Yes, but with a huge asterisk next to that.
Too often Christianity is presented and treated as though it were a kind of spiritual panacea for the many struggles and trials of life. As though conversion somehow can immediately fix things like addiction, marital problems, finances, depression, anxiety, or really any manner of things which we as human beings struggle with in this life.
And I don't want to suggest the idea that God's grace and God's healing won't have an effect on us, because I believe it absolutely will.
But Christianity isn't a quick or easy fix, and it is absolutely wrong to present the Christian faith the same way that various hucksters sell their various snake oil potions at a traveling show.
Yes, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is changing us. God is at work. It may not be evident, it may seem like nothing is changing, and in fact maybe things not only don't get better, but maybe even worse. But that doesn't mean God isn't there working, that the Spirit isn't doing things in us.
In the same way that a patient in a hospital is receiving the care and medicine they need, and it is helping them, because not everyone is the same and not every person's particular experiences and circumstances are identical, we shouldn't think that the process sanctification, the work of sanctification in our lives is always going to look the same way for everyone. The spiritual medicine we have from Christ through His Word and Sacraments and the Spirit's continual work in our lives through these things is changing us, is sanctifying us--even if we don't see it, or notice it, or recognize it.
There is a distinct danger in confusing sanctification with justification. Justification is the absolute, objective work of God through Christ for us. Christ died for you and me, through faith what Christ has done is now ours, and this is objectively real, objectively true because it is, because God says that it is. Thus the question of, "Am I saved?" is answered in the affirmative, not because of anything we do, or say, or think, or feel--but because of what Christ alone has done for us. Sanctification is the ongoing work in our lives, the transformative work of grace through the working of the Spirit, the continued activity of God through His Word and Sacraments keeping us in Christ, feeding us with Christ, sustaining us with Christ.
The danger is always present to conflate these; so as to begin to imagine that who we are in relation to God is not based upon the external and objective truth of who Christ is and what Christ has done, but rather on our own ability to maintain some performance, or to try and look for signs in our own life for our objective salvation--that we must see these particular changes in our life or in the circumstances of our life. Or that we must bear witness to some kind of measurable moral or spiritual progress. That we can witness marks of holiness by which to gauge or judge who we are in relation to God.
It is absolutely true that sanctification is real and is at work in our lives; but we must never look to some kind of vague, ethereal measurable quantity or quality of sanctus, of holiness.
From the Lutheran tradition we speak of what we call the Three Uses of the Law:
1) The Law of God exists to curb outward evil, it says don't murder, because murder is wrong. That is, it declares what is righteous and, by consequence, what is not righteous.
2) The Law of God as it applies to sinners is that it is a mirror that reflects back to us our own sinful unrighteousness. That when we encounter the Law we despair because we realize that we aren't righteous, that we aren't holy, that we are sinners, and thus the Law provides no sanctuary but only a harsh court of law in which there is condemnation for each and every one of us. Not because God is mean, but because the Law is the Law and we have violated the Law.
3) The Law of God for the redeemed is to function as the fixed rule by which the Faithful are to conduct themselves in the world. Lutherans speak of the "New Obedience" that in our faithlessness we were completely unable to be obedient to the Law, but now however through faith we have from God in Christ a new man, and a new obedience. And so the Law is to direct our lives, as God's people, here in this world, as we live here in the midst of one another, of all men, and indeed all God's creatures.
Where the danger usually is found is in misunderstanding the Third Use of the Law, the Third Use of the Law--that it should direct our conduct and provide for us the fixed rule by which to live in the world--does not mean that we are ever righteous by the Law, indeed go right back and look at the Second Use of the Law, we are sinners, and in our sin we are still unrighteous by the Law. The Third Use of the Law is not a yard stick by which to measure our own righteousness and holiness before God; but is the rule by which we are to live and relate to one another as human beings here in this world. That is, it is not about righteousness Coram Deo, righteousness before God; but rather righteousness Coram Mundo, righteousness before the world. The only righteousness that we have before God is the passive righteousness which is given to us as pure gift from God, the imputed, alien righteousness of Jesus Christ. The righteousness which we are to have before men, as human beings redeemed and called by God to a Christian life is the active righteousness--which, because it is active and because it is us is always going to be a failure of righteousness; nevertheless we have neighbors who are hungry, neighbors who are thirsty, neighbors who are naked, neighbors who need medical care, neighbors who need a shoulder to lean on, and so on and so forth.
To put it another way, God doesn't need our good works, but our neighbor does. And it is for this reason that while we have been saved BY grace, we have been saved FOR good works (Ephesians 2:8-10).
So sanctification is this ongoing working of God in our lives; almost as though the Holy Spirit is constantly gently but sternly tapping the back of our heads when we mess up so as to remind us to go and keep at it. The Gospel means that we already have God's gift of salvation and so we can be confident that we belong to the Lord because of what He has done already for each and every one of us; but as it relates to how we live our lives actively here in this world among one another as human beings with other human beings, the Spirit is there gently and sternly tapping us, reminding us to get back up and keep on keeping on. Because there is still a world of hurting people, there is still a world of injustice, there is still a world where people are in need of kindness, love, mercy, forgiveness, there is still a world of people who suffer and struggle. So the fight is never over until its over, the race is never over until it's over. We keep on running, we keep on fighting, we keep on pushing forward toward that high and upward calling of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Not as though we have already attained it, but pressing on, enduring, fighting the good fight. This is what the Apostle means when he says "to work out your salvation with fear and trembling", that here in this world, with one an other, with people, with all the things of life--we work, we fight, we struggle, we endure, we press on. With a gaze forward toward Christ "the author and finisher of our faith" with the "great cloud of witnesses" cheering us on, the holy saints of all ages who having finished the race, already won the fight, now cheer us on, provoking us to keep running, to keep fighting.
That's sanctification. It's not about a kind of "fix", or some instant gratification; it's not about seeing some kind of measurable progress up rungs on a ladder of holiness or piety or spirituality. It's about the ongoing, keep-on-running, keep on moving, keep on getting up of the Christian life in this world.
-CryptoLutheran
