Catholics and Justification

[Rock7]

As an Evangelical Protestant considering the catholic church one question that sticks with me is justification and sanctification. As a southern baptist I have been taught grace through faith= Justification, Life and mind renewed zeal for works= sanctification. I am deeply interested regarding this doctrine. What does the Church say and is it scripturally so? As well I suppose is sola fide. I have been always taught in faith alone. For Catholics is it grace through faith or grace through faith plus works?

 

[jmr_1985]

I’m sure others will do a much better job at explaining this that I can, but I will offer you a great book suggestion on the subject. In my opinion everyone coming from a Baptist or OSAS background should read Marcus Grodi’s book What Must I do to be Saved?. It will cost you less than $7 on Amazon and it is a very short read. Marcus is a former Protestant pastor who converted.

God Bless. Merry Christmas again!

 

[PaulfromIowa]

The Catechism teaches:

I. JUSTIFICATION

1987 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…

1989 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."38 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.39

1990 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.

1991 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.

1992 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…

II. GRACE

1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.46

1997 Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an “adopted son” he can henceforth call God “Father,” in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.

1998 This vocation to eternal life is supernatural. It depends entirely on God’s gratuitous initiative, for he alone can reveal and give himself. It surpasses the power of human intellect and will, as that of every other creature.47

1999 The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification:48

Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.49

2000 Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by his love. Habitual grace, the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God’s call, is distinguished from actual graces which refer to God’s interventions, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the course of the work of sanctification.

2001 The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. This latter is needed to arouse and sustain our collaboration in justification through faith, and in sanctification through charity. God brings to completion in us what he has begun, "since he who completes his work by cooperating with our will began by working so that we might will it:"50

Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing.51

2002 God’s free initiative demands man’s free response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him. The soul only enters freely into the communion of love. God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man. He has placed in man a longing for truth and goodness that only he can satisfy. The promises of “eternal life” respond, beyond all hope, to this desire:

If at the end of your very good works . . ., you rested on the seventh day, it was to foretell by the voice of your book that at the end of our works, which are indeed "very good" since you have given them to us, we shall also rest in you on the sabbath of eternal life.52

2003 Grace is first and foremost the gift of the Spirit who justifies and sanctifies us. But grace also includes the gifts that the Spirit grants us to associate us with his work, to enable us to collaborate in the salvation of others and in the growth of the Body of Christ, the Church. There are sacramental graces, gifts proper to the different sacraments. There are furthermore special graces, also called charisms after the Greek term used by St. Paul and meaning “favor,” “gratuitous gift,” "benefit."53 Whatever their character - sometimes it is extraordinary, such as the gift of miracles or of tongues - charisms are oriented toward sanctifying grace and are intended for the common good of the Church. They are at the service of charity which builds up the Church.

 

[Usige]

Give this tract on grace, sanctification and justification a read and see if it helps you understand Catholic teaching on the subject.

 

[thistle]

As an Evangelical Protestant considering the catholic church one question that sticks with me is justification and sanctification. As a southern baptist I have been taught grace through faith= Justification, Life and mind renewed zeal for works= sanctification. I am deeply interested regarding this doctrine. What does the Church say and is it scripturally so? As well I suppose is sola fide. I have been always taught in faith alone. For Catholics is it grace through faith or grace through faith plus works?

chnetwork.org/2012/02/a-protestant-historian-discovers-the-catholic-church-conversion-story-of-a-david-anders-ph-d/

 

[fhansen]

As an Evangelical Protestant considering the catholic church one question that sticks with me is justification and sanctification. As a southern baptist I have been taught grace through faith= Justification, Life and mind renewed zeal for works= sanctification. I am deeply interested regarding this doctrine. What does the Church say and is it scripturally so? As well I suppose is sola fide. I have been always taught in faith alone. For Catholics is it grace through faith or grace through faith plus works?

Man needs God-that’s the essential message of the New Covenant. He needs God in order to achieve righteousness. “Apart from Me you can do nothing” John 15. “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matt 19. We cannot do it-we cannot fulfill the law, on our own.

God wants so much* for* us-not a merely imputed or declared righteousness, but the real thing-the righteousness He simply created us to have from the beginning. He didn’t create us to be unrighteous, after all. And sin is what separated us from Him to begin with. So, by the NC, He not only forgives us of sin but also empowers us, over time, to ‘go, and sin no more’. We only need to accept His offer, made from the cross, and turn back to Him like Prodigals from our exile imposed by Adam. Then we can begin* communing* with Him as He truly becomes our God again (Jer 31:34) and He can begin to place His laws on our minds and write them in our hearts (Jer 31:33). He does this by conforming us to His own image, i.e. the image of love.

God is patient and kind in this endeavor, this work of salvation, in which we become holy because He is holy (1 Pet 1). And this is only as it should be: no sinners enter heaven as scripture tells us: we aren’t even capable of “seeing” God to the extent that we’re still attracted to other, created, things besides Him above all else, to the extent that we’re still attracted to sin IOW.

All this process of justification *begins *with faith, as it is the first step, on our part at least, of restored relationship with God. Bottom line: justification and sanctification cannot be separated.