Faith and Works
Catholics distinguish between initial justification and ongoing justification. Initial justification is by grace alone through faith in the risen Lord. The Catholic Church emphatically rejects the idea that a man can save himself by his own works apart from God's grace. We were dead in sin and incapable of saving ourselves, and only divine grace saves. Ongoing justification, also called sanctification, is the cooperation of the human heart, now made righteous, with God's will, as it is conformed to Jesus. Because these two are united, salvation is wholly God's work in saving us and wholly our work in receiving his grace, with the primacy always belonging to grace.
Grace is the free gift of God's favor toward us, secured solely by the merits of Jesus Christ's life, death, and resurrection. Baptism applies God's righteousness to us because it unites us to Christ. We are crucified with him, so we are dead to sin. In baptism a Christian is set free from the reign of sin, adopted as a child of God, filled with the life of the Spirit, and incorporated into the Body of Christ, the Church. All of this is a free gift of God the Son to humanity. We also rise with him and walk in newness of life. Now free to work in the human heart, grace enables us to live a life worthy of the Gospel. To reject or neglect this saving grace by grave sin removes us from being in Christ, and so we can lose our salvation. The Catholic Church therefore holds that justification, in which we are saved by grace alone and not by our works, and sanctification, in which we grow in conformity to Christ, are not separate acts but two sides of the one redemption we have in Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
Martin Luther saw it differently. For him, either salvation depends entirely on Christ's righteousness or it depends on a man becoming righteous enough to atone for his sin and earn heaven. Since the second is impossible, a Christian can be saved only through faith alone in Christ, which is his doctrine of sola fide. Justification, for Luther, is a divine declaration of acquittal. A person is "reckoned righteous" because Christ's own righteousness is credited to him, but that righteousness remains alien and external to him. The believer is declared righteous while inwardly he remains a sinner. Luther did not think holiness unimportant. He insisted that true faith always produces good works, as a good tree bears good fruit. But in his view those works contribute nothing to our justification. Works are excluded from the question of salvation, though not from the Christian life.
Catholicism sees justification and sanctification as one sovereign work of Christ's righteousness, ransoming us from sin and transforming us into himself.
The Catholic Church is often accused of the very errors it has condemned, and nowhere is that truer than in the charge of "works-righteousness," or "earning one's salvation." That error was opposed in the fifth century by St. Augustine and condemned by the Church. It is called Pelagianism, after the monk Pelagius, who taught that Adam's original sin was not an inherited condition but a bad example, and that with the Gospel Christians have a better example to follow and can earn salvation by being virtuous. The Church condemned this teaching, and when some of his followers softened it into what is called Semi-Pelagianism, the Church condemned that too, at the Council of Orange in 529. Any teaching that removes grace from the picture stands condemned.
We are saved by the grace of Jesus Christ, purchased for us by the ransom he paid on the cross and by his glorious resurrection. God destroyed the reign of sin and death through Christ's death and resurrection. Nothing I do can ever earn enough goodness to buy my soul out of slavery to sin and death. Just as with Israel in Egypt, the only way out of slavery is for the Lord to be our Redeemer. In Romans, St. Paul labors to show that we were helpless, so God in Christ rescued us, ransomed us, and gave us salvation as a free gift of grace.
Ephesians and Initial Justification
St. Paul expresses initial justification beautifully in the second chapter of Ephesians. First he establishes the hopeless situation of the Gentiles without Christ:
"And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." (Eph. 2:1-3)
Notice four things in this passage that explain the Catholic understanding of justification. First, dead men are completely incapable of giving themselves life. Second, before their conversion they followed the world, Satan, and the passions and desires of the flesh. Third, God made them alive in Christ, so that he acted on them and for them. Fourth, Paul is speaking of their initial conversion to Christ.
In the next verses St. Paul focuses on the third point, that God alone did this. He describes God's motives in giving salvation and its astonishing consequences:
"But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." (Eph. 2:4-7)
God's motives were his great love and rich mercy. It was not how impressive, charming, or honest we were that drew God to us. We were dead in sin, and God made us alive with Christ. By being "in Christ," we are not only saved from death but mystically united to Christ's death, his resurrection, and his ascension to the heavenly places. The Ephesians were not only saved from hell by an act of God's mercy. They were saved for eternal communion with God. Salvation consists entirely in being "in Christ." Once you are in Christ, all that belongs to Christ now belongs to you as a faithful Christian. This is our supernatural life, the life in the Spirit.
Moving further in Ephesians, we see the union of faith and works in the life of a disciple, works done in cooperation with God's grace:
"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (Eph. 2:8-10)
St. Paul repeats that the grace of initial justification was not earned but freely given. If salvation depended on your ability to be good enough, what would that look like? How good is good enough? What reward would you earn? Those who believe in works-righteousness do not grasp the terrible weight of sin in God's eyes. Sin is slavery. It makes us followers of the world, the passions of the flesh, and the devil instead of Christ. The first act of our redemption is therefore liberation from sin, death, and the devil. God had to deal with the reign of sin first, removing sin from the sinner, so that the second act of redemption, our union with God, could be accomplished. My works without God's grace can never be good enough to atone for my past sins or to earn the heaven into which Christ ascended and to which he calls us.
Ongoing Justification
That, however, is not the whole story. Even as St. Paul labors to show the primacy of grace and faith in our initial justification, he immediately brings works back into the Christian life. The passage only makes sense if we distinguish "works" done without grace from "good works," which are always works done in grace.
We are God's workmanship, his artwork, his craft. St. Paul boldly says that God created us in Christ Jesus "for good works." Let the power of those words settle in. We were created in Christ for good works. Why does St. Paul not say "for faith" here? Because he is moving beyond initial justification into ongoing justification. To put it another way, if a man has been made alive in Christ, how should he now live? St. Paul gives the answer many times: be worthy of the gift.
"I ... beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called" (Eph. 4:1).
"Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ" (Phil. 1:27).
"We have not ceased to pray for you ... to lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God" (Col. 1:9-10).
"Like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory" (1 Thess. 2:11-12).
"This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be made worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering" (2 Thess. 1:5).
"To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his call, and may fulfil every good resolve and work of faith by his power" (2 Thess. 1:11).
The Christian disciple cannot make himself worthy of the Gospel. That is why works without grace cannot save. But once grace has come, God has given you the ability to live a life worthy of the Gospel. In chapter 4, St. Paul shows the difference between the old life and the new life in Christ:
"Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart; they have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness. You did not so learn Christ! assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus." (Eph. 4:17-21)
St. Paul testifies that the Ephesian Christians must reject their old, alienated, pagan life. Because Christ died, we must count ourselves dead to the world. Because Christ is risen, we must walk in the newness of life that Christ now lives in God. This is what the Catholic Church calls ongoing justification, or sanctification:
"Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." (Eph. 4:22-24)
Your old nature must be "put off" like a piece of clothing, and your new nature must be "put on." Your new nature is to be in Christ, a new creature with a new way of life. Just as St. Paul said that we were created in Christ for good works, he now says the new nature is created "in true righteousness and holiness." You are not perfect, but his grace perfects you over time, and you can freely embrace this grace of justification and press on to make it your own. No sentence makes the point better than the one that closes St. Paul's thought: "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Eph. 5:1-2).
Eternal Security?
The last question is whether one can lose one's salvation. If I have faith and am baptized, can I lose my salvation? If I lose it, can I regain it? And if it can be lost, what can corrupt a disciple to that point?
These questions matter because they reveal what salvation in Christ really is and how it affects us now. If salvation is nothing more than being saved from hell, then perhaps Luther's understanding of justification is sufficient. But if salvation is nothing less than union with God for all eternity, sonship in Christ, and sharing in the divine nature through the Spirit, then how we live and move and have our being has eternal significance.
For Luther, only unbelief could destroy one's salvation, since faith alone saves. Later Protestants fought among themselves over the implications of "once saved, always saved." Some hold a more radical version than Luther's: if I say the sinner's prayer, confess with my lips and believe in my heart that Jesus is Lord, I am saved and can never lose my salvation, even if I do nothing else with this faith, and even if I commit murder or idolatry the next moment. Other Protestants attack this view as "easy believism," because for them true faith must be accompanied by true repentance, and a person whose life does not show salvation was never saved. This dispute is known as the Lordship controversy. Can Jesus be one's Savior without being one's Lord? Is it enough that Jesus saves me from hell by dying for my sins, or must I bring my life under his authority?
To a Catholic, this dispute is bizarre and hard even to conceive. Jesus is Lord and Savior, and no one can relate to him as one without the other. To evangelical Protestants, however, faith alone is the doctrine on which the Church stands or falls, and admitting works in any form threatens not only sola fide but eternal security, because it makes heaven and hell depend on what I do or fail to do. That leaves the believer with hard questions:
In what way are good works the fruit of saving faith?
How many good works are needed to show this fruit?
What kind of good works are needed?
How soon should my sins start decreasing after my justification?
How hard should I work at uprooting my sins?
If I keep returning to my old life, is that evidence that I never believed in the first place?
The quest for eternal security through faith alone creates a pastoral problem. Men and women come to retreats and conferences year after year to make a rededication of their rededication of their rededication to the Lord. They are told they will have new life in Christ and that their faith must bear fruit that befits repentance, but they keep struggling with the same besetting sins. They come to be renewed and say, "This time it will be different," but after a few weeks the dog returns to his vomit, as it were, and they fall again. Then a thought begins to haunt them: maybe I was never really saved, since my life is not changing.
Some passages of the New Testament speak of salvation as a past event, something that happened once and cannot change. Others speak of salvation as ongoing, a process I am in the middle of in this life. Still others speak of salvation as future, something to strive for and attain. The Catholic understanding holds all three together, and Jesus' teaching on the vine and the branches shows how.
John 15 and the Relationship between Faith and Works
Justification is the moment we pass from not being "in Christ" to being "in Christ." In Catholic theology, this is when the Trinity comes to dwell in the faithful follower of Christ, which we call sanctifying grace. Without this grace there is no salvation, but it cannot be earned, only received in faith. That is why Catholics, and also the Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Presbyterians, baptize infants. It is sheer gift, freely given and unearned. Once it is given, however, we are to live in it, deepen it, and grow in it. Ephesians 2 describes the initial justification we have in Christ Jesus, from death to life. Now let us turn to John 15 to understand what being "in Christ" means for sanctification.
"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser" (John 15:1). Jesus is the vine, and we are branches that come off the one true vine. I always remind people that there is no salvation if Christ is merely in the top ten or top three branches of our lives. Salvation comes only when we surrender to him fully and realize that we are the branches. This is a call beyond lukewarm discipleship or cultural Christianity. Cut off from Christ the vine, the branch withers and dies, because it is deprived of the vine's life-giving power.
"Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit" (John 15:2). The attentive reader will notice the shocking statement in this verse: "every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away." It is shocking because the branch belongs to Christ. It is a disciple, but one who failed to bear fruit. That fruit is both inward and outward, love of God and love of neighbor. The fruitless Christian is a failed Christian who is cut off from Christ. The fruitless branch was once justified and once grafted onto Christ, but it failed to press on toward holiness and so was cut off. Verse 6 tells us what happens to unfruitful disciples: "If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned" (John 15:6).
The fruitless disciple, then, is the one who does not let Christ abide in him. The first part of John 15 focuses on bearing fruit. Beginning at verse 3, Jesus introduces the necessity of his abiding in us and our abiding in him, and he joins the two ideas in verse 5:
"You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:3-5)
Apart from Christ we can do nothing and bear no fruit. This echoes St. Paul's words to the Ephesians, that we were "dead through the trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1). Once we are united to Christ, however, we can bear much fruit. Without Christ we are dead. With Christ we can do what pleases God, good works and righteous deeds that come from a heart he has renewed.