We speak of the Christian life as having essentially three stages: justification, sanctification, and glorification. The first and last are single point-in-time events while the second consists of our entire life in between. Justification occurs at the time of our repentance and faith; that moment in time when the scales fall from our eyes and we see ourselves and our sin but also the amazing grace of God in His provision of Christ. We see the glory of God in Jesus Christ. It is that nearly instantaneous process whereby we repent and believe and God pronounces us just. Forgiven. Debt fully paid. Relationship fully restored. While it may be a long process that brings us to this point, justification itself is a point in time.
Glorification is similar in that it is a point in time where we are transformed immediately when we come into the presence of Christ, either at our physical death or when we meet him “in the air” at the Rapture. At that point in time, our sinful fleshly nature is completely removed and we are saved from the very presence of sin. We become at that moment fully what we were declared to be at justification.
Of course if we repent and become believers earlier in life, then we spend the majority of our lives “in between” in this phase the Bible calls sanctification. It is during this time that God works in us to conform us to the image of Christ, slowly working in us through His Spirit and His Word to convict us and shape us. Conforming us not to this world but transforming our minds – changing the way we think, the way we view everything in the world around us. Putting into us ever more the mind of Christ through our study of His Word. We become over time more and more “set apart” from this world and its thinking, also known as holiness. All of this is sanctification.
Sanctification in the life of a believer is progressive, meaning a process over time. We aren’t justified one day and suddenly very Christlike on day 2. We start on day 1 a lifelong process of learning, failing, falling, repenting, making some progress, and then repeating. The Bible describes sanctification as a war, as battles against our old fleshly nature and its lusts. Vast portions of the NT are about this war of sanctification.
In the life of a believer, we should indeed be progressing in sanctification, but what we have to watch out for is a very devious pride where we think we have arrived. A view known as “sinless perfection” where humans like you or I believe we have progressed to the point in sanctification that we no longer sin. Praise be to God, we have been saved and are sanctified (past tense) and don’t sin anymore. But that mentality is a very devious form of pride and is in itself sinful. Don’t take my word for it, this is the apostle John’s statement:
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
1 John 1:8, 10 ESV
As usual, there are two ditches one can fall into, one on each side of the road of most any doctrine. One ditch is called “antinomianism” which basically means anti-law. You’re saved by grace alone and are certainly not works-oriented so now you can live without concern as to the moral principles or laws of God. Live like the devil, you’re still saved by grace. As Paul referenced in Romans 6:1, it’s the ditch where we can sin without care because it just brings more glory to God’s graciousness! It is a ditch that shows we’ve not truly been justified yet because that isn’t indicative of true repentance. The other ditch is the sinless perfectionism where I believe I’ve progressed in sanctification to the point I no longer sin. These are the two extremes on each end of the spectrum. That ditch shows we have a very low view of the holiness of God and sin and doesn’t sound like a truly repentant heart that sees itself in light of the perfection of God. God’s own prophets (Daniel, Isaiah, etc.) when confronted with God’s presence immediately confessed themselves as sinners. Seeing God also shows you – yourself.
This article isn’t directed at those in either of the ditches; it’s directed at those of us that have avoided that. What has sat me at the keyboard to write is lately there have been several high-profile pastors that have been under church discipline. Men obviously not near either ditch, yet they have fallen into serious and now public sins that ruin their reputations and disqualify them and I ask myself why? Of course I do not personally know any of them and certainly can’t judge their hearts but there’s been something nagging at me that I can see could clearly contribute and is an issue we all face in our Christian lives. I’ll call it “over-realized sanctification” for now. We speak of those with an over-realized eschatology and we’re ushering in the kingdom of Christ right now, but this is an over-realized sanctification.
It stems from noticing a difference in what you hear and read today in our prayers and books and social media, and what you hear as you read the saints of old, most starkly in the Puritans. That difference is an over-realized sanctification, a view of ourselves that is inflated above, and quite markedly above, the view of the Puritans in their day. Even good, doctrinally sound, thoroughly reformed, tried and trusted believers and ministers that preach and teach sin and law and gospel today for the most part still sound different about our sanctification. Now that’s going to take a paragraph or two to build out so we understand what that “difference” is.
These days, we may have steered very far away from sinless perfectionism, but to hear us talk you’d think our view is we’ve still achieved a relatively high level of personal holiness. Let’s say in our minds, after all our study and striving to obey what we know, we believe we are at least 55% sanctified. We’ve had our bumps and bruises, our falls and repentances, but we’ve got an upward slant to our overall progression (as we should). We’re a little over halfway there. We are nowhere near saying we’re perfect, but we aren’t a pagan either. At glorification, we’ll get that last chunk and what a wonderful day that will be. So we haven’t arrived by any means, but we’re not doing too shabby either. You may or may not agree, but that’s what I think I’m seeing/hearing and can easily imagine it in some of these pastors that achieved a high level of recognition and fame. An over-realized sanctification.
But men who are far beyond me in sanctification don’t sound that way. There is a stark difference. I’m talking about the folks who poured their heart out in works like “The Valley of Vision“. Listen to some of these quotes and tell me this sounds anything like most of what you hear today.
O LORD, my every sense, member, faculty, affection, is a snare to me. I can scarce open my eyes but I envy those above me or despise those below…How soon do slanders, vain jests, and wanton speeches creep into my heart! … Thou knowest that all these are snares by my corruptions, and that my greatest snare is myself…Yet what canst thou expect of dust but levity, of corruption but defilement? Keep me ever mindful of my natural state, but let me not forget my heavenly title, or the grace that can deal with every sin.
Or this one…
O GOD, May thy Spirit speak in me that I may speak to thee, I have no merit, let the merit of Jesus stand for me. I am undeserving, but I look to thy tender mercy. I am full of infirmities, wants, sin; thou are full of grace. I confess my sin, my frequent sin, my willful sin; All my powers of body and soul are defiled; A fountain of pollution is deep within my nature … I am utterly ashamed that I am what I am in myself.
Or this one…
O Changeless God, Under the conviction of thy Spirit I learn that the more I do, the worse I am, the more I know, the less I know, the more holiness I have, the more sinful I am, the more I love, the more there is to love. O wretched man that I am! O Lord, I have a wild heart, and cannot stand before thee; I am like a bird before a man. How little I love thy truth and ways! … Give me a broken heart that yet carries home the water of grace.
I imagine these prayers were written by men we would consider paragons of virtue especially today; highly sanctified men who took their faith extremely seriously and were at constant war with their sin. Men whose lives were consumed with the gospel far beyond my level. Men much farther in their walk, much more progressively sanctified than myself. And yet men who knew themselves and their hearts. Men for whom Jeremiah 17:9 rang just as loud and true as John 3:16.
The higher their level of sanctification, the more they saw just how little they had progressed when measured against God. The closer they got to God, the more they knew of themselves and the more they saw and knew their indwelling sin. I see this in Isaiah and Peter and others in Scripture – when faced with the holiness of God, they saw the utter dirtiness of even their Christian selves. Men who knew they were and are Romans 7 men, holding on to Romans 8 promises of one day being glorified. And I have a strange fascination with this because I see it in me – every single day I am gifted to draw breath – I see my sin. Not that I’m out participating in drunken orgies, but my motives, my thoughts, those things that come out of my heart that I, only by the grace and restraint of God, (mostly) catch myself in. Daily. Hourly. The never-ending thought of “ME” and “I”. Thus I remain and actually increase in the recognition of my need of the perfection of Jesus Christ, and the absolutely vital doctrine of imputed righteousness. This is what brings tears to my eyes almost every time I consider it – because I know my sin, even now, and I feel every day my desperation for Christ and his righteousness as the only basis for ANY acceptance before God.
I have often asked why? Why does he leave us here with this old, rarely discussed anymore thing called indwelling sin in justified believers? Why aren’t justification and glorification coincidental? And I think I have my answer – to keep us dependent on Christ; desperately so. Indwelling sin in a justified believer, one who is alive by the Spirit, just keeps him close to the cross, knowing and feeling the preciousness of a perfect Savior and his perfect righteousness on our behalf – while he’s in his lifelong battle with his sin (and not comfort or license) till he draws his last breath. Those Puritan men who prayed like this knew that, felt that, and it comes across so well in their prayers. Not some “woe is me” false humility but they truly knew their wicked hearts even more so post-justification and that daily desperation for God comes out of that. They pour out their true love for and worship of God for who He is and what He has done. That’s what draws me to these prayers. It’s that John Newton sense of “Although my memory’s fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.”
Sanctify us, Lord. Sanctify us by the truth; your Word is truth. But keep us from an over-realized sanctification as ““Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Prov 16:18 KJV)