What is Justification? 

It's just as if we'd never sinned.

Helping us

How does God justify us to enter heaven? According to Reformers justification is by grace and is one-time event and it is by faith (in Christ) alone. Grace is gift or favour from God that we do not deserve. Through justification we are declared righteous, i.e. the perfect righteousness of Christ is imputed on us. This means we are righteous externally (using righteousness of Christ) but inside we remain unrighteous. The foundation of this belief is our inability to meet God’s standard of righteousness as stated in verses like Romans 3:10 (no one is righteous), Romans 3:23 (all have sinned and fall short of glory of God) and Isaiah 64:6 (our righteousness is like dirty rags to God). According to the Catholic Church justification is by grace and is a process. Scripture says God saves us through faith in Christ (Eph. 2:8) and through sanctification (2 Thess. 2:13) - faith is gift from God (Eph. 2:8) and sanctification is work of God (1 Thess. 5:23). Justification is pre-requisite of salvation and through justification we are made righteous through Christ (Rom. 5:19). Scripture defines righteous persons as the ones who do what is right (1 John 3:7) - it is possible only through Christ because apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5). Catholics agree that by ourselves we can never become righteous - our righteousness does come from God through Christ but unlike what is taught by Reformers it is infused in us or we are made righteous. According to Scripture Noah, Daniel, Job (Ezekiel 14:14), Joseph (Matthew 1:19), Elizabeth and Zechariah (Luke 1:6), Paul (1 Thessalonians 2:10), Abel (Hebrews 11:4) and even Lot (2 Peter 2:7) were righteous persons. The existence of righteous persons, without naming them is shown in Psalms 5:12, 34:15, Matthew 5:45, 1 Peter 3:12 and many other verses. Scripture says the righteous shall go to eternal life (Mat. 25:46) because they did acts that make them righteous (Mat. 25:35-36), not because they have faith in Christ alone. Faith is counted or reckoned as righteousness (Rom. 4:3, 5, 6, 9, 11, 22, 23, 24; Gal. 3:6; James 2:23). Those verses do not say Abraham was counted or declared righteous, as taught by the Reformers but his faith is counted as righteousness. Certainly, to have faith one of acts that makes us righteous as mentioned in 1 John 3:7. Thus Catholics understand that Abraham was made righteous by his faith. Scripture says a righteous person loses his righteousness whenever he sins (Ezek. 33:12) and whoever sins belong to the devil (1 John 3:8). All of us commit sin - we do not need to point finger. According to Scripture (1 John 5:16-17) there are deadly (mortal) and non-deadly (venial) sins. When a righteous person commits iniquity, he will die and all his past righteousness will be forgotten (Ezekiel 18:24). Moved by grace he needs to repent - Scripture says when a wicked man turns away from his wickedness, he will surely live(Ezekiel 18:27-28) - all his past wickedness will be forgotten and he will live because he is in righteous state. That is the reason why Christ gave the authority to forgive sins to the Church (John 20:22-23). Thus Catholics believe we go to heaven when we die in righteous state - it neither depends on how many righteous acts we did nor on how many sins we did. When we die with non-deadly sins then we will undergo purgatory to cleanse us. Scripture refers God as refiner’s fire (Malachi 3:2) who put someinto fire as one refines silver and test gold (Zechariah 13:8-9). Most of those who follow Reformers are not aware of 1 John 5:16-17 - while they can recite from memory Rom. 3:23. Using imputation concept of righteousness as taught by Reformers, the implication of deadly and non-deadly sins becomes meaningless - for sure Christ’ perfect righteousness is able to cover them. Christ’ words in John 20:22-23 has no implication either. Those who believe we need to repent, as well to do good works as evidence of faith should admit that we are not saved by faith alone, but by faith + repentance + good works. Paul’s instruction to Timothy to aim for righteousness (1 Tim. 6:11, 2 Tim. 2:22) becomes meaningless as well because we already have perfect righteousness of Christ imputed on us.

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