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Getting one's understanding of justification correct is vitally important.
Justification is a judicial act of God pardoning sinners (wicked and ungodly persons, Rom. 4:5; 3:9-24), accepting them as just, and so putting permanently right their previously estranged relationship with himself. This justifying sentence is God’s gift of righteousness (Rom. 5:15-17), his bestowal of a status of acceptance for Jesus’ sake (2 Cor. 5:21).
God’s justifying judgment seems strange, for pronouncing sinners righteous may appear to be precisely the unjust action on the judge’s part that God’s own law forbade (Deut. 25:1; Prov. 17:15). Yet it is in fact a just judgment, for its basis is the righteousness of Jesus Christ who as “the last Adam” (1 Cor. 15:45), our representative head acting on our behalf, obeyed the law that bound us and endured the retribution for lawlessness that was our due and, to use a medieval technical term, “merited” our justification. Hence we are justified justly, on the basis of justice done (Rom. 3:25-26) and Christ’s righteousness reckoned to our account (Rom. 5:18-19). It can be said that our Lord's passive and active obedience unto death stands in before God for the sins of those who have been declared justified, as whimsically depicted here. Nothing the true believer thinks, does, or says, can make he or she worthy of salvation.
The necessary means, or instrumental cause, of justification is personal faith in Jesus Christ as crucified Savior and risen Lord (Rom. 4:23-25; 10:8-13). This is because the meritorious ground of our justification is entirely in Christ. In other words, our righteousness is an "alien righteousness"—that of another—Our Lord Jesus Christ. As we give ourselves in faith to Jesus, Jesus gives us his gift of righteousness, so that in the very act of “closing with Christ,” we receive divine pardon and acceptance which we could not otherwise have (Gal. 2:15-16; 3:24). This union with our Lord is irrevocable, for it is He who keeps us.
Official Roman Catholic dogma includes sanctification in the definition of justification, which Rome sees as a process rather than a single decisive event. Rome affirms that while faith contributes to our acceptance with God, our works of satisfaction and merit contribute too the acceptance of God. In fact, Rome pronounces any view that we are justified "by faith alone" as anathema:
Council of Trent Session 7, 1547
Canon 8. If anyone says that by the sacraments of the New Law grace is not conferred ex opere operato, but that faith alone in the divine promise is sufficient to obtain grace, let him be anathema.
Rome also sees baptism, viewed as a channel of regenerating (being "born again") grace, as the primary instrumental cause of justification (as opposed to faith), and the sacrament of penance, whereby congruous merit is achieved through works of satisfaction, as the supplementary restorative cause whenever the grace of God’s initial acceptance is lost through mortal sin.
Congruous, as distinct from condign, merit means merit that it is fitting, though not absolutely necessary, for God to reward by a fresh flow of sanctifying grace. Per the Roman Catholic view, therefore, believers save themselves with the help of the grace that flows from Christ through the Roman Catholic sacramental system, and in this life no sense of confidence in God’s grace can ordinarily be had. In effect, this view of Rome sets one on an ongoing treadmill of works that may or may not assure one of his ultimate salvation.
AMR
Justification is a judicial act of God pardoning sinners (wicked and ungodly persons, Rom. 4:5; 3:9-24), accepting them as just, and so putting permanently right their previously estranged relationship with himself. This justifying sentence is God’s gift of righteousness (Rom. 5:15-17), his bestowal of a status of acceptance for Jesus’ sake (2 Cor. 5:21).
God’s justifying judgment seems strange, for pronouncing sinners righteous may appear to be precisely the unjust action on the judge’s part that God’s own law forbade (Deut. 25:1; Prov. 17:15). Yet it is in fact a just judgment, for its basis is the righteousness of Jesus Christ who as “the last Adam” (1 Cor. 15:45), our representative head acting on our behalf, obeyed the law that bound us and endured the retribution for lawlessness that was our due and, to use a medieval technical term, “merited” our justification. Hence we are justified justly, on the basis of justice done (Rom. 3:25-26) and Christ’s righteousness reckoned to our account (Rom. 5:18-19). It can be said that our Lord's passive and active obedience unto death stands in before God for the sins of those who have been declared justified, as whimsically depicted here. Nothing the true believer thinks, does, or says, can make he or she worthy of salvation.
The necessary means, or instrumental cause, of justification is personal faith in Jesus Christ as crucified Savior and risen Lord (Rom. 4:23-25; 10:8-13). This is because the meritorious ground of our justification is entirely in Christ. In other words, our righteousness is an "alien righteousness"—that of another—Our Lord Jesus Christ. As we give ourselves in faith to Jesus, Jesus gives us his gift of righteousness, so that in the very act of “closing with Christ,” we receive divine pardon and acceptance which we could not otherwise have (Gal. 2:15-16; 3:24). This union with our Lord is irrevocable, for it is He who keeps us.
Official Roman Catholic dogma includes sanctification in the definition of justification, which Rome sees as a process rather than a single decisive event. Rome affirms that while faith contributes to our acceptance with God, our works of satisfaction and merit contribute too the acceptance of God. In fact, Rome pronounces any view that we are justified "by faith alone" as anathema:
Council of Trent Session 7, 1547
Canon 8. If anyone says that by the sacraments of the New Law grace is not conferred ex opere operato, but that faith alone in the divine promise is sufficient to obtain grace, let him be anathema.
Rome also sees baptism, viewed as a channel of regenerating (being "born again") grace, as the primary instrumental cause of justification (as opposed to faith), and the sacrament of penance, whereby congruous merit is achieved through works of satisfaction, as the supplementary restorative cause whenever the grace of God’s initial acceptance is lost through mortal sin.
Congruous, as distinct from condign, merit means merit that it is fitting, though not absolutely necessary, for God to reward by a fresh flow of sanctifying grace. Per the Roman Catholic view, therefore, believers save themselves with the help of the grace that flows from Christ through the Roman Catholic sacramental system, and in this life no sense of confidence in God’s grace can ordinarily be had. In effect, this view of Rome sets one on an ongoing treadmill of works that may or may not assure one of his ultimate salvation.
AMR