"The starting point of sanctification is the filthiness, corruption, or stain of sin"
About this Quote
Sanctification, for Ames, doesn’t begin with a halo but with grime. The line is engineered to puncture any pious self-congratulation: you don’t climb toward holiness by polishing your virtues; you start by admitting you’re contaminated. That opening image - “filthiness, corruption, or stain” - is not delicate theology. It’s sensory, humiliating language meant to dislodge the comforting fantasy that spiritual growth is a merit badge earned by decent people. Ames wants the reader to feel the insult before they can feel the hope.
The specific intent is doctrinal and disciplinary. As a Reformed thinker writing in the post-Reformation pressure cooker, Ames is guarding a boundary: sanctification (the slow work of becoming holy) must follow, and be anchored in, a prior diagnosis of sin. If you soften the diagnosis, you turn religion into moral self-improvement - a project the Puritans distrusted because it smuggles pride back in under the cover of “virtue.” The subtext is an argument about agency. Your effort matters, but only after you concede that the “starting point” is not your potential, it’s your ruin. That concession clears space for grace; it also keeps the community’s moral order intact by requiring confession, not performance.
It works rhetorically because it reverses the expected arc. Most people want an uplifting on-ramp. Ames insists the on-ramp is abasement. The shock is the point: holiness, in his frame, is not a glow-up. It’s a cleansing.
The specific intent is doctrinal and disciplinary. As a Reformed thinker writing in the post-Reformation pressure cooker, Ames is guarding a boundary: sanctification (the slow work of becoming holy) must follow, and be anchored in, a prior diagnosis of sin. If you soften the diagnosis, you turn religion into moral self-improvement - a project the Puritans distrusted because it smuggles pride back in under the cover of “virtue.” The subtext is an argument about agency. Your effort matters, but only after you concede that the “starting point” is not your potential, it’s your ruin. That concession clears space for grace; it also keeps the community’s moral order intact by requiring confession, not performance.
It works rhetorically because it reverses the expected arc. Most people want an uplifting on-ramp. Ames insists the on-ramp is abasement. The shock is the point: holiness, in his frame, is not a glow-up. It’s a cleansing.
Quote Details
| Topic | Faith |
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