Justification: The Basic Difference Between Catholics & Protestants

Posted on October 5, 2016 by Stan Guthrie

By Chris Castaldo

2nd comingAccording to Alister McGrath, the leading characteristics of the Protestant understanding of justification during the sixteenth century were threefold: First, justification involves a “forensic declaration that the Christian is righteous,” that is, a change in one’s legal status before God (as opposed to a process of internal renewal by which one is made righteous). Second, there is a “deliberate and systematic distinction” between the forensic activity of justification and the internal process of sanctification or regeneration. Third, “justifying righteousness or the formal cause of justification” is alien, external, and imputed.

About Stan Guthrie

Stan Guthrie is an editor at large for Christianity Today magazine and for the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. His latest book is God's Story in 66 Verses. He also is author of All that Jesus Asks: How His Questions Can Teach and Transform Us, Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Key Trends for the 21st Century, and A Concise Guide to Bible Prophecy. He is co-author of The Sacrament of Evangelism. Besides authoring, writing, and editing books, Stan is a literary agent, bringing together good authors, good books, and good publishers. Stan writes the monthly Priorities colum for BreakPoint.org. He has appeared on National Public Radio's €œTell Me More,€ WGN's Milt Rosenberg program, and many Christian shows, including The Eric Metaxas Show and Moody Radio'€™s €œNew Day Florida.€ A licensed minister and an inspirational speaker, he served as moderator for the Christian Book Expo panel discussion, Does the God of Christianity Exist, and What Difference Does It Make?
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