LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 305

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II. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS
Christians could earn the grace of God by simply doing
their best.2
All Roman Catholic theologians said that if a Christian
does good works, then he merits from more gifts (grace)
from God. And all Roman Catholic theologians believed
that man had a free will by which he could do something
in regard to salvation.

change some of its practices. This council met, with some
long breaks in between, from 1545–1563. This council
taught that man cannot be justified by his own works,
without grace. However, the word “justified” in this context
means becoming a Christian, not being saved in the final
judgment. Trent rejected the key teachings of Lutherans
on justification:

The Lutheran teaching was summarized in the Augsburg
Confession, presented in 1530:
Furthermore, it is taught that we cannot obtain
forgiveness of sin and righteousness before God through
our merit, work, or satisfactions, but that we receive
forgiveness of sin and become righteous before God out
of grace for Christ’s sake through faith when we believe
that Christ has suffered for us and that for his sake our
sin is forgiven and righteousness and eternal life are
given to us. For God will regard and reckon this faith
as righteousness in his sight, as St. Paul says in Romans
3:[21-26] and 4:[5]. (AC IV)3

4. Trent: Rome’s Answer to the
Reformation

The Roman Catholic Church held a council (an assembly of
bishops) in Trent (now northern Italy), and later at Bologna
to resolve issues coming from the Reformation and also to
James M. Kittelson, Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and His Career
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 73.

5. The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine
of Justification

From your experience, are these issues still relevant? Have
you had conversations with Roman Catholics on the topic
of justification?

If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith
alone in the sense that nothing else is required by
way of cooperation in order to obtain the grace of
justification and that it is not at all necessary that he
should be prepared and disposed by the movement
of his will, let him be anathema.4

Roman Catholics believed in salvation by faith plus works,
Lutherans believed in salvation by faith alone. This was one
of the core issues. On Judgment Day, what will be the basis
of God’s acquittal? Will our works be included as the basis
of forgiveness? Rome said yes, the Lutherans said no.
What does it mean that a Christian is just or righteous
before God? For Rome, this meant the inner transformation of persons by which they are conformed to God’s will
(Lutherans would call this sanctification). The Lutherans
said: No, the righteousness of the Christian is simply the
righteousness of Christ. Christians are righteous because
of Christ’s righteousness: His perfect life, His suffering
and death in our stead, and His resurrection are counted
as our righteousness. Thus, to find one’s righteousness, the
Christian does not look to himself, he looks to Christ.

How does this compare to the Lutheran view of the righteousness of the Christian in justification?

Have you ever had a conversation in which someone said
something like this: “If I do the best I can, God will be
gracious to me and I will be saved”? How is this similar to
the view that Luther was taught in his day?
Sometimes people think that all this talk about justification is abstract and has nothing to do with their lives. How
would you answer?

Justification by faith alone (sola fide) is rejected in this
canon of Trent. (“Canon” means a rule, a statement that
marks the boundary between truth and error concerning
the faith.) Instead of faith alone, cooperation between
human beings and God in justification and the importance
of the human will in justification are emphasized.

The question of justification is important because it
describes who God is and how He relates to us. If someone
says he believes in God but does not care about justification,
he still has an implicit view of justification.

Read Galatians 2:14–21. How does this text address the
question of whether one is justified by faith alone?

The important questions for our lives are: What is God like?
How does he interact with us? The doctrine of justification answers both questions. It states first that God is holy
and that human beings, if they are not holy, cannot live in
the presence of God. Thus, God interacts with us first: He
reveals His holiness and goodness, and He reveals to us our
unholiness and sin. But God is also love, and thus He saves
us from our unholiness and sin. Because we are incapable
of saving ourselves, God does it all. The doctrine of justification thus identifies God as the one who is holy and who is
also love. Out of love, God saves us through Christ’s death
and resurrection.

In this passage, the righteousness of the law and
justification by faith in Christ are opposed as alternatives.
Justification by faith in Christ rules out anything else
that justifies.
If anyone says that men are justified either by the
imputation of Christ’s justice alone or by the remission of sins alone, excluding grace and charity that
is poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit and
inheres in them, or also that the grace that justifies
us is only the favor of God, let him be anathema.5
With this statement, the Roman Catholic Church
rejected the Lutheran position that the righteousness
of the Christian before God in justification is the
righteousness of Christ and that it is ours only because
God reckons or imputes it to us (cf. Eph. 1:7). Instead, the
basis of justification is what Christ did and what we do.
It is a combination of the righteousness of faith and the
righteousness of works.

The doctrine of justification shows how God’s love comes
to us: in Christ. The fruits of Christ’s death and resurrection
come to us in the Gospel and the Sacraments.

Heinrich Denzinger, &RPSHQGLXP RI &UHHGV 'H¿QLWLRQV DQG 'HFODUDWLRQV
on Matters of Faith and Morals, ed. Peter H�nermann, 43rd ed. (San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 2012), Decree on Justification, can. 9. DH 1559.

The lines between Lutherans and Roman Catholics had
been drawn quite clearly for centuries. Could there ever

Where the doctrine of justification is rejected, God is seen
differently. He is not the one who has done everything for
our redemption. He has only done His part, and we have
to complement or complete it. This is justification as “team
work.” God is no longer seen as the holy one, but rather as a
benign power who will not be so critical of us and our sins.
Then, of course, one does not really need to be justified.

2

All quotations of the Book of Concord are from Robert Kolb and Timothy J.
Wengert, eds., The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000).

3

4

5

Decree on Justification, can. 11, DH 1561.

Leader’s Guide |

This section of JDDJ does not define justification either
way. It says that there is agreement that when God makes
a person a Christian, two things happen: God forgives sins
and He transforms them (effects in them an active love). But
that was never controversial. Both Lutherans and Roman
Catholics have always affirmed that God forgives and also
renews. The questions are: In what does the Christian’s righteousness consist? On what basis is a Christian acceptable to
God? On the basis of what Christ has done, or also because
of what the Christian does with the help of the Holy Spirit?
Did the Roman Catholics (in the section above from JDDJ)
change their view that justification is not the remission of
sins alone or the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, as it
was defined in Trent?
No, they did not. The question is avoided. They emphasize
that forgiveness and renewal go together. The Catechism of
the Catholic Church, published in 1994, states quite clearly:
“Justification includes the remission of sins, sanctification,
and the renewal of the inner man.”7 Roman Catholics only
deny that man can acquire the initial grace through cooperation. They do not deny that there is cooperation in salvation in general.
This is just an example. Unfortunately, JDDJ did not solve
the disagreements. Both, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis,
and Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind.
were asked to decide if JDDJ was a breakthrough. Their
answers were summarized:
Although change has taken place in the Roman
Catholic church since Vatican II, JDDJ shows how
very little headway has been made toward a genuine
resolution of the difference between Lutherans and
Roman Catholics on Justification. This statement is
not a ‘breakthrough.’8
Catechism of the Catholic Church (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1994), no. 2019,
p. 489.

7

8
7KH-RLQW'HFODUDWLRQRQWKH'RFWULQHRI-XVWL¿FDWLRQLQ&RQIHVVLRQDO/XWKHUDQ
Perspective (St. Louis: The Lutheran Church�Missouri Synod, 1999), 10. It
should be noted that not even all Roman Catholic scholars and theologians would
characterize JDDJ as a “brea�-through” � or as a brea� with traditional and
official Roman Catholic doctrine. Some would agree with the basic assessment of
Leonardo De Chirico that the new description of justification in JDDJ “does not
give the impression of changing the theology of the Council of Trent (1545–1563),
according to which grace is sacramental and seen inside of a synergistic dynamic
of the process of salvation. This understanding of grace appears to be more in line
with the Catholic heritage of the Council of Trent, in an updated form, than with the
classic Protestant theology. In this sense, JDDJ is a clear exercise in an increased
catholicity (i.e. the ability to absorb ideas without changing the core) on the part
of Rome, which has not become more evangelical in the biblical sense.” (“Is the
Roman Catholic Church Now Committed to ��race Alone�� at http://vaticanfiles.
org/en/2017/08/140-is-the-roman-catholic-church-now-committed-to-gracealone/. See also “Ecumenical Impasse” in the Letters section of the January 2018

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305

be unity? Years of dialogue seemed to promise that a basic
agreement in the central points was possible, even though
there might be differences in how the central points are
expressed. This was the method of JDDJ.
Is justification the forgiveness of sins or is it making an
individual righteous? Here is an excerpt from JDDJ. This is
rather complex, so one needs to read it slowly and carefully:
22. We confess together that God forgives sin by grace
and at the same time frees human beings from sin’s
enslaving power and imparts the gift of new life in
Christ. When persons come by faith to share in Christ,
God no longer imputes to them their sin and through
the Holy Spirit effects in them an active love. These two
aspects of God’s gracious action are not to be separated,
for persons are by faith united with Christ, who in his
person is our righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30): both
the forgiveness of sin and the saving presence of God
himself. Because Catholics and Lutherans confess this
together, it is true to say that:
23. When Lutherans emphasize that the righteousness of
Christ is our righteousness, their intention is above all to
insist that the sinner is granted righteousness before God
in Christ through the declaration of forgiveness and that
only in union with Christ is one’s life renewed. When
they stress that God’s grace is forgiving love (“the favor
of God”), they do not thereby deny the renewal of the
Christian’s life. They intend rather to express that justification remains free from human cooperation and is not
dependent on the life-renewing effects of grace in human
beings.
24. When Catholics emphasize the renewal of the interior person through the reception of grace imparted as a
gift to the believer, they wish to insist that God’s forgiving grace always brings with it a gift of new life, which in
the Holy Spirit becomes effective in active love. They do
not thereby deny that God’s gift of grace in justification
remains independent of human cooperation.6
What does this section of JDDJ say about the controversy
concerning whether justification is the forgiveness of sins
alone or also the inner transformation of the Christian?

6
Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church, The Joint Declaration
RQ -XVWL¿FDWLRQ (1999): Section 4.2, 22–24, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/
SRQWL¿FDOBFRXQFLOVFKUVWXQLGRFXPHQWVUFBSFBFKUVWXQLBGRFBBFDWKOXWK
MRLQWGHFODUDWLRQBHQKWPO.

4 | Ecumenical Discussions on Justification

6. Conclusion

Divisions among Christians are sad, but unity without
truth is even worse. Instead of papering over differences,
Christians are to be honest about what separates them. As
Lutherans, we rejoice in the Gospel: the free forgiveness
we receive on account of Christ alone, through faith alone,
by grace alone. It is a source of continual sadness that large
parts of Christianity have rejected this joyous and freeing
message. Therefore, continued conversations with Roman
Catholics, be it on an individual level or in ecumenical dialogues, are important. Our prayer as we engage in this task
is that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, will create unity in
His Word.
GLOSSARY OF IMPORTANT TERMS
Grace – Lutheran: Though grace can mean gift, in the context of justification, grace is the unmerited favor of God. “It
is that merciful, affectionate disposition or goodwill of God
toward people according to which He forgives sins to those
who deserve eternal death. It is the unmerited love of God
toward all people (John 3:16; Titus 3:4–5). All consideration for
the merit of people must be excluded from this concept of
grace. God’s grace is not in the least affected, motivated, or
influenced by any worthiness in us.”9
Grace – Roman Catholic: Grace can mean several things. It
can mean that an individual looks with favor on another
person, or that someone because of that receives a gift
(“party favor”). In regard to God, God’s grace means that
He looks at man favorably and then does something that
changes man. God’s grace is therefore a gift that changes us.
The initial grace that makes a person a Christian cannot be
merited, but after that a Christian can merit more grace by
doing good works.
Justification – Lutheran: Justification is the conferring of
Christ’s perfect righteousness on Christians so that they are
righteous before God and do not lack anything. This righteousness does not need to be complemented by anything to
be saved.
Justification – Roman Catholic: Justification is the beginning of the Christian life. God makes people righteous, that
is, He forgives them their sins and transforms them internally so that they can do His will. Justification is not the
same as salvation.

Ecumenical Discussions
on Justification
– the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification
Pa rt icipa n t ’s

Guid e

issue of First Things (pp. 4–5). KWWSVZZZ¿UVWWKLQJVFRPDUWLFOHOHWWHUV.
Edward W. A. Koehler, A Summary of Christian Doctrine, 3rd ed. (St. Louis:
Concordia Publishing House, 2006), 130.

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Leader’s Guide |

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2019 Convention Workbook