Holiness is the goal of the growth of the church as the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:15). We are to grow together to the full maturity of Christ. We know that, when the Lord comes, we shall be made like Him (I John 3:2). For that reason, perhaps, evangelical Christians have discounted the importance of the transformation that the Lord seeks now, before His coming. Paul labored night and day to present the church as a pure virgin to Christ (II Corinthians 11:2). He did not limit his work to saving souls, in the relaxed confidence that the Lord would finish their sanctification when the trumpet sounds. Rather, his prayer and labor for the Thessalonians were that they may be ‘blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all His holy ones.’ (I Thessalonians 3:13)
– Edmund Clowney, The Church: Contours in Christian Theology, copyright 1988, page 65