Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly
appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives… Many… have a
theoretical commitment to this doctrine, but in their day-to-day existence they
rely on their sanctification for their justification… drawing their assurance of
acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion,
their recent religious performance or the relative infrequency of their conscious,
willful disobedience. Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing
stand upon Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and
claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for
acceptance, relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing
sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude… Much that we have
interpreted as a defect of sanctification in church people is really an outgrowth
of their loss of bearing with respect to justification. Christians who are no
longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present
spiritual achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure persons… Their
insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce, defensive assertion of their own
righteousness, and defensive criticism of others. They come naturally to hate
other cultural styles and other races in order to bolster their own security and
discharge their suppressed anger.
– Richard Lovelace