Sure, I used to get really confused by all the various terms too! First let me address what your friend said. I believe what she was referring to is this passage:
1 Corinthians 7:13–17, And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches.
Ok, to really understand what he's saying here we need to first understand what the word sanctify means:
Sanctification is one of several possible English translations of qdš, hagios and their cognates. See *HOLINESS for usage. Context alone determines whether the translation should be holy, holiness, holy one, saints, consecrate, consecration, sanctify or sanctification. Even in individual passages translators do not always agree. Its broad meaning is the process by which an entity is brought into relationship with or attains the likeness of the holy....
....Sanctification occurs as a consequence of movement towards the Holy One, not as the basis for holiness.
New Bible dictionary
DEFINITION OF SANCTIFICATION: The process of spiritual growth toward the character image of Christ. ...Sanctification must be understood in two ways from its use in Scripture. There is positional sanctification, which means we are permanently “set apart” for God. That happened when we were born again; it is now complete and needs no further action (Acts 26:18). Then there is progressive sanctification, which is the moral and spiritual renewal, growth, and renovation whereby we are changed more and more into the character image of Christ. ...
....sanctification requires a mutual interplay between the initiating work of God and the responding work of man (even though man’s response, his willingness to respond, and his ability to respond are gifts of the Holy Spirit). Perhaps the central passage in Scripture that describes this process is Philippians 2:12–13, Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
30 days to understanding the Christian life in 15 minutes a day
OK, now let's look at the passage in context. Paul was talking about whether or not someone who was now a Christian should divorce their spouse if the spouse wasn't a believer. Remember in their culture they were accustomed to the idea that God has set apart the Jews and didn't want them intermarrying with those of other religions and/or cultures. They knew God had called them to be separate. So now they were wondering if now God wanted them to further separate themselves, since they also understood that it was a sin for a Christian to marry someone that wasn't a Christian. They were basically saying, "but we're already married so now what do I do?" To answer their question, Paul told them that as long as their spouse was agreeable to remaining married to them that they should stay in the marriage. To encourage them he explained that by staying in the marriage they would be sanctifying their unbelieving spouse and children.
Generally sanctification is used in relation to someone who's been saved so it's easy to misinterpret this that way. That's why you have to remember the other rule of studying the Bible. You don't interpret the bible, the bible interprets itself, and it never contradicts itself. When it seems to do so, as in this example, then the answer is to discover what else the Bible says on the subject matter.
I can assure you that nowhere in the bible, old or new testament, can anyone be saved in any way except through faith in Jesus. The only difference between salvation in the old testament and the new is that in the old testament people were saved by faith that God would send the Messiah to take care of the problem of sin, they just didn't know what His name would be. In the New Testament, we know His Name. But both were saved by faith in Christ. So we can know for sure that this passage is not saying that your spouse or children can be saved by you. They too must come to Christ.
If it's not saying that, then what is it saying? Well the easiest way to determine that is to again let the bible speak for itself. In the Old Testament when God declared someone or something "holy" or when He sanctified someone or something (means basically the same thing) He taught that if someone or something else came in contact with whatever He had sanctified, that person or thing also became "holy" or "sanctified". Not saved-just sanctified, holy. It did get pretty complicated but that's the basic idea. Here's a passage that describes this:
Haggai 2:11–13, “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Ask the priests what the law says: If a person carries consecrated meat in the fold of his garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, oil or other food, does it become consecrated?’ ” The priests answered, “No.” Then Haggai said, “If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?” “Yes,” the priests replied, “it becomes defiled.”
Consecrated meat was meat set apart for a specific sacrificial purpose (cf. Lev. 6:25; Num. 6:20). While the garment that might contain such meat would also be holy (cf. Lev. 6:27), that holiness of the garment could not be transferred to bread … stew … wine, oil, or any other food. But this is not true of ritual defilement, as indicated by the priests’ positive reply to Haggai’s question regarding the transmission of ritual uncleanness (Hag. 2:13). A person’s ceremonial defilement (e.g., by contact with a dead body) is as transferable to other things as is a contagious disease (cf. Lev. 11:28; 22:4-7).
The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures
The part about defilement doesn't apply to the Christian married to a non Christian spouse because the Christian is like the firstfruits offering and is holy, therefore making the whole "batch" of their family holy.
Romans 11:16, If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
Ezekiel 44:30, The best of all the firstfruits and of all your special gifts will belong to the priests. You are to give them the first portion of your ground meal so that a blessing may rest on your household.
James 1:18, He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
So what this all means is simply that God blesses the unsaved in the household because of the saved person. (Look at how He blessed Potiphar and all of Egypt even because of Joseph!) Because they both see how the believing person lives their life and they see the blessings from that persons life, they are more likely to become saved.
So in this passage sanctification doesn't refer to their personal standing but rather to the sanctity of the marriage itself and to the fact that the Christian will be a constant witness to them of God's reality and of the Gospel and of His blessings. Paul wanted to make sure that none of the Christians used their salvation as an excuse to dump their spouse as that wouldn't have been a good witness to the spouse. (remember, in the old testament, God did demand that the Israelites that had married outside their culture get rid of their foreign wives and children. Ezra 9:1-Ezra 10:17)
Now with that out of the way we can go on to the other part of your question. I'll do that in my next post. I hope this helped!
1 Corinthians 7:13–17, And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches.
Ok, to really understand what he's saying here we need to first understand what the word sanctify means:
Sanctification is one of several possible English translations of qdš, hagios and their cognates. See *HOLINESS for usage. Context alone determines whether the translation should be holy, holiness, holy one, saints, consecrate, consecration, sanctify or sanctification. Even in individual passages translators do not always agree. Its broad meaning is the process by which an entity is brought into relationship with or attains the likeness of the holy....
....Sanctification occurs as a consequence of movement towards the Holy One, not as the basis for holiness.
New Bible dictionary
DEFINITION OF SANCTIFICATION: The process of spiritual growth toward the character image of Christ. ...Sanctification must be understood in two ways from its use in Scripture. There is positional sanctification, which means we are permanently “set apart” for God. That happened when we were born again; it is now complete and needs no further action (Acts 26:18). Then there is progressive sanctification, which is the moral and spiritual renewal, growth, and renovation whereby we are changed more and more into the character image of Christ. ...
....sanctification requires a mutual interplay between the initiating work of God and the responding work of man (even though man’s response, his willingness to respond, and his ability to respond are gifts of the Holy Spirit). Perhaps the central passage in Scripture that describes this process is Philippians 2:12–13, Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
30 days to understanding the Christian life in 15 minutes a day
OK, now let's look at the passage in context. Paul was talking about whether or not someone who was now a Christian should divorce their spouse if the spouse wasn't a believer. Remember in their culture they were accustomed to the idea that God has set apart the Jews and didn't want them intermarrying with those of other religions and/or cultures. They knew God had called them to be separate. So now they were wondering if now God wanted them to further separate themselves, since they also understood that it was a sin for a Christian to marry someone that wasn't a Christian. They were basically saying, "but we're already married so now what do I do?" To answer their question, Paul told them that as long as their spouse was agreeable to remaining married to them that they should stay in the marriage. To encourage them he explained that by staying in the marriage they would be sanctifying their unbelieving spouse and children.
Generally sanctification is used in relation to someone who's been saved so it's easy to misinterpret this that way. That's why you have to remember the other rule of studying the Bible. You don't interpret the bible, the bible interprets itself, and it never contradicts itself. When it seems to do so, as in this example, then the answer is to discover what else the Bible says on the subject matter.
I can assure you that nowhere in the bible, old or new testament, can anyone be saved in any way except through faith in Jesus. The only difference between salvation in the old testament and the new is that in the old testament people were saved by faith that God would send the Messiah to take care of the problem of sin, they just didn't know what His name would be. In the New Testament, we know His Name. But both were saved by faith in Christ. So we can know for sure that this passage is not saying that your spouse or children can be saved by you. They too must come to Christ.
If it's not saying that, then what is it saying? Well the easiest way to determine that is to again let the bible speak for itself. In the Old Testament when God declared someone or something "holy" or when He sanctified someone or something (means basically the same thing) He taught that if someone or something else came in contact with whatever He had sanctified, that person or thing also became "holy" or "sanctified". Not saved-just sanctified, holy. It did get pretty complicated but that's the basic idea. Here's a passage that describes this:
Haggai 2:11–13, “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Ask the priests what the law says: If a person carries consecrated meat in the fold of his garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, oil or other food, does it become consecrated?’ ” The priests answered, “No.” Then Haggai said, “If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?” “Yes,” the priests replied, “it becomes defiled.”
Consecrated meat was meat set apart for a specific sacrificial purpose (cf. Lev. 6:25; Num. 6:20). While the garment that might contain such meat would also be holy (cf. Lev. 6:27), that holiness of the garment could not be transferred to bread … stew … wine, oil, or any other food. But this is not true of ritual defilement, as indicated by the priests’ positive reply to Haggai’s question regarding the transmission of ritual uncleanness (Hag. 2:13). A person’s ceremonial defilement (e.g., by contact with a dead body) is as transferable to other things as is a contagious disease (cf. Lev. 11:28; 22:4-7).
The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures
The part about defilement doesn't apply to the Christian married to a non Christian spouse because the Christian is like the firstfruits offering and is holy, therefore making the whole "batch" of their family holy.
Romans 11:16, If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
Ezekiel 44:30, The best of all the firstfruits and of all your special gifts will belong to the priests. You are to give them the first portion of your ground meal so that a blessing may rest on your household.
James 1:18, He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
So what this all means is simply that God blesses the unsaved in the household because of the saved person. (Look at how He blessed Potiphar and all of Egypt even because of Joseph!) Because they both see how the believing person lives their life and they see the blessings from that persons life, they are more likely to become saved.
So in this passage sanctification doesn't refer to their personal standing but rather to the sanctity of the marriage itself and to the fact that the Christian will be a constant witness to them of God's reality and of the Gospel and of His blessings. Paul wanted to make sure that none of the Christians used their salvation as an excuse to dump their spouse as that wouldn't have been a good witness to the spouse. (remember, in the old testament, God did demand that the Israelites that had married outside their culture get rid of their foreign wives and children. Ezra 9:1-Ezra 10:17)
Now with that out of the way we can go on to the other part of your question. I'll do that in my next post. I hope this helped!
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