Thank God for his patience with us:
Allow me a moment to make a seemingly odd introduction: Back in 1960 the Chicago blues legend Junior Wells released the song “Little By Little”. It was covered by many bands since then, including the Rolling Stones in 1964 and much later by the Tedeschi Trucks Band. Two lines in it are these: “Little by little, I’m losing you. That I can see. Bit by bit, your love is slipping away from me.”
He of course was referring to a female, but here I want to appropriate his words and take them in a spiritual direction. The biblical doctrine of progressive sanctification says similar sorts of things: over time, and because of God’s grace, we grow in holiness and likeness to Christ.
And that means we grow to dislike our own sin and selfishness. The old man – “the flesh” – is still there, but hopefully we are losing him – hopefully he is slipping away. As we more and more seek to be conformed to the image of Christ, more and more we learn to say no to the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Let me develop all this in two ways. First, there are some believers who claim we should never think of ourselves as sinners once we have come to Christ. They either believe that sin is no longer a thing for Christians, or that to even mention sin is to get bogged down in “negative confession”. They say we should just concentrate on who we now are in Christ.
Now that last point is quite correct: we SHOULD focus on Christ and the blessings we have in him. But that does NOT mean we can claim some sort of sinless perfectionism, nor think that the sin that still dwells within is no longer a problem.
Those notions are nowhere taught in the New Testament. Simply look at the writings of Paul. As I have discussed elsewhere, he found in sanctification a very real progressive awareness of his own sin:
-“For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Corinthians 15:9 – written in mid-50s).
-“Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, (Ephesians 3:8 – written in early 60s).
-“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst” (1 Timothy 1:15 – written in mid-60s). https://billmuehlenberg.com/2012/07/20/the-normal-christian-life-a-growing-awareness-of-sin/
And just two quotes of many on this:
“You will not gain holiness by standing still. Nobody ever grew holy without consenting, desiring, and agonizing to be holy. Sin will grow without sowing, but holiness needs cultivation. Follow it; it will not run after you. You must pursue it with determination, with eagerness, with perseverance, as a hunter pursues his prey.” C. H. Spurgeon
“Holiness is not a condition into which we drift. We are not passive spectators of a sanctification God works in us. On the contrary, we have purposefully to ‘put away’ from us all conduct that is incompatible with our new life in Christ, and to ‘put on’ a lifestyle compatible with it.” John Stott
See more here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2015/03/22/sanctification-cooperating-with-god/
God’s grace over time
But the second thing I wish to discuss here, and the reason I was motivated to pen this piece in the first place, was because of something I came upon in my morning Bible reading. In Deuteronomy 7:22 we read these words: “The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little.”
Now, one general rule in Bible study is to discern the primary application of passage, and then move on to any possible secondary applications. The context here of course is God’s instructions to the Israelites as they were about to enter Canaan. The passage goes on to say this:
“You may not make an end of them at once, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you. But the Lord your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed. And he will give their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name perish from under heaven. No one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them.”
So this is about how Israel was to take over the promised land. But it seems we can make an application out of this concerning the Christian life. On the one hand God wants us to make a clean break from sin on day one of our Christian journey. We are called to be perfect as our heavenly Father is.
But this will not happen instantly – it will happen over time. And God is being quite gracious in all this. Had God shown you and me ALL the sins and selfishness and things that need to be weeded out of our lives very early on in our Christian walk, we would all be overwhelmed.
I can certainly testify to this. I have now been a Christian for over a half century, and the longer I am a believer, the more I find things in my life that need to be worked on, and/or removed. While some things I was convicted of early on as a believer (saying no to drugs, e.g.) other things have been a work in progress. And some things I was not even aware of have come to light.
So our Lord is very forbearing with us, not exposing us to all of our sin, selfishness and fleshliness in one go. Yes, the beginning to the Christian life involves a conviction of sin, and repentance and faith in Christ as we seek to turn from that sin. But it will take a lifetime to keep weeding out the old and cultivating the new.
I thank God for his patience, mercy and grace that he has shown me over all these decades. I still have a long way to go in this Christian journey, but some progress is being made – and he gets all the credit for it, although sanctification still is a cooperative effort.
A few more quotes on this in closing:
“There is no shortcut to holiness; it must be the business of our whole lives.” William Wilberforce
“You may have sought and tried to obtain instant godliness. There is no such thing… We want somebody to give us three easy steps to godliness, and we’ll take them next Friday and be godly. The trouble is, godliness doesn’t come that way.” Jay E. Adams, Godliness Through Discipline
“There is no shortcut to Olympic-level skill; there is no shortcut to godliness. It is the day in and day out faithfulness to the means which God has appointed and which the Holy Spirit uses that will enable us to grow in godliness. We must practice godliness, just as the athlete practices his particular sport.” Jerry Bridges, The Practice of Godliness
“Although the forgiveness of sin takes an instant, the cure of the sin-soaked soul is gradual and not complete until heaven.” J. Budziszewski, The Revenge of Conscience
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