OUR LADY OF SORROWS         CATHOLIC CHURCH

Sanctifying Grace really cleanses- S

Sanctifying grace implies a real transformation of the soul. Catholics teach that our souls really are cleansed by an infusion of the supernatural life. Paul speaks of us as "a new creation", "created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" (Eph. 4:24). Of course, we’re still subject to temptations to sin; we still suffer the effects of Adam’s Fall in that sense (what theologians call "concupiscence"); but God removes the guilt from our souls. We may still tend to sin, but God has removed the sins we have. God cleanses our souls and infuses or pours His grace into them. (Rom. 5:5 - hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us.) When grace elevates human nature, our intellects are given the new power of faith, and our wills are given the new powers of hope and charity, things absent at the merely natural level. Justification and Sanctification-We’ve mentioned that we need sanctifying grace in our souls if we’re to be equipped for heaven. Another way of saying this is that we need to be justified. "But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:11). Other Christian faiths believe justification is purely declaratory (legal declaration by God that the sinner is now "justified.") If you accept Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, He declares you justified, though he doesn’t really make you justified or sanctified; your soul is in the same state as it was before; but you are eligible for heaven. A person is expected thereafter to undergo sanctification, but the degree of sanctification achieved is, ultimately, immaterial to the question of whether you’ll get to heaven. You will, since you’re justified; and justification as a purely legal declaration is what counts. This is where Catholics and other Christian Faiths differ. For the most part, their beliefs amount to God telling an untruth by saying the sinner has been justified, while all along He knows that the sinner is not really justified, but is only covered under the "cloak" of Christ’s righteousness. But, what God declares, He does. "[S]o shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and prosper in the thing for which I sent it" (Is. 55:11). Any justification that is not woven together with sanctification is no justification at all. Paul indicates that there is a real transformation which occurs in justification, that it is not just a change in legal status. This is seen in Romans 6:7, which every standard translation renders as "For he who has died is freed from sin". Paul is speaking about being freed from sin in a real sense, for this is the passage where he is at pains to stress the fact that we have made a decisive break with sin that must be reflected in our behavior: Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? How can we who died to sin still live in it? Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness" (Rom.6:1-13). The context here is what other Christian faiths call sanctification, the process of being made holy. Sanctification is the sense in which we are said to be "freed from sin". In the Greek text, what is actually said is "he who has died has been justified from sin." The term in Greek is the word for justified, yet the context indicates sanctification, which is why every standard translation renders the word "freed" rather than "justified." This shows that, in Paul’s mind, justification involves a real transformation, a real, freeing from sin, not just a change of legal status. There is not a rigid wall between justification and sanctification that Protestants imagine. According to Scripture, sanctification and justification aren’t just one-time events but are ongoing processes in the life of the believer. Paul speaks in past-time in 1 Corinthians 6:11: "But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." Sanctification is also a present, ongoing process, as the author of Hebrews notes: "For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified" (Heb. 10:14).