Is sanctification progressive? Do I get more sanctified over time? Another way to ask this is am I being made more holy or righteous as time goes by? Am I holier or more sanctified today than I was last year or last month or yesterday? Will I be holier and more sanctified next year at this time than I am right now? Do I slow, hinder, or stall my sanctification when I sin or by making bad decisions? Is sanctification progressive?
Many of us have been taught that it is. I inherited and embraced the idea of progressive sanctification when I became a believer for the simple reason that everyone around me did too and I didn't know enough then to know better. I held on to that belief for many years and it wasn't until my understanding of grace and the New Covenant gospel gripped me in a new way, that I started to see sanctification as a work of the Holy Spirit that happened one time when I believed. My time in Bible college reinforced the idea of sanctification being progressive as a way to work with God in becoming more set apart as time marched on and life happened. As a former pastor, I held this same belief for quite some time and would teach others that progressive sanctification could be a barometer of sorts of the genuineness of one's faith. If your behavior wasn't looking more sanctified it could cast a large shadow of doubt on the validity of your faith.
What is Sanctification?
I suppose we should start with a definition of sanctification before we go much further. Simply stated, sanctification means something set apart, made holy, or purified.
A Tale of Two Sanctifications
A wrong view of sanctification will tell us that in this life we can never be fully sanctified so God had to get creative in order to see us as sanctified even though we're really not all that sanctified. It does this by dividing sanctification into two categories of positional sanctification and progressive or personal sanctification.
By progressive or personal sanctification they mean how our lives actually look day-to-day with all of the messiness that can accompany it. This is defined as our boots-on-the-ground daily grind of personal or progressive sanctification. Until our performance
