Holiness: For the Will of God Is Your Sanctification – 1 Thessalonians 4:3 [Annotated, Updated]

by J.C. Ryle

Sanctification is something that will be absolutely necessary as a witness to our character in the great day of judgment. It will be utterly useless to plead that we believe in Christ unless our faith has had some sanctifying effect and has been seen in our lives. Evidence, evidence, evidence, will be the one thing needed when the great white throne is set, when the books are opened, when the graves give up their tenants, and when the dead are arraigned before the judgment seat of God. Without some evidence that our faith in Christ Jesus was real and genuine, we will only rise again to be condemned. I can find no evidence that will be admitted in that day, except sanctification. The question will not be how we talked and what we professed, but how we lived and what we did. Let no one deceive himself on this point. If anything is certain about the future, it is certain that there will be a judgment; and if anything is certain about judgment, it is certain that our works and actions will be considered and examined in it (John 5:29; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Revelation 20:13). Anyone who thinks that works are of no importance because they cannot justify us is a very ignorant Christian. Unless he opens his eyes, he will find, to his harm, that if he goes to the judgment seat of God without some evidence of grace, it would have been better for him to have never been born.