.
.
Benedict XVI
says Martin
Luther’s
doctrine on
justification
is correct, if
faith “is not
opposed to
charity”
.
VATICAN
CITY, NOV. 19, 2008
The Pope said this today during the
general audience dedicated to another
reflection on St. Paul. This time, the
Holy Father considered the Apostle’s
teaching on justification.
He noted that Paul’s conversion
experience on the road to Damascus
“changed his life radically: He began
to regard all his merits, achievements
of a most honest religious career, as
‘loss’ in face of the sublimity of
knowledge of Jesus Christ.”
“It is precisely because of this
personal experience of the
relationship with Jesus that Paul
places at the center of his Gospel an
irreducible opposition between two
alternative paths to justice: one
based on the works of the law, the
other founded on the grace of faith in
Christ,” the Pontiff explained. “The
alternative between justice through
the works of the law and justice
through faith in Christ thus becomes
one of the dominant themes that runs
through his letters.”
What is law
But in order to understand this
Pauline teaching, Benedict XVI
affirmed, “we must clarify what is the
‘law’ from which we have been freed
and what are those ‘works of the law’
that do not justify.”
He explained: “Already in the
community of Corinth there was the
opinion, which will return many times
in history, which consisted in
thinking that it was a question of the
moral law, and that Christian freedom
consisted therefore in being free from
ethics. […] It is obvious that this
interpretation is erroneous: Christian
liberty is not libertinism; the
freedom of which St. Paul speaks is
not freedom from doing good.”
Instead, the Pope said, the law to
which Paul refers is the “collection
of behaviors extending from an ethical
foundation to the ritual and cultural
observances that substantially
determined the identity of the just
man — particularly circumcision, the
observance regarding pure food and
general ritual purity, the rules
regarding observance of the Sabbath,
etc.”
These observances served to protect
Jewish identity and faith in God; they
were “a defense shield that would
protect the precious inheritance of
the faith,” he remarked.
But, the Holy Father continued, at the
moment of Paul’s encounter with
Christ, the Apostle “understood that
with Christ’s resurrection the
situation had changed radically.”
“The wall — so says the Letter to the
Ephesians — between Israel and the
pagans was no longer necessary,” he
said. “It is Christ who protects us
against polytheism and all its
deviations; it is Christ who unites us
with and in the one God; it is Christ
who guarantees our true identity in
the diversity of cultures; and it is
he who makes us just. To be just means
simply to be with Christ and in
Christ. And this suffices. Other
observances are no longer necessary.”
And it is because of this, the Bishop
of Rome continued, that Luther’s
expression “by faith alone” is true
“if faith is not opposed to charity,
to love. Faith is to look at Christ,
to entrust oneself to Christ, to be
united to Christ, to be conformed to
Christ, to his life. And the form, the
life of Christ, is love; hence, to
believe is to be conformed to Christ
and to enter into his love.”
“Paul knows,” he added, “that in the
double love of God and neighbor the
whole law is fulfilled. Thus the whole
law is observed in communion with
Christ, in faith that creates charity.
We are just when we enter into
communion with Christ, who is love.”
[original source: Source:
https://zenit.org/articles/pope-clarifies-luther-s-idea-of-justification/]
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