Miles McKee Ministries
PO Box 541, Kingston Springs, TN 37082
Basic Differences between Roman Catholics and Bible Believers on Justification by Faith
Bible Believers
Roman Catholic
1. To justify means to account as righteous.
1. To justify means to make righteous.
2. Justification comes by the imputation of Christ's righteousness.
2. Justification comes by an infusion of grace.
3. Christ’s very righteousness makes the believer acceptable and pleasing in God's sight.
3. Sanctifying grace in the believer makes him acceptable to God.
4. Man is justified by a righteousness totally outside of himself.
4. Man is justified by a righteousness which God puts within man.
5. God justifies the ungodly and the unworthy.
5. God justifies only those who are born again.
6. Justification is God's verdict upon His people in the Person of Christ.
6. Justification is God's regenerating act in man.
7. The sinner is justified by Christ's actual righteousness alone which is imputed to him.
7. The sinner cannot be justified by imputed righteousness alone, but by righteousness poured into his heart.
8. Justification enables God to treat the sinner as if he really were just.
8. Justification means that the sinner is really made just.
9. The believer is pronounced righteous because Christ, his Substitute, is righteous before God.
9. The believer is pronounced righteous because the Spirit of grace has made him righteous.
10. Justification is a declaration of the fact that Jesus, who stands in man's place, is righteous.
10. Justification is a declaration of what is a fact in the man himself.
11. Justification is in Christ, not within man.
11. Justification is an act of grace within man.
12. Justification is received by faith alone.
12. Justification comes by faith which has become active by charity.
13. Justification is distinct from regeneration. Regeneration does not justify us in any way.
13. Regenerating grace enables God to justify the believer.
14. Sin still remains in man's nature after justification and regeneration.
14. Justification wholly eradicates sin; only concupiscence and weakness remain.
15. The believer can claim no merit for good works performed by God's enabling grace. Good works are acceptable only through the mediation of Christ's imputed righteousness, which covers all human deficiencies in the good works of the believer.
15. Sanctifying grace within the believer makes good works acceptable to God.
16. At all times the believer is accepted only in the Person of Christ, his Substitute.
16. Sanctifying grace with in the believer makes him acceptable to God.