THREE ASPECTS OF SALVATION
1. JUSTIFICATION: This is a judicial term bringing to our minds a courtroom scene. Man, guilty and condemned before God, is acquitted and declared righteous --but is justified.
2. REGENERATION AND ADOPTION: This suggests a household scene. The soul, dead in trespasses and sins, needs a new life, which new life is imparted by a Divine act of regeneration. The person then becomes a child of God and a member of His household.
3. SANCTIFICATION: This suggests a temple scene, for the word is connected primarily with the worship of God. Set right in relation to God's law and born again to a new life, the person is henceforth dedicated to the service of God. Bought with a price, he is no longer his own; he departs not from the temple (figuratively speaking) but serves God day and night (
Luke 2:37). He is sanctified by God and self-given to God.
All three of these terms describe the same experience of salvation and all begin with the hearing of the Gospel. They do not necessarily speak of different experiences but rather give us different pictures of the same great experience of being saved. All three of these blessings of grace were procured by the atoning death of Christ and imparted to man by the Holy Ghost. ...
Through justification --man is declared righteous
Through regeneration --man becomes a child of God, a member of the body of Christ, a member of the Kingdom of God
Through sanctification --man becomes a saint.
All of these are necessary for full New Testament Salvation
page 116 of Dividing the Word of Truth, by Ralph V. Reynolds
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