How are we justified?

This is the really the central question to the whole discussion about Catholicism and Protestantism. How is a person made right before God? For the Protestant justification takes place immediately at the moment of salvation. As soon as you place your faith in Jesus Christ you are justified.

The Biblical View

At the moment of Salvation there's an immediate change that takes place in the life of the believer. There is a legal status change that has taken place by which the believer is now in right standing with God and therefore justified. Instantaneously they are seen as righteous because the righteousness of Christ has now been imputed to them. No one can be justified by that law, and by that, I mean the keeping of the law (Rom 2:13). We are justified by grace (Rom 3:24) through faith (Rom 3:28) in the blood of Christ (Rom 5:9). In Galatians 2:16 Paul makes it abundantly clear by emphatically writing, “we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”

The Catholic View

The Catholic view does not see Jesus as enough. Rather than seeing Jesus impute his righteousness to us the Catholic church sees justification as something earned. The sacraments are the actions you take to earn your justification. Purgatory is where you go to finish it. For protestants we are declared righteous. Catholics believe that the righteousness of Christ is infused to you bit by bit. That’s why, according to their belief, a person can loose this righteousness through sin.