Will that be Trent or the Reformation on Justification?

By Chuck Collins

www.virtueonline.org

January 14, 2026

Today was decision day for the Roman Catholic Church. At the COUNCIL OF TRENT meeting on January 13, 1547 the church debated “justification” - answering the most basic human question: “Can mortal man be right before God; can a man be pure before his Maker?" (Job 4:17).

Trent met off-and-on for eighteen years to address the challenge of Protestantism and the obvious abuses in Medieval Catholicism. The Catholic Church ended the discussion by anathematizing the central teaching of Martin Luther and condemning the central reason for the 16th century Reformation.

There are many creedal convictions in Roman Catholic teaching that I agree with, but the reason I can't become one is "justification." This is the primary doctrinal difference between Protestants and Catholics. I know this might sound like an esoteric theological point, but for me it is the heart of what I believe as a Christian and as an Anglican.

I want Christian unity like everyone, and I could probably convince myself to overlook some of the extra-biblical and unbiblical dogmas of Catholicism. But the difference between Roman Catholics and Protestants on justification is the reason I am Protestant.

Catholics believe that justification is a process by which a person is actually, innately made righteous through the infused righteousness that God makes available to them in the sacraments. They see justification as sanctification (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1999-2000). Protestants, on the other hand, believe that we are never righteous enough, not innately and not in this life. Therefore, our salvation, our right standing before God, depends on Christ’s righteousness credited to our account (justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone).

Both Catholics and Protestants agree that we are made for a relationship with God (created in his image), but because of the disobedience of the first man (the Fall), all his descendants are legally pronounced sinners, and, by nature spiritually dead (original sin). Protestants believe that our sinful condition is only adequately addressed in one way: by a righteousness outside of ourselves, and by another legal pronouncement whereby we are declared righteous based on God's own righteousness credited to our account by faith. This comes to us, not by anything we do to earn it, but as a gift of God’s free love. His righteousness becomes ours by trusting in God and in his promise.

It was a legal pronouncement that made us sinners by nature and another legal pronouncement that makes us righteous - the effects of the first Adam are made right by the Second Adam - by one man's disobedience and by one Man's obedience. Catholics, disagree; they say we become righteous in our standing with God when we are actually, morally righteous, and that this happens through grace distributed in the sacraments.

There is widespread pressure for Christian unity. Especially when Catholics and Protestants want to blur the historic distinctions in different declarations for the sake of unity. But I can’t get past the fact that Catholics believe in a righteousness that is inherent to the person resulting in his or her holy standing before God. Protestants, on the other hand, believe that, at our best, our righteousness is as “filthy rags” and our only hope is Christ’s righteousness imputed/credited to us “cover me with the robe of righteousness” (Isa. 61:10).

Anglicans declare that “we are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith only, is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification” (Articles of Religion, Article 11). And the homily on Salvation by Christ Alone states: “And this justification or righteousness, which we receive by God’s mercy and Christ’s merits embraced by faith, is taken, accepted, and counted by God as our perfect and full justification” (Gatiss edition).

Is this important? Anglican’s theologian, Richard Hooker (1554-1600), said, “The grand question, which hangeth yet in the controversy between us and the Church of Rome is about the matter of justifying righteousness.” Martin Luther, the German Reformer, said that the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone is “the doctrine by which the church stands or falls.” St. Paul wrote, “Not having a righteousness of my own that comes through the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD that depends on faith” (Philippians 3:9). And every Sunday in Anglican churches around the world we acknowledge and pray: “we do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies...” (The Prayer of Humble Access).

So since our righteousness does not depend on our moral rectitude but on God's absolute holiness and his legal declaration (“...it was counted/reckoned to him as righteousness” Romans 4:3), how does moral change fit into the equation? The life-long process in which a Christian changes to become more and more righteous and in line with their already-righteous standing with God is called “sanctification.” But we believe that, while on this earth we will always be simultaneously righteous and sinners (simul justus et peccator) because “this infection of nature doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerated” (Articles of Religion, IX).

The big issue that keeps me from becoming Roman Catholic is the age-old problem of the first formal cause of justification: is saving righteousness imputed or infused over time? Are we righteous because of our own righteousness or because of the righteousness of God credited to our account by grace? Are works and moral improvement "for" salvation or "from" salvation? There is not a more glorious and liberating biblical doctrine than justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. It’s my greatest hope and conviction.

Canon Chuck Collins is an Anglican historian and reform teacher. He resides in Texas.