Alma taught that many became clean through the “blood of the Lamb” and were “sanctified by the Holy Ghost” (Alma 13:11–12; see also Moroni 10:32–33). Once sanctified, they “could not look upon sin save it were with abhorrence” (Alma 13:12; see also 2 Nephi 4:31). However, even after a person has been sanctified and has felt cleansed by the Holy Ghost, he or she will continue to be tempted throughout mortality. Modern revelation warns, “Therefore let the church take heed and pray always, lest they fall into temptation; yea, and even let those who are sanctified take heed also” (D&C 20:33–34).
President Brigham Young (1801–77) defined sanctification as follows:
“I will put my own definition to the term sanctification, and say it consists in overcoming every sin and bringing all into subjection to the law of Christ. God has placed in us a pure spirit; when this [the spirit] reigns predominant, without let or hindrance, and triumphs over the flesh and rules and governs and controls … , this I call the blessing of sanctification. Will sin be perfectly destroyed? No, it will not, for it is not so designed in the economy of heaven.
“Do not suppose that we shall ever in the flesh be free from temptations to sin. Some suppose that they can in the flesh be sanctified body and spirit and become so pure that they will never again feel the effects of the power of the adversary of truth. Were it possible for a person to attain to this degree of perfection in the flesh, he could not die, neither remain in a world where sin predominates. Sin has entered into the world, and death by sin. [Rom. 5:12.] I think we shall more or less feel the effects of sin so long as we live, and finally have to pass the ordeals of death” (in Daniel H. Ludlow, A Companion to Your Study of the Book of Mormon [1976], 2:248–49).