The Oxymoron of Spiritual Growth
February 12, 2026 | by: Dale Thiele | 0 Comments
Posted in: Pastoral Encouragement
This past Sunday at Oak Hills we considered the third membership vow of a PCA church: Do you now resolve and promise, in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit, that you will endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ? As we demonstrated from 2 Peter 1:3-11, this vow espouses the language of Scripture for a believer’s commitment to spiritual growth. There is a tension, we may even call it an oxymoron, in Scripture when it comes to spiritual growth. In Peter’s second letter we hear that “all things that pertain to life and godliness” have been freely given to us (1:3); but then, Peter commands, “make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue” (1:5). Which is it? Have all things been given or do we need to work at supplementing our faith?
2 Peter 1 is not the only place we see this tension. Paul uses similar language in Philippians 2:12-13 when he says, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you.” Again, which is it? Am I working or is God working? And specifically with the work of repentance, we hear Paul stating in Acts 17:30, “Now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” Earlier in Acts, however, the church “glorified God, saying, ‘Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life’” (11:18). If repentance is a gift of God, how is it commanded of all people everywhere? And on that theme of repentance, John the Baptist commanded, “Bear fruits in keeping with repentance” (Lk. 3:8) while Jesus preached, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mk. 1:15). In the end, however, Jesus says, “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn. 15:5). We are commanded to repent and bear fruit, but we cannot do it on our own.
We can highlight more examples, but these are sufficient to illustrate the biblical language around spiritual health and growth. We are to work hard at growing in grace and yet we are utterly needy and dependent on God’s grace to make it happen. The Bible, obviously, never calls it an oxymoron, nor does it even speak of this as a tension. The Bible just affirms the truth that may appear to be an oxymoron to us.
I think the Westminster Confession of Faith’s teaching on Free Will is helpful to navigate this tension. It speaks about humanity in the “state of sin.” After the Fall all humans are in this state until they are saved by grace through faith. The Confession says that in the state of sin people “have wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation: so as, a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto” (Chapter IX.3). Without the intervention of the grace of the Holy Spirit in regeneration (Ezek. 36:25-27), no one can do any spiritual good. That is how devastating sin is (see Rom. 3:10-12).
The Confession goes on to speak about the “state of grace,” when one is saved. It says, “When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, he frees him from his natural bondage under sin; and, by his grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good” (Chapter IX.4). This highlights the transformation that occurs at conversion. A believer is free from the bondage to sin and enabled to choose to do spiritual good. The Confession is careful to emphasize that this ability to do spiritual good is “by his grace alone.” The ability to obey, to make every effort to supplement, to work out one’s salvation, to bear fruit in keeping with repentance is a gift of God’s grace. This is the logic Paul uses in Philippians 2 when he commands “work out your salvation.” He opens verse 13 with the conjunction “for.” Logically, this conjunction introduces the grounds or the reason why we should obey the command. And Paul’s answer is “because [for] God is at work in you.” We work (i.e. choose the spiritual good) because God has worked first (i.e. freed us from the bondage to sin and enabled our wills to choose the good).
Therefore, we understand that the commands in Scripture to “bear fruit,” “grow in grace,” “supplement your faith,” “walk by the Spirit,” are given to people who are in the state of grace, not in the state of sin. All that pertains to godliness has already been given to us so that we are enabled to obey the commands. It is not an oxymoron between God working and my working. God graciously gives us everything so that we are enabled to obey.
Why then are we not perfected in our spiritual growth? The Confession completes its teaching about the state of grace by saying, “yet so, as that by reason of his remaining corruption, he does not perfectly, not only, will that which is good, but does also will that which is evil.” While the bondage to sin has been broken, the corruption of sin remains in us. We still choose to sin, even in the state of grace. Therefore, until Christ returns or we pass into glory, we will struggle against sin and need to make every effort (by God’s grace) to grow in grace.
