Old Self/New Self in Michael Horton

Michael Horton on the relationship between justification and sanctification, with comment on the Adamic (old) self.

"However, we should beware of turning the distinction into a separation, where our status as holy in Christ (definitive sanctification) is one thing and our own holiness (progressive sanctification) is another. In our pilgrimage, we are not, strictly speaking, growing in our holiness, but we are also bearing the fruit of our union with Christ and his holiness. The flesh (sarx) is not given a new lease on life, improved, elevated, and revived. Rather, the Adamic self is put to death, and the person thus raised is now a participant in the Spirit, sharing with Christ in the powers of the age to come" (248, Covenant and Salvation).

On the inner struggle between flesh and the Spirit in the believer.

"The new creation into which believers have been inserted, far from the end of strife, is the beginning of inner conflict, since the will that was once bound to sin and death is now liberated to pursue righteousness yet not free from the presence of sin. Precisely because believers have been legally and eschatologically transferred from "this age," under the condemnation of the law, sin, and death; and transferred to "the age to come," under justification, righteousness, and life--because of this transfer, sanctification is not a mere moral improvement but the real effects of a qualitatively new kind of life. Paradoxically, it is the very liberation that issues in constant inner struggle. By contrast, the struggle of the unregenerate, says Ames, is "not the striving of the Spirit against the flesh but that of the flesh fearing flesh inordinately desiring…the definitive categories for theology are covenantal and eschatological: the tyranny of sin (flesh) versus the reign of life in righteousness (the Spirit). Natural ethics may check immoderate habits, but it cannot create a new world" (250).

On the source of true sanctification by the Spirit in a believer.

"Apart from the imputation of righteousness, sanctification is simply another religious self-improvement program determined by the powers of the age (the flesh) rather than of the age to come (the Spirit)" (250).

On the definitive identity of the believer: new self

Simultaneously justified and sinful, we are also simultaneously renewed and sinful. Though less complete, the renewal is no less definitive than justification.

In other words, I do not think that we properly understand the New Testament in general or Paul in particular if we think in terms of the believer being, paradoxically, the "old self" and the "new self" at one and the same time. Rather, we are defined by the age to come, as it has already dawned for us by virtue of the Spirit's act of uniting us to Christ through faith. Rather, we are defined by the age to come, as it has already dawned for us by virtue of the Spirit's act of uniting us to Christ through faith. That is why the persistence of indwelling sin provokes anguish. With each capitulation to temptation, we are acting as if the indicative announcement that "rewords" us were not true. Hence, Paul's call to "reckon" or "consider" ourselves "dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 6:11). Without the triumphant indicative of Romans 6, which gives rise to real imperative to be what we are, Paul's struggle in Romans 7 seems, oddly enough, less paradoxical. We are not under the reign of sin and death, yet we continue to sin and die" (253-254).