Keswicks, including Exchanged Life proponents like
Sozo (aka Ghost, Mystery, Door), confuse
justification and
sanctification.
The indwelling of the Spirit enables the believer to
become holy, as commanded by Scripture, during our walk of faith, our sanctification. By becoming holy, we mean that of separation in consecration and devotion to the service of God.
While the Reformers understood that man is justified by faith alone, they also understood that the faith which justifies is not alone.
Justification is at once followed by sanctification, since God sends the Holy Spirit into the hearts of His people as soon as they are justified, and that Spirit is the Spirit of sanctification.
The grace of sanctification is not some supernatural essence that is infused in man, rather it is a supernatural and gracious work of the Holy Spirit, primarily through the Word, secondarily through the sacraments, by which the Spirit delivers us more and more from the power of sin and enables us to do good works.
With sanctification, the soul is gradually renewed from its present marred state, to that of the image of Christ,
from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (II Cor. 3:18). The body is consecrated in the present to be a fit instrument of the renewed soul, and will at endure be raised up in the likeness of Christ's glorified body (Phil. 3:21). Note here there is no spirit, soul, body trichotomous distinctions that the Keswicks, Exchanged Lifers, etc., would impose. Just the dichotomous soul and body. Being
in Christ, believers thus share in all the blessings which Christ merited for his people.
By this mystical union with Christ, believers, through sanctification, not justification, are changed into His image according to His human nature. What Our Lord effects in His people, the elect, can be viewed in a sense that is a replica or a reproduction of what took place with Him. This view is not only objective, but also in a very real subjective sense, the believers suffer, bear the cross, are crucified, die, and are raised in newness of life, with Christ. The believers share in a measure Our Lord’s experiences (for example, see, Matthew 16:24; Romans 6:5; Galatians 2:20; Colossians 1:24; 2:12; 3:1; I Peter 4:13).
It is
not the case that true Christian Faith is antinomian, having nothing to do with law. The law is "
holy, just, and good." The law is distilled (
not evaporated away) into "
love."
Love is certainly no antithesis to faith. Sin is contrary to faith, and sin is lawlessness. Divine law exists to arrest and condemn the lawless and to oppose everything that is "contrary to sound doctrine." So, in NT terms, law ends up on the right side of our religion, not on the flip-side. The law is a revealer of truth, a beacon to draw to safety and to warn from danger, a light to one's path.
Belief in Jesus Christ frees us from the curse of the law, but we are not freed from the command and obedience of the law. Indeed we are tied to obedience by a new obligation, a new command from Jesus Christ, a command that Christ used to help us obey, a command that God the Father added his authority and command: "
this is his commandment, that we believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he hath commanded us." (1 John 3:23).
AMR
