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On October 31, 1517, a 33-year-old Augustinian monk, parish priest, and professor of theology nailed "95 Theses" to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, denouncing the papacy's sale of indulgences to finance the restoration of St. Peter's Basilica. (Indulgences are papal certificates offering remission of the temporal penalty due forgiven sin and granting sinners parole from the fires of purgatory.) That man, Martin Luther, launched the Protestant Reformation. And that date, October 31, has been commemorated long since as Reformation Day.

Lutherans have traditionally celebrated Reformation Day in quite triumphal fashion, with rousing renditions of Luther's hymn, "A Mighty Fortress," and with frequent anti-Catholic polemics as well. But last year, many Lutherans observed this day in a whole new way, by affirming with Roman Catholics a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.

For centuries, the doctrine of the sinner's justification in the sight of God has been referred to as the "first and chief article" of Protestant Christianity, the article "on which the church stands or falls." Luther taught that believers are justified not by anything they do, but only because of Christ's righteousness, which God in his infinite mercy graciously reckons as their own. No one deserves this divine favor; we sinners deserve condemnation. But God has promised that those who trust in Christ alone for their salvation will not be judged on their own (de)merits, but on the basis of the genuinely meritorious life, death, and resurrection of their Savior, to whom they are united by the Holy Spirit and whose righteousness they wear as a sacred robe. Luther believed that the Holy Spirit indwells justified Christians, liberating their souls from bondage to sin and freeing them for service. But he insisted that good works have nothing to do with acceptance by God. We are accepted only by faith as members of Christ's mystical body. In the words of the formula employed by Luther's Protestant successors, justification comes by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

As Luther contended in his Smalcald Articles (1537), "this must be believed and cannot be obtained or apprehended by any work, law, or merit." No good works, including the purchase of the pope's best indulgences, can earn us favor in God's sight and lessen the penalty due our sins. Further, "nothing in this article can be given up or compromised, even if heaven and earth and things temporal should be destroyed. … On this article rests all that we teach and practice against the pope, the devil, and the world. Therefore we must be quite certain and have no doubts about it. Otherwise all is lost, and the pope, the devil, and all our adversaries will gain the victory."

Roman Catholics excommunicated Martin Luther and firmly opposed his understanding of justification. While they did institute reforms on selling indulgences, they did not abandon the practice. Nor did they redress many of the other grievances expressed by Protestant critics.

The Roman Catholic Council of Trent (1545-1563), called in part to respond to Protestant criticisms, spent a great deal of time discussing justification. And while the Catholic hierarchy distanced itself from those theologians most offensive to the Protestants, it also clearly rejected Luther's teaching. "No one ought to flatter himself with faith alone," declared the church, "thinking that by faith alone he is made an heir and will obtain the inheritance." Rather, faith must be perfected by concrete acts of Christian charity before the faithful will be found worthy of eternal life. It is "to those who work well unto the end and trust in God" that "eternal life is to be offered, both as a grace mercifully promised to the sons of God through Christ Jesus, and as a reward promised by God himself, to be faithfully given to their good works and merits."

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January 10 2000, Vol. 44, No. 1