The New Testament is adamant that justification does
not come through the Law of Moses. Baptism is our birth as sons and daughters
“in the Son.” We start out as infants, but our Father has no intention of letting
us remain infants for eternity (Ephesians 4:13; Hebrews 6:1). He looks forward,
eagerly, to our growth and development. In the end we will be like Jesus –
loving and pouring ourselves out to Him in the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:29). Faith
propels us forward, moving us to not just listen to God’s word but to put it
into practice (James 1:22-25). Catholics call this “sanctification” or the
“ongoing process of justification” – recognizing birth and the subsequent
process of growth as stages in one and the same Life.
Regardless of the terminology, the Apostle Paul
has some important things to tell us about this process. First and foremost we
have to get it through our heads that the actions we perform (you can call them
deeds or works and they can be anything from time spent in prayer, to sharing
our goods with less fortunate brothers and sisters, to caring for the sick or dying)
are never ours alone – they are primarily
the actions of Christ Jesus Himself. As Paul tells us in Philippians, “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,”
or as the New American Bible translates it, “who begets in you any measure of desire or achievement” (2:12-23).
Jesus acting in us and through us is what we call
the life of Grace.[1]
All of His actions during His time on earth were expressions of Love for His
Father, and as such they were performed in the Holy Spirit. When He acts in us
the same is true; He is Loving the Father, in the Holy Spirit, through us (Galatians 2:20-21). We have
already talked about how Jesus deepens our participation in His Life through
the Sacraments of Confirmation and Eucharist. Talk about the greatest honor in
the universe, we have been inserted into the Life of the God Who is Love!
In Jesus, by His Grace, we live in a way that
pleases our Father.[2]
And the Father, looking at us with eyes full of mercy and Love, regards these
actions (or works, or deeds) as truly ours.
But how can an action be simultaneously Jesus’ and ours? Let me offer an
analogy.
Suppose you and your sister were standing at the
top of a flight of steps when she lost her balance and began to fall. You
reached out and grabbed her, pulling her back upright. In her gratefulness she
planted a big kiss on your hand, saying, “I love this hand. Thanks for grabbing
me.” Now that good deed took place because of the instrumentality of your hand;
it extended toward her and grabbed onto her. The only way it could do that good
deed though, was because it participated in your life and was under your
direction. That action belonged totally to you – and totally to your hand,
simultaneously.
Not only does God the Father regard these works as
ours and smile with pleasure, He goes even further and “rewards” us with
progressively more of His Grace
– until finally He places the crown of life on our heads.[3]
We “merit” this increase of Grace but not in the
legal sense of God owing us a payment for our work. We merit in the same way a
child who eats everything on his plate merits a second helping – the merit is
founded on the Father’s Love for His children.[4]
Such a progression can be seen in St. Paul’s journey. He could write to the
Philippians, “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. . .I
press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ
Jesus” (Phil.3:12,14); and then years later write to Timothy, “I am already on
the point of being sacrificed…I have fought the good fight, I have finished the
race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on that Day”
(2 Tim. 4:6-8). Paul had fully entered into Jesus’ offering to the Father. The
refusal of our first parents to enter into the flow of Life going on within the
Trinity, and the effects of that sin, are being undone even as you read this.
It happened for Paul and it can for us too. If we enter fully into Jesus’ offering
to the Father by both our obedience to God’s will and our perseverance through
suffering, then we will also share in His resurrection (Philippians 2:8-9;
3:10).
We are meant to be branches living by the life of
the Vine, parts of the Body of which Jesus is the Head. If our lives are not
showing forth His Life, and progressively more so over the years, then there is
a problem. “As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the
vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. . .I am the true vine, and my
Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes
away” (John 15:4,1-2).
This is what the Epistle of James means when it says, “You
see that a man is justified by works
and not by faith alone…For as the
body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead” (James
2:24,26). James was not teaching that we can earn initial justification (the gifts of faith and baptism); no, we have
been made God’s children purely by His favor. What I am convinced he was teaching,
and the Catholic Church continues to bear witness to, is the reality that
justification is not only our unmerited incorporation into Jesus’ Sonship;
justification is also the process of His lifestyle becoming ours. It is a
process that has to be continued. Jesus didn’t pour Himself out to the Father
just interiorly, or spiritually, one time at the beginning of His Life. He gave
Himself in His flesh and blood, His words, thoughts and actions continually;
and as parts of His Body, motivated and empowered by His Grace, we are called
to do the same![5]
Speaking of the last day, the Lord was very
specific about the criteria we will be judged on. Jesus will welcome the just
with a word of thanks for their untold kindnesses to Him - kindnesses He
received in lieu of His connection to all of humanity. He went on to describe
how He will tell the wicked, those condemned to “the eternal fire prepared for
the devil and his angels” to leave His sight - they had neglected and rejected
Him (Matt.25:41). They in turn will ask, “Lord, when did we see thee hungry or
thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to
thee?”(Matt.25:44). Jesus will answer, “As you did it not to one of the least
of these, you did it not to me” (Matthew 25:45). Jesus did not even mention our
mental or verbal confessions of faith; by themselves they are inadequate. He
wants our confession made in our flesh and bone, living as He lived; to do otherwise
is to reject the Life He died to give us.
[1]For direction to several verses in the
next two footnotes I owe thanks to Robert Sungenis’s How Can I Get to Heaven? The
Bible’s Teaching on Salvation Made Easy to Understand, (Santa Barbara,
California: Queenship Publishing Company, 1998).
Philippians
4:13, “I can do all
things in him who strengthens me”
2
Peter 1:3-4, “His
divine power has granted to us all
things that pertain to life and godliness …he has granted to us his precious
and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption
that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.
1
Corinthians 15:10, “But
by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On
the contrary, I worked harder than any of
them, though it was not I, but the
grace of God which is with me.”
Romans
12:6, “Having gifts
that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.”
Ephesians
4:7, “But grace was
given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”
See Ephesians
1:11-12 in next footnote as well.
[2]Hebrews
13:20-21, “Now may the
God of peace. . .equip you with everything good that you may do his will,
working in you that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to
whom be glory for ever and ever.”
Ephesians 1:11-12, “In [Jesus], according to the purpose
of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will, we who
first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise
of his glory.”
Philippians
1:9-11, “And it is my
prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all
discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and
blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruits of righteousness which
come through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God”
2
Corinthians 5:9-10, “So
whether we are at home [in the body] or away, we make it our aim to please
him. For we must all appear before the
judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according
to what he has done in the body.”
Romans
12:1, “…present your
bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your
spiritual worship.”
Philippians
4:18, “I have received.
. .the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing
to God.”
1
Timothy 2:1,3, “I urge
that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all
men. . .this is good and it is acceptable to God our Savior”
Colossians
3:20, “Children, obey
your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.”
1
John 3:21-22, “Beloved,
if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and we receive
from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases
him.”
[3] 2
Peter 1:3,5-8,10-11, “His divine power has granted to us all things that
pertain to life and godliness. . .make every effort to supplement your faith
with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and
self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and
godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these things are yours and abound, they keep you from being
ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ…Therefore,
my brethren, be the more zealous to confirm
your call and election, for if you do
this, you will never fall; so there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
We see
the Mystery of our cooperation with God’s Grace in Jesus’ “parable of the talents”also:
A man went on a journey and entrusted differing sums of money to three of his
servants. The first servant, receiving five talents (about five thousand
dollars), invests them and makes five more. The second servant did likewise
with the two talents he was given. The third servant, however, buried the one
talent he had been entrusted with for fear of losing it. When the man returned
to settle accounts he was enraged with servant #3,
“You wicked and slothful servant!. . .You ought to have
invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received
what was my own with interest. [I’ll take the talent from you] and give it to
him who has the ten talents. For to every one who has will more be given; but
from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away” (Matthew 25:26-29).
[4] Hahn, Scott, Hail Holy Queen: The Mother of God in the Word of God (San
Francisco: Doubleday, 2001), pp.133-134.
[5] Galatians
5:4-6 “You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law
[of Moses]; you have fallen away from grace. For through 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.”
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