Sanctification is then not the building up of righteous qualities inside of believers, but believers learning to live outside of themselves as a result of their justification. Such an existence lived outside of ourselves neither destroys the simul of Christian existence, nor the full and robust reality of sanctification. The more the Christian meditates on the divine Word, the more he or she cannot help but feel the reality of his or her inner sinfulness. This recognition will undoubtedly be augmented by the fact that we sin every day and therefore the older we become the more we have to regret. Nevertheless, such a recognition of our innate sinfulness draws us ever more out ourselves into Christ through faith. In turn, faith in Christ ever increases and overflows into service to our neighbors.
Of course, Christian love is always imperfect. Hence, there is a genuine insight in Luther’s early theology wherein he describes the believer as “partim peccator,”[1] and “peccatores in re, iusti autem in spe.”[2] In our present life, there is a real distinction between which actions of ours are the fruits of the Spirit and which are sins. Hence, Lutherans have developed the paradigm of “active” and “passive” righteousness, within which believers are “partim peccator” according to the former category. At the same time, any sin within us makes us “totus peccator” before God. One either sins, or does not, and this fact grants us a status of total sinfulness or righteousness before God. Even the good works of believers are imperfect, and therefore judged by the absolute standard of divine law are in themselves sinful (Isa. 64:6). Hence, we are not “partim peccator” before the eyes of God according to passive righteousness. In the present age, we are always total sinners coram Deo and therefore beggars before the divine throne of judgment and mercy.
Believers’ sense of their sinfulness drives on their sanctification. If believers honestly contemplate their own actions, they cannot help but feel that their sinfulness outweighs their progress in good works. Indeed, the progress of sanctification cannot be quantified, and at times, we cannot detect any moral progress in our lives at all. Such reflections should inevitably lead us to repentance and ever-deeper faith in Christ. This divinely wrought faith in turn leads to overflowing love for God and our neighbor. Thus, the Christian life can be seen as a perpetual cycle of believers suffering the work of the Word of God as law and gospel, until they are definitively transformed by temporal death and resurrection.
[1] WA 56:272.
[2] WA 56:269.
From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).