Perfectionism Rejected
Simul Justus et Peccator
Sanctification · 6 verses
Believers exist simultaneously as justified saints and remaining sinners—righteous in Christ's imputed righteousness yet still contending with indwelling sin. This biblical truth preserves both the perfection of justification (fully righteous in God's sight) and the imperfection of sanctification (progressively growing in practical holiness), preventing both antinomian presumption and legalistic despair through balanced biblical realism.
Scripture References
“I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
“Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.”
“And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”
“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”