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Boanerges said:

I was reading about sanctification from two different perspectives. The Lutheran perspective sees sanctification as a monergistic act of God along with justification in which the believer does not participate in his own salvation but is sanctified through the Holy Spirit. However, the Reformed perspective sees it as a progressive event in which God is the initiator and sustainer of sanctification but that the person also contributes to it in some small manner.

So what do you think is sanctification totally monergistic or synergistic, or both?

I wouldn't agree with the statement that the believer "contributes" in some small manner to his own sanctification. When you use the term contributes its sounds too much like faith plus works. However, because it's a process rather than an event we need to see that our cooperation with the Holy Spirit is essential as He completes the work that has begun in us.

Progressive sanctification always involves our practice of spiritual disciplines, such as reading Scripture, praying, and not neglecting the means of grace. It also involves putting to death the sinful deeds of the body (see Rom. 8:13) and putting on Christlike character (see Col. 3:12-14). And very importantly it involves a desperate dependence on Christ for the power to do these things, for we cannot grow by our own strength.

Some have the mistaken notion that sanctification consists merely in the drawing out of the new life, implanted in the soul by regeneration, in a persuasive way by presenting motives to the will. But this is not true. It consists fundamentally and primarily in a divine operation in the soul, whereby the holy disposition born in regeneration is strengthened and its holy exercises are increased. It is essentially a work of God, though in so far as He employs means, man can and is expected to co-operate by the proper use of these means. Scripture clearly exhibits the supernatural character of sanctification in several ways. It describes it as a work of God, I Thes. 5:23; Heb. 18:20, 21, as a fruit of the union of life with Jesus Christ, John 15:4; Gal. 2:20; 4:19, as a work that is wrought in man from within and which for that very reason cannot be a work of man, Eph. 3:16; Col. 1:11, and speaks of its manifestation in Christian virtues as the work of the Spirit, Gal. 5:22. It should never be represented as a merely natural process in the spiritual development of man, nor brought down to the level of a mere human achievement, as is done in a great deal of modern liberal theology.


Wes

When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride. - Isaac Watts