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.

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/

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