Is Our Justification Rooted in Interior Righteousness? Romans Has the Answer!

Is Our Justification Rooted in Interior Righteousness? Romans Has the Answer!

TRANSCRIPT:

One of the big issues that divides Catholics and some Protestants is how we understand justification. Catholics believe we stand just before God on account of an interior state of holiness—called sanctification—that God brings about within us. Protestants of the Reformed Tradition, however, deny this teaching and argue that we are just before God solely because he declares us just on account of account of the imputed righteousness of Christ.

 

So what does the Bible have to say about this? In particular, what does St. Paul teach? That’s the question we’re gonna answer in today’s episode.

 

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So, as I mentioned, Catholics and Protestants of the Reformed tradition disagree over the nature of justification. That’s a theological term that at its core simply refers to being in a right relationship with God—no longer being subject to condemnation because of sin.

 

In its Decree on Justification, the Council of Trent taught that, in justification,

 

[READ 1]

“not only are we reputed [that is, considered ‘righteous’ or ‘just’ by God], but we are truly called and are just, receiving justice within us.” The Council goes on to clarify: “Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man” (chapter 7).

 

So for a Catholic, God counts a believer as being at peace with Him—justified—because, by a sheer gratuitous gift, He brings about within the believer, through faith and charity, a real interior state of righteousness. In other words, sanctification isn’t just something that follows justification; it’s wrapped up in what justification actually is.

 

Now, Protestants in the Reformed tradition tend to draw a sharp distinction between justification and sanctification. On this view, when a believer is “saved” or justified, what makes him righteous before God is not any interior holiness, but merely God’s declaration that he is righteous on account of Christ’s righteousness being imputed to him. Interior righteousness—or holiness—may accompany justification, they argue, but it’s not what grounds our right standing before God.

 

A well-known example comes from the late R.C. Sproul, who writes:

 

[READ #1]

It is not the change in our nature wrought by regeneration [Trent’s “justice within us”] or even the faith that flows from it that is the ground of our justification [being declared justified]. That remains solely the imputed righteousness of Christ 

 

What Sproul is saying is that God treats Christ’s righteousness as though it were ours—that’s what he means by the “imputed righteousness of Christ”—and on that basis God declares us just. That declaration alone, he says, is what makes us righteous before God. Any interior change—from ungodliness to godliness—plays no role in justification itself. That interior change is regeneration, which results in a state of sanctification, and sanctification, on this view, is fundamentally distinct from justification. Bottom line: we’re justified only on account of God saying-so.

 

A full refutation of this Reformed view would require two things. First, we’d need to show that the interior change wrought by regeneration is as at least part of the grounds for our justification, even if not the only grounds. Second, we’d need to show that justification is not grounded in the imputed righteousness of Christ. If we could establish both, the Reformed view would be refuted. And the Catholic position—that the interior change brought about by sanctifying grace is the sole ground of justification, what Trent calls the “single formal cause”—would be established.

 

Given the limited time we have in today’s episode, we’re going to focus only on the first part: showing that interior righteousness is, in fact, constitutive of justification itself.

 

And to do that, we’re going to focus on three passages from Romans: Romans 5:1-2, 5-11, Romans 6:17-18, and Romans 4:5.

 

Let’s turn to Romans 5. The key passage is verses 5-11, but verses 1-2 set the context. Paul writes,

 

[READ #2]

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access [by faith] to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God.

 

Now, to verses 5-11:

 

[READ #3]

[A]nd hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man—though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation.

 

The first thing to notice is that Paul is clearly talking about justification. Just a few verses earlier, in verse 1, he says explicitly, “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God.” Then, in verse 9, he says, “Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood.”

Now notice how Paul frames things. He contrasts the state of being “ungodly” or “sinners” with the state of having God’s love poured into our hearts. Paul describes both his former condition and that of the Roman Christians as an ungodly state—one marked by sin and interior defilement: “While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (v.6). From a Catholic perspective, this is a state in which the soul lacks sanctifying grace because of what we call mortal sin.

But here’s the turning point. Paul says they were taken out of that state because, as he says in verse 5, “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

 

That phrase—“into our hearts”—is crucial. In Scripture, the “heart” refers to the interior core of the person. God says through the prophet Jeremiah, in 17:10, “I the LORD search the mind and test the heart.” And Jesus teaches in Mark 7: 20-23 that sin comes “from within, out of the heart of man.”

 

So for Paul, the opposite of being ungodly isn’t merely an external change in status. It’s something deeply interior. It’s having God’s love dwelling within us—a love that makes us genuinely holy within.

 

What’s especially interesting is that Paul identifies this very interior state as the state of being justified. He says in verse 1 that they are justified, and then he explicitly contrasts that justified state with their former condition of being ungodly.

 

He writes in verses 7–8:

 

[READ #4]

Only with difficulty does one die for a just person… But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

 

Notice the contrast: “sinners” versus “the just.” Paul’s point is that when they were sinners—ungodly—they were not just. The implication is obvious. Since they’re no longer in that ungodly state, they are now just.

 

So for Paul, the state opposite of ungodliness is justification. And he describes that same state as having God’s love poured into our hearts. That tells us something important: justification, for Paul, is constituted by God’s love dwelling within us. And since God’s love within us entails real interior holiness, it follows that justification involves an interior state of holiness.

 

Now let’s look at the other passage, Romans 6:17–18. Paul writes,

 

[READ #5]

But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

 

The first thing to note is that the Greek word for “righteousness” here is dikaiosunē, which is closely related to the verb dikaioō, the word Paul regularly uses for “justify.” Paul uses this same verb when he speaks of Abraham being “justified” by faith in Romans 5:1 and 4:2, and he uses dikaiosunē when he says Abraham’s faith was “reckoned as righteousness” in Romans 4:5.

 

So when Paul talks about being “slaves of righteousness,” he’s talking about a state of justification—just like Abraham’s.

 

Now, according to Romans 5:1, justification is another way of describing the peace we have with God: “Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God.” To have peace with God is to be in a right relationship with Him—to no longer be under condemnation.

 

So the state of being “slaves of righteousness”—the state of justification—is the state of being at peace with God, having a right relationship with him.

 

Now notice something else. Paul describes two states that are contrasted with the same thing: slavery to sin. First, he contrasts slavery to sin with becoming “obedient from the heart.” Second, he contrasts slavery to sin with being “slaves of righteousness.”

 

Because both contrasts share the same starting point—slavery to sin—it’s reasonable to conclude that Paul is describing the same reality in two different ways. He doesn’t draw a hard line between “obedience from the heart” and being “slaves of righteousness.” He treats them as one and the same.

 

Here’s where the Catholic understanding of righteousness really comes into focus. Obedience to God from the heart means that our intellect and will are rightly ordered toward God as our supernatural end—disposed to believe what He reveals and to do what He commands. That’s an interior state. It’s something that shapes who we are.

 

And Paul identifies that interior state—brought about by grace—as the state of being “slaves of righteousness,” which, as we’ve seen, is a state of justification. So interior righteousness is at least a ground of justification.

 

This reading is further confirmed by Romans 6:7, where Paul says, “For he who has died [the death of baptism] is freed from sin.” The Greek verb translated “freed” is dikaioō. Literally, the text says, “he who has died is justified from sin.”

 

Here Paul explicitly connects justification with freedom from slavery to sin—which, as we’ve seen, is the interior state of obedience from the heart. So in Paul’s mind, justification is not divorced from interior transformation. It’s precisely what the Council of Trent called the “justice within us.”

 

Now, to be fair, we can agree—at least to a point—with Protestants of the Reformed tradition when they say that God declares us just. The Council of Trent itself says, “not only are we reputed [just], but we are truly called and are just.” In other words, yes—God does declare us righteous. But according to Paul, that declaration corresponds to a real interior reality: the righteousness that God brings about within us by grace—what Paul calls “obedience from the heart.”

 

Alright! Let’s turn the last passage from Romans that we’re going to look at today: Romans 4:5. I think this text rounds out the picture for us. Paul writes,

 

And to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness

 

Notice Paul tells us the believer’s faith is reckoned as righteousness.

 

Now, faith is a supernatural act involving both intellect and will—the intellect assents to the truth that God has made promises and then is moved by the will to trust Him. That means the interior powers of the soul are rightly ordered to God—and not just ordered to God as their natural end but as their supernatural end. And this in turn means the person is supernaturally ordered to God. You can’t have powers supernaturally ordered to God and the person to whom the powers belong not be supernaturally ordered. And to be supernaturally ordered to God just is to be righteous—or justified.

That’s why Paul says in verse 3 that righteousness was credited to Abraham because he believed God. Abraham’s faith constituted an interior state of being ordered to God as his supernatural end—that’s to say, a state of righteousness.

Now, if that interior act of faith grounds righteousness, then justification itself is rooted within the person. It’s not merely forensic.

 

So Paul’s teaching on Abraham shows us that justification is a rich, multifaceted reality—one that includes God’s gracious action within us, not just a declaration about us.

 

Conclusion

 

So where does all of this leave us?

 

When we step back and look carefully at Romans, Paul doesn’t present justification as a purely external verdict that floats free from what God actually does within us. Over and over again, he links being justified—being at peace with God—to a real interior transformation: God’s love poured into our hearts, obedience from the heart, freedom from slavery to sin, becoming slaves of righteousness, and faith that makes one righteous.

 

That doesn’t mean Catholics deny that God declares us just. We can gladly affirm that He does. But for Paul, that declaration isn’t one sided. It corresponds to something real—something God brings about in us by grace. When God declares us righteous, He is declaring what He has actually made us to be.

 

This is why the Catholic teaching, articulated at the Council of Trent, fits so naturally with Paul’s theology. Justification is the forgiveness of sins that involves the sanctification and renewal of the interior man. In other words, God doesn’t merely change our status; He changes us.

 

Now, as I mentioned earlier, more work would be needed to show that this interior righteousness is the sole ground of justification—the “single formal cause” to quote the Council of Trent. But at the very least, Romans makes one thing clear: Paul does not drive a wedge between being justified and being interiorly transformed by grace. In his mind, they are identical.

 

And that’s an important takeaway. The Gospel isn’t just about God saying something about us. It’s about God doing something to us—reconciling us, healing us, and making us truly righteous in Christ. And if that’s how Paul understands justification, then that’s how we should understand it too.

 

If you’re interested in getting these arguments in written form, check out my articles “God Puts His Money Where His Mouth Is” and “You’re Not Ungodly Anymore” over at catholic.com.

 

Well, my friends, that’s it for today! If you found this video helpful, make sure to like, subscribe, comment below, and share it with someone who might need to hear this. And for more resources, check out our website at catholic.com, my personal website karlobroussard.com.

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