Growing in Grace – Purchased by Christ

Last night our Bible study explored the nature of growing in grace. I loved this paraphrase by Gardiner Spring of Philippians 1:6 saying,

It is the economy of divine grace that where God has begun a good work He will carry it on until the subject is ripened for glory.

“Ripened for glory” – being supplied with every spiritual nutrient, every sort of Scriptural atmosphere to be conformed more and more into the very likeness of Jesus Christ, my Lord. I start as nothing more than a bud, but that bud is to blossom and then offering the first indications of fruit, fruit that is green at first, but then grows and ripens into that for which the Husbandman intended.

And of what does this ripening process consist? It consists in leaving off more and more the husks of this world and cultivating more and more godliness. As Mr. Spring again wrote:

Conversion is but the first step. His work is all before him. His graces are increasingly constant and increasingly vigorous. The more he loves God, the more he desires to love Him. The more he knows of His character, does he contemplate the manifestations of His glory with rising delight.

The more he sees of the evil of sin, the more he desires to see. The more he hates it, the more he desires to hate it. The more he sees of himself the more he abhors himself, and the more does he desire to abhor himself. The more he is emptied of himself, the more does he desire to be emptied of himself; the more he desires to become poor in spirit, to feel that he is cut off from every hope, and to rest on Christ alone. The more he is engaged in duty, the more delight he finds in performing it. The more severe his conflict with the enemy, the harder he urges it and the more vigorous his resolution to maintain it to the last.

These are but some of the evidences of growing in grace; but upon an even deeper contemplation, I was reminded that Christ death for His people was that He might display the fullness of His power and grace in this ripening process. Jesus does not impart His resurrection power to bring His people only halfway to glory, but all the way. Charles Spurgeon said it so well in this afternoon’s “Morning and Evening” selection:

Our Lord Jesus, by His death, did not purchase a right to a part of us only, but to the entire man. He contemplated in His passion the sanctification of us wholly, spirit, soul, and body; that in this triple kingdom He Himself might reign supreme without a rival. It is the business of the newborn nature which God has given to the regenerate to assert the rights of the Lord Jesus Christ. My soul, so far as thou art a child of God, thou must conquer all the rest of thyself which yet remains unblest; thou must subdue all thy powers and passions to the silver sceptre of Jesus' gracious reign, and thou must never be satisfied till He who is King by purchase becomes also King by gracious coronation, and reigns in thee supreme. Seeing, then, that sin has no right to any part of us, we go about a good and lawful warfare when we seek, in the name of God, to drive it out. O my body, thou art a member of Christ: shall I tolerate thy subjection to the prince of darkness? O my soul, Christ has suffered for thy sins, and redeemed thee with His most precious blood: shall I suffer thy memory to become a storehouse of evil, or thy passions to be firebrands of iniquity? Shall I surrender my judgment to be perverted by error, or my will to be led in fetters of iniquity? No, my soul, thou art Christ's, and sin hath no right to thee.

Be courageous concerning this, O Christian! be not dispirited, as though your spiritual enemies could never be destroyed. You are able to overcome them—not in your own strength—the weakest of them would be too much for you in that; but you can and shall overcome them through the blood of the Lamb. Do not ask, "How shall I dispossess them, for they are greater and mightier than I?" but go to the strong for strength, wait humbly upon God, and the mighty God of Jacob will surely come to the rescue, and you shall sing of victory through His grace.

As we move along in this endeavor known as progressive sanctification, this growing in grace, let us be aware that it is only possible by the grace of God and only as we recognized that Jesus has purchased all of who we are, body, soul and spirit.

Soli Deo Gloria,

Pastor Ed