Are you Catholic or Protestant?
Before reading the following studies on justification by faith in this issue of Present Truth Magazine, we invite you to answer 10 questions. They are simple questions about justification by faith. In surveys to date, this questionnaire has demonstrated the startling fact that a very large proportion of Protestants are more Catholic than Protestant in their concept of justification.
Please record your answers to the 10 questions. In each of the following 10 choices, mark either (a) or (b), whichever is correct.
1 (a) God gives a repentant sinner right standing with Himself by mercifully accounting him innocent and virtuous for Christ's sake through faith in His atoning blood.
(b) God gives a repentant sinner right standing with Himself by actually making him into an innocent and virtuous person through faith in the work of the Holy Spirit within his heart.
2 (a) God gives a repentant sinner right standing with Himself by placing Christ’s goodness and virtue to his credit by faith in the imputed righteousness of Christ.
(b) God gives a repentant sinner right standing with Himself by putting Christ’s goodness and virtue into his heart by faith in the imparted righteousness of Christ.
3 (a) God declares the Christian acceptable in the sight of God because the moral excellence found in Jesus Christ is imputed to him.
(b) God declares the Christian acceptable in the sight of God by infusing Christ’s moral excellence into his life.
4 (a) If a repentant sinner becomes “born again” (regenerated, transformed in character) by an infilling of the Holy Spirit, he will achieve right standing with God.
(b) If a repentant sinner accepts right standing with God by faith in Christ’s sinless life and atoning death on the cross, he will then experience transformation in character by an infilling of the Holy Spirit.
5 (a) Repentant sinners receive right standing with God by faith in the blood of Christ.
(b) Repentant sinners receive right standing with God because God has put love in his heart.
6 (a) Repentant sinners achieve right standing with God by having Christ live out His life of obedience in us through faith in God's unmerited sanctifying grace.
(b) Repentant sinners achieve right standing with God by having Christ's life of obedience reckoned to us through faith in God's unmerited justifying grace.
7 (a) Repentant sinners achieve right standing with God by following Christ’s example with the help of the Holy Spirit and His enabling grace.
(b) Repentant sinners follow Christ’s example of obedience because faith in His sinless atoning life has already given us right standing with God.
8 (a) Repentant sinners who trust in Christ's atoning blood are accounted as good in the merciful reckoning of God, then God gives us His indwelling Spirit to begin to make us good.
(b) God sends His Spirit to make repentant sinners good, and then He will pronounce them good.
9 (a) Christ’s intercession at God’s right hand gives repentant sinners favor in the sight of God.
(b) It is the indwelling Christ in the heart that gives repentant sinners favor in God’s sight.
10 (a) Only by faith in the doing and dying of Christ can repentant sinners fully satisfy the claims of the Ten Commandments.
(b) By the power of the Holy Spirit living in us, repentant sinners
can fully satisfy the claims of the Ten Commandments.
Now read "The Basic Catholic Doctrine of Justification by Faith."
After you've finished reading this article, check your answers again.
The answer key is at the end
of the article.
