The Just Shall Live By Faith: Resolving the Catholic-Protestant Debate on Justification from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans

by Erick Ybarra

This is why the imputation of righteousness and the forgiveness of sins (Rom. 4:6-8), as was argued in the previous chapter, are ontologically tied up with the infusion of righteousness as the death element of regeneration in Christ is what puts away the old man with all of its guilt. There is not a purely forensic reality of pardoning guilt and then another ontological reality of sanctification that are both morally joined together simultaneously. Rather, the one gift of regeneration involves the ontological re-creation of the human being which itself causes the infusion of justice, and therefore the blotting out of iniquities. The ontology of renewal is therefore pre-requisite to the forgiveness of sins, however much the latter reality can be called a forensic act of pardon.