Living the gospel of Jesus Christ consists of an initiatory event of justification followed by the lifelong process of sanctification. You are justified by reconciling yourself to what you already know about God. You are sanctified as you learn more about God while remaining reconciled to him.
Justification is an event, but sanctification is a process. The Lord described justification and sanctification using himself as a metaphor. He called himself the gate, explaining how walking through him was an event, and he explained himself as a path, the traversal of which was a process.1 By reconciling your life to your present understanding of how Jesus is, you enter the gospel gate. As you continue along the strait and narrow way, you progress in the gospel process.
Footnotes
- 1. Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew 7:13-14) ↩