Some Definitions, Please!

[DojoGrant]

Could you please define the following as the Catholic Church teaches them?

1) Justification

2) Sanctification

3) Penal Substitution

Also, one question:

4) Can initial justification be lost?

I think I know the answers to these, but I want to be sure. Thanks!

[Carson Weber]

[b]1) Justification[/b]

Justification is our being made children of God.

Trent put it this way: "Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man."

Justification is first initial, when we are reborn into God's family through the sacrament of baptism. It is then ongoing whereby we grow in sonship in the only Son of God by means of participation through the principle of the Holy Spirit.

[b]2) Sanctification[/b]

Justification and Sanctification occur simultaneously and the difference between them is that the first is attributed to the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity and corresponds to the principle of law, and the second is attributed to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity and corresponds to the principle of love. Justification is our right standing before the Father as children of God and this increases as we are further sanctified. There can be no justification apart from sanctification and vice versa, for they are bound up together simultaneously.

[b]3) Penal Substitution[/b]

This is an invention of the Protestant reformers whereby Jesus Christ was punished in the order of retributive justice by God the Father in his Passion. God let out his wrath on his only begotten son who served as our substitute and took the hit, so to speak. Because God's wrath was unleashed on Jesus, the sinner can now stand acquitted before God because the punishment has been borne by Jesus.

This is an unacceptable and heretical position because it makes God out to be a criminal.. unjustly condemning innocence Himself and punishing the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous.

Rather, the Catholic view is vicarious satisfaction, which operates on the principle of the covenant. Jesus, the New Adam, bore the covenant curse of the broken covenant between God and man (Adam). This curse is suffering and death. By coming in our flesh and bearing this covenant curse out of love, Christ causes this curse to become redemptive.

Merit proceeds out of love and Christ, in the Incarnation and the ensuing Paschal Mystery, satisfied for our transgressions against an infinite God by uniting Himself to human nature (the incarnation of infinite love) and bearing the covenant curse. He did this in order to satisfy - in the order of strict justice - for our sins. God the Father accepted this selfless gift of love in our name (it is "vicar-ious") and for our benefit.

Now that the debt has been paid, we receive the benefit of being delivered from the broken old covenant because the curse has been borne by a covenant mediator who has undone Adam's sin. We are delivered out of the broken old covenant into the New Covenant by being united to Jesus Christ and receiving the merit of his saving work. Now, as sons of God, we are restored to a right relationship with God by means of a new covenant that cannot be broken because it is forged by God incarnate (the God-man) with God.

As Christians, when we bear the covenant curse of suffering and death, it is now redemptive. Our suffering, united to Jesus Christ, has merit, and we are able to offer our sufferings for the salvation of the world, for we participate (the subjective redemption is what it is called) in Christ's saving work (the objective redemption) by the principle of the Holy Spirit who indwells our souls.

[b]4) Can initial justification be lost?[/b]

Yes, by means of mortal sin. It is regained through the sacrament of penance.