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Evangelicals believe that justification by faith alone is at the heart of the gospel. It is, as Luther said in 1537, "the first and chief article," which cannot be "given up or compromised." The language about justification in "The Gift of Salvation" echoes the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England: "We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings."

We rejoice that our Roman Catholic interlocutors have been able to agree with us that the doctrine of justification set forth in this document agrees with what the Reformers meant by justification by faith alone (sola fide). This, we believe, is a major step forward, but it still does not resolve all of the differences between our two traditions on this crucial matter. In connection with the Lutheran-Catholic Joint Declaration, new questions are being asked about the status of the mutual condemnations of the sixteenth century, including those concerning the doctrine of justification. For their part, evangelicals must not allow sola fide to become a pretext for "easy believism" or antinomianism, both distortions of Reformation soteriology. Thus among the items requiring further discussion, we have included this quotation from John Calvin: "We are justified by faith alone, but the faith that justifies is not alone."

Equally important is the normative status of justification by faith alone in relation to other doctrines and practices. For the Reformers, justification was the criterion by which they evaluated the piety and teaching of the medieval church. This led them to call into question purgatory, relics, indulgences, the excesses of Marian devotion, and invocation of the saints-issues that still divide Catholics and evangelicals today. These and many other matters that are not even broached in this document, such as the role of the papacy and Scripture and tradition, are "necessarily interrelated" with what we have here affirmed together. The task of reforming the church on the basis of the Word of God still remains today: ecclesia semper reformanda (the church always reforming).

Certain critics of ECT interpreted its strictures against proselytism as a subtle attempt to undercut the witness of evangelical missionaries in largely Catholic countries. While this was never the intention of ECT, "The Gift of Salvation" says explicitly that evangelicals should preach the gospel to Catholics, and Catholics to evangelicals. We do not assume that all nominal Catholics are true believers in Jesus, nor that all nominal evangelicals are genuine followers of the Lord. As Cardinal Edward Cassidy reminded us at our meeting in October, it is far more important for one truly to know Jesus and find salvation in him than to belong without conviction to any particular community. At the same time, those who do know and love Jesus must pray and support one another in all that they are doing for the cause of Christ, never stooping to underhanded tactics or deceptive methods in their witness for the gospel.

As evangelicals and Catholics pursue theological dialogue, moved by our love for the truth and our love for one another, we must not let our discussions degenerate into a kind of armchair ecumenism, heady, aloof, and divorced from an awareness of "the pestilence that stalks in darkness, [and] the destruction that wastes at noonday" (Ps. 91:6). All who believe in Jesus, Catholics and evangelicals alike, are comrades in a common struggle, not a struggle against one another, but against the Prince of Evil himself; a spiritual conflict with the powers and potentates of this dark world. In a culture of death, we bear witness together to the Lord of life, our crucified, risen, and returning Savior. His triumph we celebrate, his gospel we proclaim, his joy we share, his kingdom we await. Jesus is Victor!

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December 8 1997, Vol. 41, No. 14