Simul Justus et Peccator

Kolb and Arand on Luther's view that as Christians we will always remain righteous and sinful:

'We should not take Luther's simul to mean that a person is partially a sinner and partially righteous, as if one could quantify it in terms of percentages. That would be to think of the Christian in terms of oneself, in terms of a person's progress upward on a spiritual continuum, whereby one's sinfulness gradually diminishes as one grows in righteousness either psychologically or ontologically. [... Rather Luther] views the human person relationally and holistically. [...] The Christian is simultaneously completely and totally righteous in the eyes of God, even as the believer is completely and totally sinful when considered in and of oneself. This double character of a totus-totus existence remains through all of life up to the very moment that Christ raises us from the dead. Because we are both - completely and simultaneously - until death, there is a constant psychological movement between the two poles.' (p.49)