When Christians Sin…Sanctification

By Neil Earle

Theologian James Packer has helped revive a renewed focus on the writings of the English Purtians.

In the 1500s, it is usually agreed, Martin Luther won the battle of Justification by faith. Christians are not obligated to submit to unrealistic methods in order to please an angry God.

After this clear victory on the side of sustaining Bible-based faith the next generation faced the question – “after Conversion what next?” Where do we go then? How should we live? How do we react to “so great a salvation” in the face of continuing sin in the Christian?

Can Christians Sin?

The letter of 1 John is emphatic that Christians still sin – “If we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). A branch of Protestant thinkers sprang forward to explain how sinners can still sin and be righteous, a neat little formula that takes perceptive Bible study to unpack.

These writers were known roughly as the Puritans – those trying to purify the visible church not that they themselves were regarded as pure. They stepped forward in the early 1600s to stress what the Bible calls Sanctification.

Peter Toon (1939-2009)

Anglican scholar Peter Toon defines Sanctification as “inner renewal of the heart leading to truly Christian living” (Justification and Sanctification, page 95). Sanctification is directly connected to the active presence of the Holy Spirit inside us as we see in 2 Thessalonians 2:13, “from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit.”

One of those careful writers on this subject was a Cambridge scholar and preacher named Richard Sibbes (1577-1638). Sibbes inspired many with his subtle and in-depth teaching on how sanctification works as “patient continuance in well-doing” (Hebrews 6:12).

Richard Sibbes (1577-1638)

A Process

“The whole process of sanctification in us is by degrees,” he wrote “and God’s work in us often goes backwards that it may go more fully forward.”

That’s a great start. It’s one of the “comfortable words” that Sibbes and his generation derived from their massive study of Scripture. They were minister’s ministers, well able to educate anyone who thinks Christians become perfect in one fell swoop. We soon learn otherwise, says Sibbes, so what do we do then?

“What should we learn but to come boldly to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16) in all our grievances. Shall our sins discourage us when he appears there only for sinners? Be of good comfort. He calls thee. Conceal not thy wounds, open all before him, Go to Christ though trembling as the poor woman, ‘if we can but touch the hem of his garment,’ we shall be healed and have gracious answer.”

Here Sibbes gives admirably clear advice based on John’s remedy in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Sibbes wrote most clearly on this: “No sound whole soul shall ever enter in to heaven. If Christ be so merciful as not to break me I will not break myself by despair. Christ will make up in us all the breaches sin and Satan have made. He binds up the broken hearted (Isaiah 61:1).”

You’ll love his next sentence: “There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us, there can be no danger in through dealing [with Him].”

David sought relief in real repentance and so must we all. (Basil Wolverton drawing)

Clear-Headed thinking on Grace

Sibbes has no illusions. He is a Christian realist. In covering the conflict inside of us described as the ongoing war of the flesh and the spirit (Galatians 5:17), Sibbes writes of these “contraries” we often feel, those tugs of the flesh that pull us in the wrong direction, and often successfully.“ Regarding contraries, the nearer they are to one another, the sharper is the conflict between them – now of all enemies the spirit and the flesh are nearest one to another and therefore it is no marvel the Soul, the seat of this battle, thus divided itself, be as smoking flax.”

He knows what is going on here: “When men give themselves to carnal excess their corruptions trouble them not, as not being bound and tied up, but when once Grace suppresseth their licentious excesses, then the flesh boils as disdaining to be confined

This struggle, he knows, tends to distract us from Christ’s saving work in us through the Spirit. “Grace sometimes is so little discernible to us; the Spirit sometimes has secret operations in us which we know not for the present but Christ knows.”

These secret operations may be defined as us being “led by the Spirit.” As he acutely writes elsewhere: “Yet God’s children never sin with full will because there is a contrary will of the mind whereby the full dominion of sin is broken which always has some secret working against the law of sin.” As long as Christians are not “found among malicious opposers and undermines of God’s truth, let us not give way to despairing thoughts.”

His analogy about this Christian sinning in the face of “sudden in deliberate breakings out…overcast with the cloud of a sudden temptation” is warm and homey indeed, not what you’d expect from a Cambridge theologian: “Even in a gloomy day there is so much light whereby we may know it to be day and not night so there is something in a Christian under a cloud whereby he may be discerned to be a true believer and not a hypocrite.”

“Sweet and Comfortable Words”

For all the “bad press” the Puritans still get in our easy-come/easy-go culture, Sibbes uses the word “sweetness” many times to describe the Christian relationship with God and the kindnesses of the Savior himself.

So, what is the remedy when we sin? Now that we know that salvation is a process and we are to be diligent to stay on that right path, what do we do when we stumble?

Sibbes counsels five things:

  1. We are sensible of our infirmity – i.e. we don’t dodge or fudge we admit our failing
  2. We grieve for it – Jesus said the Publican was justified when he simply confessed, “Lord be merciful to me a sinner.”
  3. We complain of our plight – the Psalms are full of the godly bemoaning their condition and worried about their fate. Yes, if we had perfect faith we wouldn’t worry but the Spirit in such cases “helps our infirmities” like a fullback blocking for the runner in football.
  4. We labor to reform. St. Paul outlined seven traits of real and true repentance in 2 Corinthians 7:11 and one of them is “eagerness to clear yourselves.”
  5. Laboring to “gain some ground on our corruption.” Yes. We come out of our defeat before sin determined with God’s help to do much better.

Sibbes knew the basis for our renewal. “We must know this that Christ counts it his honor to pass by many infirmities, nay, in infirmities he perfects strength…Such must cast themselves upon God’s mercy in Christ as at the first of their conversion…We must know for our comfort that Christ was not anointed to this great work of Mediator for lesser sins but only for the greatest.”

He then cites God’s grace to David for his being succeeded by Solomon and David heeding the woman Abigail’s advice as examples of how “Christ speaks more peace than before” to the truly repentant.

Humbling the self. Calling out to God. Confessing. Resolving to turn defeat into victory. Making progress slowly but surely. That is the Christian way. That is what sound Christian doctrine teaches. As Sibbes concludes: “We are only poor because we know not our riches in Christ.

And that is some idea of how Sanctification works.