Is justification on-going?

[MarcoPolo]

I am not saying we do not cooperate in our sanctification. … We no longer have our righteousness but His.This is what I do not understand concerning ongoing justification. If you are saved you are united to Christ, and are just because He is…

If I read deeper into your statement here, it seems your position is not much different than a Catholics. For if you believe righteousness is imputed, i.e. “we have His,” then what needs is there for sanctification after we are justified? How do you improve on the purity of a soul indistinguishable from Christ?

Unless Christ’s righteousness is not forensically imputed, but rather there is a real purgation in our souls as we further deepen our justification, so to speak, as God works with people who are already His children for the sake of their holiness, i.e. sanctification (Heb. 12:7-10)

I refer you again to Trent, session 6:
*Justification…is not remission of sins merely, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man…*For Catholics, there is certainly an occasion of justification, but our understanding includes the subsequent sanctification that occurs as we practice virtue and whatnot in accord with Christ’s teaching. Catholics include this sanctification in justification.

As for the verse Hebrews 10:4:
*For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.*If we are to take this verse as evidence for imputed righteousness, then why does the Hebrews author say such children of God still need to be made holy in chapter 12? The whole phrase “those who are sanctified” is a single Greek word, ἁγιάζω. The verse would not exclude a reference to those in heaven, who indeed are in no further need of sanctification. There are also a number of translations that render the verse “being sanctified.” In either case, a Catholic has no problem recognizing Christ’s single offering as the source of all sanctification, whether it be of those in heaven, or those on earth still enduring God’s chastisement for their holiness (again, Heb 12:7-10, e.g.)

The reason sanctification can fairly be seen as the completion of initial justification is because there can be no blemish in heaven (e.g. Rev. 21:17), and thus to be properly “just,” fit for heaven, one must be without blemish, totally transformed, sanctified, by the victory of Christ. Catholics do not adhere to the concept of imputed righteousness that says God declares a sinner as righteous as Christ when that sinner is actually not.

 

[thenobes]

The passage speaks of forgiveness, which would seem to tie to redemption, justification, atonement. The term justification is more of a legal term than sanctification, which would seem to fit that passage…

Blessings in Christ

Yes but it also speaks of being made perfect and consciousness of sins. And forgiveness allows us to walk with God, resulting in sanctification.

peace
steve

 

[wbradl]

Hi y’all. Heres a topic that fits “sideways” into this question. I wld like to see a discussion between the difference between redemption and salvation,and how they differ. A side note questions that are presented ought to be short ,& to the point[like mine]…lol

 

[Khalid]

I have to point out that a large number of replies in this thread are Pelagian or semi-Pelagian, of the sort of semi- or full-on Pelagianism taught by Ockham and Biel and imitated by the via moderna which led to the Reformation (rightly emphasizing that salvation is a work of God, not of man) and thus to secularism (by way of nominalism).

Many of the replies indicate an acceptance of the incorrect quod in se est Pelagian theology of grace, by which we are saved by grace after we have done “all that we can do” (quod in se est) (similar to the Mormon doctrine), as was preached by Ockham and Biel. We are saved by God in spite of what we have done, not given grace after we have done quod in se est.