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

by Erick Ybarra

This major motif of the 1st and 2nd Adam being the framework of redemption is wonderfully described by the late Catholic theologian Monsignor Canon E. Meyers: In the mystery of redemption by the Word Incarnate we see the relation of fallen man to God changed to man’s advantage; he has been redeemed, saved, reconciled, delivered, justified, regenerated; he has become a new creature. The significance of the redemption from the point of view of our subject lies in this, that the redemption of man is analogous to his fall. All men, deriving their human nature from Adam, had inherited from him the stain of original sin, and thus the whole human race in one man had been set at enmity with God. Just as man’s fall had been corporate, so his reconciliation was to be corporate too. For the fatal solidary with Adam which had resulted in death and sin was to be substituted a new and salutary solidary whereby all men, born in the sin of the first Adam, might be regenerated to the life of grace in the new Adam, Jesus Christ. Our lost rights to supernatural development in this world, and to a vision of God after the time of probation, have been restored to us through the supernatural action of Christ’s human nature, hypostatically united to the Word of God. Christ is the Spokesman of mankind, the Representative Man, the Second Adam, carrying out for our sakes what we could not carry out for ourselves, giving to God that glory and adoration, that worship, thanksgiving, and reparation, whi...