Why We Believe
3. Justification
3. Justification
Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: "Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved."… Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, "The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses."… After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: "God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are." (Acts 15:1-12 NIV)
This should have settled the problem. Unfortunately, over the centuries error crept into the Church of God. Finally, through Martin Luther and the advent of the protestant reformation, justification by faith alone was rediscovered. Luther, a priest in the church, after years of self-abuse in an effort to gain God’s favor, came across the passage of Paul in the book of Romans teaching that “the just shall live by faith.”1 Luther proclaimed that he, and all believers, no longer needed to try to gain God’s favor. We are justified by the work of Christ on the cross alone. God did it all. We cannot add to the completed work of Christ on the cross on our behalf!
In the Old Testament in Isaiah 64:6 we understand that all our attempts at being righteous amount to “filthy rags.” In the New Testament Paul says in Romans 2:13 one can be righteous only in obedience to the Law of Moses, but then says in Romans 3:10 that there is no one who is righteous! Then our situation is hopeless. How can we be saved out of our dark circumstances?
It is, first of all, clear that the original word dikē (justice, punishment) from which dikaiosunē (righteousness, justice)2 and other words in the word group are derived, is the equivalent of šabeț, an instrument of authority.3 Originally associated with “a club” used by a shepherd to protect the sheep, the idea of a judge exercising government authority leads to the basically “forensic” understanding of “Justice” or “Righteousness” as applied to God’s dealings with Man. Though “justice” and “punishment” are not usually thought of as positive terms, the picture of the shepherd using the “club” to protect the sheep, gave great comfort to Israel because Israel understood that God’s character was bound up in this concept of justice and that all actions of God would never be arbitrary, but reflections of His law.4
In the New Testament, the word dikaiosunē and the verb form dikaioõ, takes prominence as the words used by Paul and James in their separate but equally famous discussions of justification in Romans 3 and James 2. dikaiosunē occurs about 150 times in both the Old Testament (in the Septuagint, or Greek translation of the Old Testament, it usually substitutes for zădāqāh5 ) and the New Testament. In both the Old and New Testaments, as opposed to the Midrash teachers, this word group has a declarative, forensic or legal meaning.6 The idea here is that as a result of Christ’s finished work on the cross, the sinner is declared righteous (justified) in God’s sight. The sinner’s sins are already punished in Jesus on the cross.
In the sixth session of the 1545-1563 Council of Trent, Romanism came up with it’s “November Draft” decree on justification. This decree was accepted as “the Church’s authoritative answer to the teaching of Luther and Melanchthon’s 1531 Augsburg Confession on grace and justification."7 The Romanists decided that justification starts from the work of Christ on the cross, but it is completed with the individual’s “co-operation.” As we shall see, this co-operation became justification through various acts mandated by the church of Rome and expressed in a series of “gradations” at the Trent Council!.8
The First Gradation affirms the first of the Seven Sacraments, Baptism, as the means whereby the church performs on each infant testifying of the sinner’s incapacity to provide his own salvation and the graciousness of God in providing justification.9 Baptism provides an acknowledgement of the work of Christ on the cross, but is only effective for the believer as an act by the priest. In other words, you must be baptized as an infant by a priest in order to start the road towards justification. This baptism serves as a preparation for this justification on the part of man, that is “observance of the Commandment of God and of the Church,” must be made as the mode of man’s co-operation by use of his free will.10 By this is meant that the Catholic Doctrine of Justification affirms a continuous justification—justification as a process and not as a single event. In addition, according to the first gradation, as a man is in this process he is infused with the righteousness and love of God gradually. In other words, God’s love and righteousness becomes his own.11 Finally, the first gradation declares that our salvation must always remain in doubt.
The Second Gradation reiterates the “process justification” of the first gradation declaring that perseverance to the end is a part of the process of grace and merits justification.12 In other words, you must stick with the church all your life in order to obtain this justification. There is no declaration of righteousness of the believer in Christ’s work alone.
In the Third Gradation we have the admonition that the process whereby grace is infused and man is made just—justifying grace—may be thwarted “by any grievous sin…(and) can be recovered through the sacrament of Penance.”13 In other words, the believer can never know if his sins are adequately removed to merit salvation.
In the Augsburg Confession, Melanchthon makes this statement on the subject of biblical justification contrary to the Catholic position:
"…men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, which, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight (Romans 3-4)."14
