Progressive Sanctification

I John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

We are not to sin, but if we do sin we have an Advocate before the Father!

We confess our sin and then we start dying to self again. If self raises it's ugly head then we confess again and then die to self. This is the process. The more we mature and the more we grow hopefully the less we have to confess.

It's not a matter of being perfect, but blameless.

 

If we havent turned over the riens to Him, is that really salvation? I can't reconcile that it could be.

But being that Christ and the Holy Spirit are both God, and we receive the HS at salvation, I still say you cant seperate the two. Its like saying you got Jesus, but not the HS until later when He begins that process of showing you that He needs to be boss. Either He is boss or He aint.

JJump, I think I understand where you are coming from, because there was much I didnt understand when I accepted Christ. And I had a youth minister who I loved very much, and still respect to this day lead me in a prayer making Him my Lord a few years after my salvation. Looking back, I dont think that was necessary, - I was following my youth minister's teaching. Its a daily process to make Him "Lord of our lives", which begins the day one is saved. And that is what I understand to be progressive sanctification.

 

Well, I'd gone to bed but was reading Lloyd-Jones Sermon on the Mount and saw this and it seemed so applicable I wanted to share:You see the Christian is one who at one and the same time is hungering and thirsting, and yet he is filled. And the more he is filled the more he hungers and thirsts. You reach a certain stage in sanctification, but you do not rest upon that for the rest of your life. You go on changing from glory into glory 'till in heaven we take our place'. 'Of his fullness have we received and grace upon grace', grace added to grace. It goes on and on; perfect, yet not perfect; hungering, thirsting, yet filled and satisfied, but longing for more, never having enough because it is so glorious and so wondrous; fully satisfied by Him and yet a supreme desire to 'know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if my any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.'Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.'God bless!

 

I am with ya'll on "When you accept Christ you are accepting Him as Lord and Savior."

You are right, these 2 probably do not go hand in hand. It has been awhile since systematic. But, if I remember correctly that from a Baptist perspective, especially SBC, reformed theology might be tempered a little in this area.

I know when I have heard this explained, I have always thought "works based", but that does not mean that I understood what I heard.

The Roman's Road doesn't give me a picture of progressive sanctification, IMHO it gives a salvation.

Rom 10: 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Rom 5: 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

Just some musings . . .

 

which is exactly why I think so many people think all there is to getting saved is saying that prayer. Maybe we are falling down on the job.

 

I know, but I am looking at those Scriptures as I struggle with progressive sanctification.

I think 'we' as the Church in America has fallen down a great deal in regards to real Faith and Discipleship. Easy believism is too easy of a term to describe it, but easy believism is often what we are left with when so many converts church shop.

musing again.

 

so do you think we are really making converts?

 

Ouch! You ask the deep questions.

Yes, I think we are. And I think that we are making disciples.

But, because the culture has changed so drastically and we did not keep up with the change, I think we are making half as many as we did 40 years ago. 30 years ago when people came to Jesus, they knew they needed to change. I meet so many people that do not have a sense of "I was a sinner destined to damnation."

I still feel that. And if I get to Judgement and He says, "Well I changed my mind. You are going to damnation" I will say, "That is what I earned, I never deserved any different apart from the Blood of Jesus."

 

Everyone's salvation is based on work...that is, the work of God in the lives of the elect.

Joseph Botwinick

 

Absolutely as long as you believe/have faith in the substitutionary death and shed blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God, to pay your sin debt.

Jesus as the Sacrifice is the ONLY thing that matters when it comes to eternal salvation. Christ as the King does not save eternally, it is Jesus as the Lamb that saves eternally.

Once a person is spiritually alive and ONLY then can a person make the choice to make Christ Lord of their lives. Making Christ Lord has nothing to do with eternal salvation. Making Christ Lord has to do with right living or works, so we know that has nothing to do with eternal salvation, because "our" works are not involved in eternal salvation.

A good example of this is in I Corinthians when Paul was addressing believers as fleshly or carnal believers because they were still drinking the milk when they should have been on the meat of the Word. They hadn't made Christ Lord of their lives yet. They were still interested in doing what they wanted to do instead of what the Father's will was for their lives.

I agree you get the Holy Spirit at the moment you are saved. But that doesn't mean He automatically starts the sanctification process. If you do not give Him permission to work in your life then He will not. God does not force a person to be a disciple. That is a choice that has a price to be paid and the price must be weighed.

Not all Christians are disciples of Christ, because there are numerous Christians today that are more interested in living their life they way they want to instead of doing the Father's will.

The Biblical saying that you can save your life now (live how you want to) and lose it in the age to come or you can lose your life now (die to self and do the Father's will) and find your life in the age to come holds just as true today as it did then.

You are absolutely right when you say He is either boss or He's not. And if you are not dying to self moment by moment then you are saying that He is not boss of me, but I am.

I would agree that it wasn't necessary to say a prayer to make Christ Lord of your life, I think it's just a matter of dying to self and doing the will of the Father. If I'm doing that then Christ is Lord. If I'm not doing that then I am lord of my life.

As Christians we are either walking in the Spirit or we are walking in the flesh. And there are consequences both here and now and in the age to come for both.

Exactly. One must decide each and every day who/Who is going to be lord/Lord of their lives. Some people may be further along and able to understand those things on the very day they are saved, but others it takes more time to teach them what that truly means.

 

If you are asking if there is a Scripture that bluntly says there is a difference between accepting Jesus as Savior and Christ as Lord the answer to that is no.

However you can see the truth throughout the NT Scriptures contextually.

Again Jesus as the Sacrifice is the ONLY thing that is required for eternal salvation, because that is the ONLY thing that matters. His death and shed blood as our sacrifice is the ONLY thing that saves us.

Him being the King, Master, Annointed One, etc. only comes into play after the moment of salvation.

That's why in the Gospel accounts people say we have found the Christ, or we have found the Messiah or we have found the Annointed One.

They weren't looking for Jesus the Sacrifice. They were looking for the King of the kingdom. And the very King they were looking for had drawn near to them. But for a variety of different reasons many didn't accept Him as King.

Christ was on earth offering a kingdom to the nation of Israel.

Eternal salvation for the world today has to do with putting us in a spiritual position and spiritual condition to even recognize and understand Christ as King. Then we either accept Him as King or we remain king of our own lives and again there are consequences for both decisions.

Progressive sanctification has to do with entrance into the kingdom.

Someone said it well earlier. It's the idea that I have been saved (past eternal salvation that is a done deal never to be reversed) and I am being saved (progressive sanctification that comes after eternal salvation) and I will be saved (future salvation that has to do with the body and soul).

Unfortunately there are Christians that are not being saved, because they have quenched the Spirit and continuing to be their own master. And because of that they will not be saved in the future (having to do with the kingdom not eternity).

 

There is the word "transform-metamorpho" in the koine NT from which we get the English word metamorphosis which at least in English implies a progressive change.

Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.​

2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.​

From glory to glory. His glory is the reason for our sanctification.
​

John 17:10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.

 

Hank

I like the metamorphasis bit - think it may be dangerous using the English etymology of a word to define a word in the Greek - but, I like that.

Hank in that last line were you wanting me to believe that Jesus was progressively sanctified? He was crucified once for all.

 

J Jump,

This was a pretty good post. But, when your Scriptural answer is no, but you can see it contextually - I gotta ask: "How do you see it?"

'Cause, I have never seen contextual theology in my NT. Their context was a lot different. They were a slave (40 - 60%) republic (that had no democracy). I'll leave their context at that - but, how can you see progressive sanctification contextually? What Scripture could jump out and say, "Here I am - see my context says that you are progressively sanctified!"

My answer is no - I do not see that in Scripture, nor do I see the contextual example you allude to.

 

Pastor

After reading these last posts - I gotta ask myself, "What progressive sanctification are we discussing. 'Cause the one I know anything about (very little) is from the reformed camp.'

Is this connected with some kind of kingdom theology?

 

No, I simply quoted the verse which speaks of the glory He receives from us.


HankD

 

El Guero I think you missed the point of my post. My point is there is not a verse that says word for word what pastorsbc is searching for at least from me. That Scripture doesn't exist.

But theology and doctrine is built on comparing Scripture with Scripture, building precept upon precept and line upon line. When we do that it is very clear that eternal salavtion and progressive sanctification is different.

It is very clear that we are to accept Jesus as Savior to deal with eternal issues and that we are then to allow Him to be the Christ the Lord of our lives to deal with issues after eternal salvation.

My Scriptural answer is not "no", but that it's not going to be in the form that most people want. In today's society we want to be able to go to one Scripture and say this is truth. We want an answer that comes in 30 seconds are we start to tune out.

The Bible is not laid out that way. We are to build and build and build and continue building until God takes us out or Christ returns for the church.

Hope that clarifies.