Living Between Saint and Sinner

The Christian life is not a movement from sinner to saint. It is the life of one who is already declared righteous in Christ, and yet still struggles with sin.

There is a tension at the heart of the Christian life that many Christians feel, but few are able to clearly articulate. Scripture speaks in remarkably strong terms about what has been given to those who belong to Christ. We’re told that our sins are forgiven, that we’re justified before God, and that we stand clothed in the righteousness of Christ Himself. Paul states it plainly: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). That isn’t a future promise waiting to be fulfilled. It’s a present declaration spoken over the believer here and now.

And yet, the lived experience of the Christian often seems to tell a different story. Sin doesn’t simply disappear. Old patterns remain. Thoughts, desires, and habits persist in ways that can be deeply frustrating and, at times, discouraging. Even as we grow in faith, we find ourselves returning again and again to the same struggles. This can create a quiet but pressing question for us, that if we are truly justified, why does so much still feel unchanged?

The answer Scripture gives is not to resolve that tension, but to name it. The Christian is, at the same time, both righteous and a sinner. Martin Luther captured this with the phrase simul justus et peccator: simultaneously justified and sinful. This isn’t a paradox to be solved, but simply the reality in which the Christian life is lived. To best understand it, we must begin where Scripture directs us: with Baptism.

In Romans 6, Paul speaks of Baptism not as a symbol of an internal decision, but as the means by which we are united to Christ Himself. “Do you not know,” he writes, “that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Romans 6:3). Baptism joins us to the death and resurrection of Christ. It isn’t merely a picture of something that might happen, a symbolic gesture that we do for God. It is the very place where God acts upon us. “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death,” Paul continues, “in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead…we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). This means that something real has taken place. The old life, bound to sin and death, has been crucified with Christ, and a new life has already begun. This is the foundation of justification. The believer stands righteous before God, not because of internal transformation or moral progress, but because of Christ’s work upon the cross. Our sin has been placed upon Him, and His righteousness has been given to us. As Paul writes, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). This declaration is complete and nothing remains to be added. Before God, you are righteous…and yet, the presence of sin remains.

The second part of the Christian reality comes into view here. Although we are fully justified by the work of Christ, the old Adam, our sinful nature, has not yet been fully put away. The Christian life isn’t a clean break from sin in this age. It’s a daily struggle against it. Luther describes this vividly in the Small Catechism where he explains that our Baptism as an ongoing and present reality: the old Adam is to be drowned “by daily contrition and repentance.” The need for this daily drowning tells us something important: that the old Adam isn’t gone. He continues to resist, to assert himself, to cling to what has already been put to death in Christ.

Our ongoing struggle is what Scripture describes as sanctification. It is real, but it isn’t complete. It doesn’t unfold as a steady or predictable progression. Growth often comes slowly, unevenly, and sometimes in ways we don’t immediately recognize. This is the reason why the Christian life can feel confusing. We expect that something as decisive as justification would produce immediate and visible transformation. We assume that faith should feel strong, that sin should diminish quickly, and that progress should be obvious. But the reality is far more complex, and more honest. The Christian lives in tension. You are, at the exact same time, 100% saint and 100% sinner.

This distinction becomes crucial when we consider how we stand before God. When you look at yourself, your thoughts, your actions, and your failures, you see the reality of your sin. The Law continues to speak truthfully, exposing what is still broken within you. But when God looks at you, He does not see you as you are inside of your flesh. He sees you in Christ, as righteous, forgiven, and justified. This is why the doctrine of justification must remain extra nos, or outside of us. If our standing before God depended on what we could observe within ourselves, it would always be uncertain. There would always be something to undermine our confidence. But justification does not rest on what is happening inside of you. It rests solely upon what Christ has done for you, and that does not change.

“Justification does not rest on what is happening inside of you. It rests solely upon what Christ has done for you.”

The reality of our sinner/saint existence frees the us to live honestly. There isn’t any need for us to pretend that we’re progressing more quickly than we are. There’s no need to deny the persistence of sin in our lives, or our daily struggle with it. We are free to confess our sin fully and without excuse, precisely because our standing before God is already secure in Christ. But at the same time, this shouldn’t lead us to an attitude of indifference toward our sin. The new life given to us in our Baptism is real. The Holy Spirit is at work, shaping, convicting, and renewing. There is growth, there is change, and there is fruit, but it all unfolds according to God’s timing, not ours, and often beneath the surface of what we can see. We live lives of daily repentance, confession, and absolution as we lean solely upon the work of God in our lives, not our work from our lives.

This distinction becomes especially important in seasons of suffering. When life becomes difficult, when our sin feels overwhelming, or when our faith feels weak, it is so very easy to begin measuring ourselves by what we can observe. We look inward and wonder whether we are truly changed, truly faithful, truly secure. We take what we see in ourselves, most of the time what no one else can see, and then project outward and measure ourselves against where others are, where we think we ought to be…and see how we fail over and over.

But we as Christians shouldn’t look inward for certainty or comfort. We must look to Christ and Christ alone. This is the truth: you have been baptized into Christ Jesus. You have died with Him. You have been raised with Him. That is true whether you feel it or not. That is where your identity rests: not in your progress, not in your strength, not in your ability to overcome sin, but in the finished work of Christ. You are, at the same time, 100% sinner and 100% saint. Because Christ is risen, that tension is not a sign that something has gone wrong. It is the very place where His promise continues to hold you.