Impartation, Not Imitation

In the book Our Brilliant Heritage Oswald Chambers addresses the mystery of sanctification:

"Sanctification does not put us into the place that Adam was in and require us to fulfil the will of God as He makes it known to us; sanctification is something infinitely more than that. In Jesus Christ is perfect holiness, perfect patience, perfect love, perfect power over all the power of the enemy, perfect power over everything that is not of God, and sanctification means that all that is ours in Him. The writer to the Hebrews does not tell us to imitate Jesus when we are tempted; he says--'Come to Jesus, and He will succour you in the nick of time.' That is, all His perfect overcoming of temptation is ours in Him.

"We have heard it put in this way so often--When faced with difficulties, we do not try to brace ourselves up by prayer to meet them, but by the power of the grace of God we let the perfections of Jesus Christ be manifested in us. Jesus Christ does not give us power to work up a patience like His own. His patience is manifested if we will let His life dwell in us. So many have the idea that in sanctification we draw from Jesus the power to be holy. We draw from Jesus the holiness that was manifested in Him, and He manifests it in us. This is the mystery of sanctification.

"Sanctification does not mean that the Lord gives us the ability to produce by a slow, steady process a holiness like His; it is His holiness in us. By sanctification we understand experimentally what Paul says in 1 Corinthians i.30--'Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us . . . sanctification.' Whenever Paul speaks of sanctification, he speaks of it as an impartation, never an imitation. Imitation comes in on a different line. Paul does not say, nor does the Spirit of God say anywhere, that after we are born again of the Spirit of God, Jesus Christ is put before us as an Example and we make ourselves holy by drawing from Him. Never! Sanctification is Christ formed in us; not the Christ-life, but Christ Himself. In Jesus Christ is the perfection of everything, and the mystery of sanctification is that we may have in Jesus Christ, not the start of holiness, but the holiness of Jesus Christ. All the perfections of Jesus Christ are at our disposal if we have been initiated into the mystery of sanctification. No wonder men cannot explain this mystery for the joy and the rapture and the marvel of it all, and no wonder men see it when it is there, for it works out everywhere."