The 16th century Protestant Reformation revolved around two fundamental issues or principles – Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide. The first had to do with the ultimate source of authority while the second had to do with the substance or material of the debate, namely, is justification by grace alone through faith alone or is it by grace through faith plus works?
According to John Calvin, the doctrine of justification by faith alone is the principal hinge on which religion turns, while Martin Luther said that justification by faith alone is the article by which the church stands or falls. It is this article of faith more than any other which brought the Protestant Reformers into conflict with Roman Catholicism.
What I’ll like to do in this article is to briefly state, and compare and contrast the Protestant view of justification with the Roman Catholic view, and then conclude with a couple of important lessons for our lives.
Justification Briefly Stated and Contrasted
The Westminster Shorter Catechism accurately summarizes what the Bible teaches about justification in Q&A 33, where it says, “Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein He pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.”
Justification is an act of God’s free grace. The sinner does nothing at all to deserve it. It is a legal declaration or pronouncement that all our sins are forgiven and that we are righteous in the sight of God. The ground or basis of our justification is the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed or credited to our account. The means or instrument by which we are justified is faith and faith alone.
How does this Protestant or Biblical understanding of justification compare with the Roman Catholic view? I’ll like to highlight five areas of difference.
First, with regard to time, the Protestant view is that justification takes place once and for all when a sinner, by God’s grace, first exercises saving faith in Jesus Christ. God declares the sinner righteous at that point. Justification is not repeated and is not a process. There is no such thing as being more or less justified. A person is either fully justified or he is not justified at all. There is no in between. And a person who has been justified will never fall from this state of justification.
In contrast, Rome, teaches that justification involves a life-long process by which a person is slowly made just or righteous until he reaches a point where he can appear before God as righteous. Furthermore, Rome teaches that it is possible for a person to lose his justification and to have to go through the process again to be justified.
Second, the Protestant view teaches that justification takes place outside rather than inside a person. This is what Martin Luther meant by an “alien (or foreign) righteousness.” It is Christ’s righteousness imputed to us that is the basis for our justification.
Rome, however, teaches that justification is by an infused and internal righteousness – a righteousness that is found within a man and that is produced by man with the help of God.
Third, and closely related to the second, the Protestant view is that justification involves only a change of status and not a change of nature. Justification removes guilt and the punishment associated with that guilt, but it does not remove the pollution and corruption and presence of sin in a person. Justification does not do anything to a person’s condition. Rather, it changes his standing or position or status before God. That is why Romans 4:5 says that God justifies the ungodly.
Rome, on the other hand, teaches that justification involves a change of nature. The problem with Rome is that they have confused justification with sanctification and they have reversed the proper order. Protestants believe that a sinner is first justified and then he undergoes a process of sanctification, in which his whole nature is increasingly transformed into the image of Christ. Rome teaches that a person must first be sanctified before he can be eventually be justified.
Fourth, the Protestant view is that instrument or instrumental cause of justification is faith. Faith is like the empty hand that is stretched out to receive the blessing from God. Dr Joel Beeke puts it well when he wrote, “Faith is not called a hand because it works or merits justification in any way, but because it receives, embraces, appropriates Christ upon divine imputation. Faith is not a creative hand, but a receptive hand.”
Rome, on the other hand, teaches that justification is a process that begins at one’s baptism, which serves as the instrument of justification. By this sacrament, grace is infused into the soul and cleanses a person of all original sin so that he is now in a state of grace. The person must then cooperate with this infused grace before he can be righteous and justified. If at any time he commits a mortal sin, then he loses this grace and must recover it through the sacrament of penance.
Fifth and finally, Protestants teach that justification does not remain alone but results in good works. Good works serve as proof that a person’s faith is genuine and that he has been truly justified. Good works do not contribute in any way to justification.
Rome on the other hand believes that faith and works both contribute to and are necessary in order for a person to be justified. This is clearly contradicted by the plain words of the Apostle Paul in Galatians 2:16, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”
Two Lessons
We learn two important lessons from the Protestant (Biblical) doctrine of justification by faith alone.
First, we learn that sin cannot be paid for by ourselves or by anything that we do or not do or undergo. The great error of many people, even some Christian people, is that man must somehow atone or make up for his sins, if not in whole, then at least in part, and that God will never fully forgive sin until He has received some satisfaction from the person himself.
Sometimes when a person sins, especially if it is a very serious sin, his conscience cries out against him so that he feels he must do something or perhaps undergo some suffering or punishment before God can or will forgive him. But Scripture teaches us otherwise. It teaches that forgiveness is not found in our making satisfaction for sin but it is found in the free mercy and grace of God in Jesus Christ.
Sometimes when God’s people come under the chastising hand of God, they consciously or unconsciously think that God is punishing them for their sins and that somehow in their sufferings; they are making a sort of payment to God. But that is to totally misunderstand the purposes of God and to underestimate the perfect work of Christ. It is to fail to rightly appreciate the gospel and to properly apply it to ourselves.
Remember that there is a huge difference between God’s punishment of the wicked and God’s chastisement of His people. When God punishes the wicked, He punishes them for their past sins and they are indeed making payment to God for what they had done. But when God chastises His people, He is not making them pay for their past sins for that payment had already been made on the cross. Rather, God is chastising them for their future good so that they may grow in sanctification.
If you are a child of God, then there will be times when God will chastise you but at no time will He will ever punish you because all your transgressions have been forgiven for Christ’s sake.
This brings us to our second lesson, which is that the forgiveness of sin through Christ is received by faith.
Some Christians say that they don’t feel justified or that they don’t feel that their sins have been forgiven. We need to remember that it is by faith that we receive and accept the perfect work of Christ on our behalf and God’s forgiveness of all our sins. It is not what I have done but what Christ has done for me that I am justified. It is not even my faith that saves but His righteousness alone. And it is in regularly looking to Christ by faith that we have the assurance that all our sins are pardoned and that we have been freely justified before Almighty God.
And so may we not only be familiar with the doctrine of justification by faith alone, but may we experience the peace, assurance, and comfort that comes with truly embracing this truth. Amen.
—Linus Chua
Edited by: LPS