Ok, folks, it’s time for a pop quiz! But this shouldn’t be a tough quiz – and it contains only three questions. Let’s begin:
- What is the core belief in Christianity that *all* Christians accept?
If you answered, “Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior”, then you are off to a solid start!
- For what primary reason is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior?
If you answered, “to free us eternally from sin”, then you are one step closer to acing this quiz!
- Last, but certainly not least: What is the word for being eternally freed from sin?
If you said, “salvation!” — you just earned 100% on this quiz! And if you didn’t, you’re not a real Christian! Just kidding! (Really, just kidding!)
Moving on, the purpose of that quiz leads to this blog’s topic – one which has been a major point of division between Christians and Protestants for about 500 years now. That’s right – salvation!
Now, why has this topic been so divisive for so long? Plenty of books, lectures, and documentaries have already covered the Protestant Reformation and its central figure, Martin Luther. I am not here to express many opinions on the Reformation and Luther overall; however, let’s look into one of the major, truly world-altering results of the Reformation: Sola Fide (or “faith only”).
Why has this topic been so powerfully influential in the Christian world? In short, and as many Protestant friends understand it, “Sola Fide” means salvation is justified through faith alone and not through both faith and works.
For my fellow Catholics out there, if your Protestant friends have ever asked whether you are “saved”, or whether you “have accepted a personal relationship with Jesus Christ”, or they quote Romans 3:28 (“For we consider that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law”), there is a sweeping chance they believe salvation is a one-time event; that as soon as you follow the four-step process (made famous by Billy Graham) of acknowledging you are a sinner, God is the ultimate definition of perfect, Jesus is the Way to reconcile with God’s perfect nature, and you must ask Jesus into your heart to be saved”, then, boom!”, you are saved for eternity.
To many Protestants, this also means a person who is saved, according to the four-step approach, may still sin. Moreover, no matter how grave the sin, salvation stays firmly in-tact. Further, Protestants generally see works as secondary to faith and not a requirement for being eternally in God’s grace.
Along with that, the word works itself has been caught up in mind-numbing debates between Catholics and Protestants over semantics. For example, “works of the law” can easily refer to Judaic law, some of which was actively abrogated by St. Paul, who spent much of his ministry explaining how Christ’s death and resurrection was for *all* people, not only Jews.
However, works can also refer to moral obedience to God. We Catholics – and not just because of James 2:24 (“See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone”) – also understand works as being in accord with God, that if we are not morally obedient to the salvation we have received, we will most likely lose our salvation. Unfortunately, when Catholics and Protestants dialogue or debate about this, “works” tends to get conflated with simply doing good deeds (helping an elderly person across the street, taking care of the poor, being thoughtful with friends and family…), or identifying as a “good person” – and then the dialogue tends to collapse from there.
To keep it simple, the bottom line is Catholics do not directly equate good deeds with being in God’s grace or “getting into Heaven.” We very much accept that salvation through Jesus Christ is our way to Heaven. The exception is we must remain morally in-tune with God’s grace. Not an easy task, of course – and why we have Holy Sacraments such as confession – but a necessary one nonetheless.
Now, continuing with our tour through Meeting the Protestant Challenge by Karlo Broussard, let’s briefly look at a central topic from the book’s chapter on Salvation and then get to talking about it!
As mentioned earlier, a large portion of Protestants believe that salvation through faith happens only once – it is a one-time *justification*. Broussard poses the question this way: “How can the Catholic Church teach justification is a process when the Bible says that justification is a one-time event?”
By examining Romans 5:1 (“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”), Broussard shows that Protestants can have a plausible argument about justification, as Paul was referring to Genesis 15:6, in which Abraham was declared “righteous” (or “justified”) in his belief in God; therefore, declaring faith in Christ leads to a one-time, for all-time justification.
Yet it turns out the same passage in Genesis in 15:6 also proves justification is not necessarily a one-time event. Broussard notes that Abraham had already been justified in the past, so in Genesis 15:6, he was essentially being justified *again*. Meaning that if we are to hold to Paul’s instruction in Romans 5:1, and Paul is in fact associating this to Abraham’s justification / righteousness, then we must consider justification is not quite static and which must be upheld, and possibly renewed when necessary, in order to keep it.
Further, we can reinforce this understanding by including Galatians 5:5 (“For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait for the hope of righteousness”), as well as James 2:21-23 regarding Abraham again (“You see that faith was active along with works, and faith was completed by works and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’”). In other words, justification, once again, can happen multiple times to remain in righteousness with God.
Which brings us to the counter-challenge question Broussard asks: “Does affirming one stage of justification mean we have to deny others?”
Share your thoughts!