This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 in Sinner Saint: A Surprising Primer to the Christian Life (1517 Publishing, 2025). Sinner Saint is available today from 1517 Publishing.
When we talk about “becoming better people” or “improving” as Christians, by that we usually mean living differently. Perhaps we need to develop some new habits, drop some of the old ones, and little by little our old Adam and Eve will be transformed into something beautiful, bright, and new. In other words (or so the old story goes) sanctification is primarily about the reform of our sin nature. Through the law we can whip our old Adam & Eve into shape, trim the spiritual fat, climb the ladder, and rigorously train them to live differently. Sanctification, we are told, is all about how to live differently. The accent is on the Christian life. But growth doesn’t always start with life. In fact, a lot of times growth involves death. Not always physical death (although being human certainly means you will die someday), but rather dying to ourselves, our needs, our wishes, our impulses, and our desires. For sinner-saints, the sanctification game is more about dying and rising than it is about reform. To paraphrase what wiser men have said, our old Adam & Eve are strong swimmers and have to be drowned daily. Or, as a former pastor at my parish once put it: our old Adam never gets converted. God doesn’t coax our inner sinner into becoming a saint. Instead, he has to put our inner sinner to death to raise us up to new life in Christ. In Romans 6:5‐10, the Apostle Paul says this:
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Jesus knew that the Christian life would involve a fair amount of death. When he was instructing his disciples on the cost of following him, he said this: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 16:24-25). Cross-carrying is normative in the life of the disciple. Jesus explained it another way when he was predicting his own death: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:24‐25). What is Jesus driving at? He is saying that we can only experience eternal life in all of its fullness if we are willing to die to our old ways; our old habits and attitudes. The whole “picking up your cross” business might sound sentimental to some, but it’s not. Growth involves pruning, and pruning is painful. It hurts, because by definition, it means amputating branches of a tree. In sanctification, Jesus takes his heavenly garden shears to us and starts chopping off parts. He slices right through the sin-sick sections of your heart. He pierces your skin and joints and marrow. He draws blood. He slashes and saws with surgical precision and he won’t rest until the tree is healthy. In the short term this is going to hurt. But in the long term it will bring healing, and a healthy tree that bears good fruit.
Sanctification is actually death, not life, to our old nature.
In his poem “The Everlasting Mercy,” poet John Masefield pictures Jesus like a plowman (named Callow) taking his sharp instrument to the furrows of our diseased hearts, driving the coulter (the part of a metal plough that breaks ground and softens the soil being prepared for planting) deep so that he can grow “the young green corn.”
Old Callow, stooped above the hales, Ploughing the stubble into wales.
His grave eyes looking straight ahead, Shearing a long straight furrow red; His plough-foot high
to give it earth To bring new food for men to birth.
O wet red swathe of earth laid bare,
O truth, O strength, O gleaming share,
O patient eyes that watch the goal,
O ploughman of the sinner’s soul.
O Jesus, drive the coulter deep
To plough my living man from sleep.
Sanctification is actually death, not life, to our old nature. God is not interested in doing some minor renovations in our hearts. He needs our old Adam and Eve to die so that we can truly live.
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