Did you know there are 5 views on sanctification?
While definitive sanctification is a once-for-all act of God in breaking the bondage of sin in believers’ lives, progressive sanctification is the ongoing work of God’s grace whereby the Holy Spirit enables the regenerate to put sin to death more and more in their lives. The Westminster Shorter Catechism offers the following succinct definition of progressive sanctification: “Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness” (Q&A 34). The goal of progressive sanctification is conformity to the image of Jesus Christ.
When the Holy Spirit unites a sinner to Christ, He begins the progress of renewing the whole person. Because sin has affected every part of fallen mankind, sanctification affects renewal throughout the whole person. The New Testament especially highlights the fruit of the Spirit in the Christian life.
In His Upper Room Discourse, Jesus spoke of imparting to His disciples His love (John 15:9–10), His joy (John 15:11; 17:13), and His peace (John 14:27). The fruit of the Spirit is the fruit of Christ being formed in the lives of His people by the Holy Spirit.
In justification, adoption, and definitive sanctification, God is the only acting agent.
In progressive sanctification, believers have a role to play, though their actions are motivated and sustained by the work of God in them.
As the Apostle Paul told the Philippians to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12–13). Believers are called by God to put sin to death in their lives by the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:13; 13:12; Col. 3:9). The Holy Spirit is the agent of sanctification as He works in believers to make them willing and ready to put sin to death in their lives.
The Spirit of God works through God’s appointed means for the sanctification of His people. The central means of sanctification are the Word of God, the sacraments, and prayer. However, God has also appointed fellowship and church discipline to be means of grace and holiness. Believers are conformed to the image of Christ as they give themselves to a due use of the means of grace. The more believers pursue sanctified living by the power of the Spirit through the means of grace, the more they will delight in God and His goodness.
Progressive sanctification is an ongoing work of God’s grace because no believer will attain sinless perfection in this life. Recognizing the reality of indwelling sin and the war within between the flesh and the Spirit is vital to the engagement of this work of mortification. Spiritual warfare against the flesh is rooted in the fact that Christ has already overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. In the nineteenth century—as in the early church—various forms of perfectionism began to take root in evangelical circles. The Princeton theologian B.B. Warfield wrote a significant refutation of perfectionism.
At the consummation, when Christ comes again, believers will be made perfect in holiness. For all eternity, those whom Christ has redeemed will dwell in the presence of God without any sinful imperfection. The Holy Spirit will secure them in perfect holiness, from which they will never be able to fall into sin. In the new heavens and new earth, believers will dwell together in unblemished holiness for all eternity.
Quotes
It is by virtue of our having died with Christ and our being raised with him in his resurrection from the dead that the decisive breach with sin in its power, control, and defilement had been wrought, and that the reason for this is that Christ in his death and resurrection broke the power of sin, triumphed over the god of this world, the prince of darkness, executed judgment upon the world and its ruler, and by that victory delivered all those who were united to him from the power of darkness and translated them into his own kingdom. So intimate is the union between Christ and his people that they were partakers with him in all these triumphal achievements and therefore died to sin, rose with Christ in the power of his resurrection, and have the fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. As the death and resurrection are central in the whole process of redemptive accomplishment, so is it central in that by which sanctification itself is wrought in the hearts and lives of God’s people.
Sanctification - Ligonier Ministries
