The Vain Dream of "Progressive" Sanctification

That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. - John 3:6

There is no promise made that in this life, we shall be set free from the indwelling and the in-working of sin.
Many think that their flesh is to become “progressively holier and holier” — that sin after sin is to be removed gradually out of the heart — until at last they are almost made perfect in the flesh. But this is an idle dream, and one which, sooner or later will be crudely and roughly broken to pieces!

The flesh will ever remain the same — and we shall ever find that the flesh will lust against the Spirit. Our fleshly nature is corrupt to the very core. It cannot be mended. It cannot be sanctified. It is the same at the last, as it was at the first — inherently evil, and as such will never cease to be corrupt until we put off mortality — and with it the body of sin and death.

All we can hope for, long after, expect, and pray for — is that this evil fleshly nature may be subdued, kept down, mortified, crucified, and held in subjection under the power of grace. But as to any such change passing upon the flesh — or taking place in the flesh as to make it holy — it is but a pharisaic delusion, which, promising a holiness in the flesh, leaves us still under the power of sin.

The true sanctification of the new man of grace — which is wrought by a divine power — is utterly distinct from any imagined holiness in the flesh — or any vain dream of its progressive sanctification.

- J.C. Philpot

 

Does the old man of sin, which is corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts, grow better and better?

The answer to this question is NO: for the old man, which is the flesh, is always the same, lusting against the Spirit, which causes the spiritual warfare in the Christian’s breast; for ”what shall we see in the Shulamite? As it were, the company of two armies.” This contest between the old man of sin and the new man of grace will never cease while we are in the body.

The doctrine of the old man of sin growing better and better, the Christian, by daily experience, proves to be the doctrine of fools, and he will have to say with Paul, even down to the Jordan of death, “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not.”

It is light that discovers darkness; so, as we are sanctified by the Holy Ghost, we have a growing knowledge and feeling sense of the depravity of our nature, and of our lost, helpless state and condition as guilty sinners. This has a tendency to humble us before God, and to make us say with Job “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” Thus we grow out of love with ourselves and our own worth and worthiness placing no confidence in the flesh, and renouncing everything but Christ and him crucified. Proud flesh must fall, that Christ may rise.

The blessed Spirit, in His work, has two things in view, namely, the laying low of the sinner, and the setting up of Jesus on high; and to this end he leads us out of ourselves into Christ, daily to feel that we are lost in ourselves, to look to Christ, by faith, for complete salvation. By nature we are black and polluted with sin, and the Spirit leads us to the fountain of Christ to be cleansed; naked, and he enables us, by faith, to put on the garment of salvation; guilty and condemned, he makes us sue for pardon at Jesus’s feet, like the poor publican, and seals pardon and peace in the conscience; weak and helpless, he leads us to trust in the Lord Jehovah, in whom there is everlasting strength; foolish, he leads us to Christ, the wonderful Counsellor, for wisdom. He creates within us a hungering and thirsting for the bread of heaven and the wine of the kingdom and enables us to feed, by faith, upon Christ, the feast of fat things.

- William Gadsby