[Chicory]

Thank you for your explanation. We think about things a little differently in the Catholic Church, but I see that what you explained about sanctification is similar to what we call growing in holiness.

I had always heard phrases like becoming saved, which seemed to mean being in a state wherein one would go to Heaven if one died that night. I guess that is analogous to what you are calling justification?

Thanks again for explaining the difference. I am still not sure how that relates to what I was saying, tho. I’ll have to go back and see if I used either of those words...

[MHGinTN]

Thanks for the courtesy in your reply! You have snared the meaning of Justification it would appear!

Pax vobiscum

[metmom]

I had always heard phrases like becoming saved, which seemed to mean being in a state wherein one would go to Heaven if one died that night. I guess that is analogous to what you are calling justification?

I see the difference you are referring to.

When we say that someone becomes saved, we are referring to the one time event of being born again, being declared judicially righteous based on our faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross.

I can see how someone could think that becoming saved is the process of growing in holiness.

FWIW, for years after I got saved, I was also very confused about the terminology of *justification* and *sanctification*.

That has cleared up with good Scriptural teaching.

So it gets back to what I defined earlier.

Justified is being declared judicially pardoned by God. Sanctified is becoming more and more Christ like as I live out His life here on this earth, as He lives through me. He becomes greater and I become less.