What is true of each saint whom God has called?...

God has declared that individual to be righteous.

Here is a powerful statement. God reaches down toward that person and says, "Righteous." Isn’t that remarkable? Because God is God, and our Creator, He can declare to be righteous anyone whom He choose to bless in this manner. The concept of sovereignly applied righteousness is a necessary element in our understanding of the way of the Lord.

It is of great help to the victorious saint, the overcomer, the conqueror, when he is in the thick of the conflict, to understand that the Father in Heaven declared him to be righteous before he was born.

The righteousness of the elect is of the Lord God of Heaven. Therefore every tongue that will rise against us in judgment will be silenced. The Lord God has, of His own will, declared us to be righteous. It is in God’s authority and power to do that. No power can decree otherwise after God has spoken.

49. What is true of each person whom God has declared to be righteous?

God already views that individual in the state of glorification, the condition in which eternal, incorruptible resurrection life is filling every particle of his spirit, his soul, and his body. God now beholds the saint’s glorification as an accomplished fact.

Notice that the passage (Romans 8:30) passes from justified to glorified. Sanctified is omitted.

But sanctification must follow justification or glorification is not possible.

Predestination is a sovereign work of God. Election is a sovereign work of God. Justification is a sovereign work of God. Glorification is a sovereign work of God.

But sanctification is an interaction of the believer with the Divine Nature as his personality changes from Adam to Christ.

Sanctification is holiness—holiness that is the Presence of God in Christ. We must enter the process of sanctification. We must become holy. If we do not, we will not be glorified in the Day of the Lord.

We sanctify ourselves, with the help of the Lord.

And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts (Galatians 5:24).

That ye put off concerning the former conversation [former way of life] the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:24).

Mortify [put to death] therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence [lust], and covetousness, which is idolatry (Colossians 3:5).

And every man that hath this hope [of glorification] in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure (I John 3:3). No person can walk with God, no person ever can see the Lord, if his personality is not holy.

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you (II Corinthians 6:17).

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14).

One of the massive errors of contemporary theology is the concept that justification alone is sufficient for glorification. Rather, it is true that after God justifies us we must go through the "wilderness" while God sanctifies us. After that, we are ready to enter the promised land of glorification.

Before He created the universe, God declared each of His sons, the brothers of Christ, to be called, to be righteous, to be gloriously filled and overflowing with Divine Life. It all was accomplished in eons past for each of the elect.

Our task now is to run the race of sanctification, to overcome the world, Satan, the lusts of our flesh, and our self-will; for these are not holy, they are not of the Father.

All the energies of the universe are contributing toward bringing to pass what the Lord God of Heaven has stated concerning His chosen people. The realization of our Divine calling enables us to press forward into the fullness of the rest, the inheritance to which we have been summoned by the King.

We do not create our own inheritance. Our responsibility is to walk in the Spirit of God so He can accomplish the will of God in us.

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