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 Justification and Sanctification How do they Differ?

Justification and Sanctification
How do they Differ?
by J.C. Ryle


I now propose to consider, in the last place, the distinction between justification and sanctification. Wherein do they agree, and wherein do they differ?


This branch of our subject is one of great importance, though I fear it will not seem so to all my readers. I shall handle it briefly, but I dare not pass it over altogether. Too many are apt to look at nothing but the surface of things in religion, and regard nice distinctions in theology as questions of” words and names,” which are of little real value. But I warn all who are in earnest about their souls, that the discomfort which arises from not” distinguishing things that differ” in Christian doctrine is very great indeed;and I especially advise them, if they love peace, to seek clear views about the matter before us. Justification and sanctification are two distinct things we must always remember. Yet there are points in which they agree and points in which they differ. Letus try to find out what they are.


In what, then, are justification and sanctification alike?
(a) Both proceed originally from the free grace of God. It is of His gift alone that believers are justified or sanctified at all.
(b) Both are part of that great work of salvation which Christ, in the eternal covenant, has undertaken on behalf of His people. Christ is the fountain of life, from which pardon and holiness both flow. The root of each is Christ.
(c) Both are to be found in the same persons. Those who are justified are always sanctified, and those who are sanctified are always justified. God has joined them together, and they cannot be put asunder.
(d) Both begin at the same time. The moment a person begins to be a justified person; he also begins to be a sanctified person. He may not feel it, but it is a fact.
(e) Both are alike necessary to salvation. No one ever reached heaven without a renewed heart as well as forgiveness, without the Spirit's grace as well as the blood of Christ, without a meetness for eternal glory as well as a title. The one is just as necessary as the other.
Such are the points on which justification and sanctification agree. Let us now reverse the picture, and see wherein they differ.
(a) Justification is the reckoning and counting a man to be righteous for the sake of another, even Jesus Christ the Lord. Sanctification is the actual making a man inwardly righteous, though it may be in a very feeble degree.
(b) The righteousness we have by our justification is not our own, but the everlasting perfect righteousness of our great Mediator Christ, imputed to us, and made our own by faith. The righteousness we have by sanctification is our own righteousness, imparted, inherent, and wrought in us by the Holy Spirit, but mingled with much infirmity and imperfection.
(c) In justification our own works have no place at all, and simple faith in Christ is the one thing needful.
(d) In sanctification our own works are of vast importance and God bids us fight, and watch, and pray, and strive, and take pains, and labour Justification is a finished and complete work, and a man is perfectly justified the moment he believes. Sanctification is an imperfect work, comparatively, and will never be perfected until we reach heaven.
(e) Justification admits of no growth or increase: a man is as much justified the hour he first comes to Christ by faith as he will be to all eternity. Sanctification is eminently a progressive work, and admits of continual growth and enlargement so long as a man lives.
(f) Justification has special reference to our persons, our standing in God's sight, and our deliverance from guilt. Sanctification has special reference to our natures, and the moral renewal of our hearts.
(g) Justification gives us our title to heaven, and boldness to enter in. Sanctification gives us our meetness for heaven, and prepares us to enjoy it when we dwell there.
(h) Justification is the act of God about us, and is not easily discerned by others. Sanctification is the work of God within us, and cannot be hid in its outward manifestation from the eyes of men.


I commend these distinctions to the attention of all my readers, and I ask them to ponder them well. I am persuaded that one great cause of the darkness and uncomfortable feelings of many well-meaning people in the matter of religion is their habit of confounding, and not distinguishing, justification and sanctification. It can never be too strongly impressed on our minds that they are two separate things. No doubt they cannot be divided, and everyone that is a partaker of either is a partaker of both. But never, never ought they to be confounded, and never ought the distinction between them to be forgotten. It only remains for me now to bring this subject to a conclusion by a few plain words of application. The nature and visible marks of sanctification have been brought before us. What practical reflections ought the whole matter to raise in our minds?


(1) For one thing, let us all awake to a sense of the perilous state of many professing Christians.”Without holiness no man shall see the Lord”; without sanctification there is no salvation. (Heb.xii. 14.) Then what an enormous amount of so-called religion there is which is perfectly useless! What an immense proportion of church-goers and chapel-goers are in the broad road that leadeth to destruction! The thought is awful, crushing, and overwhelming.Oh, that preachers and teachers would open their eyes and realize the condition of souls around them! Oh, that man could be persuaded to”flee from the wrath to come”I If unsanctified souls can be saved and go to heaven, the Bible is not true. Yet the Bible is true and cannot lie! What must the end be!
(2) For another thing, let us make sure work of our own condition, and never rest till we feel and know that we are” sanctified” ourselves. What are our tastes, and choices, and likings, and in clinations? This is the great testing question. It matters little what we wish, and what we hope, and what we desire to be before we die. Where are we now? What are we doing? Are we sanctified or not? If not, the fault is all our own.
(3) For another thing, if we would be sanctified, our course is clear and plain— we must begin with Christ. We must go to Him as sinners, with no plea but that of utter need, and cast our souls on Him by faith, for peace and reconciliation with God. We must place ourselves in His hands, as in the hands of a good physician, and cry to Him for mercy and grace. We must wait for nothing to bring with us as a recommendation. The very first step towards sanctification, no less than justification, is to come with faith to Christ. We must first live and then work.
(4) For another thing, if we would grow in holiness and become more sanctified, we must continually go on as we began,, and be ever making fresh applications to Christ. He is the Head from which every member must be supplied. (Ephes. iv. 16.) To live the life of daily faith in the Son of God, and to be daily drawing out of His fulness the promised grace and strength which He has laid up for His people—this is the grand secret of progressive sanctification. Believers who seem at a standstill are generally neglecting close communion with Jesus, and so grieving the Spirit. He that prayed,”Sanctify them,” the last night before His crucifixion, is infinitely willing to help everyone who by faith applies to Him for help, and desires to be made more holy.
(5) For another thing, let us not expect too much from our own hearts here below. At our best we shall find in ourselves daily cause for humiliation, and discover that we are needy debtors to mercy and grace every hour. The more light we have, the more we shall see our own imperfection. Sinners we were when we began, sinners we shall find ourselves as we go on; renewed, pardoned, justified—yet sinners to the very last. Our absolute perfection is yet to come, and the expectation of it is one reason why we should long for heaven.
(6) Finally, let us never be ashamed of making much of sanctification,, and contending for a high standard of holiness. While some are satisfied with a miserably low degree of attainment, and others are not ashamed to live on without any holiness at all—content with a mere round of church-going and chapel-going, but never getting on, like a horse in a mill—let us stand fast in the old paths, follow after eminent holiness ourselves, and recommend it boldly to others. This is the only way to be really happy.


Let us feel convinced, whatever others may say, that holiness is happiness, and that the man who gets through life most comfortably is the sanctified man. No doubt there are some true Christians who from ill-health, or family trials, or other secret causes, enjoy little sensible comfort, and go mourning all their days on the way to heaven. But these are exceptional cases. As a general rule, in the long run of life, it will be found true that”sanctified people are the happiest people on earth. They have solid comforts which the world can neither give nor take away.”The ways of wisdom are ways of pleasantness.”—” Great peace has they that love Thy law.”—It was said by One who cannot lie,”My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”—But it is also written,”There isno peace unto the wicked.” (Prov iii. 17; Ps. cxix. 165; Matt, xi. 30; Is. xlviii. 22.)


P. S. THE subject of sanctification is of such deep importance, and the mistakes made about it so many and great, that I make no apology for strongly recommending” Owen on the Holy Spirit” to all who want to study more thoroughly the whole doctrine of sanctification. No single paper like this can embrace it all. I am quite aware that Owen's writings are not fashionable in the present day, and that many think fit to neglect and sneer at him as a Puritan! Yet the great divine who in Commonwealth times was Deanof Christ Church, Oxford, does not deserve to be treated in this way. He had more learning and sound knowledge of Scripture in his little finger than many who depreciate him have in their whole bodies. I assert unhesitatingly that the man who wants to study experimental theology will find no books equal to those of Owen and some of his contemporaries, for complete, Scriptural, and exhaustive treatment of the subjects they handle


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CHRISTIAN

 2006/9/25 10:40Profile
mamaluk
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Joined: 2006/6/12
Posts: 524


 Re: Justification and Sanctification How do they Differ?

# John 17:17
Sanctify them [b]by the truth[/b]; your word is truth.

# John 17:19
For them [b]I(The Lord) sanctify myself[/b], that they too may be truly sanctified.

# 1 Thessalonians 5:23
May [b]God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you [/b]through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

# 2 Thessalonians 2:13
But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the [b]sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.[/b]


# 1 Peter 1:2
who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the [b]sanctifying work of the Spirit,[/b] for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

Sanctify=Hallow=Greek Hagiazo.

Ryle's right. But I often heard preachers preaching "sanctify yourselves"..


Going back to read in John 17:17 and John 17:19 where The LORD said that HE sanctified HIMSELF and the O.T.,
"Separation is the idea of the word 'holy'. See Ex.3.5. Which shows the meaning of sanctify; [b]not making holy as to moral character[/b], but [b]SETTING APART for God[/b]. " Companion Bible

BOth Christ and the apostles in each of the above verses, indicated that sanctification is the work of God, the Holy Spirit.


GOD set aside, or separated Israel unto HIM in the old days, and the Church unto HIM in the present.
So if I'd have to apply this concept as work within myself, I'd see it as separating myself unto His holiness or setting aside 'self' unto His holiness in Christ, rather than 'producing'
my own 'righteousness' or manufacturing the subjective kind of morality from myself.

I'd use words such as obeying, abiding, living, subjecting ,..in accordance to the instructions of the Bible, but [i]not[/i] " let me sanctify myself by doing xyz.."

Yes, justification and sanctification are two different 'activities' but both unique Works only of God the Holy Spirit .

This is also why I see the precept of unequal yoke is very important for believers. For the least, not yoking spiritually and morally with unbelievers.

 2006/9/25 11:57Profile
Forevidence
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 Re:

Lowrey's Testimony of Complete Sanctification


"I had lived a devout and holy life during all these preparatory years, and especially so during the year preceding my ordination, and yet I had not obtained the evidence of entire sanctification. Indeed, I was painfully conscious of remaining sin, and strove against it all the year by fasting and prayer. Still I went to Conference, and stood before the altar of ordination somewhat unhealed of sin. But notwithstanding all my defects, I am persuaded a more sincere and conscientious soul never stood before such an altar. As every candidate is required to do, I answered all the disciplinary test questions in the affirmative: "Have you faith in God? Are you going on to perfection? Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life? Are you groaning after it?" When this last question was put and answered, I remember to have felt some misgiving respecting my positive response.



"The question raised in my conscience was, whether I so intensely desire this knowledge as to justify the strong phrase, "groaning after it." The language of my soul immediately was, "If I do not, I will until that great grace is obtained. I will pursue it with travailing pangs. I will never relax my efforts, nor ungrasp my hold."…



"About three months after this date God, in His love, gave me the evidence of full salvation. Observe, I did not approach it gradually by any sensible increase of joy or power. My soul did not flower up into it by successive blessings. I was being blessed, sometimes more and sometimes less, as I had been for years, but remained as far from the actual grasp of the great salvation, an hour before it came, as I had been for nine years. And I suppose it would have continued so, but for one mighty resolve, and that was to bring on a crisis. I found I must fix a time, and limit my faith to it. My course had been like that of a man traveling on and on to reach a beautiful horizon. It was always lovely, always in sight, but always receding. Therefore, under the conviction that it must be now or never, I dismissed every other subject, suspended every pursuit, and retired into a room, bowed all alone before God, and pleaded for immediate redemption, and immediate deliverance, immediate cleansing from all sin, the fullness of the Spirit, and perfection in love. I soon realized the unfailing truth of these words: "Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it." Somehow I was moved and inspired to trust: first, that it would be done; second, that it was being done; and, third, that it was done. Not that my faith was actually divided into three stages. Not that I stopped in mental action at either of these three points; but these three elements seemed to conspire and come together in my belief. It was all very summary and unmethodical. In conjunction with this process of trusting and praying, a joyous impression, evidently a divine conviction amounting to an evidence, came upon my mind to the effect that God had graciously granted my request—that I was healed of all sin; that I had entered into rest from sin; that its corrodings had ceased.



"I was happy, but not ecstatic. The prevailing feeling seemed to be that of rest, satisfaction, great peace, and a consciousness of cleansing and sanctity. My joy was more solemn and sacred than ever before. My soul seemed hushed into silence before the Lord on account of his nearness and realized indwelling, and the overshadowing presence of the Holy Spirit.



"My experience was not only that of victory over sin, but absolute deliverance from it. Its indwelling had ceased. The love of sin and the tendency to it were gone. I had been saved from the guilt and reigning power of sin before, but now I felt that the lurking, hostile, and warring inbeing of sin had been taken away. The usurper had been dethroned and cast out, and perfect love had been enthroned in his stead. The prayer was answered, "The seed of sin's disease/ Spirit of health remove."



"I did not feel that I could not sin, but that I would not, on the principle, that I would not put my hand in the fire, or besmear myself with filth, though so unnatural a thing were possible. I was a deliverance from the internal existence of sin, though not from the capability of sinning. The inherent quality of sin and bias to it were gone, but the will-power to originate it again, and the susceptibility to its re-entrance remained. My whole being became averse to sin, so that I could not enter upon its commission without doing violence to my renewed nature. Principles of fixed purity and abhorrence of sin would have to be broken down, before the habit or being of sin could re-assert itself, or receive the slightest indulgence, if by any temptation, infirmity, or surprise, I might be betrayed into it.



"The difference between my regenerate and sanctified state seemed to be this: 1. In regeneration my soul was alienated from sin; in sanctification it became hostile to it, and was set as a flint against it. 2. In regeneration my hopes were a mixture of assurance and fear; in sanctification my soul rested in unmixed quietness and assurance forwever. Perfect love did actually cast out all fear that had torment. The physical suffering in death or other afflictions might be dreaded, but no fearful forebodings found place in the soul. 3. In regeneration the enjoyments of religion were temporary, fitful, and evanescent; in sanctification they became uniform, abiding, deep, rich, and supremely controlling. 4. In regeneration there was a constant obtrusion of worldly, ecclesiastical, or spiritual ambitions, personal to self; they preyed upon the soul and ate out the vitals of its spirituality and power; in sanctification these unholy ambitions became dead and unattractive as a faded autumn leaf. Prominence, official position, and preferment, coming as a spontaneity from esteemed brethren, still seemed desirable, but only so far as they were an expression of confidence, a tribute of respect, or a means of usefulness.



"As a result of this experience one of the best revivals that ever occurred under my ministry immediately followed, which, in my view, ever after stamped holiness as a revival power. I have to this day continued to inculcate holiness as the central truth of Christianity, the marrow of experience, and the great need of the ministry and Church, in order to the real and speedy conversion of the world; but for many years I did not interlard my sermons with my experience nor testify explicitly to its reception."…


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Giancarlo

 2006/9/25 16:49Profile
myfirstLove
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 Re:

this really sounds like my testimony. i can testify to this!


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Lisa

 2006/9/25 18:08Profile





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