conflicted

So I'm pretty conflicted, here at the end of term. I have one paper left.

On one hand, some part of my subconscious is hinting that a 20-page paper analysing "the relationship between justification and sanctification in terms of one's self-identity" is not the reason I came to Seminary.

And yet, a far deeper part, the part that has been molded and shaped and transformed by the ministry of my teachers, and studies, and all those to whom I'm come to know in my role as 'pastor,' I also know that this question in many ways reaches to the heart of what the proclamation of the Word is.

Because if we are justified by the Word of God, and all that God speaks as Word is holy, then we are already sanctified in God's word, because the Word is truth. It is this holy word that breaks down doors, throws open the shutters of fear, shatters the bolts of legalism and phariseeism, and frees us to be the people we were created to be.

Created in the image of God, forming the Body of Christ in whom we live, and move, and have our very being. We are justified by God's grace, as a gift -- and because that gift comes as God's prevenient grace we can never be more sanctified than we already are; because the Word spoken over us at baptism has brought us to the table. Our sanctification -- our holiness -- will be complete when we rest at the banquet feast that has no ending, in the presence of our Redeemer, in whose presence all things are holy, and whole.