The Gift of Salvation
Copyright
(c) 1998 First Things 79 (January 1998): 20-23.
In the spring of 1994, a distinguished group of
Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants issued a
much-discussed statement, "Evangelicals and Catholics
Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium"
(FT, May 1994). That statement, commonly referred to as
"ECT," noted a growing "convergence and cooperation" between
Evangelicals and Catholics in many public tasks, and
affirmed agreement in basic articles of Christian faith
while also underscoring the continuing existence of
important differences. The signers promised to engage those
differences in continuing conversations, and this has been
done in meetings of noted theologians convened by Mr.
Charles Colson and Father Richard John Neuhaus. At a meeting
in the fall of 1996, it was determined that further progress
depended upon firm agreement on the meaning of salvation,
and especially the doctrine of justification. After much
discussion, study, and prayer over the course of a year, the
following statement was agreed to at a meeting in New York
City, October 6-7, 1997. The convenors and participants
express their gratitude to Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy,
President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian
Unity, for his very active support throughout this process.
In future conversations they intend to address the
outstanding questions noted at the end of this
statement. — The Editors
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that
whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal
life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the
world, but that the world might be saved through him. —
John 3:16-17
We give thanks to God that in recent years many
Evangelicals and Catholics, ourselves among them, have been
able to express a common faith in Christ and so to acknowledge
one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. We confess
together one God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; we
confess Jesus Christ the Incarnate Son of God; we affirm the
binding authority of Holy Scripture, God’s inspired Word; and
we acknowledge the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds as faithful
witnesses to that Word.
The effectiveness of our witness for Christ depends upon
the work of the Holy Spirit, who calls and empowers us to
confess together the meaning of the salvation promised and
accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. Through prayer and
study of Holy Scripture, and aided by the Church’s reflection
on the sacred text from earliest times, we have found that,
notwithstanding some persistent and serious differences, we
can together bear witness to the gift of salvation in Jesus
Christ. To this saving gift we now testify, speaking not for,
but from and to, our several communities.
God created us to manifest his glory and to give us eternal
life in fellowship with himself, but our disobedience
intervened and brought us under condemnation. As members of
the fallen human race, we come into the world estranged from
God and in a state of rebellion. This original sin is
compounded by our personal acts of sinfulness. The
catastrophic consequences of sin are such that we are
powerless to restore the ruptured bonds of union with God.
Only in the light of what God has done to restore our
fellowship with him do we see the full enormity of our loss.
The gravity of our plight and the greatness of God’s love are
brought home to us by the life, suffering, death, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. "God so loved the world that he
gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not
perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
God the Creator is also God the Redeemer, offering
salvation to the world. "God desires all to be saved and come
to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4). The
restoration of communion with God is absolutely dependent upon
Jesus Christ, true God and true man, for he is "the one
mediator between God and men" (1 Timothy 2:5), and "there is
no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be
saved" (Acts 4:12). Jesus said, "No one comes to the Father
but by me" (John 14:6). He is the holy and righteous one who
was put to death for our sins, "the righteous for the
unrighteous, that he might bring us to God" (1 Peter
3:18).
The New Testament speaks of salvation in various ways.
Salvation is ultimate or eschatological rescue from sin and
its consequences, the final state of safety and glory to which
we are brought in both body and soul. "Since, therefore, we
are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by
him from the wrath of God." "Salvation is nearer to us now
than when we first believed" (Romans 5:9, 13:11). Salvation is
also a present reality. We are told that "he saved us, not
because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of
his own mercy" (Titus 3:5). The present reality of salvation
is an anticipation and foretaste of salvation in its promised
fullness.
Always it is clear that the work of redemption has been
accomplished by Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross.
"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a
curse for us" (Galatians 3:13). Scripture describes the
consequences of Christ’s redemptive work in several ways,
among which are: justification, reconciliation, restoration of
friendship with God, and rebirth from above by which we are
adopted as children of God and made heirs of the Kingdom.
"When the time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a
woman, born under law, that we might receive the adoption of
sons" (Galatians 4:4-5).
Justification is central to the scriptural account of
salvation, and its meaning has been much debated between
Protestants and Catholics. We agree that justification is not
earned by any good works or merits of our own; it is entirely
God’s gift, conferred through the Father’s sheer graciousness,
out of the love that he bears us in his Son, who suffered on
our behalf and rose from the dead for our justification. Jesus
was "put to death for our trespasses and raised for our
justification" (Romans 4:25). In justification, God, on the
basis of Christ’s righteousness alone, declares us to be no
longer his rebellious enemies but his forgiven friends, and by
virtue of his declaration it is so.
The New Testament makes it clear that the gift of
justification is received through faith. "By grace you have
been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it
is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8). By faith, which is also
the gift of God, we repent of our sins and freely adhere to
the Gospel, the good news of God’s saving work for us in
Christ. By our response of faith to Christ, we enter into the
blessings promised by the Gospel. Faith is not merely
intellectual assent but an act of the whole person, involving
the mind, the will, and the affections, issuing in a changed
life. We understand that what we here affirm is in agreement
with what the Reformation traditions have meant by
justification by faith alone (sola fide).
In justification we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,
through whom the love of God is poured forth into our hearts
(Romans 5:5). The grace of Christ and the gift of the Spirit
received through faith (Galatians 3:14) are experienced and
expressed in diverse ways by different Christians and in
different Christian traditions, but God’s gift is never
dependent upon our human experience or our ways of expressing
that experience.
While faith is inherently personal, it is not a purely
private possession but involves participation in the body of
Christ. By baptism we are visibly incorporated into the
community of faith and committed to a life of discipleship.
"We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so
that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the
Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Romans
6:4).
By their faith and baptism, Christians are bound to live
according to the law of love in obedience to Jesus Christ the
Lord. Scripture calls this the life of holiness, or
sanctification. "Since we have these promises, dear friends,
let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body
and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God" (2
Corinthians 7:1). Sanctification is not fully accomplished at
the beginning of our life in Christ, but is progressively
furthered as we struggle, with God’s grace and help, against
adversity and temptation. In this struggle we are assured that
Christ’s grace will be sufficient for us, enabling us to
persevere to the end. When we fail, we can still turn to God
in humble repentance and confidently ask for, and receive, his
forgiveness.
We may therefore have assured hope for the eternal life
promised to us in Christ. As we have shared in his sufferings,
we will share in his final glory. "We shall be like him, for
we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). While we dare not
presume upon the grace of God, the promise of God in Christ is
utterly reliable, and faith in that promise overcomes anxiety
about our eternal future. We are bound by faith itself to have
firm hope, to encourage one another in that hope, and in such
hope we rejoice. For believers "through faith are shielded by
God’s power until the coming of the salvation to be revealed
in the last time" (1 Peter 1:5).
Thus it is that as justified sinners we have been saved, we
are being saved, and we will be saved. All this is the gift of
God. Faith issues in a confident hope for a new heaven and a
new earth in which God’s creating and redeeming purposes are
gloriously fulfilled. "Therefore God has highly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that
at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on
earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians
2:9-11).
As believers we are sent into the world and commissioned to
be bearers of the good news, to serve one another in love, to
do good to all, and to evangelize everyone everywhere. It is
our responsibility and firm resolve to bring to the whole
world the tidings of God’s love and of the salvation
accomplished in our crucified, risen, and returning Lord. Many
are in grave peril of being eternally lost because they do not
know the way to salvation.
In obedience to the Great Commission of our Lord, we commit
ourselves to evangelizing everyone. We must share the fullness
of God’s saving truth with all, including members of our
several communities. Evangelicals must speak the Gospel to
Catholics and Catholics to Evangelicals, always speaking the
truth in love, so that "working hard to maintain the unity of
the Spirit in the bond of peace . . . the body of Christ may
be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the
knowledge of the Son of God" (Ephesians 4:3, 12-13).
Moreover, we defend religious freedom for all. Such freedom
is grounded in the dignity of the human person created in the
image of God, and must be protected also in civil law.
We must not allow our witness as Christians to be
compromised by halfhearted discipleship or needlessly divisive
disputes. While we rejoice in the unity we have discovered and
are confident of the fundamental truths about the gift of
salvation we have affirmed, we recognize that there are
necessarily interrelated questions that require further and
urgent exploration. Among such questions are these: the
meaning of baptismal regeneration, the Eucharist, and
sacramental grace; the historic uses of the language of
justification as it relates to imputed and transformative
righteousness; the normative status of justification in
relation to all Christian doctrine; the assertion that while
justification is by faith alone, the faith that receives
salvation is never alone; diverse understandings of merit,
reward, purgatory, and indulgences; Marian devotion and the
assistance of the saints in the life of salvation; and the
possibility of salvation for those who have not been
evangelized.
On these and other questions, we recognize that there are
also some differences within both the Evangelical and Catholic
communities. We are committed to examining these questions
further in our continuing conversations. All who truly believe
in Jesus Christ are brothers and sisters in the Lord and must
not allow their differences, however important, to undermine
this great truth, or to deflect them from bearing witness
together to God’s gift of salvation in Christ. "I appeal to
you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all
of you agree with one another so that there may be no
divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in
mind and thought" (1 Corinthians 1:10).
As Evangelicals who thank God for the heritage of the
Reformation and affirm with conviction its classic
confessions, as Catholics who are conscientiously faithful to
the teaching of the Catholic Church, and as disciples together
of the Lord Jesus Christ who recognize our debt to our
Christian forebears and our obligations to our contemporaries
and those who will come after us, we affirm our unity in the
Gospel that we have here professed. In our continuing
discussions, we seek no unity other than unity in the truth.
Only unity in the truth can be pleasing to the Lord and Savior
whom we together serve, for he is "the way, the truth, and the
life" (John 14:6).
EVANGELICAL PROTESTANTS
Dr. Gerald L. Bray Beeson Divinity School
Dr. Bill Bright Campus Crusade for Christ
Dr. Harold O. J. Brown Trinity Evangelical Divinity
School
Mr. Charles Colson Prison Fellowship
Bishop William C. Frey Episcopal Church
Dr. Timothy George Beeson Divinity School
Dr. Os Guinness Trinity Forum
Dr. Kent R. Hill Eastern Nazarene College
Rev. Max Lucado Oak Hills Church of Christ San
Antonio, TX
Dr. T. M. Moore Chesapeake Theological Seminary
Dr. Richard Mouw Fuller Theological Seminary
Dr. Mark A. Noll Wheaton College
Mr. Brian F. O’Connell Interdev
Dr. Thomas Oden Drew University
Dr. James J. I. Packer Regent College, British
Columbia
Dr. Timothy R. Phillips Wheaton College
Dr. John Rodgers Trinity Episcopal School for
Ministry
Dr. Robert A. Seiple World Vision U.S.
Dr. John Woodbridge Trinity Evangelical Divinity
School
ROMAN CATHOLICS
Father James J. Buckley Loyola College in Maryland
Father J. A. Di Noia, O.P. Dominican House of
Studies
Father Avery Dulles, S.J. Fordham University
Mr. Keith Fournier Catholic Alliance
Father Thomas Guarino Seton Hall University
Dr. Peter Kreeft Boston College
Father Matthew L. Lamb Boston College
Father Eugene LaVerdiere, S.S.S. Emmanuel
Father Francis Martin John Paul II Institute for Studies
on Marriage and Family
Mr. Ralph Martin Renewal Ministries
Father Richard John Neuhaus Religion and Public Life
Mr. Michael Novak American Enterprise Institute
Father Edward Oakes, S.J. Regis University
Father Thomas P. Rausch, S.J. Loyola Marymount
University
Mr. George Weigel Ethics and Public Policy Center
Dr. Robert Louis Wilken University of Virginia

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