“All doctrine is useless until . . .”
On Sunday morning, Lord willing, I shall complete a three month series in 1 Thessalonians. Like many other preachers, my favorite book of the Bible is the one I am preaching. This letter of Paul is no exception. Calvin, Simeon, and Stott were particularly helpful advisors as I worked through the text, and I put their books back on my shelves with thanksgiving for each man’s piety, skill, and wisdom.
When in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, the apostle writes: “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” we obtain insight into how Paul the pastor prayed for his congregation. He sought from God their sanctification, protection, and perseverance.
On sanctification Calvin comments: Paul “knowing that all doctrine is useless until God engraves it, as it were, with his own finger upon our hearts, beseeches God that he would sanctify the Thessalonians.” And sanctification will only be “pure and entire when [a man] thinks nothing in his mind, desires nothing in heart, and does nothing with his body, except what is approved by God.”
We pray without ceasing for God’s sanctifying grace.
