Posted on 07/12/2021 2:22:26 PM PDT by Old Yeller
The words justification and sanctification have largely fallen out of use in Western culture. Sadly, they are also fading from sight in the Christian church. One reason this decline is distressing is that the Bible uses the words justification and sanctification to express the saving work of Christ for sinners. That is to say, both terms lie at the heart of the biblical gospel. So, what does the Bible teach about justification and sanctification? How do they differ from one another? How do they help us understand better the believer’s relationship with Jesus Christ?
Justification is as simple as A-B-C-D. Justification is an act of God. It does not describe the way that God inwardly renews and changes a person. It is, rather, a legal declaration in which God pardons the sinner of all his sins and accepts and accounts the sinner as righteous in His sight. God declares the sinner righteous at the very moment that the sinner puts his trust in Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:21-26, 5:16; 2 Cor. 5:21).
What is the basis of this legal verdict? God justifies the sinner solely on the basis of the obedience and death of His Son, our representative, Jesus Christ. Christ’s perfect obedience and full satisfaction for sin are the only ground upon which God declares the sinner righteous (Rom. 5:18-19; Gal. 3:13; Eph. 1:7; Phil. 2:8). We are not justified by our own works; we are justified solely on the basis of Christ’s work on our behalf. This righteousness is imputed to the sinner. In other words, in justification, God puts the righteousness of His Son onto the sinner’s account. Just as my sins were transferred to, or laid upon, Christ at the cross, so also His righteousness is reckoned to me (2 Cor. 5:21).
By what means is the sinner justified? Sinners are justified through faith alone when they confess their trust in Christ. We are not justified because of any good that we have done, are doing, or will do. Faith is the only instrument of justification. Faith adds nothing to what Christ has done for us in justification. Faith merely receives the righteousness of Jesus Christ offered in the gospel (Rom. 4:4-5).
Finally, saving faith must demonstrate itself to be the genuine article by producing good works. It is possible to profess saving faith but not possess saving faith (James 2:14-25). What distinguishes true faith from a mere claim to faith is the presence of good works (Gal. 5:6). We are in no way justified by our good works. But no one may consider himself to be a justified person unless he sees in his life the fruit and evidence of justifying faith; that is, good works.
Both justification and sanctification are graces of the gospel; they always accompany one another; and they deal with the sinner’s sin. But they differ in some important ways. First, whereas justification addresses the guilt of our sin, sanctification addresses the dominion and corruption of sin in our lives. Justification is God’s declaring the sinner righteous; sanctification is God’s renewing and transforming our whole persons—our minds, wills, affections, and behaviors. United to Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection and indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, we are dead to the reign of sin and alive to righteousness (Rom. 6:1-23; 8:1-11). We therefore are obligated to put sin to death and to present our “members to God as instruments for righteousness” (6:13; see 8:13).
Second, our justification is a complete and finished act. Justification means that every believer is completely and finally freed from condemnation and the wrath of God (Rom. 8:1, 33-34; Col. 2:13b-14). Sanctification, however, is an ongoing and progressive work in our lives. Although every believer is brought out once and for all from bondage to sin, we are not immediately made perfect. We will not be completely freed from sin until we receive our resurrection bodies at the last day.
Christ has won both justification and sanctification for His people. Both graces are the concern of faith in Jesus Christ, but in different ways. In justification, our faith results in our being forgiven, accepted, and accounted righteous in God’s sight. In sanctification, that same faith actively and eagerly takes up all the commands that Christ has given the believer. We dare not separate or conflate justification and sanctification. We do distinguish them. And, in both graces, we enter into the richness and joy of communion with Christ through faith in Him.
Sanctification is a process intitiated at the moment that the new spiritual being is born in the old body of the rescued person.
Thank you for the posts and article. I am reminded of “ mercy” and “ grace” every moment….giving thanks when I wake up, drive to work, work, drive home, eat dinner and retire for the day. In these corrupted times, never ever forget the Spirit, as Jesus said long ago, “ I will give you a helper”.
Do not doubt the “ helpers “ supernatural, power freely given.
Justification = imputed righteousness, i.e., just as if one had never sinned. Sanctification = continuing process of conformity to holiness of Christ.
Yeppers. Very well said.
I’m no where near as concise if only because I often get reminded of other stuff when people displaying the soul of wit speak up.
… soooooo…
You or I cannot have works unless we’re first saved. Also the Lord prepares the works for us that we should walk in them.
Being a diligent worker does not make you more saved because salvation is not your work, but justification is Christ’s work.
Scripture describe the judgment of our works as determining their quality by a some standard. By that standard SOME works are imperishable and endure and with that apparently comes rewards while OTHER works are perishable and are destroyed BUT the saved person is not lost even if they may suffer loss of potential rewards.
I reason that the standard has something to do with how we obey the Holy Spirit, where works that are a result of obeying the Holy Spirit are the imperishable works BUT if we labor in our own strength without His guidance, if we should for instance act from out of our old body of death and attempt to ape the fruits of the spirit so we should obey it rather than the Holy Spirit, then those seem to me to be the perishable works.
I think the second part of what I just said needs explaining and to do so I will go back to Genesis.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was not just the tree of the knowledge of evil. Before the fall our parents were not just innocent but they were holy creatures, and they had a relationship with the Father that spanned some number of years that constituted a basis for them being able to resist the temptation.
Which is to say I vehemently disagree with people saying they were somehow set up to fall, that I hold that the Lord knowing is very different than Him causing.
So in the fall they ceased to be holy creatures and became merely moral creatures knowing good and evil and being responsible to choose well (even as them, or us after them, choosing well is only what they ought to do, and no basis for boasting before the Lord).
So the natural state of fallen man is not to be as bad as bad can be but, as merely moral creatures, to be unholy creatures. So it should not be impossible for the old body of death to try to ape the fruits of the Holy Spirit and the reason it would do so, I maintain, is that we might obey it rather than Him, the Holy Spirit.
There’s an old joke that I think may help to illustrate this point. In it a young preacher just out of seminary was giving what he thought was a rousing set of sermons to a small country congregation, people he thought of as uneducated and backwards. The room was full but stoic and unresponsive for all services and when nobody responded to the evening invitation, not for anything, he later asked the grizzled old country preacher what he’d done wrong?
The older man looked him straight in the eye and asked him if he was sent or did he just went?
Being sent is working in obedience to the Holy Spirit, faithfully walking in the works which the Lord has prepared for us beforehand.
Being just went is working in your own strength and by your own understanding, even if it’s an appointed work but your attitude is simply wrong.
For the last I think of Paul how referenced people who proclaim the Gospel from bad motives, that it is applicable to my point. Paul was (up to a point) content that the Gospel was being proclaimed even though he clearly would have preferred it to be proclaimed for the right reasons rather than from working some angle. Paul was sent, these others just went.
But again no one can actually be sent unless they are first saved. The lost have no ability to work at all. So don’t anyone say I’m saying works save or that the saints cannot have works.
Justification is like being proclaimed born alive, and the proof of life is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Sanctification is an out working of heeding the Holy Spirit.
You cannot imagine the burden of true guilt. the cause of which He, Jesus, on the Cross, paid for; nor for the constantly increasing joy to have been declared, “Not guilty!” by the Judge of all, His Father; and that The Holy Ghost would exercise joint tenancy in this old body to strengthen and guide on the attitudes to have and the choices to make under His counsel that is illustrated in the Book He has written and preserved.
I have this weird knack when it comes to double doors leading into or out of buildings. If left to my own devices, not see others using the door, I almost always pick the door that is locked rather than the one that is unlocked.
Sometimes I’ve just walked into a door without even trying to open it … at which time I laugh and quote Bugs Bunny and try to do the rabbit’s voice: “Heh, forgot to open the door.”
As a guy who needs some measure of grace just walking in and out of buildings … and no, I don’t understand why that keeps happening … I’m a real fan of Grace for what actually matters, proverbial narrow roads included.
Excellent article and explanations of terms that confuse many.
Thanks so much for posting.
How is this reconciled then?
Since you've brought it up...
In Catholicism there is no reconciling what you imagine is a contradiction. Your religion teaches a works based salvation, so God Justifying someone for just ‘pistis’ in whom God sent for their salvation is unintelligible for the Catholic mind. Also, the love Paul writes of is translated in other Bible versions as charity, and you are purposely flipping Justification and Sanctification to support the Catholic works religion ... oh never mind, you won’t get it regardless of how it is explained to you. You want the Catholicism religion to be the truth and all others not, so you are not open to receive in your spirit.
Maybe if you read more of the article, then maybe you might have perceived - by the grace of God - that the qualifying clarification, "saving faith must demonstrate itself to be the genuine article by producing good works. It is possible to profess saving faith but not possess saving faith (James 2:14-25). What distinguishes true faith from a mere claim to faith is the presence of good works (Gal. 5:6)" encompasses love, even as the last verse quoted states, "For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love." (Galatians 5:6)
Thus while this expression of faith and which faith effects can be elaborated on in a longer article, there is no contradiction ("does not seem to fit very well") as you seem to imagine.
[Charity] rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; (1 Corinthians 13:6)
So give us your definition of love.
Speaking as a former Roman Catholic, I believe that in order for them to be open to the truth, they have to want to hear it - even though it may blow a hole in their entire worldview.
Only the Holy Spirit can reach them. He reached me.
It’s not impossible.
That's the only way to figure out what you are talking about.
You remain clueless. On purpose? I dunno. But I can see by what you post that you haven’t a clue as to the meaning of Justification, Sanctification, and Glorification. There is NOTHING you can do or fail to do that can change the Justification which ONLY God can do for you. Once HE justifies you, it is HE WHO then abides in the born again spirit and since He came by His Grace into your before dead spirit you cannot put Him out of your alive spirit. (John 10:27-30) The Grace of God in Christ is so great in Love that He doesn’t even expect you to keep what ONLY HE can do for you, so HE KEEPS you alive forever more.
Here is a clue for you: there will ne hundreds of millions of members in the Rapture who had zero to only some change in the sanctrification process and here is why: faithful is He that calleth you for He will also do it; many are called but few are chosen; so of the many called, why so few chosen?... Because so few will let HIM do it.
Do you know to what the 'do it' refers? It is not Justification to which that refers, it is the sanctification process, so few will let HIM change their soulish activities, so they are not chosen. You might well ask chosen for what? Here is a clue which Paul wrote: some saved members of the Body of Christ Believers will end up in Heaven with no reward at the Bema Seat because the perfect righteous fire of Him will burn away their wood hay and stubble, but they themselves will be saved; they are in Heaven when this Bema review happens and they are not cast out because they didn't do works good enough to deserve Heaven, they are there by God's Grace through faith alone in Christ alone. That, ny Catholic FRiend, brings Glory to Christ alone
Now, again, do you know to what the chosen means? ... Many are called but few are chosen. This passage refers to the sanctification tense of salvation, beung delivered from THE POWER of sin. It Does not refer to the penalty of Sin, for that deliverance happened in God Justifying them.
Justification ios GOD delivering you from the penalty of sin; sanctification is GOD AND YOUR COOPERATION delivering you from the power of sin; Glorification is the deliverance from the PRESENCE of sin, in the person of The Man of Sin, revealed when the Restrainer is taken out of the way and the man of sin AntiChrist revealed.
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