Paul says we have died to sin and we have been raised in Christ (past tense) for the purpose of walking in newness of life (present tense). This is the full meaning of sanctification, recognizing both that we are fully justified and declared righteous yet there is an ongoing process that we are becoming more like Christ. Progressive sanctification is the process of becoming in practice who God created and saved you to be. This is the Christian’s identity. Some might say it this way, “When I become a Christian I still am not sinless but by God’s forgiving and empowering grace I will sin less.”
“[Christian] maturity cannot be hurried, programmed, or tinkered with. There are no steroids available for growing up in Christ more quickly. Impatient shortcuts land us in the dead ends of immaturity.”
12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 3:12-14
