Defining Our Terms
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On what basis does God declare a person just?
On what basis does God ever declare a person just? For Rome, it's because they are just. For the Reformed understanding, the sole grounds for the justification of a believer is the righteousness of Christ. It's Christ's righteousness and his righteousness alone that justifies us. In fact, the phrase justification by faith alone is simple shorthand for justification by Christ alone.
The words we use matter. And when we describe how we're declared righteous before a holy God, our words have eternal significance. Hello and welcome to this edition of Renewing Your Mind. We have been exploring the doctrine of justification by faith alone this week. And today, R.C. Sproul breaks down important terms and definitions which help us more easily understand and articulate this vital biblical truth. I hope you'll listen to the end of the program to learn how you can receive all ten messages from this series. But right now, let's join Dr. Sproul.
We've been looking at the posting of the 95 Theses by Luther in 1517 and consequently at the Roman Catholic understanding of justification. And in Luther's Theses, he brought into question the whole system of justification that was embraced by the Roman Catholic Church. At this point, he still believed essentially in the Roman system, but questions were beginning to haunt him, and among them was the question of the treasury of merits. And the treasury of merit was critical to the whole concept of indulgences. We know how the indulgence controversy created a firestorm at the time because the way in which Johann Tetzel was selling the indulgences. But the bigger question is, what's this whole thing
of indulgences about, and where did it come from? Well, again, it developed gradually over the history of the Roman Catholic Church. It was based ultimately on the idea that Christ gave to Peter the keys to the kingdom or the keys of the kingdom. And so the pope was seen as holding the office of the keys. And the keys of the kingdom included authority over the dispensing and distribution of indulgences. Jesus said to his disciples, whoever sins you remit on earth will be remitted in heaven and so on. Now, the treasury of merit became front and center in this whole idea of the sale of indulgences. And the treasury of merit is a treasury that contains an infinite amount of merit, which is at the power of the church to distribute to those who were lacking merit.
How did the Roman Catholic Church understand justification and the treasury of merit?
Now, in the first place, the chief deposit to the treasury of merit was the merit of Christ. But it was not only the merit of Christ that was or is in the treasury, because the concept of the treasury of merit still exists in the Roman communion. But in addition to the merit of Jesus was also the merit of Mary. In addition to the merits of Mary were added the merits of the saints. Now, there are very few people historically in the Roman view who die and go directly to heaven. the overwhelming majority of people who die, die with impurity still on their soul, so they have to go to purgatory, have those impurities purged or cleansed before they can go to heaven. Again, purgatory is not hell. They don't go to hell and be punished.
Purgatory is not a place of punishment. It's a place of cleansing, and it will ultimately, for all of those in purgatory, their ultimate destiny is will indeed be heaven, but only after this purification process takes place. Now, the problem then is that people who are in purgatory don't have sufficient righteousness to get them directly to heaven. Now, as I say, there were a handful of people historically who died with no impurities on their soul, with sufficient merit to get them into heaven directly. But not only did they have sufficient merit themselves to go into heaven, but they had a third kind of merit that we haven't discussed yet. We've already looked at the distinction between condign merit—
and congruous merit with respect to the sacrament of penance. But in addition to condign merit and congruous merit was this third kind of merit, which was called supererogatory merit, which is achieved by people producing works of supererogation, not irrigations.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
On what basis does God declare a person just?
0:00–3:41
2
How did the Roman Catholic Church understand justification and the treasury of merit?
3:41–9:58
3
What was Luther’s objection to the Catholic view of indulgences?
9:58–16:24
4
How does the Reformed tradition define justification by Christ’s righteousness alone?
16:24–21:32
5
What is the difference between infused righteousness and imputed righteousness?
21:32–24:44
6
Why is faith considered the sole instrumental cause of justification for Protestants?
24:44–26:13