For God so
loved the world that he gave his only Son. that
whoever believes in him should not perish but have
eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world,
not to condemn the world, but that the world might
be saved through him. (John 3:16,17)
We give thanks to
God that in recent years many Evangelicals and Catholics,
ourselves among them, have been able to express a
common faith in Christ and so to acknowledge one another
as brothers and sisters in Christ. We confess together
one God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit;
we confess Jesus Christ the Incarnate Son of God;
we affirm the binding authority of Holy Scripture,
God's inspired Word; and we acknowledge the Apostles'
and Nicene creeds as faithful witnesses to that Word.
The effectiveness
of our witness for Christ depends upon the work of
the Holy Spirit, who calls and empowers us to confess
together the meaning of the salvation promised and
accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. Through prayer
and study of Holy Scripture, and aided by the Church's
reflection on the sacred text from earliest times,
we have found that, notwithstanding some persistent
and serious differences, we can together bear witness
to the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. To this
saving gift we now testify, speaking not for, but
from and to, our several communities.
God created us to
manifest his glory and to give us eternal life in
fellowship with himself, but our disobedience intervened
and brought us under condemnation. As members of the
fallen human race, we come into the world estranged
from God and in a state of rebellion. This original
sin is compounded by our personal acts of sinfulness.
The catastrophic consequences of sin are such that
we are powerless to restore the ruptured bonds of
union with God. Only in the light of what God has
done to restore our fellowship with him do we see
the full enormity of our loss. The gravity of our
plight and the greatness of God's love are brought
home to us by the life, suffering, death, and resurrection
of Jesus Christ. "God so loved the world that
he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have eternal life." (John
3.16)
God the Creator
is also God the Redeemer, offering salvation to the
world. "God desires all to be saved and come
to a knowledge of the truth." (I Timothy 2:4)
The restoration of communion with God is absolutely
dependent upon Jesus Christ, true God and true man,
for he is "the one mediator between God and men"
('Timothy 2:5), and "there is no other name under
heaven given among men by which we must be saved"
(Acts 4:12). Jesus said, "No one comes to the
Father but by me" (John 14:6). He is the holy
and righteous one who was put to death for our sins,
"the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might
bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18).
The New Testament
speaks of salvation in various ways. Salvation is
ultimate or eschatological rescue from sin and its
consequences, the final state of safety and glory
to which we are brought in both body and soul. "Since,
therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much
more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God."
"Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first
believed" (Romans 5:9, 13:11). Salvation is also
a present reality. We are told that "he saved
us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness.
but in virtue of his own mercy" (Titus 3:5).
The present reality of salvation is an anticipation
and foretaste of salvation in its promised fullness.
Always it is clear
that the work of redemption has been accomplished
by Christ's atoning sacrifice on the cross. "Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming
a curse for us." (Galatians 3:13). Scripture
describes the consequences of Christ's redemptive
work in several ways, among which are: justification,
reconciliation, restoration of friendship with God,
and rebirth from above by which we are adopted as
children of God and made heirs of the Kingdom. "When
the time had fully come, God sent his son, born of
a woman, born under law, that we might receive the
adoption of sons." (Galatians 4:4-5)
Justification is
central to the scriptural account of salvation, and
its meaning has been much debated between Protestants
and Catholics. We agree that justification is not
earned by any good works or merits of our own; it
is entirely God's gift, conferred through the Father's
sheer graciousness, out of the love that he bears
us in his Son, who suffered on our behalf and rose
from the dead for our justification. Jesus was "put
to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification"
(Romans 4:25). In justification, God, on the basis
of Christ's righteousness alone, declares us to be
no longer his rebellious enemies but his forgiven
friends, and by virtue of his declaration it is so.
The New Testament
makes it clear that the gift of justification is received
through faith. "By grace you have been saved
through faith; and this is not your own doing, it
is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8). By faith,
which is also the gift of God, we repent of our sins
and freely adhere to the gospel, the good news of
God's saving work for us in Christ. By our response
of faith to Christ, we enter into the blessings promised
by the gospel. Faith is not merely intellectual assent
but an act of the whole person, involving the mind,
the will, and the affections, issuing in a changed
life. We understand that what we here affirm is in
agreement with what the Reformation traditions have
meant by justification by faith alone (sola fide).
In justification
we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, through whom
the love of God is poured forth into our hearts Romans
5:5). The grace of Christ and the gift of the Spirit
received through faith (Galatians 3:14) are experienced
and expressed in diverse ways by different Christians
and in different Christian traditions, but God's gift
is never dependent upon our human experience or our
ways of expressing that experience.
While faith is inherently
personal, it is not a purely private possession but
involves participation in the body of Christ. By baptism
we are visibly incorporated into the community of
faith and committed to a life of discipleship. "We
were buried therefore with him by baptism into death,
so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the
glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness
of life" (Romans 6:4).
By their faith and
baptism, Christians are bound to live according to
the law of love in obedience to Jesus Christ the Lord.
Scripture calls this the life of holiness, or sanctification.
"Since we have these promises, dear friends,
let us purity ourselves from everything that contaminates
body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence
for God." (II Corinthians 7:1) Sanctification
is not fully accomplished at the beginning of our
life in Christ, but is progressively furthered as
we struggle, with God's grace and help, against adversity
and temptation. In this struggle we are assured that
Christ's grace will be sufficient for us, enabling
us to persevere to the end. When we fail, we can still
turn to God in humble repentance and confidently ask
for, and receive, his forgiveness.
We may therefore
have assured hope for the eternal life promised to
us in Christ. As we have shared in his sufferings,
we will share in his final glory. "We shall be
like him, for we shall see him as he is." ('John
3:2) While we dare not presume upon the grace of God,
the promise of God in Christ is utterly reliable,
and faith in that promise overcomes anxiety about
our eternal future. We are bound by faith itself to
have firm hope, to encourage one another in that hope,
and in such hope we rejoice. For believers "through
faith are shielded by God's power until the coming
of the salvation to be revealed in the last time."
(1 Peter 1:5)
Thus it is that
as justified sinners we have been saved, we are being
saved, and we will be saved. All this is the gift
of God. Faith issues in a confident hope for a new
heaven and a new earth in which God's creating and
redeeming purposes are gloriously fulfilled. "Therefore
God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the
name which is above every name, that at the name of
Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth
and under the earth, and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
(Philippians 2:9-11)
As believers we
are sent into the world and commissioned to be bearers
of the good news, to serve one another in love, to
do good to all, and to evangelize everyone everywhere.
It is our responsibility and firm resolve to bring
to the whole world the tidings of God's love and of
the salvation accomplished in our crucified, risen,
and returning Lord. Many are in grave peril of being
eternally lost because they do not know the way to
salvation.
In obedience to
the Great Commission of our Lord, we commit ourselves
to evangelizing everyone. We must share the fullness
of God's saving truth with all, including members
of our several communities. Evangelicals must speak
the gospel to Catholics and Catholics to Evangelicals,
always speaking the truth in love, so that "working
hard to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond
of peace...the body of Christ may be built up until
we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge
of the Son of God." (Ephesians 4:3, 12-13)
Moreover, we defend
religious freedom for all. Such freedom is grounded
in the The dignity of the human person created in
the image of God, and must be protected also in civil
law.
We must not allow
our witness as Christians to be compromised by half-hearted
discipleship or needlessly divisive disputes. While
we rejoice in the unity we have discovered and are
confident of the fundamental truths about the gift
of salvation we have affirmed, we recognize that there
are necessarily interrelated questions that require
further and urgent exploration. Among such questions
are these: the meaning of baptismal regeneration,
the Eucharist, and sacramental grace; the historic
uses of the language of justification as it relates
to imputed and transformative righteousness; the normative
status of justification in relation to all Christian
doctrine; the assertion that while justification is
by faith alone, the faith that receives salvation
is never alone; diverse understandings of merit, reward,
purgatory, and indulgences; Marian devotion and the
assistance of the saints in the life of salvation;
and the possibility of salvation for those who have
not been evangelized.
On these and other
questions, we recognize that there are also some differences
within both the Evangelical and Catholic communities.
We arc committed to examining these questions further
in our continuing conversations. All who truly believe
in Jesus Christ are brothers and sisters in the Lord
and must not allow their differences, however important,
to undermine this great truth, or to deflect them
from bearing witness together to God's gift of salvation
in Christ. "I appeal to you, brothers, in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree
with one another so that there may be no divisions
among you and that you may be perfectly united in
mind and thought." (1 Corinthians 1:10.)
As Evangelicals
who thank God for the heritage of the Reformation
and affirm with conviction its classic confessions,
as Catholics who are conscientiously faithful to the
teaching of the Catholic Church,. and as disciples
together of the Lord Jesus Christ who recognize our
debt to our Christian forebears and our obligations
to our contemporaries and those who will come after
us, we affirm our unity in the gospel that we have
here professed. In our continuing discussions, we
seek no unity other than unity in the truth. Only
unity in the truth can be pleasing to the Lord and
Savior whom we together serve, for he is "the
way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6).
Evangelicals
Dr. Gerald L. Bray (Beeson Divinity School)
Dr. Bill Bright (Campus Crusade for Christ)
Dr. Harold O.J. Brown (Trinity Evangelical Divinity
School)
Dr. Charles Colson Prison Fellowship Ministries)
Bishop William C. Frey (Episcopal Church)
Dr. Timothy George (Beeson Divinity School)
Dr. Os Guinness (The Trinity Forum)
Dr. Kent R. Hill (Eastern Nazarene College)
Rev. Max Lucado (Oak Hills Church of Christ. San
Antonio, TX)
Dr. T. M. Moore (Chesapeake Theological Seminary)
Dr. Richard Mouw (Fuller Theological Seminary)
Dr. Mark A. Noll (Wheaton College)
Mr. Brian O'Connell (1nterdev)
Dr. Thomas Oden (Drew University)
Dr. James J.I. Packer (Regent College, British Columbia)
Dr. Timothy R. Phillips (Wheaton College)
Dr. John Rodgers (Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry)
Dr. Robert A. Seiple (World Vision U.S.)
Dr. John Woodbridge (Trinity Evangelical Divinity
School)
Roman Catholic
Father James J. Buckley (Loyola College in Maryland)
Father J. A. Di Noia, O.P. (Dominican House of Studies)
Father Avery Dulles, S.J. (Fordham University)
Mr. Keith A. Fournier (Catholic Alliance)
Father Thomas Guarino (Seton Hall University)
Dr. Peter Kreeft (Boston College)
Father Matthew L. Lamb (Boston College)
Father Eugene LaVerdiere, S.S.S. (Emmanuel)
Father Francis Martin (John Paul II Institute for
Studies on Marriage and Family)
Mr. Ralph Martin (Renewal Ministries)
Father Richard John Neuhaus (Religion and Public
Life)
Mr. Michael Novak (American Enterprise Institute)
Father Edward Oakes, S.J. (Regis University)
Father Thomas P. Rausch, S.J. (Loyola Marymount
University)
Mr. George Weigel (Ethics and Public Policy Center)
Dr. Robert Louis Wilken (University of Virginia)
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