In this sermon, the preacher discusses the concept of progressive sanctification and its relationship to definitive sanctification. He emphasizes that while definitive sanctification is a one-time event that occurs when a person is united with Christ, progressive sanctification is an ongoing process of growth and transformation in the Christian life. The preacher references Romans 7:14-25 to highlight the internal struggle between the law of sin and the law of the mind. He also emphasizes the importance of not overlooking or neglecting the role of sanctification in the Christian life, as it is through the death and resurrection of Christ that believers are able to experience true identification with Him.

...and it is with that third that I dealt almost exclusively because it is said with reference to the agency in sanctification of Christ. It was to this effect that it is by virtue of our having died with Christ and our being raised with Him in His resurrection from the dead, that the decisive breach with sin in its power, control, and defilement has been lost, and that the reason for this is that Christ, in His death and resurrection, broke the power of sin, triumphed over the God of this world, the Prince of Darkness, executed judgment from the world and its ruler, by that victory delivered all those who were united to Him from the power of darkness, and translated them into His own kingdom. So intimate is the union between Christ and His people so that they were partakers with Him in all His triumphal achievements, and therefore died to sin, rose with Christ in the power of His resurrection, and have the truth and the holiness and the end everlasting life. Just as the death and resurrection of Christ are central in the whole process of redemptive accomplishment, so it is central in that by which sanctification itself is brought in the hearts and lives of God's people. Now that is all I'm going to say on that page of the agency of Christ in the sanctification of which we are speaking. We come now to the second question. The second question that arises in connection with this subject of the agency of Christ in His death and resurrection. And that second question is, when did believers die and rise with Him to newness of life? When did this death and resurrection take place? Unnecessary to ask that question. If they died with Christ and rose with Him in His resurrection, the time can only be when Christ Himself died and rose again. And since Christ died and rose again, once for all, in the historic past, then the only answer to this question is that it likewise belongs to the historic past of once-for-all accomplishment. Furthermore, there might seem to be a compelling reason for this conclusion that the time is the historic past, namely, that thereby is guarded the objectivity which on all accounts must be according to the death and resurrection of Christ. In other words, if you tone down the objectivity at this particular time, and since this is so closely bound up with the atoning works of Christ, is there not the danger that the objectivity of the atonement, the prejudice impeded in the least degree the objectivity, that is, the historic once-for-all, the objectivity of this event, namely, that we died and rose again with Christ, died and rose again with Christ. But the biblical considerations don't allow for any such easy solution of this problem, of this question. There are other considerations which must not be overlooked. Paul, in one of the passages, example, Paul, in one of the passages, where this meeting alive with Christ is in the forefront, speaks of these same persons as being dead in trespasses and sin, as having walked according to the course of this world, as having walked according to, as having conducted their life in the lusts of the flesh, enjoying the will of the flesh and of the mind. And he says that they were children of lust even as others, children of lust even as others. And he is writing on that occasion to the Ephesian believers, who have become believers, he is subsequent to the death and the resurrection. Furthermore, it is apparent that the historic events of Calvary and the Resurrection do not register the changes that are continuously being wrought, that are continuously being wrought by the people of God and brought into them. If we think of the starting point of Paul's whole argument and of the passage which, more than any other in the New Testament, namely Romans 6, it is apparent that Paul is dealing with the believers' actual death, actual death. He is giving this death to sin as the reason why believers no longer live in sin. Why it is impossible therefore to plead the argument of life and let us do good, let us sin, let us continue in sin that grace may abide. Again in that passage the Apostle appeals to the significance of baptism to support his thesis that the persons in view no longer live in sin. Verse 3, and therefore he is dealing unquestionably with the new life which is represented, signified, and sealed by baptism. The new life signified and sealed by baptism. And therefore the union with Christ is not simply some objective but a vital efficacy that makes us partakers of the actual efficacy of Christ's death. Furthermore, in that death to sin correlative with the crucifixion of the old man, the destruction of the body of sin, and deliverance from the winged power, they are viewed as those who are no longer under law but under grace, and therefore no longer under the domain of sin. And they are exhorted, they could not properly wept, and therefore throughout the passage those contemplated are conceived of, already the purchase of that liberty means for those on whose behalf we are faced with the tension on the one hand from the demands of the past historical, and on the other hand experiential, the clearly even, are the actual partakers. Now, how are we going for relationship? There in connection, we note when we study the passage, that the apostle Paul in particular, the most explicit reference to the death and resurrection of Christ, as once for all historic, with the teaching respecting actual, experiential death to sin on the part of the believer. And that sustained, that sustained introduction of what is in the historic past, together with that past actual, that the past historical conditions continuously the existence, not simply of laying the blame, but as for in the realm of the past, what continues to occur in the realm of our experience. That is to say that the past historical conditions the actual of the practical in such a way that something occurred, something occurred there, which makes necessary that which is realized in the actual life history of those very same persons. Realize the actual relationship, what we find elsewhere, in connection parallel to that found elsewhere in the New Testament, directly with the Theotokos, Christ propitiated the wrath of God, on the basis of his expiatory past. Again, we are working on this work, as a thing, as progressive accomplishment of work, but we are not at peace, not at peace, how the finished action of Christ, in the past, to those who are contemplating, prior to when that action in their life, prior to that action, but all along the past, and the next past, finished, historically there, the difficulty, the way in which it contains the interrelationship, the interrelationship, all surpassed it, and it continuously exists, and in this instance be stated, in this way, those who become the actual, were in Christ, when he died, and rose again, that they were in Christ, when he died, and rose again, and since his people, were in him, when he died, once for all, in the historic past, that is when he came upon the world, those who become him, in some way, I say they must, in some mysterious way, be awakened, having been raised in the actual, and here we have, in his death, a relationship, that you must not inject, into the other aspects, of the accomplishment of Christ, in his death, and it is this consideration, after all, that is basic, because it is only by virtue, only by virtue, of what did happen, in the past, and finished historical, that in the sphere of the practical, and the experiential, those united to Christ, come into actual possession, to actual, of that identification with Christ, and he died, continuously, emanates from him, to the, in due time, we must know, by the fact, for any cause, that every, every, under its domain, no longer, we are not, death and resurrection, is dishonoring, the very nature, in the newness, of the Holy Spirit, you will find, repeated exhortation, which implies, to say the very least, the occasion, sinless perfection, there are two acts, with reference to this subject, of mortification, of mortification,