In spite of the fact that a Christian may backslide for a time and that remaining corruption may prevail, yet every true Christian will, ultimately, over the course his life, make progress in sanctification by means of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in His heart. Holiness will continue to be perfected in a climate of godly fear. He will continue to press after a heavenly life. And over time, he will grow in evangelical obedience to all the commands of Christ as he becomes aware of them. 

Having been definitively sanctified, the Christian is being progressively sanctified, although not perfectly sanctified in this life. He or she will always battle with remaining sin. But, at the same time, the true Christian will not ultimately be destroyed. In the conflict he will never apostatize, and he will grow and increase in Christian virtue. This is the emphasis of the third and final paragraph of this chapter of the Confession:
In which war, although the remaining corruption for a time may much prevail, yet, through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part does overcome; and so the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, pressing after an heavenly life, in evangelical obedience to all the commands which Christ as Head and King, in his Word has prescribed to them.
A Progress That May Sometimes Experience Setbacks
“In which war, although the remaining corruption for a time may much prevail…”
Consider the experiences of Noah falling prey to drunkenness, Abraham lying about his wife Sarah and putting her in danger, Moses striking the rock, David falling into adultery, as well as covering his sin and delaying repentance for a time, and Peter denying the Lord and giving way to the cowardly fear of man. These are all examples of true believers in whom, for a time, remaining corruption prevailed.
A Progress That Will Ultimately Not Be Thwarted
In all of those examples just given, none of these saints remained in such a sad spiritual condition indefinitely. Each one of them eventually repented and renewed their faith and devotion to God. It is possible to lose a battle without losing the war. When walking up a long stairway, one may fall or even slide back a few steps, but still persevere and advance toward the top. Sometimes sanctification can give the same appearance of halting progress. But as the Confession goes on to say, “In which war, although the remaining corruption for a time may much prevail, yet through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part doth overcome.”
The Agent and Essence of this Progress
It is through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ who indwells every believer that the believer is enabled to overcome.
The Confession says, “and so the saints grow in grace.” This is a concise way of describing progressive sanctification.
Read More
Related Posts:

The church in America has taken a major hit.  In the PCA, homosexuals stand in some pulpits every Sunday as teaching elders.  The church’s response to Covid-19 was pathetic.  After the original panic period, most churches in America continued to close their doors and prevented the people of God from worshiping together as a congregation.

Christianity was once the dominant religion in America, and Christian morals had a major impact on all of our cultural institutions.  Americans had faith in the integrity of these systems.  That time has ended.  As Christians slept, most of these institutions were secularized over a period of years.  However, many Christians appear to be clinging to these institutions and have made idols out of them.  But the idols are falling down one by one.  The Wizard of Oz is fake. Consider the following.

Democracy – The idea of America as a Constitutional Republic has inherent in it an element of democracy (rule by the people). The people still elect representatives. We were told that democracy makes life safe for the people and guarantees freedom.  This became the American gospel.  However, this idol is quickly falling down.

First, we can no longer trust in the voting system that puts people into office, no more than we can trust in people to vote for godly men to serve in these offices.  The federal government is mostly ruled by bureaucrats who are not elected.  Wokism has taken over the White House and old white men like me are declared to be racists – enemies of the State. The Supreme Court has no law higher than itself, and it finds in the Constitution the legitimacy of both abortion and homosexual marriage. The Wizard of Oz is fake.

Public Schools – I was raised in the public schools in the 50s and 60s of the last century. As a covenant child, my parents could send me off to school with confidence that their Christian world-and-life-view would not be contradicted by my teachers.  The principal of my high school was an elder in my local church. Today, Critical Race Theory has become the underlying curriculum of the public schools.  Teachers are under the dominion of hegemonic unions such as the National Education Association (NEA).  Parents who protest before school boards are now put on a potential domestic terrorist list by the FBI at the direction of the Department of Justice. The Wizard of Oz is fake.
Military – A calling to serve this country in the Armed Forces has always been considered an honor. After the debacle in Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the legitimacy of that honor went on trial.  Now the military is on a witch-hunt to purge its ranks by expelling anyone who voted for Donald Trump.  We must never forget that when the people become the enemy of tyrants, that the military becomes the most powerful weapon of tyrants against the people. The Wizard of Oz is fake.
Media – The days of Walter Cronkite are gone, even though probably behind the scenes, all was not well in those days either. The media has become a ministry of the State. Disinformation must be censored. Fake News is real.

Even Fox News is disappointing.  Recently, I watched political conservative Tammy Bruce, who is a self-declared lesbian, critique the plight of NCAA sports where men who identify as women are taking over women’s sports.  She herself identifies as a man in the boudoir, but it’s wrong for a male to identify as a female in a college swim meet.  Incongruity has become significant even on the political right.  The Wizard of Oz is fake.

Corporations – Intersectionality has taken over the universities in America. Free speech is dead.  Label a man who identifies as a woman by the pronoun “him,” and you will be fired rather quickly.  Most corporate boards are filled with graduates from these universities.  Americans used to respect the success of corporations who were founded by men who risked so much.  Neo-Marxist equality is now the religion that rules Big Corp. Free-enterprise America is now taken up the mantle of this new righteousness. The Wizard of Oz is not real.
Church – Finally, the church in America has taken a major hit. In the PCA, homosexuals stand in some pulpits every Sunday as teaching elders.  The church’s response to Covid-19 was pathetic.  After the original panic period, most churches in America continued to close their doors and prevented the people of God from worshiping together as a congregation. Attendance in most churches is down at least 20% from pre-covid days.  This appears to be permanent.  In conservative denominations, wokism is gaining ground every day.  I know people who have quit the church and who will never go back. They believe that The Wizard of Oz is fake.

I’m sure much more could be said.  I guess that most readers would expect me to say that all we can do is trust in Christ, for he is not an idol, and he will never leave us nor forsake us.  Well, this is true!  However, Christians are in for the fight of their lives, and what we need to do is begin preaching the Lordship of Christ over all things.  We must be ruled by Christ alone and not by Caesar.  We must believe that God’s kingdom will come, and we must have confidence that we will see his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  As long as the Holy Spirit is on this earth, cultural transformation is possible.  As the American idols fall, a Christ who rules over all must be our message to those who have put their hope in false gods. The Wizard of Oz is fake, but the Kingdom of God is real.
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.

The term theonomy implies nothing more than the application of God’s Law to all of life.  It is true that the sundry laws of the Old Testament expired with the state of that people, but the Westminster Confession of Faith clearly teaches that the general equity of the Old Testament law did not expire with the state of Old Testament Israel. This general equity is normative and regulative not only for the church today, but also for the civil magistrate since he is a minister of the same God as the God who rules the church.

In the recent article, The Shadowy Nature of Theonomy (Nov. 22, 2022), Nicolas T. Batzig takes to task that grand old nemesis of post-modern and Reformed churchmen: Theonomy. He draws the conclusion that the judicial laws of the Old Testament are ecclesiocentric rather than theocentric, i.e., that the judicial laws of the Old Covenant are fulfilled in the New Testament Church alone.  As a shadow of the future, their application was limited to the church only. The earthy Old Testament laws are spiritualized and solitarily find their home in the ecclesia. This thinking fits well with the radical two-kingdom theology prevalent at Westminster Seminary in California.  The assertion is that these Old Testament laws have nothing to do with the realm of the modern civil magistrate today; the church is spiritual and she only becomes soiled when dealing with politics.
However, God’s Kingdom not only includes the church, but also extends beyond the church.  The God of the Bible is sovereign and the center of the universe.  All of life (including the civil magistrate) is under him and his law, thus the term theocentric.
I know Mr. Batzig’s arguments well since I was once in his camp.  I studied at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia (when there was only one) during the late 1960’s and the early 1970’s. I came out of Seminary teaching Mr. Batzig’s views to the churches where I pastored.
Eventually, I concluded that Christ Kingship extends beyond the church into all areas of life.  If Christ is not King over all, then he is not King at all.  I became a student of Rushdoony, North, Bahnsen, Gentry, and DeMar.  I was delivered from my “dogmatic slumber.”
The term theonomy implies nothing more than the application of God’s Law to all of life.  It is true that the sundry laws of the Old Testament expired with the state of that people, but the Westminster Confession of Faith clearly teaches that the general equity of the Old Testament law did not expire with the state of Old Testament Israel. This general equity is normative and regulative not only for the church today, but also for the civil magistrate since he is a minister of the same God as the God who rules the church (Rom. 13:4).
Because of this silence of the church, many Christians today are struggling to find a way to push back against what they see as the deterioration of America.  Hence, the rise of the conversation about Christian Nationalism. The modern church and her ecclesiocentricity has left a vacuum, and many Christians are looking for something to fill that vacuum. I have spoken against the use of the term Christian Nationalism (see my article on Christian Nationalism – Dump the Term While We Still Can), but I have also spoken for the concept of Christendom and the concept of a Christian Nation (e.g., here, here and here).
The Apostle Paul was an apostle to the church and not to the Empire of Rome.  The early church was a persecuted church in embryonic form, and Paul did apply the Old Testament laws to the church (like not muzzling the ox, excommunication, and the necessity of two or three witnesses), and rightly so.
However, just because Paul limited their application to the church in her nascent form does not negate their regulatory purpose in the world outside of the church at other periods in history.  The same general equity of these laws also applies to every other institution of life, especially the civil government. The experience of the New Testament church with the civil magistrate is not normative for all ages. Paul’s teaching in Romans 13 is the standard!  The civil magistrate is to promote good and mitigate evil. The definition of good and evil is found only in the Bible, and the general equity of the Old Testament judicial laws have much to add to our knowledge of good and evil.
For example, in the Old Testament there was a law that demanded a parapet be put around the roof of a house.  There was also a law that a kid shall not be boiled in its mother’s milk.  In specificity, these laws are irrelevant to our society today, except where the general equity does apply. The law requiring parapets teaches us to love our neighbors by taking every precaution to preserve their life.  My neighbor has a fence around her swimming pool. The boiling-milk law teaches us that mothers are to give life to their children and not death.
Christ told us that when we pray, we should ask that his Kingdom come.  His Kingdom is clearly seen by God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven. We do not pray that his will be done only in the church today, but rather on the whole earth in every part of life.  The Lord’s Prayer is not ecclesiocentric.  It is theocentric.
The consequences of ecclesiocentricity have been devastating for our nation and will likely bring a curse upon our children and grandchildren. This is not mere academics, but real life in a real world. Ideas have consequences.  When Christians stopped believing in a theocentric world where God’s law reigns supreme in all areas of life, we, de facto, delivered the realm of the civil magistrate (and all other institutions) over to the religion of Neo-Marxism. Our silence to speak to the issues of our society helped create the lawless world in which we live today. Unlike John the Baptist, we failed to confront the king with the law of God.  We neglected our duty as prophets.
America has been de-Christianized over the last 50-70 years, and consequently abortion and homosexual marriage are now legal. Men dress like women and dance before our youth.  Young children are being groomed into changing their gender by surgical mutilation. Laws (e.g., the Respect for Marriage Act) are presently being promoted to silence all opposition coming from Christians in the public square. This is because what our enemy desires in the end is not toleration but domination.
We are in a war, and ecclesiocentricity is no option for Christians.
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.
Related Posts: