Justification and Sanctification

[jgredline]

I posted this in another thread and thought it would make for good discussion...

Stranger
You are on to something....This is what the reformation was all about....''Justification'' This is what Luther went to war over with the CC.....

Still the Catholic Church does not understand Justification...and no They do not Understand that Sanctification is two different things....

Now I am very short on time so I will be paraphrasing and try and keep this simple....We will see quickly how this fits into purgatory...

When we are born again we are ''Justified''...When Paul used this term, he was been very specific...Look at the context in time in which this was written. It was written at a time when ''Roman Law'' was king, unbreakable, the final authority...This term Justification is a ''legal term'' When a person was found to be innocent of all charges, the Roman Law proclaimed this man to be ''Justified'' ..Once a man was found to be Justified, he was given his papers of Freedom and there was nothing anybody could do about it...He was Free....of ''ALL'' Charges against him....If a person was found Guilty, he was condemned ..This is the exact opposite of Justified....If a man was condemned, he was sentenced to death....So this term Justified was a term that the people would completely understand....

Now ''Justified'' also means to be sealed...Back then when letters where carried from the King to there intended reader, it was sealed by the kings signet ring and pressed into a wax seal...This way if it were broken, the recipient would know this...The penalty for illegally opening a letter sealed by a Kings signet ring was death and often times that included your entire family....So in this ''case'' The believer was Justified (found not guilty) through Jesus Christ and we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, with God being the only one who can open the letter...Glory be to God, that when he opens the letter, he will only see that we are justified and made righteous through Jesus Christ his Son....WHO is God

hmmm, I did not intend this to be more affirmation of the Holy Trinity, but this is the only way this makes sense...Praise God...

So when we are justified, it is like Cart Blanche with Jesus name on the card....Now this is important.... While I am still alive on this earth, obviously I am not saved and ''truly'' a person is not completely saved until he is dead....But because we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, there is nothing that anyone can seperate us from the Love of Christ Jesus....NOTHING..That can cause us to loose our salvation...

Now Sanctification...What does it mean to be sanctified? It means to be set apart, blessed, consecrated,...The sanctification process begins after Justification with the goal of being perfected through this thing called ''Life''
We are commanded to be perfect, even as God is perfect...How can this be? How can we be perfect? We Can't !!!! at least not our flesh....Our spirit is Perfect because it is the Holy Spirit (God)...It is the Holy Spirit who will walk with us, teach us, convict us of our fleshly sins and all this purifies our ''Souls''...Our spirits can't sin...We will go through the purification process while alive here on earth...The moment the believers mortal body dies, his soul is then perfected. This is total sanctification....Paul tells us we ''will'' be Glorified...We then can approach a Holy God...So it is not until we are dead, that truly we are saved from a theological, man thinking logical form....For the catholic, this final purification forms takes place in purgatory....This is false, because again we were justified By Jesus Christ..and it is the Holy Spirit who purifies us.....How can ''we'' improve upon what Jesus did on the cross? How can we do a better sanctification Job than the Holy Spirit...

I will leave it at that for now.....I am sure I will hear allot of flack over this, because many folks don't understand Romans, but hey, this is what discussion forums are all about....
Blessings, javier

 

[Vic C.]

Now ''Justified'' also means to be sealed...Back then when letters where carried from the King to there intended reader, it was sealed by the kings signet ring and pressed into a wax seal...This way if it were broken, the recipient would know this...The penalty for illegally opening a letter sealed by a Kings signet ring was death and often times that included your entire family....So in this ''case'' The believer was Justified (found not guilty) through Jesus Christ and we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, with God being the only one who can open the letter...Glory be to God, that when he opens the letter, he will only see that we are justified and made righteous through Jesus Christ his Son....WHO is God

Here is how justification was taught to me. It means, "just if I'd" never sinned.

:-D

 

[jgredline]

Here is how justification was taught to me. It means, "just if I'd" never sinned.

:-D

Wow, you said in one sentence what took me a 1/2 hour to formulate and type my thoughts..... :angel:

 

[WretchedMan]

Hi, Jeff.

A thought struck me like a hammer when I saw the "just-if-I'd" quote. I'm not advocating a position here, but it's almost as if GOD has made us "better than if" we'd never sinned. Not that sin is good, but clearly, like the Rich Young Ruler, if we never had sinned, we'd never be as humbled and as grateful and as overwhelmed by God's unmerited grace.

I'm just a novice at this stuff - what do other folks think?

 

[WretchedMan]

This is no Master of Divinity talking -- like I said, I'm a novice -- but my inconsequential "hunch" is this is how we go from being "a little lower than the angels" to a little higher - they've never known sin, and thus can never intimately comprehend the "Can't get over it, can't get under it, can't get around it" Love of GOD.

Ohhhh, I'm going to paste it in again, just 'cause it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up every time....

"For I am persuaded,
that neither death,
nor life,
nor angels,
nor principalities,
nor powers,
nor things present,
nor things to come,
nor height,
nor depth,
nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Can I get an "AMEN!"?

 

[jgredline]

Hello Wretched man and welcome to the boards...

After rereading my post, There are places I feel I need to clear up...For now I will simply say this....

Justification is a Jesus thing
Sanctification is a Holy Spirit thing
Righteousness is a God thing....

If we can get a grasp on this, then we will start to understand this process we call life as a Christian or Born again, born from above....

 

[jgredline]

jgredline,



But all mankind have been so declared not guilty. We, mankind has been freed from the death sentence imposed by Adam.
Mankind was declared NOT Guilty, of the death sentence through Adam.

I.C. You are a universalist. I have had this feeling about your posts and the many references you make twords UR. That is a violation of the TOS of this site.

 

[Diolectic]

Here is how justification was taught to me. It means, "just if I'd" never sinned.

:-D

An injustice can never be satisfied, in the sense that, the guilty can be punished until he ceased to be guilty, and became innocent.

For example: one breaks the law by speeding then pays the fine for the crime; that one does not cease from being guilty for paying the fine, but, paying the fine only satisfies the law.

Therefore, it is not "just if I'd never sinned", but "just if I'd" never been charged.