Michael Nazir-Ali

Golly moses, another luminary has jumped ship! Social media lit up like a neon sign last week when Michael Nazir-Ali announced he is leaving for Rome. Perhaps no one is as respected and revered in the whole of the Anglican Communion as the Bishop of Rochester. Bishop Nazir-Ali was one of the founders of the Gafcon movement that unites Bible-believing Anglicans worldwide. He was the runner-up for the position of Archbishop of Canterbury for heavens sake! I respect Michael’s integrity to do the honorable thing if his loyalty is to the magisterium and not to a higher authority, and I trust that God will use this as a wakeup call for us to revisit our Anglican distinctives.

There are many things in the Roman Catholic Church that I agree with and find appealing, but the reason I can't become one is "justification." This is the primary doctrinal difference between Protestants and Catholics. I know this might sound like a small, esoteric point, but for me it is the heart of what I believe as a Christian and as an Anglican. I want Christian unity like everyone, and I could probably convince myself to overlook some of the extra-biblical dogmas of Catholicism, like the pope as God’s vicar, transubstantiation, the extraordinary place of Mary as a co-Redeemer, and Purgatory. But how Roman Catholics answer the most basic human question, “Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?” (Job 4:17), is my biggest hurdle to becoming one of them. 

Catholics basically believe in salvation by increments - salvation by sanctification. They teach that forgiveness of sins is based on inherent righteousness and that justification is a process by which a person is actually and morally made righteous through the infused righteousness of God available in the sacraments. Protestants, on the other hand, understand that we are never righteous enough, not innately and not in this lifetime, therefore our salvation depends on Christ’s righteousness credited to our account (justification by grace alone through faith alone by Christ alone). Thomas Cranmer wrote that “Justification precedes a right heart” because, like the other 16th century reformers, he saw salvation as the extrinsic righteousness of Christ received by faith, not as an intrinsic righteousness infused by grace. 

Both Catholics and Protestants agree that we are made for a relationship with God (created in his image), but because of the disobedience of the first man (the Fall), we all are legally declared to be natural sinners by birth (original sin). Protestants believe that our sinful condition is only adequately addressed in one way: by another legal pronouncement whereby we are declared righteous based on an extrinsic righteousness - Christ’s righteousness that covers our unrighteousness. It was a legal pronouncement that made us sinners as a consequence of the Fall, and another legal pronouncement that makes us a new creation - the affects of the first Adam are made right by the Second Adam - by one man's disobedience and by one Man's obedience.

There is widespread pressure for Christian unity today. Towards that end Catholics and Protestants try to blur the historic distinctions in different declarations for the sake of unity (e.g., Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, 1999) But I can’t get past the fact that Catholics believe in a righteousness that is inherent to the person resulting in his or her holy standing before God. Protestants believe that at our best, our righteousness is as “filthy rags,” and our only hope is Christ’s righteousness imputed/credited to us. Catholics say that those who are baptized “are made innocent, immaculate, pure, guiltless and beloved of God” (Trent, Session V.5). Anglicans, on the other hand, affirm that “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” (Article XI).

Is this important? It is THE critical distinction between Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism. Thomas Cranmer rejected “the traditional [Medieval Catholic] understanding of justification where God first made sinners inherently righteous so that he could then accept them” (Ashley Null), and he came to see justification as Christ’s imputed righteousness to undeserving sinners who turn to him in faith. For Cranmer, imputed righteousness was not some cold decision made in a faraway courtroom, but it was accompanied by the gift of the Holy Spirit and a changed will. Richard Hooker said, “The grand question, which hangeth yet in the controversy between us and the Church of Rome is about the matter of justifying righteousness.” Martin Luther, the German Reformer, said that the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone is “the doctrine by which the church stands or falls.” St. Paul wrote, “Not having a righteousness of my own that comes through the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD that depends on faith” (Philippians 3:9). Each Sunday in Anglican churches around the world we acknowledge and pray tis doctrinal understanding: “We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies...” (The Prayer of Humble Access).

So since our righteousness does not depend on our moral rectitude but on God's legal declaration (“...it was counted/reckoned to him as righteousness” Romans 4:3), how does moral change fit into the equation? The life-long process in which a Christian changes to become more and more righteous in line with their righteous standing with God is called “sanctification,” and like justification it is the fruit of God’s prior love and grace (and not on our good works). While we are on this earth, we will always be simultaneously righteous and sinners (simul justus et peccator) because “this infection of nature doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerated” (Article IX).

The big issue that keeps me from becoming Roman Catholic is the age old problem of the first formal cause of justification: is saving righteousness imputed or infused over time? Are we righteous because of our own righteousness or because of the righteousness of God credited to our account by faith? Are works and moral improvement "for" salvation or "from" salvation? There is not a more glorious and liberating biblical doctrine than justification by grace alone through faith alone. It’s my greatest hope and conviction as a Christian and as an Anglican. I am praying for Michael Nazir-Ali this morning that God will use him to show the folks in the Ordinariate the beauty and freedom of the gospel of salvation by grace alone.