Digging Out the Embedded Church - The Maranatha Community

outcome of being justified. Agreement on this doctrine was achieved early in the Protestant
Reformation at the Colloquy of Regensburg (1541) – though the extreme positions on the
doctrine seen in Luther and the later Council of Trent were not part of the discussions. It
became to be a centre of contentious debate for many years to come.
The question of the relationship of works and faith in salvation foundered on the
understanding of what salvation is. Both sides agreed that grace alone brought a person into
a right relationship with God initially, but salvation as sanctification was then the issue.
Protestants tended to separate justification from sanctification, Catholics to see both as
integral to the experience of salvation.
In 1999 Lutherans and Catholics published a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of
Justification, claiming that Catholics and Lutherans hold a „shared understanding of
justification‟.
Here is a summary of what was agreed:
• Justification is the work of a Triune God.
• We receive salvation in faith and so become justified (initially through infant baptism,
later confirmed by faith).
• This faith is God‟s gift to us.
• We are sinners and can never merit God‟s salvation.
• We cooperate in the justification only as an effect of grace (Catholic). There is no
cooperation as such but believers are personally involved in justification in their
exercising faith (Lutheran).
• Justification does not depend on the „life-renewing‟ effects of grace on a believer
(Lutheran). Agreed, God‟s gift of grace in salvation remains independent of human
cooperation (Catholic).
• Justification by faith and renewal of life are distinct but not separate.
• A Christian is both a sinner and a justified person (Luther‟s dictum: simul justus et
peccator) and only voluntary rejection of God brings separation from him.
• The works of the law cannot justify but the law is still needed as a standard of conduct
for believers.
• God‟s promise of forgiveness in Christ gives certainty of salvation.
• Good works follow justification as its fruits.
• Catholics assert the meritorious character of good works in the sense that there is a
reward in heaven for good deeds, but this does not undermine their belief that
justification always remains the unmerited gift of grace.
• Nothing done prior to justification by faith merits justification.
The Agreement concludes that what Lutherans now believe does not fall under the
condemnation of the Council of Trent.
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