The Narrow Path Ministries

So, through Romans and teachings as I was raised, I have come to distinguish Justification and Sanctification in a way that seems inconsistent with Hebrews 10:10.

If someone were to ask me to fill in the following blank:

By this will we have been ___________ through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

I would say "justified" as I understand that our acceptance of Christ's sacrifice is what justifies us, and that sanctification comes through a life of obedience and spiritual growth and maturity. But, the verse says "Sanctification."

Any thoughts?

Funny you should ask. I literally just finished listening to Steve Gregg's introduction to the book of Hebrews and he addressed this issue.

He was saying that the term sanctification is used slightly different in the book of Hebrews. He also mentioned that's one of the reasons some think Paul may not have wrote it.

fyi.. he brought up the issue near the end of the lesson if you want to listen. He'll likely bring it up in future lessons as well, but I haven't heard them yet.

http://www.thenarrowpath.com/mp3s/bible ... _intro.mp3

Here is a snip from my notes on Steve's lecture on intro to Hebrews:

VI. Pursuit of Perfection and Sanctification
a. Perfection most often means maturity (5:14, 6:1) in NT, but here Christ is made perfect as author of salvation through suffering (2:10, 5:8,9), God’s people are made perfect (11:40, 12:23), and our perfection pertains to having a ‘permanent clean conscience’ (9:9, 7:11,19, 10:1)
b. Sanctification most often means a process of becoming more and more godly. Here, it is used almost synonymous with ‘justification.’ Related to the conscience (9:13,14, 10:1), perfection of the conscience (10:14) and is said to be accomplished by Christ’s blood or sacrifice (2:11, 10:10,29, 13:12), the application of the blood of Christ to the believer at conversion

Hebrews 10:14 also uses the term santification in place of justification.

Les

Hebrews 10:14 also uses the term santification in place of justification.

This may not be a very significant statement, since one of the meanings of the Greek word which is translated as "justification" is "being made righteous." That is also the meaning of "sanctification."