Monday, April 3, 2023

Robert Sungenis on the use of Sanctification Terminology where Protestantism would Expect Justification Terminology

  

 

[Instances where sanctified/sanctification is used where one would expect justified/justification include] Ac 26:18, in which Jesus connects the turning away from Satan to God, and being forgiven, with sanctification, not justification (“so that they may receive forgiveness of sin and a place among those who are sanctified [ηγιασμενοις] by faith in me”); 1Pt 1:2, in which Peter connects predestination with sanctification (“who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God...through the sanctifying work of the Spirit” [εν αγιασμω πνευματος]); 2 Thessalonians 2:13, in which sanctification and faith are connected directly to being chosen for salvation (“...because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit [εν αγιασμω πνευματος] and through belief in the truth”); Hb 10:29, in which the sacred writer connects blood with sanctification (“treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him [ηγιασθη]”). (NB: This language would be especially troublesome for the Reformed persuasion, since the passage specifies this individual has fallen from sanctification. The Reformed view maintains that sanctification cannot take its place in the ordo salutis unless justification has already occurred, yet it also maintains that if one falls from faith, he was never justified originally). See also Jd 1 and Ep 5:26. (Robert A. Sungenis, Not By Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification, 2d ed. [State Line, Pa. Catholic Apologetics International Publishing Inc., 2009], 209 n. 245)