B. The Doctrine of Justification by Faith This section seeks to provide an overview of the historical development of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Justification is a forensic (legal) term related to the idea of acquittal. In the Christian context, it refers to the divine act whereby God makes humans who are sinful acceptable or just before Him (Grenz 1999: 69). We will examine the Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church’s position on this. 1. The Reformation Position In spite of the common core of Augustinian belief in salvation by grace alone, Roman Catholics and Protestants have strong disagreement over the doctrine of Justification. Catholics believe in the necessity of faith for justification, but Protestants believe in the exclusivity of faith. In fact, the heartcry of the Reformers was “justification by faith alone". Two Reformers tower above all others during this period: they are Martin Luther and John Calvin. 1.1 Martin Luther …show more content…
He especially reacted against the sacraments of penance and purgatory. Luther built his case based on his studies of Paul’s letters to the Romans and the Galatians. For him, saving grace comes not from the righteousness we perform, but is entirely an alien (foreign) righteousness from Christ credited to our account. He called this the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone. While Luther understood faith as the means of justification, he also understood the ground of justification to be nothing more than the grace and mercy of God shown to sinners because of the perfect life and work of Christ. He said it this