Holiness requires effort?

Denny Burk notes a message by Kevin DeYoung at Together for the Gospel in which DeYoung “took on the evangelical cliché that says sanctification is by faith,” arguing that holiness in the believer’s life requires effort.

I’ve not personally met anyone who would think otherwise, but the more interesting question to me is whether sanctification is an integral part of salvation or a subsequent process after salvation.

Is sanctification inevitable? Is it optional? Can a person refuse to expend effort on sanctification and still be saved? Or do we argue that the person who refuses to pursue holiness never was saved in the first place?

You can download DeYoung’s message here.

Denny’s blog post is here.

David Miller on salvation present

Timmy Brister has posted the text of comments delivered by David Miller on the subject of sanctification during the True Church Conference being held this week in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The topic of the conference is the need for church discipline, and Miller’s assignment is to talk about the nature of salvation.

Taking Romans 7:14-25 as his text, Miller offers some excellent thoughts on the “personal, practical, and progressive” nature of present-tense salvation. We ought to have more preaching on the topic, and Miller ought to be invited to speak in churches everywhere about it.

I have a particular interest in Miller’s thoughts on the subject because he was one of the Arkansas Baptist leaders who called Dale Moody on the carpet for the professor’s views on apostasy. It was truly a blessing to see him offer such insight on the subject of sanctification. Many so-called “moderate” Southern Baptists long ago wrote off David Miller for his role in the iron-fisted politics of the convention’s conservative resurgence, but he does a better job of explaining “I am being saved” than I ever heard from Dr. Moody.

Miller confidently proclaims both the security of the believer and the necessity of pursuing holiness as part and parcel of salvation: “I was saved” and “I am being saved.” Past-tense salvation and present-tense salvation are both true, in spite of the logical tension we feel between them. And future-tense salvation is biblical truth as well (here is what Miller had to say about that). Too many of us only preach past-tense salvation. In the process, we rob our people of authentic discipleship and truly abundant life, and we place them in grave spiritual danger of neglecting the great gift of salvation they have been given.

Read what Miller has to say here. I’d love to hear what you think about it.