The Eastern and Western churches severed ties in 1054 and ever since the two branches have approached the doctrine of salvation in different ways. For Eastern Orthodoxy, the question that informs belief is “how can I overcome my distance from God?” Here the problem for humanity is not so much moral and legal as it is metaphysical. The distance between God as infinite and man as finite is so great that the purpose of salvation is to bridge this gap. In which case, a believer, according to the Orthodox scheme, is saved by participating in divinity, which begin with regeneration and yields a change in one’s being.
For the West, in contrast, the fundamental question driving salvation is “how am I right with God?” Here the basic problem for sinners is a legal one of guilt and the penalty that stems from this verdict.
The Protestant Reformation started with the same question that had motivated much Roman Catholic teaching and practice throughout the Middle Ages: how can sinners be right with a holy and perfect God after they have sinned against him? For Rome and the Reformers, justification was the critical doctrine, but each side defined it differently. For Rome, justification was a process, beginning with baptism which regenerated the believer and bestowed the grace necessary to cooperate with God and perform good works. Over the course of one’s life, or with time in purgatory to follow, a Christian could, according to Rome, finally become sufficiently righteous to satisfy God’s demands of perfect holiness.
The Reformation, however, taught that sin was so deep in men and women that no amount of good works or cooperation with God to relieve the burden. As such, justification became the only solution. It is a one-time declaration by God of a sinner’s righteousness. That righteousness did not come from the Christian but from Christ’s work in satisfying the penalty for sin (dying on the cross) and living a perfect life. Believers received this righteousness, imputed to them, not by good works but by faith alone. This insight into the nature of salvation made justification the material principle of the Reformation – as in the matter over which Protestants rejected Rome’s teaching..
The confession of the Huguenots in the Gallican Confession (1559) summarizes well this crucial doctrine:
Art. 17 We believe that by the perfect sacrifice that the Lord Jesus offered on the cross, we are reconciled to God, and justified before; for we can not be acceptable to him, nor become partakers of the grace of adoption, except as he pardons [all] our sins, and blots them out. Thus we declare that through Jesus Christ we are cleansed and made perfect; by his death we are fully justified, and through him only can we be delivered from our iniquities and transgressions.
Art. 18 We believe that all our justification rests upon the remission of our sins, in which also is our only blessedness, as says the Psalmist (Psa. 32:2). We therefore reject all other means of justification before God, and without claiming any virtue or merit, we rest simply in the obedience of Jesus Christ, which is imputed to us as much to blot out all our sins as to make us find grace and favor in the sight of God. And, in fact, we believe that in falling away from this foundation, however slightly, we could not find rest elsewhere, but should always be troubled. Forasmuch as we are never at peace with God till we resolve to be loved in Jesus Christ, for of ourselves we are worthy of hatred.
So important has the doctrine of justification by faith alone been to Reformed Protestants that John Murray, the longtime professor of systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary could write:
“The basic question is: How can man be just with God? If man had never sinned the all-important question would have been: How can man be right with God? He would continue to be right with God by fulfilling the will of God perfectly. But the question takes on a radically different complexion with the entrance of sin. Man is wrong with God. And the question is: How can man become right with God? This was Luther’s burning question. He found the answer in Paul’s Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, that we are justified by faith along, through grace alone . . . .
“It is to be acknowledged and appreciated that theologians of the Roman Catholic Church are giving a great deal of renewed attention to this subject, and there is a gratifying recognition that ‘to justify’ is ‘to declare to be righteous’, that it is a declarative act on God’s part. But the central issue of the Reformation remains. Rome still maintains and declares that justification consists in renovation and sanctification, and the decrees of the Council of Trent have not been retracted or repudiated. . . .
“Renovation and sanctification are indispensable elements of the gospel, and justification must never be separated from regeneration and sanctification. But to make justification to consist in renovation and sanctification is to eliminate from the gospel that which meets our basic need as sinners, and answers the basic question: How can a sinner become just with God? The answer is that which makes the lame man leap as an hart and the tongue of the dumb sing. . . . Why so? It is the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ. This is not God’s attribute of justice, but it is a God-righteousness, a righteousness with divine properties and qualities, contrasted not only with human unrighteousness but with human righteousness. And what his righteousness is, the apostle makes very clear. It is a free gift. . . (Collected Writings, vol. 1, 302-304)