0
0
article from Wikipedia
The purpose of posting this Wikipedia article is to help us relax about our personal favorite doctrine and understand that our fellow Christians in other denominations often have very valid and sometimes more valid viewpoints than we have. Dogmatic Christians tend to think they are right and everyone else is wrong and that is quite immature.
The truth is SPIRIT and that means our logical brains do not really grasp it fully.
We need to have mercy and respect for other viewpoints.
By that, we are not implying that truth is relative or in flux. It is not. The Truth of God is a person called Jesus and He is absolute. Our personal doctrinal and written version of “truth” is however inevitably imperfect.
Some doctrines and better than others, much better in fact but we still need to walk in love and respect for our other brothers as long as they confess Christ and believe that salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ, particularly His Crucifixion and Resurrection.
Enjoy!
Comparison of traditions
Christian traditions answer questions about the nature, function and meaning of justification quite differently.
These issues include:
- Is justification an event occurring instantaneously or is it as an ongoing process?
- Is justification effected by divine action alone (monergism), by divine and human action together (synergism) or by human action?
- Is justification permanent or can it be lost?
- What is the relationship of justification to sanctification, the process whereby sinners become righteous and are enabled by the Holy Spirit to live lives pleasing to God?
Catholics and Protestants believe that we are justified by grace alone through faith, a faith that is active in charity and good works (fides formata) in the case of Catholics, whilst Protestants believe through faith by grace they are justified.
Most Protestants believe they are justified by God’s grace which is a free gift but it is received through faith alone.
Catholics believe they are justified by God’s grace which is a free gift but it is received through baptism initially, through the faith which worketh by love in the continuous life of the Christian and through the sacrament of reconciliation if the grace of justification is lost through mortal sin.
In the words of one Orthodox Bishop:
Justification is a word used in the Scriptures to mean that in Christ we are forgiven and actually made righteous in our living. Justification is not a once-for-all, instantaneous pronouncement guaranteeing eternal salvation, regardless of how wickedly a person might live from that point on. Neither is it merely a legal declaration that an unrighteous person is righteous. Rather, justification is a living, dynamic, day-to-day reality for the one who follows Christ. The Christian actively pursues a righteous life in the grace and power of God granted to all who continue to believe in Him.[34]
“The Holy Spirit effects the vocation, the illumination, the conversion, the justification, the rebirth in Baptism and the sanctification in the Church.
Anglicanism
Anglicans, particularly high-church Anglo-Catholics, often follow Catholicism and Orthodoxy in believing both man and God are involved in justification. “Justification has an objective and a subjective aspect. The objective is the act of God in Christ restoring the covenant and opening it to all people. The subjective aspect is faith, trust in the divine factor, acceptance of divine mercy. Apart from the presence of the subjective aspect there is no justification. People are not justified apart from their knowledge or against their will…God forgives and accepts sinners as they are into the divine fellowship, and that these sinners are in fact changed by their trust in the divine mercy.”[36] Justification, the establishment of a relationship with God through Christ, and sanctification go hand in hand. In historic Anglicanism, the eleventh article of the Thirty-Nine Articles made it clear that justification cannot be earned, “We are accounted righteous before God… not for our own works or deservings”.[37]
Comparison of Traditions Table
| Tradition | Process or Event |
Type of Action |
Permanence | Justification & Sanctification |
| Roman Catholic | Both event and process | Synergism | Can be lost via any mortal sin | Part of the same process |
| Lutheran | Event | Divine monergism | Can be lost via loss of faith | Distinct from and prior to sanctification |
| Methodist | Event | Synergism | Can be lost via loss of faith or willful sin | Dependent upon continued sanctification |
| Eastern Orthodox | Process | Synergism | Can be lost via loss of faith or willful sin | Part of the same process (theosis) |
| Reformed/Calvinist | Event | Divine monergism | Cannot be lost | Both are a result of union with Christ |
| Organic View | Event and Process | Synergism
Seed growing in the Human Heart |
Seed can die | Dependant on continued Faith and Slavation |
Justification is not separate from Sanctification
4 Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. 5 And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. 6 Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. 8 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. 9 Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.
” (1 John 3:4–9, NKJV)
