What is the difference between Justification and Sanctification?

Nerdy but helpful?

It may be nerdy, but I have always found the diagram above helpful when trying to understand the wonder of Justification by faith.

Justification comes from the legal world. The scene is a courtroom. The Judge is God himself. We are in the dock. And we are guilty. But unexpectantly - and certainly undeservedly - God declares us righteous in his sight! We are Justified!

He does not acquit us - he does not say "You are guiltless" because we're not innocent. We have not loved God with all our hearts nor our fellow man as we love ourselves. And yet God declares us righteous in his eyes!

Which is both astounding - and judicially disturbing. Since we are in point of fact not righteous and since God is the righteous Judge of the universe how can he declare sinners righteous? 

The double-basis for Justification

There are two intrinsically connected reasons God can justify sinners. A double exchange takes place.

First, our sin has been atoned for through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. In this way, God can be the just Judge of the universe. He is not letting anyone off the hook. All sin is being paid for. In his rich mercy, he takes the punishment on himself, through the suffering of his Son.

But there is more.

The atonement pays our debt. We are no longer in the red. But our bank balance is zero since all of us fall short of God's glory. We have no righteousness of our own. This is where the second exchange comes in. God gives to us (he imputes to us) the perfect righteousness of his Son! The obedient life Jesus lived is reckoned to our account. We are dressed in robes of white we don't deserve!

God looks at us now "in Christ" with all of his sinless perfection! This is how a holy God can declare sinners righteous.

A Gift by Faith

This righteousness, which we cannot earn, comes to us as a free gift. All we must do is to believe the Good News. And even the faith by which we do the believing is given to us. 

This is astounding when we first grasp it and we should marvel at it with every subsequent hearing!

God justifies wicked people!

The vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.

Justification compared to Sanctification

To make Justification even clearer it may be helpful to compare it to Sanctification, the lifelong process of becoming holy. 

Justification is instantaneous (see graph): the moment we believe God views us as sinless.  Justification does not change: there is nothing we can do which would cause God to de-justify us. Justification is unaffected by our spiritual performance, praise God. Justification is 100% God's work and 0% ours. 

Sanctification, on the other hand - the real-life holiness of a believer - is gradual and progressive. Always on the up, but with the odd downward blip, for perverse and foolish oft we stray.

And Sanctification is in our hands, dangerous thing to say, as well as in God's. We are called to work out our salvation with fear and trembling as God works within us. In a real sense we are as holy as we want to be, mindful that grace is always prevenient, and there is no sanctification without the Holy Spirit.

Some Implications

Satan loves to point to our sanctification. But when Satan tempts us to despair and points to all the sin within, our task is to upward look and see Him who made an end to all our sin and imputed his righteousness to our account.

We can say to the Accuser, simul iustus et peccator, I am at the same time, in this present world, justified and a sinner. Until I am rid of this body of sin I will be a sinner, repenting and loathing my sin every day. But sin does not have any impact on my redline justification, praise God.

Justification is a great comfort to believers.

It's also a reminder not to judge babes in Christ. We start off as new creatures in Christ, but it takes months, years and decades to grow into Christlikeness. Spiritual babes in our churches should be loved, tolerated and encouraged, in spite of all their slip-ups and foibles. When we were first converted to Christ we were perfect in God's sight (justified) but pretty miserable unsanctified sinners at that time. 

But thanks be to God he is sanctifying us all the time.

Praise God I can say that God views me every day just-as-if-I'd never sinned.