74. How is the Atonement related to sanctification?
The strenuous labors of Jesus to remain faithful to his Father’s desire, even under humiliating and excruciating attacks and pitiful demise as an executed traitor to Rome, rendered him perfect in human wholesomeness and evoked God’s justice to display his complete acquittal by raising him miraculously to life again right out of the dank tomb. By way of further restitution, God poured forth for the sake of Jesus’ reputation a greater magnitude of His Spirit than ever possible under less extreme circumstances. In turn, God gives portions of that indescribable Present to all who trust Christ as Master, energizing us to keep the directives he conveyed from the Father and so develop into mature offspring in preparation for assuming appropriate ruling functions in the new creation that’s ahead. Hence our Lord’s teaching is essential to our becoming mature in wholesomeness; reflecting his Father’s own personality, which he ideally modeled for us. Our participation in the Spirit of holiness that enabled him to rise above abuse successfully also leads us along the way his directions point—that same true path of wholesome love and thriving vigor despite daily troubles and disheartening difficulty. Our sanctification is instantaneous the moment we trust the Proclamation and get baptized, entitling us to be called “saints”! But then, of course, we have to practice the art! Practice makes perfect. So sanctification is parallel to justification, which similarly possesses both instantaneous and progressive features. Our holiness and uprightness alike turn on the axis of faith in the Proclamation that God exalted Jesus by means of “Crossurrection”, and both stay activated only by the energy of Christ’s own resurrected life dwelling in us by his living Explanation and sanctifying Spirit.
The Premial Atonement 