What is spiritual growth?

Growth, then, is a question of character. As we grow we are moulded more and more into conformity to CHRIST.

Ministry promotes growth with full maturity in view that we may not remain spiritual infants and thereby threatened by prevailing influences in the world, or tossed around by every wind of doctrine, shifting from one direction to another. There are plenty of people ready to do Satan's deceptive work -- scheming, manipulating, rationalizing, always on the watch to entrap others and undermine any honest faith in the living God. But God has made provision to preserve us from this, in the positive instructions of verse 15, "holding the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the Head -- Christ." Such growth requires firm decision to hold securely the truth God has given us both in mind and in practice, although not in a harsh, legal way but in genuine love. The growth is "into Him" or "unto Him" who is our Head, and involves a growing conformity to His character.

A. The Epistle to the Ephesians contemplates the Church all through in its perfectness and privileges, and does not touch the question of its decay as entrusted to man's responsibility, which is in 1 Corinthians. God has provided for the accomplishment of the object here spoken of in spite of failure, but it is here looked at without reference to it. The adding of the knowledge of the Son of God was necessary, because it is up to His stature thus known that we are to grow. The arriving at common unity of faith is the general basis, solidity as freed from the vacillations of wind of doctrine; but besides that, we are to grow up to Him who is the Head in all things (as in Colossians 1:28), that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. The perfect man simply means the state — a full-grown man; but the measure of the stature of a full-grown man in Christ, is Christ Himself, all the fulness that is in Him wrought into the soul, so that it should be formed by it, and like to and filled with Christ in all its thoughts; its subjective state measured and formed by the objective fulness of Christ, so that there should be no discrepancy and no separation from Him; the saint grown up to Him in everything. How wondrous such a thought is, I need not say; but this is what is before us. A perfect man as to the expression is simply a full grown man. So Hebrews 5:14 and Hebrews 6:1. Ἄνθρωπος is the race including man and woman, and would not be appropriate here. Speaking merely of men, I say πάντα ἄνθρωπον, as Colossians 1. Ἀνὴρ is the word of dignity in the race, and so he is looking at it there. You would not think of a woman in saying one was growing up to full manhood.

Now, we have been forewarned. Thus we are forearmed against the error of the wicked, lest we should fall. The error of the wicked was fully exposed in 2 Peter 2. It is not enough however to be warned against evil; we must be in the positive enjoyment of truth. The way not to go back is to go on. Like a man on a bicycle, the Christian must go on if he would avoid falling off. Hence we must "grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

This word just summarizes the main teaching of the Epistle. Spiritual growth was the great theme of 2 Peter 1 and to it the apostle returns in his closing words. All true growth is in grace, the grace of God. Then as we expand in grace we grow in graciousness of spirit. All true growth too is in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, in whom the grace of God has reached us.

The Apostle then adds in his prayer, “and increasing (or growing) in the knowledge of God.” The full knowledge of God has come to us by the Holy Spirit. He has given us the knowledge of God the Father as revealed in the Son in this world, and He has brought to us the purpose of God in Christ seated at God’s right hand in heaven. We have seen God revealed in His nature of love, and in His counsels of grace, and as we deepen in what has been revealed to us there will be growth, spiritual growth that will enable us to apprehend more of the thoughts of God, and to enter into His great love.

It is the knowledge of God by which we grow, and it is into a deeper knowledge of God that we enter. Spiritual increase can only be produced by occupation with spiritual things. All divine knowledge is found in the Son of God, and as we are occupied with Him the Holy Spirit works in us what has engaged us of Christ, and “grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ” (Eph. 4:15).

This is true practical sanctification. It is not any attempt at the improvement of our old nature. It is not a vain effort to reconstruct an irretrievable ruin. No; it is simply the Holy Ghost, by the powerful application of "the truth," enabling the new man to live, and move, and have his being in that sphere to which he belongs. Here there will, undoubtedly, be progress. There will be growth in the moral power of this precious truth — growth in spiritual ability to subdue and keep under all that pertains to nature — a growing power of separation from the evil around us — a growing meetness for that heaven to which we belong, and toward which we are journeying — a growing capacity for the enjoyment of its holy exercises. All this there will be, through the gracious ministry of the Holy Ghost, who uses the word of God to unfold to our souls the truth as to our standing in Christ, and as to the walk which comports with that standing. But let it be clearly understood that the work of the Holy Ghost in practical sanctification, day by day, is founded upon the fact that believers "are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once." (Heb. 10:10) The object of the Holy Ghost is to lead us into the knowledge, the experience, and the practical exhibition of that which was true of us in Christ the very moment we believed. As regards this, there is progress; but our standing in Christ is eternally complete.

"Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth." (John 17:17) And again, "The very God of peace sanctify you wholly." (1 Thess. 5:23) In these passages, we have the grand practical side of this question. Here we see sanctification presented, not merely as something absolutely and eternally true of us in Christ, but also as wrought out in us, daily and hourly, by the Holy Ghost through the word. Looked at from this point of view, sanctification is, obviously, a progressive thing. I should be more advanced in personal holiness in the year 1861 than I was in the year 1860. I should, through grace, be advancing, day by day, in practical holiness. But what, let me ask, is this? What, but the working out in me of that which was true of me in Christ, the very moment I believed? The basis upon which the Holy Ghost carries on the subjective work in the believer, is the objective truth of his eternal completeness in Christ.

How, then, we may inquire, is this change wrought out in us? This same scripture the answer — "We all with open face beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. 3:18). While on the one hand Christ in glory is the model to which we are to be conformed, beholding Him there is, on the other, the instrumentality in the power of the Spirit by which it is effected. How simple! We behold and are changed — changed into the same image from glory to glory — for it is a gradual process — as by the Spirit of the Lord. We receive the impress of the One on whom we look; the rays of the glory of His face falling on us, penetrate into, and transform us morally into the likeness of our Lord.

But it is not enough to have escaped by faith from even the inward dominion of the desires of the flesh; we must add to faith — to that faith which realises divine power, and the glory of Christ that shall be revealed — we must add to faith, virtue. This is the first thing. It is, as we have said, the moral courage which overcomes difficulties, and governs the heart by curbing all action of the old nature. It is an energy by which the heart is master of itself, and is able to choose the good, and to cast aside the evil, as a thing conquered and unworthy of oneself. This indeed is grace; but the apostle is here speaking of the thing itself, as it is realised in the heart, and not of its source. I have said that this is the first thing; because, practically, this self-government — this virtue, this moral energy — is deliverance from evil, and renders communion with God possible It is the one thing which gives reality to all the rest, for without virtue we are not really with God. Can divine power develop itself in the laxity of the flesh? And if we are not really with God — if the new nature is not acting — knowledge is but the puffing up of the flesh; patience but a natural quality, or else hypocrisy; and so on with the rest. But where there is this virtue, it is very precious to add knowledge to it. We have then divine wisdom and intelligence to guide our walk: the heart is enlarged, sanctified, spiritually developed, by a more complete and profound acquaintance with God, who acts in the heart and is reflected in the walk. We are guarded from more errors — we are more humble, more sober-minded: we know better where our treasure is, and what it is, and that everything else is but vanity and a hindrance. It is therefore a true knowledge of God that is here meant.

Trial cannot in itself confer grace; but, under God's hand it can break the will, and detect hidden and unsuspected evils so that the new life is more fully and largely developed. God has a larger place in the heart, there is more intelligence in His ways, more lowly dependence, more consciousness that the world is nothing, more distrust of flesh and self. The saint is more emptied of self and filled with the Lord. What is eternal and true, because divine, has a much larger place in the soul; what is false is detected and set aside. There is more ripeness in our relationship with God. We dwell more in the eternal scenes into which He has brought our souls. We can look back then, and see the love which has brought us through it all, and bless God with dependent thanksgiving for every trial. Such only purge away the dross, and confirm us in brighter, fuller, clearer hope, and increasing our knowledge of God, self being proportionately destroyed.

So why, then, do others say progressive s anctification is Scriptural? Well, because they mean an entirely different thing. They speak about the fact that a Christian (hence a person sanctified once for all and having no reason whatsoever to engage in introspective analysis and doubts on the matter) should grow spiritually. As he does, his affection for Christ will increase, he will ‘follow … holiness’ (Heb. 12:14) and live in an increasing realisation that he is set apart for Christ.