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I just have to say that I have trouble with the term ‘Progressive sanctification.’ If you mean by the term growing in grace, growing in love, faith, knowledge and commitment to Christ, I can agree with that, but if you mean, as you said in your post, growing in holiness, or gradually attaining higher degrees of holiness, I say, how can that be? How can we contribute to our own holiness? And if, as we all agree, sanctification is essential to salvation, then works (our contribution) can have no part in it, can it? It has to be all of grace, doesn’t it?
Perhaps you need to consider the TWO biblical truths concerning sanctification? There is that "Definitive Sanctification" where God looks upon us as complete in Christ due to His work for us. We are holy in Him by virtue of His vicarious substitutionary atonement. In short, God having predestined the elect "to be holy" (Eph 1:4), "to be conformed to the image of His Son" (Rom 8:29), knows the end before it actually occurs. Yet, He has also ordained the means by which the end is accomplished in us to that end. Notice the verb usage by Paul in the two aforementioned verses. They both employ "to be" which connote purpose, intent, telos. Although by virtue of Christ's righteousness being imputed to us, by which we are forensically holy; declared righteous, we are in fact anything but righteous or holy in and of ourselves.

The purpose of God to save in Christ includes not only a judicial declaration of justification but a sovereign and progressive work of sanctification, wherein the believer is made holy through the transformation of his soul; putting off the old man and putting on the new man, "which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." (Eph 4:24). We have in principle put off the old man and "have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him:". And what is this putting off of the old man but repentance from sin and the putting on the new man but living in accordance with what God considers righteous and holy, i.e., the moral law of God, which every true believer delights in and serves as a bondservant to Christ. (Rom 6 & 7)

When the author of Hebrews writes, "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:" (Heb 12:14), he isn't talking about a forensic sanctification (definitive sanctification), but a holiness which one possesses due to the transformation of the soul by the working of the indwelling Spirit.

It is surely "all of grace". Sanctification, the putting off of sin and the putting on of holiness, is but evidence of grace possessed (Jam 1:26). It contributes nothing to one's right standing before God. But it does demonstrate to the believer and to the household of God, that God is indeed working in him/her. This also is one of the fundamental evidences which brings assurance to a believer, as well as being most pleasing to God, Who would have all His children conformed to the image of the Lord Christ. Again, sanctification contributes NOTHING to one's reconciliation to God. That, from beginning to end is Christ's doing. But without progressive sanctification, there is no indication nor warrant to believe that they have been reconciled to God.

You might want to read these articles which set forth the biblical teaching of sanctification:

Definitive Sanctification, by John Murray.

Sanctification, by Thomas Watson.

The Necessity of Progress, by John Angell James.

Will the Unholy be Saved?, by Iain Murray.

The Gradual Conquest, by Ralph Erskine.

A Discourse of Mortification, by Stephen Charnock.

Growth in Grace, by Archibald Alexander.

A Call to Separation, by A.W. Pink.

In His Grace,


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simul iustus et peccator

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