Justification/sanctification

[kgerber20]

Can someone explain the definition of justification and sanctification and how Protestants and Catholics differ? Thanks

 

[Bookcat]

Such is a rather big topic - I would suggest searching the main Catholic Answers site and also Jimmy Akins blog --he has written alot on it.

Also regarding Paul on the subject – Pope Benedict XVI

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081119_en.html

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081126_en.html (begins second paragraph)

and earlier one vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20061108_en.html

 

[pablope]

Can someone explain the definition of justification and sanctification and how Protestants and Catholics differ? Thanks

Look for the journal on salvation and justification:chnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/salvation.pdf

 

[KatyFollower]

Hope this helps. These are my thoughts as a born again believer …

Justification
We are justified, declared righteous, at the moment of our salvation. Justification does not make us righteous, but rather pronounces us righteous. Our righteousness comes from placing our faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. His sacrifice covers our sin, allowing God to see us as perfect and unblemished. Because as believers we are in Christ, God sees Christ’s own righteousness when He looks at us. This meets God’s demands for perfection; thus, He declares us righteous - He justifies us.

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1)

Sanctification
God sanctifies his children from the inside out. It is from a conviction to stop sinning (the Holy spirit dwelling in us convicts us each time we sin). It is from an urge to break bad habits. It is from the desire to be pleasing to the Lord (living a life of obedience). When He does these things you know it. You change. You don’t desire the things that the world tells you are important as much as you used to. You want to learn more about God.

(Justification is what Christ has done FOR us - we are saved by grace through faith)
(Sanctification is what Christ does IN us - After salvation He changes us)

 

[Swiss_Guy]

The same thing was recognized in a document written a few years ago under the auspices of the (Catholic) German Conference of Bishops and the bishops of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (the Lutheran church). The purpose of the document, titled The Condemnations of the Reformation Era: Do They Still Divide?, was to determine which of the sixteenth-century Catholic and Protestant condemnations are still applicable to the other party. Thus the joint committee which drafted the document went over the condemnations from Trent and assessed which of them no longer applied to Lutherans and the condemnations of the Augsburg Confession and the Smalcald Articles, etc., and assesses which of them are not applicable to Catholics.

When it came to the issue of justification by faith alone, the document concluded:

“[T]oday the difference about our interpretation of faith is no longer a reason for mutual condemnation . . . even though in the Reformation period it was seen as a profound antithesis of ultimate and decisive force. By this we mean the confrontation between the formulas ‘by faith alone,’ on the one hand, and ‘faith, hope, and love,’ on the other.

“We may follow Cardinal Willebrand and say: ‘In Luther’s sense the word ‘faith’ by no means intends to exclude either works or love or even hope. We may quite justly say that Luther’s concept of faith, if we take it in its fullest sense, surely means nothing other than what we in the Catholic Church term love’ (1970, at the General Assembly of the World Lutheran Federation in Evian).

If we take all this to heart, we may say the following: If we translate from one language to another, then Protestant talk about justification through faith corresponds to Catholic talk about justification through grace; and on the other hand, Protestant doctrine understands substantially under the one word ‘faith’ what Catholic doctrine (following 1 Cor. 13:13) sums up in the triad of ‘faith, hope, and love.’ But in this case the mutual rejections in this question can be viewed as no longer applicable today

“According to [Lutheran] Protestant interpretation, the faith that clings unconditionally to God’s promise in Word and Sacrament is sufficient for righteousness before God, so that the renewal of the human being, without which there can be no faith, does not in itself make any contribution to justification. Catholic doctrine knows itself to be at one with the Protestant concern in emphasizing that the renewal of the human being does not ‘contribute’ to justification, and is certainly not a contribution to which he could make any appeal before God. Nevertheless it feels compelled to stress the renewal of the human being through justifying grace, for the sake of acknowledging God’s newly creating power; although this renewal in faith, hope, and love is certainly nothing but a response to God’s unfathomable grace. Only if we observe this distinction can we say

“In addition to concluding that canons 9 and 12 of the Decree on Justification did not apply to modern Protestants, the document also concluded that canons 1-13, 16, 24, and 32 do not apply to modern Protestants (or at least modern Lutherans).”

jimmyakin.com/library/justification-by-faith-alone

 

[Swiss_Guy]

This is also a good read.

I think the main difference between Protestants and Catholics is that Protestants traditionally believe justification is a declaration and sanctification is a process, where Catholics believe justification and sanctification are the same thing–a process started in Baptism where we become righteous in God’s eyes and continue to become more righteous as our lives go on.

 

[fhansen]

Can someone explain the definition of justification and sanctification and how Protestants and Catholics differ? Thanks

By and large Protestants consider justification to be the righteousness of Christ imputed to us as we come to believe. Man is merely declared righteous by God. Sanctification is a process of becoming holy, a result of being justified.

Catholcism, OTOH, doesn’t separate the two. One is either just (ontologically righteous), or they’re not. God cleanses us when we come to believe and are Baptized but it doesn’t end there; besides being forgiven we’re to ‘go, and sin no more’. We’re to maintain and grow in the righteousness God gives us, utilizing to the best we can the grace we’ve been given in the time allotted to live out the rest of our lives, struggling against sin while growing in love for God and neighbor. Thus, being sanctified is part of the process known as justification.