The important point is that, in themselves, believers remain deeply flawed: in their inmost souls there lurks a deep rebellion or resistance to God. But God looks on believers as if they are “glued” to Christ (and he to them), and in Christ he sees only righteousness, holiness, and goodness. There thus remains a lifelong incongruity in grace, such that Luther could coin the expression simul justus et peccator (“at the same time justified and a sinner”).23
