What is the difference between justification and sanctification? 🤔

Let’s break it down. ✂️

Justification is God’s completed work of saving you through Jesus’s death and resurrection. ✝️

You don’t contribute anything to it — it’s purely God’s grace through faith. 🙏  

When you’re justified, you’re declared innocent because Jesus took your punishment. ⚖️

It’s done, finished, complete. ✅

Sanctification is God’s ongoing work of making you holy through the Holy Spirit, using His Word and sacraments. 🔥📖💧  

Think of it like this: every day, the old Adam is drowned, and a new man emerges. 🌊🆕  

Must Christians do good works? Yes. Just like an apple tree naturally produces apples. 🍎🌳  

While you’re alive, you live at the intersection of these two things. 🛤️  

The key is to avoid measuring with “Is it working?” and instead ask “Is it true?” ❓✅  

Both justification and sanctification are God’s work, not yours. 🎁  

The apparent tension between them exists because we live in the “now and not yet” — the time between Christ’s resurrection and our own. ⏳✝️  

When you want assurance about your justification, don’t look at yourself — look at Jesus’s death and resurrection. 👀✝️  

The same goes for sanctification. 🙌  

The best place to measure your sanctification isn’t by looking at yourself but at the communion rail and baptismal font, where God gives His gifts to forgive sinners. 🍞🍷💦  

Think of sanctification in action as the church at work: sinners encouraging and forgiving each other, proclaiming the cross to one another, hearing absolution from their pastor. ⛪❤️✝️  

It’s God’s daily work in you, making you holy through His Word and sacraments, shaping you into what He declared “good” at creation. 🌍✨  

Both justification and sanctification are true, both are yours, and both are God’s gifts to you. 🎁🙌  

Contributor Rev. Harrison Goodman is the Higher Things Content Executive.

#higherthings #lcms #lutheran #justification