Catholic description of salvation (from WynCatholic)

[Ragamuffin]

I’m a newbie, so forgive me if this isn’t the proper way to address a tangential point from an existing thread. I was reading the thread about the guy whose wife had been listening to some anti-Catholic stuff and this was a post from WynCatholic I had a question about:

Others will answer perhaps better than I in my limited time, but lemme take a run at it.

The concept of ‘covering’ is part and parcel of the reformed concept of a forensic atonement. It is a judicial perspective on our salvation that discounts the repeated New Testament description of our being United with Christ in His life death resurrection and reign… REALLY UNITED. not merely a judicial act that covered our sin, but one that is the divine familial act of redemption, of becoming sin for us, of bearing our sin in his own body on the tree. … of our being united with him in His ressurrection and life. In fact His saving work continues in and through us, members of His Body, partakers in the divine nature, we, his church, seated with Him in the heavenlies…

my goodness, I am getting carried away there. Read the New testament letters as your source documents, the plain sense of the words , of what they heard and understood is catholic teaching. , 'cause they are Catholic documents.

A Year ago last Easter my train ride of intimacy with God hit high speed when I discovered that the God who always worked personally and incarnationally did it again when when in Christ He saved us (me) as members of His Body, and all the new testament descriptions of that truth were REALLY true, and not mere ‘word pictures’. Despite the warmth and music and fellowship of my MB (Mostly Baptist aka MennoniteBrethren), I followed the Bible’s theology and started RCIA in fall '04 and am now a Catholic. I am where God wants me, even though Church is now pretty different.

The parts I was wondering about are bolded. And if someone other than WynCatholic wants to take a stab at it, feel free. I’m wondering if someone can explain the distinction being made here. I’ve heard all of these things taught in the Protestant churches I’ve belonged to so I’m not sure what is being distinguished between in those statements.

And for the record, yes I’m Protestant. No, I’m not anti-Catholic. What’s prompting me to investigate things a little more is that some Catholics on another forums I frequent I’ve come to have great respect for, plus one of my best friends and his wife recently became Catholic after growing up in a Protestant tradition. So my questions here are honest and straightforward with no ulterior motive.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Im not sure I understand the question, but if its in regards to the classical protestant vs Catholic understanding of justification then what is being said is this example:

Lets say man is represented by a bank account in debt, God sees nothing of value in the man so apart from an outside help the man is lost. Jesus has a bank account of infinite value.

In Protestantism: God “justifies” the man in debt when the man appeals to Christ and from that point on God no longer looks at the mans account and judges him as a debtor but now looks at Christ and only sees Christ’s account. There is no change in the man, this event of “justification” is totally external to him.

In Catholicism: God justifies when man appeals to Christ and Christ’s merits are ACTUALLY applied to his once in debt account. God sees the man as actually out of debt beacuse he truly is out of debt.

In the above example in Protestantism God is calling a man “forgiven” (despite the man in actuality being in debt) because He is looking at Christ, Catholics see this as a grave error and believe as the Bible teaches man is truly made clean inside and can truly be called “forgiven”.

Here is an article you MUST read, its short and pretty easy to follow:
catholicintl.com/epologetics/articles/justification/white-bible.htm