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Christians are at once declared righteous and being made righteous. How that process works — and how much of it is God's work versus ours — is one of the oldest debates in evangelical theology.
Last updated: April 17, 2026
Most evangelicals agree sanctification involves both divine and human action. God's Spirit empowers transformation, while believers actively cooperate through obedience, spiritual disciplines, and faith. The debate centers on emphasis: whether to stress God's sovereign work or human responsibility, with most affirming both are essential and inseparable in the Christian's growth in holiness.
Sanctification is the lifelong process by which Christians are conformed to the image of Christ — made holy as God is holy, not by their own effort alone but by the grace of God working through them by his Spirit. The New Testament is full of both "you have been" and "you must become" — the indicative of what God has done in justification and the imperative of what Christians are called to pursue in response. Getting the relationship between those two right is the fundamental challenge of every theology of sanctification.
Evangelicals have landed in very different places on that relationship. The Reformed tradition emphasizes the definitive work of Christ as the foundation from which growth proceeds, mediated through the means of grace. The Wesleyan tradition speaks of entire sanctification — a crisis experience of cleansing beyond initial conversion. A third stream, rooted in union with Christ, insists that sanctification is not primarily about effort or experience but about the Christian's incorporation into Christ's own risen life. Each position shapes how pastors preach, how Christians pursue holiness, and what they expect on the other side of obedience.
Evangelicals agree that Christians grow in holiness. They disagree on the theology that explains how. Here are the three major positions shaping the evangelical conversation on sanctification.
Sanctification is the ongoing, progressive work of the Holy Spirit in the believer's life, mediated through the ordinary means of grace: the Word preached, prayer, baptism, and the Lord's Supper. The law retains a third use — instructing and directing the believer toward godliness — while the gospel continues to be the power that enables obedience rather than merely commanding it. Progress in holiness is real but gradual, marked by increasing awareness of remaining sin and increasing reliance on grace. The Reformation's distinction between law and gospel is not merely academic but practically essential to healthy sanctification.
Wesley taught that Christians can experience a second definite work of grace beyond justification — entire sanctification or "perfect love" — in which the remaining power of inward sin is cleansed and the believer is enabled to love God with the whole heart. This is not sinless perfection in a strict sense, but it is a qualitative transformation of the heart's orientation toward God that goes beyond what the Reformed tradition typically expects in this life. The Wesleyan tradition thus holds out a more robust expectation of transformation in the present, not merely progressive but at times crisis-like.
The most important thing to say about sanctification is not what Christians must do but who they are in Christ. Union with Christ — the believer's incorporation into the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus — is the source, pattern, and goal of all Christian growth. This tradition, rooted in Calvin and recovered in recent evangelical theology, argues that framing sanctification primarily as effort and discipline can lead to either legalism or despair. True growth in holiness flows from an ever-deepening apprehension of one's identity in Christ, not from moral striving independent of that union.
All three evangelical positions on sanctification agree on something fundamental: holiness is both commanded and given. The New Testament holds together the imperative — "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" — and the indicative — "for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12–13). The debate is not whether God works or we work, but how those two coordinate and what emphasis serves the spiritual health of God's people best.
The practical implications are profound. A theology that overemphasizes God's work without human responsibility produces passivity and disappointment. A theology that overemphasizes human effort without grace produces legalism and despair. The deepest evangelical consensus is that sanctification happens through the means God has appointed — his Word preached and read, prayer, the sacraments, and the fellowship of the local church — received by faith. Growth in holiness is not primarily about willpower or self-improvement but about the Christian's deepening union with Christ, through which the power that raised him from the dead works to transform us into his likeness.