, but the Spirit never rests. He is continually working from the human spirit to sanctify the soul; and the soul tells the body what to do. The spirit is actively alive and energized when we hear the Gospel. The Gospel is a life-giving power. This is what the promise means to sanctify wholly: that the soul and the body will be gradually made wholly holy until the soul and body, along with the spirit, are preserved blameless for the judgment. We don’t face the Judgment Throne until after the bodily resurrection. Then we shall be blameless. Meanwhile, we wait for the Lord to finish the job in our soul and body, and we enjoy the promise that He will.