Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Richard Gaffin (Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary) explains the connection between God’s electing grace and our personal holiness.

Christ Has a Stake in Our Sanctification from Desiring God on Vimeo.

It’s such a long word — sanctification. And it has such a churchy ring to it. No one uses this language outside the church.

So why not adopt a simpler term from the secular world and freight it afresh with Christian content?

While expositing Romans 6:23, but not the manuscript) to tackle this question and also provide a short but substantive definition of what Christian theology means by the term “sanctification.”

Now I know sanctification is a church word. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the word sanctification in the Minneapolis StarTribune. It’s a church word.

So someone might say, “Why don’t you choose a non-church word?” There are reasons for that — not the least of which is that sanctification is built on the Latin word sanctus, which means “holy,” and the world doesn’t know anything about holiness. That’s a church word too.

I will not let the scope of my reality be governed by the paucity of vocabulary in the fallen, secular world. What a folly to think that the world could create enough words to treat infinite realities we learn from the Bible!

The force must go the other way. There are realities in the Word about holiness that the church must teach the world to know — we have to tell the world what it doesn’t have a clue about, and then create words for it, and say, “You have to get the word holiness into your vocabulary.”

We need the word sanctification. If we tried to built it on a non-Latin word and said “holification,” it wouldn’t be any better. Where there are words with enough overlap, I’m happy to take them — plunder the Egyptians — and use what they have, and make it plain as I can. But I’m not going to sacrifice the word sanctification because nobody in the world uses it. I’m going to teach it.

So here’s the definition: progressively becoming like Jesus. Gradually becoming like Jesus, or becoming holy. Becoming conformed to the image of Christ. Little by little, over time — from conversion till Jesus comes back, or you die — you are in the process of sanctification, becoming sanctified, becoming holy.

HT: David Mathis