Overview of Justification and Sanctification in Christian Life

"Justification must not be confused with sanctification. Again there are two sides to the absolute limit: Justification is once-for-all; and this justification is not to be confused with the moment-by-moment Christian life. Justification is once-for-all and yet if there are no sighs of such a moment-by-moment Christian life, we must question whether or not there has ever been justification."

"Similarly within the area of sanctification: Sanctification is a process and not an act. Yet there is often a crisis, at least in the sense of new knowledge that we are then called to act upon. Many people who do not fall of the cliff on the side of making sanctification a once-for-all act fall off the cliff by thinking and acting as though one is justified and sanctified by an automatic, unconscious process. Sanctification is a process, but it is not a mechanical process in which the Christian takes no conscious part. Very often there is a crisis in a Christian's life in which he is told or when he learns for himself from Scripture what the work and the death of Christ can mean to his moment-by-moment life, and he begins to act on this."

Francis Schaeffer, The Church Before the Watching World, Inter-Varsity Press, 1971.



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