Justification, Sanctification, & Glorification

The terms justification, sanctification, and glorification have marvelous meaning to the believer in Christ, but oftentimes these words are misunderstood and can even be used to promote a false Gospel saving message. It is important to clear up the meanings and validity of these terms as they apply to the Christian.

Now what these three terms have in common is that they all occur simultaneously when any individual places their faith in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.  The moment you trust on Christ to save you believing He died, shed His sinless blood, and rose again to pay your sin penalty, you are born again and receive justification, sanctification, and glorification.  What does this mean?  Let's take a look...

Being justified or justification are really legal terms used in the New Testament and they can be defined as "declared righteous" (perfect or sinless) in God's divine court of law.  Now you may say "how can that be?"  "How can God simply forgive me of all my sins?" God does this by your faith in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. Jesus is your substitute payment by His sacrifice at Calvary (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus paid the sin penalty price by His own shed blood, death, and resurrection in order that God may have justifiable evidence to acquit an individual of all their sins based on Christ's finished work at Calvary. When any individual accepts Christ's payment by faith, they are immediately justified. Justification is not only subtraction of your sins, but it's also addition of Christ's righteousness credited to your account.

Sanctification also occurs the moment an individual places their faith in Christ as Savior. Now, sanctification is the doctrine that many focus on and can misunderstand. Many in the Christian realm tend to think sanctification is a process in the believer's life. Now this is true to an extent, but not the way it's often explained and understood. Many claim that sanctification is the Christian's responsibility to live a righteous life, serve God wholeheartedly through performing good works, etc.; and if you don't submit to the sanctification process, then you are not saved, or you can lose your salvation. This is totally false. Sanctification's primary meaning is "to be made pure and holy." The moment you trust in Christ as Savior you are made "pure and holy" in God's sight as we just explained in the previous paragraph regarding justification. Now by application, sanctification means "to be set apart." Christians are "set apart" to be used for God's glory and this is where they should serve God with all their being (see Rom. 12:1-2, Eph. 2:10); but if they don't, they are still saved. The born-again believer receives a "new sinless nature" and should yield to this new nature within the sanctification process (see Romans chapter 6)

Salvation does have various tenses (past, present, and future implication), and this is where the confusion can come in regarding sanctification.  What this means is that "we have been" saved, "we are being" saved, and "we will be" saved forever in the future. The Scriptures tell believers in Christ that "we have been sanctified" (past tense - see 1 Cor. 1:2, 6:11, Heb. 10:10, 14, Jude 1:1) which means positionally in Christ, this is a completed transaction.  We "have been saved" from the penalty of sin.  We "are being saved" presently from the power of sin. This present tense salvation application (or sanctification) is the area of focus that the Christian mainstream focuses on and can muddy up in regard to sanctification. It is true that practical sanctification is when you yield to the Holy Spirit, you can have daily victories of defeating the power of sin (see Gal. 5:16). Presently, as Christians we are to seek to walk in God's statutes, yield to the Holy Spirit, and pursue the Christian life (this is present tense practical sanctification).  Serving God and living the Christian life will produce inner peace and joy in your present life, and eternal rewards in Heaven; that is the primary purpose of practical sanctification.  The issue of losing your salvation or never being saved to begin with is not correlated with present tense practical sanctification.  Remember, God operates outside of time but can intercept time and deal with folks in real time. This means that God already sees believers in Christ as fully saved, but He can still bless and reward the believer for faithful service to Him in this life and the life to come. Lastly, regarding salvation tenses, we "will be saved" in the future from the presence of sin (this is our ultimate state to be glorified in Heaven conformed to Christ's image).  Let's now explore this last term glorification.

Glorification is a future event for the believer.  We will receive glorified bodies in Heaven and be conformed (or glorified) to Christ's sinless and perfect image (Rom. 8:29-30, 1 Cor. 15:52-54, 2 Cor. 5:1-4, Phil. 3:21). Now again, God sees this already as a completed transaction (see Eph. 2:6, Col. 3:1-4, & 1 Peter 1:2-5) because God operates outside of our time realm, but we see this as future because we still possess our old sinful nature composed in this physical body which won't die off until we leave this physical existence (Ezekiel 18:20).

To sum up, I'd like to look at one final verse to prove that sanctification is not a present determination of where you will spend your eternity based on your performance.  To the contrary, it is a finished transaction in God's eyes when you trusted Christ as Savior. Notice Romans 8:30, "Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." This verse lets us know that the believer in Christ is already (past tense) "justified" and already (past tense) "glorified." Paul here skips the process of sanctification (doesn't even mention it) because in God's eyes, our salvation is already completed fully in Christ Jesus.  Praise God for our justification, sanctification, and glorification completed in our Savior by our faith in His finished work!