We have lingered for some time with the Reformers, as it was in their age that the details of this vital doctrine of justification were hammered out on the basis of Scripture. Let us now move on to notice how the forces of twentieth-century ecumenism have impinged on this doctrine. We may look first at the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, originally established in 1970. What is of interest to us at the moment is the second report of this body, ARCIC II, entitled Salvation and the Church, which was published in 1987.
The Commission was intended to further an ecumenical agenda, though Pope John Paul II suspended further talks in the wake of the appointment of an openly-homosexual Anglican bishop in the United States. Salvation and the Church claims that “the doctrine of justification . . . can be properly treated only within the wider context of the doctrine of salvation as a whole”. This is intended to allow the doctrine to be treated within the bounds of the Roman Catholic concept of justification, as inclusive of sanctification. Not unexpectedly then, the report merely states: “It is by faith that [salvation] is appropriated”2. The report thus lacks the necessary emphasis on faith alone, which, on the other hand, is the emphasis of the eleventh of the Thirty-Nine articles of the Church of England: “We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our good works or deservings. . .”3
The report attempts to minimise the differences between the two sides at the Reformation and describes “the disagreements as largely the result of misunderstandings, suspicions and fears”.4 In woolly language it affirms: “The righteousness of God our Saviour is not only declared in a judgement made by God in favour of sinners, but is also bestowed as a gift to make them righteous” – where no attempt is made to differentiate between justification and sanctification, which are, in Scripture, two distinct doctrines. Not surprisingly, the report concludes that “this is not an area where any remaining differences of theological interpretation or ecclesiologial emphasis, either within or between our Communions, can justify our continuing separation”.5
1The previous part of this paper dealt with the Reformation teaching on the subject.
2Quoted in Hywel R Jones, Gospel and Church, Evangelical Press of Wales, 1989, pp 86,88.
3Quoted from Mark A Noll, ed, Confessions and Catechisms of the Reformation, p 217, emphasis added.
4Hywel R Jones, Gospel and Church, p 88.
5Quoted in Gospel and Church, pp 96,88.
The tragedy is, of course, that while the Roman Catholic Church has always blatantly allowed tradition an equal place with Scripture as a source for their doctrines, the Anglican Churches have departed from their historic stance of giving to Scripture fundamental authority over their teachings. If they respected God’s authority, the Church of England representatives would never have dared to desert their Reformation heritage so readily.
The words of William Cunningham on the subject of free justification are highly relevant at this point: “This was what Luther called the article of a standing or a falling Church; and the history of the Church, both before and since his time has fully justified the propriety of the description. There has perhaps been no department of divine truth against which the assaults of Satan have been more assiduously directed ever since the origin of the Christian Church than the Scripture doctrine of justification, and there has probably been no doctrine, the profession and preaching of which have more generally indicated with correctness the state of vital religion in the Church in all ages.”6 Obviously the unwillingness of the representatives of the Church of England to hold fast the doctrine of justification indicates clearly the low state of true religion in that body today.
Sadly also, present-day Lutheranism must be similarly described in the light of discussions between the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church. These discussions resulted in a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in 1999, which was published on October 31, the day on which, 482 years earlier, Luther had nailed up his theses in Wittenberg. The choice of date was no co-incidence, but the Joint Declaration is a betrayal of the work of Luther and the other Reformers. While it acknowledges that real difficulties did exist at the time of the Reformation, it aims “to show that, on the basis of their dialogue, the subscribing Lutheran Churches and the Roman Catholic Church are now able to articulate a common understanding of our justification by God’s grace through faith in Christ” – but not by faith alone. And it claims to show “that the remaining differences in its explication are no longer the occasion for doctrinal condemnations”.7
However, the “common understanding” seems to rest on a willingness to allow each party in the discussions to follow their own distinctives. “God’s saving work”, it is claimed, “can be expressed in the imagery of God as Historical Theology, vol 2, p 79.
7Quoted in Kenneth J Collins, “The Doctrine of Justification” in Justification, Mark Husbands and Daniel J Treier, eds, Appollos / IVP USA, 2004, p 196. (It is rather sad that IVP (Appollos is an imprint of IVP England, the book-publishing division of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship, an Evangelical organisation) should feel it appropriate to include a Roman Catholic scholar among the contributors to this book, on a subject which forms one of the great dividing lines between Protestantism and Romanism.)
judge who pronounces sinners innocent and righteous . . . and also in a transformist view which emphasises the change wrought in sinners by infused grace.8 Now, it is wrong to use the word imagery in this context, for God does actually judge sinners. But, more fundamental to our present discussion is the fact that, while true Protestants believe that salvation includes both justification and sanctification, they are also clear that the sinner’s acceptance with God is his justification – when the sinner, who has no righteousness of his own, receives the righteousness of Christ by faith alone.