Justification: A Reformed-Catholic Dialogue

In the following dialogue, Horace, a Catholic, and Manfred, a Reformed Protestant, are having a discussion on the doctrine of justification.

The Catholic doctrine of justification is summed up in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1987-1992:

The grace of the Holy Spirit has the power to justify us, that is, to cleanse us from our sins and to communicate to us "the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ" and through Baptism: . . . 

Through the power of the Holy Spirit we take part in Christ's Passion by dying to sin, and in his Resurrection by being born to a new life; we are members of his Body which is the Church, branches grafted onto the vine which is himself: . . . 

The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting justification in accordance with Jesus' proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high. "Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man. 

Justification detaches man from sin which contradicts the love of God, and purifies his heart of sin. Justification follows upon God's merciful initiative of offering forgiveness. It reconciles man with God. It frees from the enslavement to sin, and it heals. 

Justification is at the same time the acceptance of God's righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. Righteousness (or "justice") here means the rectitude of divine love. With justification, faith, hope, and charity are poured into our hearts, and obedience to the divine will is granted us. 

Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men. Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. Its purpose is the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life:  (Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1987-1992, retrieved from the Vatican website at http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c3a2.htm at 10:48 AM on 2/23/18 [footnotes removed])

Here is a helpful summary of the Reformed Protestant doctrine of justification:

Justification is a forensic, judicial act of pardoning, accepting, and accounting, not a transformative work by which a sinner is made subjectively holy through an infusion of grace. According to this definition, justification is a blessing granted to sinners, those who have fallen short of God’s righteous requirements and stand condemned before him. In response to our sin, God, by his free grace, does two things for our justification: he pardons all our sins and accepts and accounts us righteous in his sight. God not only wipes away the guilt of sinners, but he also credits righteousness to them. In justification, God declares that we are innocent of ever sinning against him and credits us with keeping his law perfectly. The ground for this great work . . . is nothing that is wrought within us or done by us. Instead, its ground is the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, imputed to us. In other words, Christ’s perfect obedience to God’s law is credited to us, so that we stand before God as if we ourselves had kept that law perfectly. And Christ’s perfect sacrifice of atonement is imputed to us, so that we stand before God as if we had atoned for our law-breaking.  (Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Justification: Report of the Committee to Study the Doctrine of Justification [Willow Grove, PA: The Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 2007], 11-12)

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Manfred:  Hello, Horace!  I was just looking for you.  I appreciate your invitation to the ecumenical prayer group, but I'll have to decline.

Horace:  Oh, that's too bad.  Other plans?

Manfred:  No, it's just that I don't think it is appropriate to pray with other people, such as Catholics, who don't believe in the gospel.

Horace:  Why would you say we Catholics don't believe in the gospel?  We hold the gospels to be the Word of God.  We worship the Holy Trinity, and acknowledge Christ as our God and our Savior, who, by his life, death, and resurrection, has saved us from our sins and opened the way to eternal life.  Is this not the gospel?

Manfred:  Well, the devil is in the details, as they say.  My main concern is that you Catholics don't believe in the doctrine of justification by faith alone, or, as we like to call it for short, Sola Fide.

Horace:  What is the doctrine of Sola Fide?

Manfred:  It's the doctrine that we are justified--or made right with God--solely on the basis of the satisfaction and righteousness of Christ imputed to us.  You see, we are sinners who have deserved God's wrath.  Christ suffered and died for our sins, paying their penalty, and he also lived a life of righteousness which merited the Father's favor.  When we trust in Christ alone (by the power of his grace), the satisfaction he made to the Father for our sins and his perfect righteousness are counted to our credit, and in that righteousness alone we are enabled to stand reconciled before the Father.

Horace:  We Catholics accept this.  We acknowledge that we are sinners, and that Christ died for our sins, and that we can only be saved through the merit of his satisfaction and through the righteousness he gives to us as a free gift.

Manfred:  But you don't accept that we are justified only by the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, or credited legally to our account.  You say we are justified by righteousness being infused into us, making us inwardly holy.

Horace:  Well, it's both, isn't it?  Christ's righteousness is credited to our account--that is, it is given to us as a free gift--but it must also be infused into us by the Holy Spirit, cleansing us from sin and making us holy.

Manfred:  That is where you Catholic go wrong.  We are justified only by Christ's righteousness being imputed to us, and not at all by righteousness being infused into us or making us inwardly holy.

Horace:  So you don't think that God makes us holy by his grace?

Manfred:  Yes, God does make us holy by his grace.  But this is not what makes us justified.  God both justifies us (makes us right with himself and his moral law) and sanctifies us (makes us inwardly holy), but sanctification is not a part or ground of justification.  We are made right with God solely on the basis of the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, not infused within us.

Horace:  So if we have that imputation, we have everything we need to be right with God?

Manfred:  Yes.

Horace:  Sanctification adds nothing to this?

Manfred:  Right.

Horace:  I'm a little confused.  If imputation is all we need, and God is completely satisfied with this, then what is the point of sanctification?

Manfred:  Sanctification follows justification as its inevitable fruit.

Horace:  OK, but is it just an unnecessary side effect, or does it have any importance in itself?

Manfred:  It is important.  It makes us fit for heaven.

Horace:  What does that mean?  How does sanctification make us fit for heaven?

Manfred:  Well, if we were unsanctified and left in a wicked condition inwardly, we would not enjoy heaven, for only the righteous can enjoy heaven.  The unrighteous hate God, and heaven is all about being with God.

Horace:  So sanctification is important to us, but not to God?

Manfred:  No, our sanctification is important to God as well.  He will not allow us into his presence until we are cleansed of sin.

Horace:  Why not?

Manfred:  Because he hates sin.  Sin is contrary to his nature and his moral law.  He cannot abide it in his presence.

Horace:  I'm confused.  I thought you said earlier that when Christ's righteousness is imputed to us, we're made entirely right with God and his moral law, and that sanctification adds nothing to this.

Manfred:  Yes, that's right.

Horace:  Well then, why does he have a problem with inward sin being in his presence?  Let's take a concrete example.  If Stan has Christ's righteousness imputed to him, but he is not sanctified, why should that matter to God in terms of letting him into heaven if imputation by itself is completely sufficient to make him perfectly right with God?  If imputation does this, then God would no longer have any problem with Stan's sin.  He's perfectly reconciled with Stan.  Stan's sin doesn't bother God anymore.  Isn't that the whole point of imputation?  So I still don't see, if this is true, why God would care whether or not Stan is inwardly sanctified.  I don't get what the point of sanctification is from God's point of view.

Manfred:  Imputation wipes out Stan's sin, so that Stan stands perfectly righteous before God and his moral law.  God and his law require nothing more.  Stan has perfectly satisfied all the demands of the moral law.  But still, if he is unsanctified, then his inward sin makes him unclean and thus unfit to stand in God's presence.

Horace:  What?!  That sounds like a complete contradiction to me.  Imputation wipes out all of Stan's sin so that God's law is perfectly satisfied, and yet . . . apparently God's law isn't really fully satisfied, for God still regards Stan as unclean because of his remaining inward sin!

Manfred:  It is difficult to explain.  But the main point is that this is the biblical gospel.  The Bible teaches that we are justified solely by the imputation of Christ's righteousness.  The Apostle Paul teaches this very plainly, for example, in Romans 1-5.

What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin (Romans 4:1-8).

Horace:  I certainly agree that the Scriptures teach us that we are saved by grace through the righteousness of Christ being given to us as a free gift, as St. Paul says here.  But that is not the point in dispute between us.  The dispute is whether this gift of righteousness involves only imputation, or if infusion of righteousness into us and inward transformation are also necessary to make us fully right with God.  It seems to me that the Bible, and St. Paul in particular, is quite clear in teaching that both imputation and inward transformation are necessary.  You mentioned Romans 1-5.  Don't forget he continues his teaching in chapters 6-8 as well.

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:1-23).

Manfred:  Yes, we Reformed know that God makes us inwardly holy.  We just say that that has nothing to do with our being made right with God and his moral law.

Horace:  Really?  The Scriptures do not seem to me to draw anything like such a sharp distinction.  They speak of our inward sanctification as being important to make us right with God.

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live (Romans 8:5-13).

The Scriptures emphasize this theme a lot.  One big example is the teaching of the Scriptures on the final judgment.  We will be judged according to our works, whether good or bad.  How is this consistent with your idea that our inward sanctification--and the works that flow from that--has nothing at all to do with our being in a state of right standing before God and his moral law?

We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God (2 Corinthians 5:8-11).

I just don't think you've got the Scriptures on your side on this one.

Manfred:  Yes, we know that we will be judged according to our works.  But this doesn't mean that God will actually give to us what our works (even our works done in grace) really deserve.  All our works, even our best works, deserve nothing but hell.  But God rewards them with eternal life anyway, because he judges them graciously, in view of the merits of Christ.

Horace:  So it is like a child taking a math test.  The child's work, viewed objectively, deserves a failing grade, but the teacher gives the child a passing grade anyway because someone else took the test for her and got a passing grade and the teacher imputes that other person's test score to the child?

Manfred:  Yes, that's a helpful analogy.

Horace:  But that is to say that, in reality, the child is not graded according to her own work at all, but according to someone else's work.  But the Scriptures don't say we will be judged on the basis of what Christ has done, but on the basis of what we have done.  In the Scriptural view (and the Catholic view), the analogy would be better if we imagine the child being somehow united to a wiser person such that that person's wisdom is infused into her, so that the child herself is enabled to take the test and receive a passing grade.  This is what Christ does for us.  He gives us a share in his own righteousness and power by the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.  We sinners have no righteousness of our own to merit God's favor.  But Christ gives to us his righteousness and makes us inwardly holy by the power of his grace so that we can become truly pleasing to God, thus doing works that truly warrant his good pleasure and his reward.

Manfred:  But the Scriptures say that God does not judge us strictly according to our works, but rather has mercy on us.

He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.  For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.  As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:10-12).

So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.  For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment (James 2:12-13).

Horace:  That is true.  Instead of holding our sins against us, he forgives our sins and offers us the satisfaction and righteousness of Christ.  And when he judges us, he judges us with mercy, taking into account our weaknesses, our efforts, our repentance, etc.  But none of this negates the insistence of the Scripture that we will in fact be judged not in spite of, or with no regard to, but according to our works.  Scripture insists on this over and over and over again.  (From just the New Testament, not even taking into consideration the Old Testament, see, for example, Romans 2:6-8; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Galatians 5:6,21; Ephesians 5:5; James 2:14-26; Hebrews 12:14; Matthew 7:24-27; Luke 10:25-28; Revelation 20:13; Revelation 22:12; Matthew 16:27; John 5:28-29; Galatians 6:7-9; Matthew 25; etc.)  If our works, even those done in grace, merit hell, but God rewards us with heaven, then we are judged not according to our works in any way but in fact quite literally opposite to our works--the exact reversal of what Scripture repeatedly teaches.  God is certainly a merciful judge, but he is still a judge.  Sinners "shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal" (Matthew 25:46).

Manfred:  But the Scriptures are crystal-clear that we are saved by grace and not by our own merits!

Horace:  Yes, and we are agreed on this point.  But this doesn't require your ideas about imputation.  God may require the righteousness of Christ to be both imputed to us and infused within us to make us acceptable, but that doesn't change the fact that it is Christ's righteousness and not our own that makes us acceptable.  Whether imputed to us or infused within us, the righteousness that justifies us is an unmerited gift of free grace.  So we are justified by grace.  That is why the Scriptures can say both that we are saved by grace and that we will be judged according to our works.  Both are true, and they are not contradictory, because the works that God will judge us by in the final judgment are the fruits of God's gift of righteousness to us in Christ.  As St. Augustine famously put it, "When God crowns our merits, he is crowning his own gifts."  If someone gives me $100 as a free gift, and then I go out and buy groceries with that $100, even though the $100 has purchased the groceries, it doesn't follow from this that I have earned the groceries myself by my own resources.  The groceries should still be regarded as a gift, for they were purchased with money that was a gift.  Similarly, Christ has given us his righteousness, and that righteousness bears fruit in our works, and God is truly pleased with these works and considers them fit to reward with eternal life.  But that reward is still a total gift of grace, because God is only crowning his own gifts in us.

You accuse us, Manfred, of denying the gospel of grace because we don't buy into the Reformed ideas about imputation alone making us right with God.  But you can see that the Reformed ideas about imputation are not at all necessary to preserve the gracious character of justification.  All these ideas do is cloud up other Scriptural teaching regarding the importance and place of works.  By limiting justification solely to imputation, you turn sanctification--which Scripture emphasizes as being of great importance to God's acceptance of us--into nothing but an unnecessary add-on, at least in terms of our standing before God.  You still haven't told me why God even cares about our sanctification, if imputation gives us all we need by itself to bring us into good standing before God.

I would actually go a little further here.  I think you have hinted that perhaps you do not even believe your own system.  You have said that sanctification makes us somehow fit to be in God's presence, that he could not tolerate an unsanctified person to live with him in heaven without first being cleaned up.  In saying this, I think you are subconsciously acknowledging the Catholic position that recognizes that sanctification is an important part of what brings us into good standing with God.  For you are quite right.  Sanctification is necessary to make us fit to dwell with God, for we cannot be acceptable to him unless righteousness is not merely imputed to us but is also infused within us and bears its fruit in our lives.

Manfred:  OK, I do see the point you are making.  You are right in your concern that we should not formulate our doctrines of justification and sanctification in such a way as to negate any moral importance attached to sanctification.  God does care not just about our legal status but also about our inward condition.  Sanctification is important to make us fit to dwell with God.

Perhaps we can say this:  Justification (consisting of the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us) provides us legally with what we need to satisfy God's moral law, but we will not experientially stand right with God until we are also sanctified (which consists of righteousness being infused within us and bearing its fruit in our lives).  Perhaps an analogy can help.  Consider purchasing a book on Amazon.  Legally, the book is yours once you've purchased it, but it doesn't provide any benefit to you until you actually receive it in the mail.

Horace:  That sounds good to me.  I think we Catholics can get behind that.  I like your distinction between legally being made right with God and experientially being made right with God.  I would want to add that the legal status is nothing but a dead letter without the experiential realization.  If God were to impute righteousness to Stan but refrain from infusing it into him, he would give with one hand what he takes back with the other, for Stan would continue to stand unreconciled before God, displeasing to him in his moral corruption and fit only for hell and not for heaven.  Imputation would make no difference to his actual standing before God in practice, and so would be merely a legal fiction.

Manfred:  Yes, just as the person who buys a book but never has it delivered is, in practice, in no different position from the person who never buys it.  It doesn't do him any good.

Horace:  Yes, exactly.

So where does this leave us?  I am perfectly happy with your new formulation of your position.  I think it addresses all my concerns, and I think it brings your view into harmony with the Catholic view.  Perhaps the only difference remaining between us on this point is terminological.  We both recognize the importance of both imputation and infusion in bringing about our moral reconciliation with God, but you use the term justification to refer to only the imputation component and we Catholics use the term justification to cover the whole process.

Manfred:  But don't you believe that we have to cooperate with God's grace?  God's grace doesn't make us righteous inwardly unless we cooperate with it of our own free will?  Doesn't that mean it's really us doing the good works and not God?

Horace:  Certainly we have to cooperate with God's grace of our own free will.  But our good will itself is also a gift of grace, so all of it comes from grace.  We make no independent contribution.  When we say "yes" to God, that "yes" itself is a gift of grace, a fruit of Christ's righteousness applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit.  Just take a look at what the Catholic Church taught at the Second Council of Orange to see how deeply rooted in grace our whole salvation is.

Manfred:  Well, I must be going now.  Thank you for this conversation.  It's given me a lot to think about.  I'm still uncomfortable with the Catholic view.  The Reformation was all about recovering the gospel of grace that had been lost by the medieval Church.  Certainly, however, I must grant that the issues are more complex than I have previously realized, and I must continue to ponder these things.  Have a good day!

Horace:  You too, until next time!

For further critique of the Reformed Protestant doctrine of justification, see here, here, and here.  For an exegesis of Romans 1-8 with particular attention to St. Paul's doctrine of justification, see here.  For some articles attempting to show how the gap between the Catholic view and the Reformed view might be bridged, see here, here, and here.  See also the chapter on justification in my book, No Grounds for Divorce.  For more on the Catholic doctrine of salvation in general, see here.

Published on the feast of St. Christopher Magallanes and Companions, Martyrs