Historically, the doctrine of justification was the main point of contention between the Protestant Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church. The Protestants defined justification this way (emphasis mine):
“I. Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth:not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone; not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.
II. Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification; yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love.
V. God doth continue to forgive the sins of those that are justified; and although they can never fall from the state of justification, yet they may by their sins fall under God's Fatherly displeasure, and not have the light of his countenance restored unto them, until they humble themselves, confess their sins, beg pardon, and renew their faith and repentance.”
-The
http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html
The Roman Catholics, on the other hand, defined justification in a fundamentally different way, ‘to make righteous’:
“This disposition, or preparation, is followed by Justification itself, which is not the remission of sins merely, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man, through the voluntary reception of the grace, and of the gifts, whereby man of unjust becomes just…For faith, unless hope and charity be added thereto, neither unites man perfectly with Christ, nor makes him a living member of his body…faith co-operating with good works, increase in that justice which they have received through the grace of Christ, and are still further justified…”
-The Council of
http://www.christiantruth.com/justificationandrcfaith.html
This
article will give a brief history of Christian justification and prove that the original meaning of justification was quickly perverted. It was not just by a bad interpretation of Scripture but also external, cultural factors. Throughout this article, I will be
using Alister McGrath’s Iustitia Dei as my resource. I found this book to be very fair in pointing out misrepresentations of
history on both sides. I’ve even heard a Roman Catholic apologist quote from this work during a debate.
Pre-Christian Era
Sometime, in the third century B.C., a need was seen to translate the Old Testament from Hebrew and Aramaic to Greek, and the result was called the Septuagint. In the Septuagint, the Hebrew word for righteousness, sedeqa, was translated as dikaiosune. Even though this might have been the best word for ‘sedaqa’, the meanings did not match (emphasis mine):
“The Hebrew term hasdiq, usually translated ‘to justify’, cannot bear the negative sense ‘to condemn’ or ‘to punish’, its primary sense apparently being ‘to vindicate’, ‘to acquit’, or ‘to declare to be in the right’…In classical Greek, [dikaioun] with a personal object applied to a person whose cause is unjust invariably assumes the negative meaning ‘to punish’. The Septuagintal use of the verb in an identical context demands that it assumes a positive meaning – i.e., ‘to justify’, ‘to declare to be in the right’, or ‘to acquit’…The complaint does, however, make sense if the term is presumed to have a Hebraic background, in that the substance of the complaint is then that certain men have been bribed to declare the guilty innocent…The Greek reader of the Old Testament, unfamiliar with the Hebraic background to such material, would find passages such as the above highly perplexing.”
–Alister
Thus, the original sense of ‘dikaiosune’ was ‘to punish’. However, in the Septuagint, it took on the form ‘to vindicate’, ‘to declare not guilty’, or ‘to acquit’ because this was the original meaning of the Hebrew ‘hasdiq’. Over time, this became the normative usage of ‘dikaiow’ (i.e. ‘to justify’) within Greek-speaking Judaism:
“Furthermore, such a meaning must have become widespread and accepted within Greek-speaking Judaism – otherwise, the Septuagint would have been incomprehensible at points.”
–Alister E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, 2nd edition (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, reprinted 1998), p.14.
Having looked at the Hebrew and the Greek, let us look at the Latin translation, the Vulgate, and the meanings of its words.
When the Septuagint was translated into Latin, the same sort of cultural language barrier was seen, translation problems were apparent:
“The general tendency among Latin-speaking theologians was to follow Augustine of Hippo…in interpreting iustificare as iustum facere…While this may be an acceptable interpretation of iusificare considered in isolation, it is not an acceptable interpretation of the verb considered as the Latin equivalent of [dikaioun]…it would appear that the Greek verb has the primary sense of being considered orestimated as righteous, whereas the Latin verb denotes being righteous, the reason why one is considered righteous by others.”
–Alister E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, 2nd edition (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, reprinted 1998), pp.14, 15.
The language barrier was not limited to the verb, ‘to justify’; a similar misunderstanding happened with the word ‘merit’ (McGrath, pp.14, 15). Thus, the reason why the Western (Roman Catholic) Church has historically believed that ‘to justify’ means ‘to make righteous’ is primarily because of the Latin language:
“…it is necessary to observe that the early theologians of the western church were dependant upon their Latin versions of the Bible, and approached their texts and their subject with a set of presuppositions which owed more to the Latin language and culture than to Christianity itself. The initial transference of a Hebrew concept to a Greek, and subsequently to a Latin, context point to a fundamental alteration in the concepts of ‘justification’ and ‘righteousness’ as the gospel spread from its Palestinian source to the western world.”
–Alister E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, 2nd edition (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, reprinted 1998), p.15.
Post-Apostolic Era
Although the doctrine of justification by faith apart from all works quickly degenerated into a faith plus works justification scheme, the Pauline doctrine can be seen in the writings of the immediate disciples of the Apostles, the apostolic fathers.
Clement of
“All these, therefore, were highly honoured, and made great, not for their own sake, or for their own works, or for the righteousness which they wrought, but through the operation of His will. And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (emphasis mine)
-Clement of
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-05.htm#P396_65650
Mathetes
“As long then as the former time endured, He permitted us to be borne along by unruly impulses, being drawn away by the desire of pleasure and various lusts. This was not that He at all delighted in our sins, but that He simply endured them; nor that He approved the time of working iniquity which then was, but that He sought to form a mind conscious of righteousness, so that being convinced in that time of our unworthiness of attaining life through our own works, it should now, through the kindness of God, be vouchsafed to us; and having made it manifest that in ourselves we were unable to enter into the kingdom of God, we might through the power of God be made able. But when our wickedness had reached its height, and it had been clearly shown that its reward, punishment and death, was impending over us; and when the time had come which God had before appointed for manifesting His own kindness and power, how the one love of God, through exceeding regard for men, did not regard us with hatred, nor thrust us away, nor remember our iniquity against us, but showed great long-suffering, and bore with us, He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors! Having therefore convinced us in the former time that our nature was unable to attain to life, and having now revealed the Saviour who is able to save even those things which it was [formerly] impossible to save, by both these facts He desired to lead us to trust in His kindness, to esteem Him our Nourisher, Father, Teacher, Counsellor, Healer, our Wisdom, Light, Honour, Glory, Power, and Life, so that we should not be anxious concerning clothing and food..” (emphasis mine)
-Mathetes, Epistle to Diognetus 9
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-08.htm#P708_130188
The language used by Mathetes sounds very much like the double imputation theology of the Protestant Reformers, something that is explicitly condemned by Roman Catholic theology.
History of Justification 101
(Part 1)