Spurgeon opens by insisting that all three persons of the Trinity cooperate in sanctification — cautioning against the common errors of picturing the Father as harsh judge, or of magnifying Christ's work while despising the Spirit's — and works through three distinct biblical meanings of the word "sanctify": being set apart for holy use (as the tabernacle vessels were consecrated, and as believers have been set apart by the Father's election, Christ's purchase, and the Spirit's calling), being regarded and treated as holy (as God views believers through Christ's righteousness, not in themselves), and being actually made holy in nature (the inward work of the Spirit that begins at regeneration, continues through mortification of sin and cultivation of grace, and is completed in glory). He is especially sharp against the error of "imputed sanctification" — the idea that Christ's holiness is merely credited to believers without any real inward transformation — arguing that this heresy was so dangerous that his predecessor Dr. Gill immediately excluded from church fellowship any member who held it, and insisting that the Spirit's real, operative work of changing the heart, applied through the Word of God and the blood of Christ received by faith, is as necessary to salvation as the atonement itself. He closes with two practical calls: to believers, that since they are set apart as vessels for God's use they are never to be used for worldly or selfish ends — just as the temple cups were not to be used for ordinary drinking — and to the unconverted, that since Heaven's gates are barred to pollution and sin, their only hope is to first come humbly to Christ for forgiveness, after which the Spirit's sanctifying work can begin.
Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on February 9, 1862.