Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification

Background

Justification refers to a sinner's being accounted righteous before God, and it was the central issue of the sixteenth-century Reformation. Martin Luther and the Lutheran tradition taught that a person is justified not by works but by faith alone (Romans 3:28; Galatians 2:16). This teaching was set forth in the Augsburg Confession of 1530. In 1547, at the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Church issued its Decree on Justification. The decree emphasized human cooperation and inner renewal within a justification initiated by God's grace, and it attached canons pronouncing anathema (exclusion from the Church) on those holding contrary views. For centuries thereafter, each church remained under the other's condemnations. In Korea, the Catholic Church renders the term for justification as uihwa (義化).

Development

After the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation began an official theological dialogue. In the 1980s, dialogue documents from the United States and Germany examined whether the mutual condemnations of the sixteenth century still applied to the partner church as it exists today. On this basis, a joint declaration was drafted during the 1990s, and a final text was completed in 1997. In 1998 the official Catholic response contained reservations that provoked controversy. To resolve them, the two sides added an Official Common Statement and an Annex. The signing took place on October 31, 1999—Reformation Day—in Augsburg, Germany.

The central confession of the declaration is that "by grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part," we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit. The declaration then takes up in turn such topics as human powerlessness, the understanding of the justified as "at the same time righteous and sinner," law and gospel, assurance of salvation, and good works. For each topic, it first states the common confession and then sets out the respective Catholic and Lutheran emphases side by side. This approach is often called a "differentiated consensus." The concluding section states that the teachings of both sides, as presented in the declaration, do not fall under the sixteenth-century condemnations.

Results and Influence

Other world communions subsequently associated themselves with the declaration. The World Methodist Council adopted it in 2006 during the World Methodist Conference held in Seoul. On the Anglican side, the Anglican Consultative Council welcomed and affirmed the substance of the declaration in 2016. The World Communion of Reformed Churches joined in 2017, the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation. In Korea, the Lutheran Church in Korea, as a member church of the Lutheran World Federation, is among the parties to the declaration. The declaration is frequently cited as a leading achievement of doctrinal dialogue in the ecumenical movement.

Assessment

Supporters regard the declaration as a milestone in the oldest doctrinal division dating from the Reformation. They also explain that neither church abandoned its own confession; rather, each affirmed common ground while acknowledging the remaining differences.

Criticism came from several directions. Within Lutheranism, around the time of the signing, a large number of Protestant theology professors in Germany issued a statement of opposition. Some conservative Lutheran churches outside the Lutheran World Federation also took a critical position. Some in the Reformed and evangelical camps hold that the principles of "forensic justification"—God's declaring the sinner righteous—and of "faith alone" were obscured. They also point out that practical questions such as merit and indulgences were left unresolved. Within Catholicism as well, some voiced concern that the teaching of the Council of Trent had been weakened. In Korean Protestantism, too, opinion is divided between those who see the declaration as an achievement of dialogue and those who see it as a retreat from Reformation principles.