Initial Justification
God is the source of our justification. The Father sent his
Son in the power of the Holy Spirit to announce and enact the gospel of our
salvation. Faith in the gospel is the beginning of our salvation. James tells us, “Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming
down from the Father of lights…Of his own
will he brought us forth by the word
of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.” Paul
is of the same mind: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this
is not your own doing, it is the gift of God — not because of works, lest any
man should boast” (Eph 2:9). And Trent could not be more emphatic: “[N]one of
the things that precede justification, whether by faith or works, merit the
grace of justification. For, if by grace, it is not now by works, otherwise, as
the Apostle says, grace is no more grace [Rom 11:6].” (DCJ, 7); and again, “in
adults the beginning of that justification must proceed from the predisposing
grace of God through Jesus Christ…without any merits on their part, they are
called” (DCJ, 5).
We cooperate with this predisposing grace and receive
baptism, the sacrament of faith: “He saved us, not because of deeds done by us
in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of
regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly
through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4-7). Baptism is our birth
into the family of God.
Progress in
Justification
Once born, we are expected to grow; and that requires
our cooperation. Just as physical growth requires proper nutrition, the normal
functioning of the muscles, and avoidance of danger; so growth in the supernatural
life requires attentiveness to prayer, the willingness to live as Christ, and
the avoidance of grave sin. Without these, we whither. James asks, “What does
it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his
faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and in lack of daily
food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without
giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by
itself, if it has no works, is dead “(2:14-17). This actually continues St.
Paul’s thought from above, “by grace you have been saved through faith; and
this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God…For we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:9-10).
Every good work originates in God but is actualized in us,
and thus requires our cooperation. That is why Paul tells the Philippians to
“work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in
you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12-13). The
Council of Trent says the same: “For since Christ Jesus Himself, as the head
into the members and the vine into the branches [Jn 15:1], continually infuses
strength into the justified, which strength always precedes, accompanies, and
follows their good works, and without which they could not in any manner be
pleasing and meritorious before God……[F]ar be it that a Christian should either
trust or glory in himself and not in the Lord [1 Cor 1:31; 2 Cor 10:17], whose
bounty toward all men is so great that He wishes the things that are His gifts
to be their merits” (DCJ, 16).
Martin Luther famously saw conflict between James’ statement
that “a man is justified by works and not by faith alone” (2:24) and Paul’s “a
man is justified by faith apart from works of law” (Rom 3:28); but this simply
isn’t the case. James wrote to Jewish Christians who he had reason to believe
were lax in living their faith. Paul, on the other hand, wrote to mixed
communities in which Jewish believers insisted that Gentiles who came to faith
in Christ were not truly justified until they were circumcised and began living
under the Mosaic Law’s cultic and dietary stipulations.
Christians do live under a
law, but it is not the Law of Moses. It is what James calls “the royal
law,” or law of the kingdom (2:8-9) and what Paul calls the “law of Christ”
(Gal 6:2; 1 Cor 9:21). Paul makes a distinction between “works of the law” and
other “works” which must be manifest if one is to obtain final salvation:
[God] will render to every man
according to his works: to those who
by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life…. it is not
the hearers of the [Mosaic] law who are righteous before God, but the doers of
the law who will be justified. When Gentiles who have not the law [of Moses] do
by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they
do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their
conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps
excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of
men by Christ Jesus. (Rom 2:6–7, 13–16)
Paul makes the same point in Galatians: “[T]hrough the
Spirit, by faith, we wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ
Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love” (Gal 5:5-6). There
is no true conflict between Paul and James. They even make the same distinction
between those who hear and those who do (Rom 2:13; James 1:22)!
We progress in justification as we remain faithful to Christ
in the midst of trial and temptation. Listen to James: “Blessed is the man who
endures trial, for when he has stood the
test he will receive the crown of
life which God has promised to those who love him…[E]ach person is tempted
when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has
conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth
death.” (1:12-15). “What causes wars, and what causes fighting among you? Is it
not your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and
do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and
wage war” (4:1-2). Paul called this our struggle against “the flesh” (Rom
7:21-23; 8:12-13). But as James assures us, we receive power to overcome, “God
opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore
to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he
will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts,
you men of double mind…Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you.
(James 4:6-10).
The Council of Trent wrote of these same realities: “[I]n
the one baptized there remains concupiscence or an inclination to sin, which,
since it is left for us to wrestle with, cannot injure those who do not
acquiesce but resist manfully by the grace of Jesus Christ; indeed, he who
shall have striven lawfully shall be crowned [Eph 4:22, 24; Col. 3:9]. This
concupiscence, which the Apostle sometimes calls sin [Rom 6-8; Col. 3], the holy
council declares the Catholic Church has never understood to be called sin in
the sense that it is truly and properly sin in those born again, but in the
sense that it is of sin and inclines to sin” (Decree Concerning Original Sin,
5).
“Venial” sins impede the flow of Christ’s life within us but
do not completely sever our union with the Lord. James says, “For we all make
many mistakes” (3:2); and Trent notes, “during this mortal life, men, however
holy and just, fall at times into at least light and daily sins, which are also
called venial, they do not on that account cease to be just, for that petition
of the just, forgive us our trespasses [Mt 6:12]” (DCJ, 11). Venial sins, if
not repented of, can lead us into mortal sin; or as James says, “desire when it
has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death” (1:15). Paul lists such deadly sins in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Galatians 5:19-21, warning that “those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” (And yes, “modern” world, sexual sins are among them.)
“But God, who is rich in mercy,” will restore every child
who repents (Eph 2:4). James writes, “whoever brings back a sinner from the
error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of
sins” (5:20). This healing is normally effected through the sacrament of
reconciliation, or penance; and James may well make reference to the public
celebration of the sacrament when, after his discussion of presbyters anointing
the sick, he counsels readers to “confess your sins to one another” (5:16; Cf
Jn 20:22-23). Trent highlights the role of grace in reconciliation: “Those who
through sin have forfeited the received grace of justification, can again be
justified when, moved by God, they exert themselves to obtain through the
sacrament of penance the recovery, by the merits of Christ, of the grace lost”
(DCJ, 14).
The bottom line is that we must grow in the divine life. As
Paul wrote, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I
press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Phil
3:12).
Final Justification
Our perseverance in grace will be rewarded when we stand
before Christ the judge and receive the fullness of justification in the
resurrection of our bodies. James tells us, “Be patient, therefore, brethren,
until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit
of the earth, being patient over it until it receives the early and the late
rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is
at hand” (5:7-8); and Paul writes, “we are children of God, and if children,
then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:16-17). Trent insists
that even this result of grace:
“…with regard to the gift of
perseverance, of which it is written: He that shall persevere to the end, he
shall be saved [Mt 10:22; 24:13], which cannot be obtained from anyone except
from Him who is able to make him stand who stands [Rom 14:4], that he may stand
perseveringly, and to raise him who falls, let no one promise himself herein
something as certain with an absolute certainty, though all ought to place and
repose the firmest hope in God's help. For God, unless men themselves fail in
His grace, as he has begun a good work, so will he perfect it, working to will
and to accomplish [Phil 1:6; 2:13]” (DCJ, 13).
So there you are my friends, a scriptural and magisterial
“cheat sheet” on the doctrine of justification.
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