Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first African-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Dr. Felix Orji, OSB, is the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of All Nations, a Diocese in the Anglican Church in North America province. He is based in Houston, Texas.
“For man cannot make himself righteous by his own works, neither in part nor the whole….But justification is the office of God only and is not a thing which we render unto him, but which we receive of him, not which we give to him but which we take of him by his free mercy and by the only merits of his most dearly beloved Son, our only redeemer, Saviour and justifier, Jesus Christ.”
– Anglican BOOK OF HOMILIES
Every year, christians in the Magisterial and Radical Reformation traditions, celebrate Reformation Day on October 31st to commemorate Martin Luther’s nailing of his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517. Luther’s action unwittingly and effectively sparked the Protestant Reformation of which Anglicans are beneficiaries. Reformation Day is a reminder to us of the need to believe and guard the truth of the gospel, which is, that God justifies the penitent sinner by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone. The word “alone” is very important because the medieval church did not deny that man is saved by grace through faith in Christ. The subject about which there was disagreement was that the medieval church added merit to grace, good works to faith, and Mary and the Saints to Jesus as means of justification. The Reformers got rid of all that theological debris and false teaching by using the word “Sola or alone”- grace alone, not grace plus merit; faith alone, not faith plus good works; Christ alone, not Christ plus the intercession of the the Saints; and glory of God alone, not glory of God, Mary and ecclesiastical hierarchy. This truth was important in the Reformation era and remains important for us today because the battle for this truth of the purity of the gospel continues to rage unabated.
Twentieth century writer Dorothy Sayers made a similar assertion when she said that no one would deny that there is a wide and deep cleavage in Christiandom, “but it (sc. this cleavage) does not run between Catholics and Protestants, it runs between those who believe that salvation is of God and those who believe that salvation is of man”. That was true for the first 1500 years of the church and sadly remains the case today. This is why we must be intentional in believing and defending the truth of the “solas/alones” of our justification.
What is Justification? Contrary to the opinion of Roman Catholic scholars Justification is not God making the penitent sinner righteous. Rather Justification is God’s declaration that the penitent sinner is forgiven, righteous, and is no longer guilty before Him because by His grace alone through our faith alone in Christ alone God the Father imputes, or reckons to our account, the perfect righteousness of Christ (2 Cor. 5:21). According to J I Packer “Justification is not just forgiveness but God’s declaration that we are righteous and clothed with his righteousness because of the death/blood of Christ(ground and basis) and received by the instrument of faith. We are saved now from the penalty(guilt) of sin, being saved from the power of sin, and will be saved finally from the pollution of sin”. Even though justification is by faith alone we must not forget that good works necessarily do result from our faith and regeneration in Christ.
As John Calvin rightly put it “Those who are justified by true faith prove their justification by obedience and good works, not by a bare and imaginary semblance of faith. In one word, he, James in James 2, is not discussing the mode of justification, but requiring that the justification of believers shall be operative. And as Paul contends that men are justified without the aid of works, so James will not allow any to be regarded as justified who are destitute of good works.” Nonetheless good works do not and are not added to faith as the grounds for our present justification or future right standing before God (Eph. 2:8-10). I love how G. C. Berkouwer wraps up the significance of justification for us: “The confession of divine justification touches man’s life at its heart, at the point of its relationship to God. It defines the preaching of the Church, the existence and progress of the life of faith, the root of human security, and man’s perspective for the future.”
So as most people in the Western world spend their time focused on candy, scary effigies of demons and death, and of things that go bump in the night during their celebration of Halloween on October 31st, Protestants have something far more glorious and significant to celebrate on the same day, Reformation day. We will be celebrating the restoration of the truth of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone. If you want this gift of justification you must come empty handed with no righteousness of your own to offer because all your moral righteousness is filthy rags. You will need to heed the words of John Calvin, “everyone who would obtain the righteousness of Christ must renounce his own”. This is good news for the penitent soul. We need to believe Christ, embrace him, share Him with others, and sincerely give thanks and praise to God with gladness of heart because in him alone we have justification, eternal life, sanctification, and glorification.
