1520–1571

Justification in Protestantism after Luther: Zwingli, Melanchthon's Forensic Justification, Bucer's Double Justification

McGrath shows that already in the 1520s the reformers understood justification in different ways. For Luther it was the center of theology, while in the early Swiss circle reformation meant above all the improvement of life and morals: Zwingli saw Christ as an external moral example, placed moral renewal above salvation and, unlike Luther, regarded law and gospel as essentially one. Melanchthon distinguished declared righteousness ("justification"), which God pronounces in the heavenly court, from imparted righteousness ("sanctification"); McGrath calls this a complete break with the teaching of the church, in which justification had included both declaration and becoming righteous. In the 1530s Bucer proposed a double justification – the forgiveness of the ungodly and the obedience of the godly with the help of the Spirit. The English reformers fixed justification by faith alone in the Thirty-Nine Articles.