progressive sanctification

We don’t strive to live rightly and overcome our sin as if acceptance from God or even His love lies therein. We press into Him and love Him (i.e. live righteously) because while we are sinners He loves us, an as we are consumed by the ever growing knowledge of His love and sacrifice for us, our love for Him is simultaneously effected to grow at the rate of His revelation to us. It is a constant revelation of hope until the fruition is reveled in glory, while on earth we call this process progressive sanctification (1Thessalonians 4). 

Progressive Sanctification is not the progressive accumulation of holiness or righteousness, as if that would be something we could obtain, it is not. Rather, progressive sanctification is the daily transformation of our lives from the broken state in which we are born to the perfection of Jesus Christ to be completed in death. Progressive sanctification is everyday life; it is the fight that we are in. It is Paul beating His body into submission (1Corinthians 9:27) and every exhortation from the saints to turn from our sin, to hate evil, love good, it is the progressive revelation of who God is. Those who detest the very thought of progressive sanctification misunderstand its definition. This process is not about me making myself righteous, but about God glorifying himself through me (a mere vessel created to praising Him) in new ways, maturing me everyday until the day of fruition.

True progressive sanctification refers only to the growth that God causes in us as we live and breath upon this earth. There is no shortage of scripture to testify of growth, i.e. the scriptures bear witness of Christians who are more mature than others. Paul teaches us to be sensitive towards our younger brothers, e.g. Romans 14:13-23. In that passage the younger brother is ignorant of his freedom to enjoy everything that God has made. This implies that even though he is “the one for whom Christ died” the way in which God is glorified in the younger brother’s actions is not yet complete. Someday he may realize that everything, which God has made, may be used to glorify Him (Rom. 14:20, 1Cor. 8:7, Acts 10:15). The day that his ignorance is replace (by God) with knowledge is progress, the man gains understanding and therein a new reason to praise God. That is the way in which God progressively makes us more like Christ, day to day. This is not to replace or even increase salvation.

The very nature of salvation negates the possibility of enhancement; it is foolish and heretical to believe that someone may be more saved than another. The event of salvation is absolute in itself, i.e. there are no varying degrees of salvation, just as there are no varying degrees of squares. You can not look at two squares and say that one square is squarer then the other, the defining attributes of a square are four equal sides and four right angles, therefore one square cannot, in essence, differ from another. If an object lacks any one of those properties it is not a square. In the same way, salvation is obtained by grace alone and it contains no other attributes, nothing but grace is attributed towards the definition of salvation (Romans 3:28; Galatians 2:16, 3:10a). But works throughout progressive sanctification provide evidence of salvation (James 2). The progress may only be made after the redemption of a man’s soul and is in no way contributive to the salvation itself.