It’s not unusual to hear about God’s refining work within a believers life. God sanctifies believers through trials and commonly the refining of precious metals is invoked as an object lesson.
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 1:6-7
However, there’s another aspect to refinement. It is often found in the same context as these references to fire refinement, but it is not as often discussed. This part is also vital to understand.
Not Everything is Valuable
The process of refinement is to collect out a pure metal (perhaps silver or gold) out of other minerals. The goal is the gold! However, there is another product of this process as well. That product is the dross. When minerals are melted down, things like wrought iron and other impurities form on the surface of the molten metal as a layer of scum.
The dross is scraped off the top of the molten metal so that all of the impurities can be removed. Only then is the remaining metal made pure.
Throughout the Old Testament, God refined Israel on many occasions.
In the whole land, declares the Lord,
Zechariah 13:8-9
two thirds shall be cut off and perish,
and one third shall be left alive.
And I will put this third into the fire,
and refine them as one refines silver,
and test them as gold is tested.
They will call upon my name,
and I will answer them.
I will say, ‘They are my people’;
and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’
This is an example where the process of refining metal is explicitly referenced. As you can see, 1/3 of the people will be his remnant, his silver and gold. They will be his people. However, it’s important not to overlook the 2/3rds who he will put to death. This is often found when Israel had turned away and God intervened to put an end to their wickedness.
For thus says the Lord God: How much more when I send upon Jerusalem my four disastrous acts of judgment, sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast! But behold, some survivors will be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out; behold, when they come out to you, and you see their ways and their deeds, you will be consoled for the disaster that I have brought upon Jerusalem, for all that I have brought upon it. They will console you, when you see their ways and their deeds, and you shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, declares the Lord God.”
Ezekiel 14:21-23
While the goal was to preserve for himself a people, the process often resulted in more being enslaved or dying than those who were preserved.
Does it apply to the church?
Some will say that the severity of this process has been reduced or removed entirely by Jesus. Sure, God used to take extreme action to purify his people, but now mercy means we should never take action to separate from unbelievers. After all, the world is the mission field!
Maybe we should look to Jesus instruction to the 72 disciples that he sent out to spread the message of God’s kingdom. What about those who didn’t receive the message? Surely, they need to stick around because they require more convincing, right?
But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.
Luke 10:10-12
That still wasn’t before he died to redeem his church though. Shouldn’t the church go out of its way to include those who reject salvation most of all?
Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.
2 John 1:9-11
As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.
Titus 3:10-11
There are many other examples of commands for the church to have nothing to do with someone who willfully denies the teaching of Christ. This is not to say that a person should be excommunicated over a sinful act. However, if they refuse to even acknowledge what God has explicitly called sin (sexual immorality, murder, gossip, envy, or whatever other pet sin of the age is considered “good”), we should break all fellowship.
Doing so is better for them and the church than allowing them to remain and hoping we “rub off” on them.
“Thus says the Lord of hosts: Ask the priests about the law: ‘If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy?’” The priests answered and said, “No.” Then Haggai said, “If someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?” The priests answered and said, “It does become unclean.” Then Haggai answered and said, “So is it with this people, and with this nation before me, declares the Lord, and so with every work of their hands. And what they offer there is unclean.
Haggai 2:11-14
This was a lesson God taught to people who thought that, by participating in the worship of God superficially, they would be made holy. Here he is explaining that, instead, worship which would have been holy is instead perverted by the participation of those who do not worship in truth.
A church which keeps fellowship with those who openly promote the sins of their age rather than humbly submitting to the commands of Christ make the fellowship impure before God, and will not be made holy by participating with the church.
What is the dross in sanctification of an individual?
Not only is it important for God’s people corporately to put out those who deny Christ, but it is also important to recognize that God’s refining process in our lives is not without it’s dross. Those things which are part of our lives, but must be put off to be made valuable.
Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
1 Corinthians 3:12-15
Here we see a much more personal refinement. Each and every moment we spend in this life can be spent trusting and following Christ or in pursuit of ourselves. You’ll notice at the end, each believer will be saved despite the works lost in the refining process (those things we do which have no eternal value). However, when Christ returns, the valuable stuff isn’t what we do for us. It’s what Christ does through us.
A life lived for ourselves or some worldly philosophy will be utterly destroyed on that day. It is the waste of our lives, to be scraped off or burned up so that what has real value can be preserved! The purity of our lives, corporately and individually, matters. Diligently seek what will last!
