Christ Jesus, who became to us… sanctification.
1 corinthians 1:30
We have seen that in Christ you are clean, and in Christ you are free. Now we come to the third dimension of who we are in Jesus Christ: Christ is our holiness. Another word for holiness is sanctification. These words mean the same thing, and it is worth knowing them both.
Now this is an area where it is easy to become confused, so it is important to think clearly. If someone asks you, “Are you justified, forgiven, and reconciled to God?” you will say, “Yes.” If they ask, “Are you redeemed?” you will say, “Yes.” This is something that has happened. It has been accomplished.
But if they ask, “Are you holy?” or “Are you sanctified?” we may hesitate. We normally think about holiness or sanctification as an ongoing process. Justification is the once-and-for-all event in which we are brought into a right relationship with God. Sanctification is the ongoing process of growth by which we are made increasingly like Christ, and it is never complete in this life.
We think that maybe it would be true of us just a little bit in twenty-five years, but right now it sounds like something that we are not! If you are married and you ask your spouse, “Do you think I am holy?” the response may be, “You cannot be serious!”
So, holiness sounds like something that we are not, and something we cannot really imagine ourselves being. It feels as if anything about us that was holy would be just a little false.
While it seems natural for us to say, “I have been justified,” we do not feel that we could ever come to the place of saying, “I have been sanctified.”
How would you describe the difference between justification and sanctification to someone else?
