Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners

by Dane C. Ortlund

Sanctification is lifelong, gradual growth in grace. Justification, however, is not a process but an event, a moment in time, the verdict of legal acquittal once and for all. Why then are we thinking about justification in a book about sanctification? Here’s why: the process of sanctification is, in large part, fed by constant returning, ever more deeply, to the event of justification. This may sound odd at first. Aren’t we going backward if we seek to grow by remembering our initial justification? Not any more than a train passenger, when asked by the steward to see his ticket again, pulls out the ticket that initially got him onto the train. That ticket got him on but is also what is needed to keep him on the train. But let’s be more specific, bearing in mind that growth in Christ is a matter of transformation from the inside out, as opposed to merely externally oriented behavioral conformity. We could put the point of this chapter in three sentences: 1. Justification is outside-in, and we lose it if we make it inside-out. 2. Sanctification is inside-out, and we lose it if we make it outside-in. 3. And this inside-out sanctification is largely fed by daily appropriation of this outside-in justification.