"Sowing" is one's life pattern. "Sowing" to the sinful nature describes those not in Christ, not those in Christ who sin.
I'm not sure where your "distinguishing" fits in here but either way none of this journey is a free ride even if our only role is to cooperate; we're asked and expected to do our part. Over and over again in Scripture believers are exhorted, admonished, warned, encouraged, etc, etc, to do the right thing or ultimately face estrangement from God.
He makes us His friends, but we don't have to remain friendly any more than Adam did. Good soil will embrace God and remain in Him firmly enough to persevere to the end, producing much fruit in the meanwhile. Varying degrees of poorer soil will yield less, and some will fall away completely, yielding no fruit. That's all we know-and all we need to know. Anything else is to put the cart ahead of the horse. We must strive, we must be vigilant, etc, and not presume that we
are good soil and that we
will strive and continue to strive as if we can predict our own perseverance with some kind of 100% certainty.
A taste is not an establishing, and Israel was part of the one olive tree in the Abrahamic covenant of faith in the Promise (Christ).
A taste is to be given knowledge of God-and to reject it later in this case. That can be done at any time, by any
one. Those who do not turn away by the end of the day are truly His-and
He knows them with certainty, not
us.
"If indeed they have escaped the corruption of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, only to be entangled and overcome by it again, their final condition is worse than it was at first. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and then to turn away from the holy commandment passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.” 2 Pet 2:20-22
Yes, sanctification is the righteousness of character in which we grow after having been made righteous (justified) by faith, in which justification we were set in right relationship with God by his declaring us "not guilty," right with justice, by Christ's propitiation, through our faith and trust in that propitiation for the remission of sin.
Sanctification/justice/righteousness/holiness is an
obligation, that we can fail at, not a sort of side-benefit, nor is it
guaranteed once we’ve entered God’s family. We must do our part; Jesus’ burden is light, not non-existent.
Can I choose to be sinless? What are the divine consequences of my failure to be sinless?
Man is not so corrupted or weakened by the fall that all traces of morality or justice or conscience is destroyed -the image of God remains buried inside. Related to this Augustine would say,
"God wrote on tablets of stone that which man failed to read in his heart."
The law is written in man's heart and if nothing else he can become aware that
something is wrong in this world, that something's "off", something's missing- not as things "should be". He can develop a hunger and thirst for truth and righteousness in a world that fails miserably at mustering both of these in so many ways. Then, when God approaches and calls him, he may, convicted of his
own failings and jaded by this world's ugliness, turn to Him in response, running to God like prodigals who've become sickened of their own ways and the pigsty that it brought them to. Man is dead, lost, sick, enslaved; he cannot raise, find, heal, or free himself. But once raised, found, healed, and freed; restored in that sense to the state Adam began in, we can choose to remain that way, being done with sin and unrighteousness and the death that it causes in our world. We can also refuse to be healed to begin with, or waver, and return to our vomit, our sickness, our death.
Can it be perfect when it is not sinless?
The "journey to perfection" as it's sometimes called, is simply one we
must be on; it's the journey to God-and naturally consists of His perfecting/sanctifying us, meaning that we'll grow in righteousness, meaning we'll grow in
love, making more progress than backsliding in the overall scheme of things if we remain on that journey. It begins, from our side of things, with
faith. Then
He judges at the end of the day how well we've done with whatever we've been given. To the extent that we understand the following statement, made by a 16th century believer, we more fully understand the Christian faith.
"
At the evening of life we shall be judged on our love."
That ties everything in the bible together really: the teachings of Jesus, James, and Paul for one. It's the link that makes possible fulfilling the law while not being under the law. It explains how our righteousness can exceed that of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, it explains the purpose, the end-goal, of faith, and why we're not justified by faith alone but by what we do since love obeys and works/acts by its nature, having nothing to do with works of the law. It defines justice for man, that by which God justifies or makes us just/righteous.
