‘And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he who calls you who also will do it.'
Paul's final prayer and exhortation is an important one. It draws the attention away from the doctrine of the coming of Christ to its purpose, that His people may be sanctified fully and be presented before Him ‘without blame'. Holiness is the objective, the second coming a spur towards it.
First we see the author of this activity. It is ‘the God of peace', a regular description of God. He is with His people (Romans 15:33; 2 Corinthians 13:11), through Jesus Christ He has broken down the wall of partition that separated us from Him (Ephesians 2:14), He will bruise Satan under their feet shortly (Romans 16:20), He is with those who allow themselves to be perfected and made strong, who are of the same mind and live in peace (2 Corinthians 13:11), and with those whose minds are set on what is good, pure, just and lovely (Philippians 4:9), He is the One Who gives peace at all times and in all ways (2 Thessalonians 3:16), and, through Jesus Christ the risen Shepherd, He will make His people perfect in every good thing to do His will, working in them what is pleasing in His sight (Hebrews 13:20).
Thus the idea is of reconciliation, of being delivered from sin's power into a life of positive goodness and positive thinking so that we may enjoy His presence, of being delivered from the Evil One, and of being made fit for His presence.
‘Sanctify you wholly.' To sanctify means to set apart to God, and when used of God's action on man speaks of the process of being transformed into God-likeness and to eventually being wholly without sin and without blemish. The verb here is in the aorist and thus seen as one complete action. This is God's purpose for His people, their total sanctification. It is not referring to initial sanctification (contrast 1 Corinthians 1:2) which they have already experienced, but to the whole range of God's sanctifying work. It includes acceptability to God and total deliverance from sin and evil, and in the end final transformation to Godlikeness. Thus its effect will be total, as is emphasised by the ‘wholly'. It will permeate into body, soul and spirit. And its result will be presentation before God ‘without blame'.
‘Your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire.' This is presenting three aspects of a human being but is not to be taken as a ‘scientific' analysis of man's make up showing three separate parts. Indeed it is stressed that they are to be preserved ‘entire', that is ‘complete in all its parts'. Paul sought the preservation of the whole man. Jesus spoke of a man's ‘heart and soul and mind and strength' (Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27) and of his ‘flesh -- and spirit'. It is clear that it is suggesting that man (or at least a man in Christ - John 3:6) is not just body and mind, that there is a spiritual and heavenly aspect to his make-up, but how these relate to each other is never explained, and probably could not be in a way that we could understand.
When man was first made ‘a living soul' (Genesis 2:7; 1 Corinthians 15:45) it no doubt included all these aspects (man was made ‘in God's image' - Genesis 1:27), but something of this was lost and awaited Christ's ‘life-giving' work (1 Corinthians 15:45). What Christ did and will give, more than makes up for what was lost (2 Peter 1:4).
John's Gospel speaks of man as ‘flesh and spirit', where flesh represents man as he is in relation to the world and spirit the new-born aspect of a believer (John 3:6). So Christ was made flesh and dwelt among us. There is no idea of ‘sinful flesh' in John, flesh is what man is.
‘Without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.' The sanctifying process, which includes justification, will result in our being presented ‘without blame' at the coming of Jesus Christ. This will be the result our justification in Christ, the work of the Spirit within and of the final transformation wrought at His coming (1 Corinthians 15:52).
‘Faithful is he who calls you who also will do.' This final result is the consequence of God's faithfulness. It is He Who will bring it about. Seen from the point of view of eternity our salvation is His work and not ours, and depends only on His faithfulness. See the whole process as described in Romans 8:28-30 and Ephesians 1:4-11 and compare 1 Corinthians 1:8-9. The calling is continual until the last one has been called. Notice the ‘do'. He not only calls, He acts.