Series: A Biblical Theology of Christian Maturity (Week 4)

The Means of Maturity

How is it that sanctification progresses? What are the means God uses to bring about the goal of spiritual maturity and holiness? Several answers could be offered to these questions. However, the means of progressive sanctification and spiritual maturity will be limited here to three major categories: the Holy Spirit, the Word, and the church.

The Holy Spirit

At the outset, it may seem that this survey of means has neglected the inclusion of human effort. It is true that every effort must be expended in in order to produce growth in spiritual maturity (2 Pet. 1:5). Indeed, believers are instructed to work out salvation (Phil. 2:12), to cleanse hands and purify hearts (James 4:8), to mortify sin (Rom. 8:13), and to pursue holiness (Heb. 12:14). But that effort is expended in faith, due to the knowledge that the Holy Sprit is working within the believer (Phil. 2:13), that sin is mortified “by the Spirit” (Rom. 8:13), that fruit is only produced through his activity (John 15; Gal. 5:22-23), and that the Spirit of God leads the sons of God as they walk in him (Gal. 6:16-18; Rom. 8:14).  The Holy Spirit is powerfully and necessarily involved in producing holiness within the believer. 

The Word

The means used by the Holy Spirit to produce sanctification and holiness in the believer is the Word of God. Believers are sanctified by the truth (John 17:17), revealed as sinners by the Word (James 1:23-24), pierced by the Word (Heb. 4:12-13), washed in the water of the Word (Eph. 5:26), taught, rebuked, corrected, and trained by the Word (2 Tim. 3:16-17), grown up by the Word (1 Pet. 2:2) and equipped for ministry by the Word (Eph. 4:11-16). Louis Berkhof expands further on Scripture’s influence on sanctification in his Systematic Theology.

It should be maintained that the principal means used by the Holy Spirit is the word of God. The truth in itself certainly has no adequate efficiency to sanctify the believer, yet it is naturally adapted to be the means of sanctification as employed by the Holy Spirit. Scripture presents all the objective conditions for holy exercises and acts. It serves to excite spiritual activity motives and inducements, and gives direction to it by prohibitions, exhortation’s, and examples (1 Pet. 1:22, 2:2; 2 Pet. 1:4).[1]

Sanctification progresses and spiritual maturity develops through the means of regular attention to the Bible. Without the Scriptures, progress in spiritual maturity will be stunted indefinitely. J.C. Ryle puts it more sternly, “I should as soon expect a farmer to prosper who contented himself with sowing his fields and never looking at them till harvest, as expect a believer to attain much holiness who was not diligent about his Bible-reading.”[2]

The Church

Sanctification cannot progress without enablement from the Holy Spirit and investment in the Bible, and sanctification cannot progress in a vacuum. The local church is a necessary agent in the process of spiritual maturity for the believer. There are several ways in which the local church aids in the progression of sanctification. 

Pastor-Theologians. Paul tells the Ephesian church that God has given them pastors and teachers for the “building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children” (Eph. 4:12-14). Hebrews cautions believers to obey their leaders “for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account” (Heb. 13:17). One such pastor keeping watch over souls was young Timothy in Ephesus who received crystal clear instructions from his father in the faith, the apostle Paul regarding his role in the sanctification of his people. He tells Timothy that the goal of his instruction is his congregation’s love of God and one another (1 Tim. 1:5), that he should be trained in doctrine and the words of the faith in order to put them before the brothers (1 Tim. 4:6), that he should refuse to let people look down on him because of his age, but to set an example for them in speech, conduct, love, faith, and in purity (1 Tim. 4:12). He was to devote himself to the public reading of Scripture (1 Tim. 4:13), guarding his own character and right doctrine (1 Tim. 4:16a, 6:20), knowing that persistence in this kind of ministry would save both him and his hearers. 

Timothy’s handling of Scripture in the local church context was a critical part of his shepherding and leadership toward their spiritual maturity. He was to “present himself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15), that word which was inspired and profitable for the life of the church (2 Tim. 3:16-17) was to make up his reading and his preaching, even amid a cultural context hostile to the gospel (2 Tim. 4:1-5). The role of the pastor-teacher is critical in the sanctification of the people under his care. God has placed him there for that reason.

Church Attendance.  Not only does the pastor-theologian play a critical role in spiritual maturity, but the multi-generational, socio-economically diverse community of faith also aids in the process.  Michael Horton reminds believers, “Christianity is an inherently intergenerational faith because God is faithful from generation to generation.”[3] Paul in Titus 2 applies the multigenerational intentionality of God in the church toward spiritual maturity when he tells the older women to “teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands” (Titus 2:3-5). Similarly, he instructs the older men to urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Special attention on the part of Titus must to be paid to the fostering of self-control, often lacking in youth (Titus 2:3-6). 

The older need the younger. Rather than feed a comfortable narcissism, we need to be enriched by the insights, fellowship, and correction of brothers and sisters from ethnic, political, and economic backgrounds different from our own. The church isn’t a circle of friends, but the family of God.[4]

This family of God helps one another in spiritual growth by admonishing the idle, encouraging the fainthearted, helping the weak, all in patience and rejoicing (1 Thess. 5:14-18).  Neglecting to meet with the local church is discouraged in Scripture, as it is the means through which the community of faith stirs one another up to love and good works (Hebrews 10:22-25). “The key to maturity is time and community. Discernment takes time and a lot of godly input spanning generations and ethnicities.”[5]

The Ordinances. The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith states “Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ordinances of positive, and sovereign institution appointed by the Lord Jesus the only Law-giver, to be continued in his church to the end of the world” (Matt. 28:19-20; 1 Cor. 11:26).[6] The ordinances of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper have an important place in the life of the church. Baptism depicts the believer’s burial with Christ and resurrection and declares the gospel to the congregation. “Baptism is a visible sermon, informed by the Word, and entirely dependent on God’s Spirit to create the spiritual reality it depicts.”[7]

The Lord’s Supper is a means of sanctification in the life of the local church by marking out those who have been separated from the world in fellowship with Christ. Like Baptism, “the Lord’s Supper presents a visible sermon, and it is entirely dependent on God’s Spirit to create the spiritual communion between God and believers that it depicts.”[8]

The scriptural means used by God toward the progressive sanctification and spiritual maturity of his people are thus the Holy Spirit, the Word, and the church. 

Conclusion

Sanctification must be progressing. All believers should be maturing spiritually. For those who are believers in Christ, having been regenerated (John 3:1-5; 2 Cor. 5:17), sealed by the Spirit (Eph. 1:13-14), and united to other believers in church membership (1 Cor. 12:27), spiritual maturity should be the regular pattern of life and holiness must be the goal. 

Ironically, although the term “mature” has become synonymous with “old, stuck, boring,” it is more often the spiritually immature who are “stuck.” One way to help is to teach what the Bible says about spiritual maturity. God’s word is powerful, and those who truly here – who opened their hearts and submit to God– will experience change. But even the reading, studying, and preaching of the word of God cannot by themselves transform people from spiritual babies into spiritual adults. People need to be connected to the kind of nurturing and challenging Christian communities that can help them overcome juvenilization and grow up into Christ.[9]

The answer to juvenilization is theordinaryministry of discipleship in progressive sanctification carried out in obedience to Jesus by his church (Matt. 28:19-20; Rom. 10:17; 2 Tim. 1:13)[10]. May the church be bold in exhorting believers to grow up in Christ, handling accurately the Word of God that believers may learn the basic truths of the faith, equipping them to do the work of ministry as they mature (Eph. 4:11-16).

Notes:

[1] Louis Berkhof and Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, New ed (Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 1996), 535.

[2] Ryle, Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots, 21.

[3] Michael S. Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2014), 52.

[4] Ibid, 53.

[5] Ibid, 64.

[6] William L Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Valley Forge [Pa.]: Judson Press, 1969), 290.

[7] Mark Dever, The Church: The Gospel Made Visible (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2012), 107.

[8] Ibid, 110.

[9] Bergler, From Here to Maturity.

[10] Horton makes his point clearly that the church fosters immaturity by its allergy to the ordinary: “We have trouble believing that weak things like a fellow center speaking in Christ’s name both judgment and forgiveness, could actually expand Christ’s kingdom throughout the earth. Sure, there are sermons. We need good teachers. But surely a growing church needs something more impressive that will catch peoples attention than the regular proclamation of an instruction in God’s word. After all, it’s not by preaching the gospel but by living it that we draw people to Christ. At the very least, we need to have sermons that focus on topics that our neighbors might find more helpful or interesting.” Horton, Ordinary, 146-147.