Sola Fide as a facade?

[Minh]

Greeting!

Yesterday, I was going through different reviews on a book on justification when I found a comment by a Roman Catholic very troubling and confusing. Speaking on Reformed teaching on justification, he said as followed:

"According to Catholicism, human nature is injured by Original Sin. Adam's sin is passed onto us by way of regeneration (the fact that we are born). The classical Protestant view that holds that human nature has been totally corrupted or that we are totally depraved so that we do not have free will and are no longer in the image of God. Ergo, none of our acts could ever be truly good. Whereas in the Roman Catholic position grace enters in and heals the original wound and brings about image perfection, the classical Protestant position is that grace enters in enables us to believe and receive Christ's righteousness as a cloak that covers us. Hence, according to Luther, the righteousness of Christ covers us like snow covering a dung pile. God chooses to see only the beautiful snow (Christ righteousness) and not the depraved dung underneath."

How do we meaningfully response to this comment?

 

[arapahoepark]

Greeting!

Yesterday, I was going through different reviews on a book on justification when I found a comment by a Roman Catholic very troubling and confusing. Speaking on Reformed teaching on justification, he said as followed:

"According to Catholicism, human nature is injured by Original Sin. Adam's sin is passed onto us by way of regeneration (the fact that we are born). The classical Protestant view that holds that human nature has been totally corrupted or that we are totally depraved so that we do not have free will and are no longer in the image of God. Ergo, none of our acts could ever be truly good. Whereas in the Roman Catholic position grace enters in and heals the original wound and brings about image perfection, the classical Protestant position is that grace enters in enables us to believe and receive Christ's righteousness as a cloak that covers us. Hence, according to Luther, the righteousness of Christ covers us like snow covering a dung pile. God chooses to see only the beautiful snow (Christ righteousness) and not the depraved dung underneath."

How do we meaningfully response to this comment?

It's not a legal fiction when we are truly united to Christ. We are not only reckoned but constituted righteous by union, we are now dead and made alive.

 

[Scottish Presbyterian]

Your Romanist source has it slightly wrong when they say Protestants believe man is no longer in the image of God, but that's beside the point. Otherwise the summary of Protestant belief regarding justification is fairly accurate.

The Romanist position has two primary errors. First their view of Original Sin is wrong - the view that human nature is "injured" by Original Sin is a heresy known as semi-Pelagianism. In contrast, the Bible teaches that man is dead (not injured) in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1), which your source correctly identifies as the Protestant view (in fact it is the Reformed view, some Protestants, such as consistent Arminians, would also subscribe to the unscriptural, Romanist, semi-Pelagian view).

The second error is to conflate justification with sanctification. The source again correctly identifies the Reformed teaching that grace enables us to believe (exercise faith), thereby receiving Christ's righteousness to cover us - this is justifying faith, and this alone is what makes us acceptable to God (I.e. not faith itself, but Christ's righteousness received by faith). Grace is also that which makes us actually righteous, in sanctification, and ultimately perfect, in glorification (at death), but this is not what makes us acceptable to God. However Romanists erroneously teach that it is our becoming actually righteous which makes us acceptable to God (I.e. our good works), which is contrary to scripture - too many to quote exhaustively, but see for example Romans 11:6

Hope this helps, I'm sure others can put it better than I have done.

Edited for spelling