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Wherein do justification and sanctification differ?

A. Although sanctification be inseparably joined with justification, yet they differ, in that God in justification imputeth the righteousness of Christ; in sanctification his Spirit infuseth grace, and enableth to the exercise thereof; in the former, sin is pardoned; in the other, it is subdued: the one doth equally free all believers from the revenging wrath of God, and that perfectly in this life, that they never fall into condemnation; the other is neither equal in all, nor in this life perfect in any, but growing up to perfection.

Ezekiel 36:27
27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Romans 3:24–25
24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

Romans 4:6–8
6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered;
8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

Romans 6:6–14
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Romans 8:33–34
33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

1 Corinthians 1:30
30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,

1 Corinthians 6:11
11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

2 Corinthians 7:1
Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

Philippians 3:12–14
12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Hebrews 5:12–14
12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Hebrews 9:13–14
13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

1 John 1:8–10
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

1 John 2:12–14
12 I am writing to you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake.
13 I am writing to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young men,
because you have overcome the evil one.
I write to you, children,
because you know the Father.
14 I write to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
because you are strong,
and the word of God abides in you,
and you have overcome the evil one.

Welcome to the Reformed Standard. I'm Tony. Let's get started. Question 77 of the Westminster Larger Catechism reads: Wherein do justification and sanctification differ? The answer is: Although sanctification be inseparably joined with justification, yet they differ, in that God in justification imputeth the righteousness of Christ; in sanctification his Spirit infuseth grace, and enableth to the exercise thereof; in the former, sin is pardoned; in the other, it is subdued: the one doth equally free all believers from the revenging wrath of God, and that perfectly in this life, that they never fall into condemnation; the other is neither equal in all, nor in this life perfect in any, but growing up to perfection.
This is kind of a final clarification or or one of the final clarifications, we see in relation to the difference between justification and sanctification in the order of silliness. And so this this is a question that even if even if you're not going to memorize the entire Westminster larger catechism, this is a question that makes sense to memorize because the difference between justification and sanctification and this distinction and distinguishing This is the chief difference between Roman Catholics so Terry ology and and Reformed theology and even in some senses between Lutheran sociology and reform sociology So it would bear all of us fruit if we would memorize the answer to this question. And so we're going to break it up here in just a couple steps here. So the first is that sanctification and justification are inseparably joined. And so we should never conceptualize of someone who is justified, but it's not begun to be sanctified. And so, there are there are those in certain quarters of Reformed theology that that would articulate that that I would think are actually outside of Reformed theology, doctrinally, but they are still kind of inside Reformed theology institutionally. So people like people like Julian davidian who have now since departed, but people in that sort of free grace liberate theology camp would argue that justification is kind of the most important thing and that sanctification may or may not follow. This is also the position of people in the anti lordship camp in the lordship salvation controversy. And so although we disagree, as we've talked about in the previous two questions with john MacArthur and his articulation of the relationship between repentance, faith and justification, we would agree that sanctification necessarily flows from and necessarily accompanies justification. Yet they differ. And then this articulates the ways that they differ. And I really think that this is is a sort of a striking, almost poetic way that this question articulates this so in justification God impute the righteousness of Christ to us, and in sanctification. Grace is infused into us. And so sometimes people think that the difference between Roman Catholics and Protestants is that Roman Catholics believe in the infusion of grace and or an infusion of righteousness and Protestants believe in the amputation of righteousness, but in reality, when it is Is that we believe that justification is the amputation of righteousness and sanctification is the infusion of grace. And so this infusion of grace in sanctification does more or less what the infusion of grace in Roman Catholicism does in the entire order salute is for them is that in enables us to become righteous and enables us to become holy, in the sense that the Holy Spirit through this grace enables us to perform true works of goodness. And so in the in the former and in justification, sin is pardoned, and in the latter, it is subdued. So it's made the sin nature the sin that still dwells within us even though we are sanctified in the whole man. That is an incomplete sanctification so even though it extends to our whole being, it's progressive and increasing. So sin the power of sin is, is at the beginning of sanctification the power of sin is broken, but Still remains. And throughout the course of our sanctification, the power of sin is subdued and reduced. And then here it says that in justification, all Christians are justified equally, because justification is a status that is granted by God, and that that status result in us being freed from their avenging wrath of God that we no longer face. God's punishment, we no longer face God's wrath, even though we still frequently face his chastisement and his discipline, that we are perfectly freed from any sort of revenge or punishment or wrath that we see from God in this life. And we will never again fall under that condemnation. So this is not only asserting that justification is perfect, but that it is permanent. And then sanctification here is not equal at all. So some, some are more or less equally, more or less sanctified in this life. But it also is saying here that in this life, it is Not perfect. So our sanctification must grow, it must increase and then increases towards, towards perfection. So we will never reach perfect sanctification this life, and anyone else who anyone who tells you that is, is deceived or lying. And so we have to remember that there will always be this element of remaining in dwelling sin in us, that will be with us until we die and Christ completes our sanctification and glorifies us. But we also must recognize that sanctification is necessarily growing up to perfection. So, even though we experience seemed seemingly fits and starts in our sanctification, we know from the scripture that the good work that God began in us in our justification when he freed us from his avenging wrath and gave us a new status, and that he adopted us as His sons and daughters in Christ. That that that good work Which he began will necessarily be completed in sanctification as we grow up to perfection.