And how does justification relate to sanctification?
And how is everything directly linked to God's grace?
And how exactly does it relate to me, and every other human being, as we all stand in need of salvation.

Sanctification is the result of justification applied throughout time. Both justification and sanctification are by faith.

Everything is related to God's grace in that if we'd be dead if it weren't for God's grace. God's grace makes it possible for us to physically live, as well as making it possible for our will to operate to the point that we can choose either good or evil. Apart from God's grace, we would be unable to choose good. God's grace also enables us to do the good that we choose to do.



I didn't understand what this is asking.

Thanks for opening this topic, Dedication: interesting expansion of my points, and helpful, too.

Firstly, how about justification (J) and sanctification (S) encompassing the new birth (J) Jesus told Nicodemus about, and then using (S) that renewed mind to do righteousness? The new birth is being made righteous, btw, isn't it?

The part of grace generally is all pervasive, isn't it?

The link of grace by God to us, and all mankind...: this is the most contentious issue of Christian history outside of the nature of God, I think! Between predestination and total, free will among men - who, contrary to Calvinist predestination, appear not to be saved till they believe, surely it's just Christ himself linking the world to heaven by his humanity and his cross, so that any may believe that he has saved them by his actions.

If that went over anybody's head - and I was compressing a lot there! - isn't it Jesus' incarnation that accomplishes the link of grace from God's throne to every man, woman and child down here? That link, as taught uninmously by our church for a century - 1848-1948, as documented by the late Prof Jean Zurcher of our Collonges seminary in France in his "Touched with our Feelings", involves God's Son taking sinful, degraded, fallen, but uncorrupted humanity to be made flesh. This is now disputed - as that book shows, but a link of grace from God to all mankind (without us initially linking to him by faith - which we do do of course once we hear of and believe in Jesus) must involve the Messiah taking that humanity in common with the race he is linking to to save by his life, death and resurrection in that human body as the pre-existing Son of God. Jesus' life history on earth effected salvation of "all men", so something about him made that accomplishment possible.

We start our faith walk with that renewal of righteousness in the mind, filled with the Spirit, that is "the mind of Christ"; his life record is what we receive in using our new minds to build Christlike characters; and his humanity itself made saving the world outright by his action alone possible at all. Yes, becoming the Saviour in fact without anyone believing yet...

Thus, in Rom 8 there's mention of being predestined to a life of faith should one opt for it, and all the things mentioned in that chapter in the path of salvation from this world of sin.

That'll get this thread going, or maybe not!

To put it more succinctly, "What He has not assumed, He has not healed."

Yes, Colin, you touched on a lot of points! Valid points.

I'm going to try to make it a little simplier (hopefully -- though what's simple for me isn't always so simple to understand for others.

Turning to Romans we find in Romans 4 and 5 Paul's strong statements on justification. How absolutely essential it is in our being reconcilled to God, and how utterly impossible it is for us to justify ourselves by anything we do, no works of the law will ever justify us. It is only by Christ's sacrifice and blood.

But I want to start with Romans 6 as it deals most fully with how justification not only deals with our past sin, but also "renews the mind" and starts us on the walk of sanctification.

(Though the study will have to wait till later tonight, as I've an appointment right now --)
It will be on Romans 6:3-11

How does Christ's sacrifice and blood reconcile us to God?

Romans 5:6,8-9
For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly....God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being NOW JUSTIFIED BY HIS BLOOD, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were RECONCILED TO GOD BY THE DEATH of His Son, much more, BEING RECONCILED, we shall be saved by His life.



The genitive absolute: "we still being sinners"
"we" without strength being lost and helpless in our sins.
Christ died in our behalf, in our stead.

Verse 6 shows this was done for all. Verse 8 focuses in on the believers, who were ALSO lost sinners, lost and helpless in their sins. Christ's voluntary sacrificial death for us while we were in our ungodly sinfulness is the height of God's love. The supreme result and effect of this sacrifice is the justification and reconciliation of believers to God.

So important is this truth that Paul states it over and over.
In verse 10 he states it more fully.

"We being enemies"
this shows the rebellious nature of sin, and
echoes Paul's former phrase. "while we were yet sinners"
Our natural enmity toward God's law and righteousness, our sin, our ungodliness placed us in a position where we deserved nothing but wrath -- God owed us nothing.
But Christ taking our sins upon Himself, and dying in our place changed our status.
This, Paul writes, is the active transitive point in our reconciliation to God.

Now, God has always loved the world -- He sent His son (as per John 3:16) God didn't need to be reconciled. The trouble was with us -- we being the "enemies", our treason demanding our death. We were wrong, we alone, but we could do NOTHING about it.

"For if, when we were enemies, we were RECONCILED TO GOD BY THE DEATH of His Son"

Notice the progress:
Christ's sacrificial death brings
Our reconciliation to God
and then
"BEING RECONCILED, we shall be saved by His life."

Next let's go to Romans 6:3-11
the key as to how this fits together and also answers how Christ's sacrificial death and blood reconciles us to God.

ROMANS 6:3 Don't you know, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

This isn't speaking of baptism as an end in itself, but showing a much deeper meaning?

Baptism connects us with Christ our Savior, and this means being connected with His death. To be buried, or entombed with Christ involves that in our baptism we died with Christ.

Let's look at a text from 1 Peter 2:24 [Christ] Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

What does all this mean?

Christ took OUR SIN, OUR SINFUL NATURE, upon Himself, upon His sinless nature, and died. What does that mean to us?
Brothers and sisters - it means because HE died to our sin, we died to sin. Therefore it is apparent that our dying to sin is not something we do, but something Christ has done, and is something that is accounted to all who are united with Him!

6:11 Likewise reckon (or account) ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We are indeed to reckon-- consider -- ourselves dead to sin.

This is a whole NEW IDEA --
We are NOT to think that once we've overcome all sin then we can finally count ourself dead to sin. NO! When we accept Christ and His DEATH in our behalf, we, by uniting ourselves with Him, count ourselves dead to sin.

We ARE to count or consider ourselves DEAD to sin, the minute we unite our lives to Christ.
This is a major shift for many people -- from the negative, to the positive.

Of course this doesn't mean sin will never again touch us.
Verse 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. means because we are dead to sin through our union with Christ, we are not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies.




6:5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also [in the likeness] of [his] resurrection:
6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with [him], that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
6:8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:

Freed from sin!
This is what Christ's sacrificial death has done -- FREED US FROM SIN!
Clothed us with HIS righteousness.
JUSTIFIED--

Of course the next step follows' as we died with Christ so we shall rise and live with him.
Thus this is not only applying Christ's death and its benefits to us, but equally giving us a whole new outlook on life! It's a SPIRITUAL RESURRECTION!

But how do we understand this in a more practical sense?

Going back to the beginning -- we were born into a kingdom of sin, slavery and death. We were SLAVES to sin, bound by sin.

But by uniting our lives with Christ Who took our sins and died to this realm of sin, we have been set free from sin (Romans 6:18). We have been rescued from the dominion of darkness (see Col. 1:13) Even if we were pretty good people, we lived in the kingdom of sin, or as Paul Bunyon's Pilgrim depicts it -- we lived in the "city of destruction".

When we accept Christ and join Him in baptism, we die inwardly to this sinful kingdom. Yet that death depends entirely on Christ's sacrificial death upon the cross as Christ takes upon Himself our "old man of sin" and it is nailed on the cross with Him.

Our connection to Christ and His sacrifice is so real that it carries "our old man" to the very cross of Christ in a spiritual crucifixion that kills our old selfish self and we are BORN AGAIN, raised to newness of life WITH CHRIST!

No longer members of the kingdom of sin,
BUT CITIZENS OF THE HEAVENLY KINGDOM!
Sons and daughters of God.

This is JUSTIFICATION!


Now, we walk the life of sanctification.
There will still be a struggle with sin -- but OUR WHOLE OUTLOOK HAS BEEN CHANGED. The renewing of the mind.




6:9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
6:10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
6:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.



Now, we walk the life of sanctification.
There will still be a struggle with sin -- but OUR WHOLE OUTLOOK HAS BEEN CHANGED. The renewing of the mind.

But sanctification is for another study.

Sanctification is not the work of a moment, an hour, a day, but of a lifetime. So long as life shall last, there will be no
stopping place, no point which we can reach and say, I have fully attained. Sanctification is the result of lifelong obedience. {AA 560.3}

Romans 6:18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

In what way? You point out later that God had no need to be reconciled to us (agreed!), so what changed must be something that happened to us, right? So how did Christ's taking our sins upon Himself and dying in our place change us?



Peter said that Christ died to "bring us to God." That seems to me very simple and easy to understand. I'm having more difficulty understanding your idea that dying to sin is not something that we need to do.



It seems clear to me that the way we die to sin is by faith in Christ, which is something we do (we exercise faith in Christ). Is this a case of saying the same thing in different ways, or are you disagreeing with my point here?

I'm still not understanding how you understand that Christ's blood and sacrifice reconciles us to God. Could you explain it simply in a few sentences please?