The Reformation debate over justification was not simply about grace versus works — both sides affirmed that salvation is by grace. The dispute centered on how righteousness is reckoned: Luther and Calvin insisted that justification is forensic, a declaration of righteousness by imputation of Christ's merit, while Rome taught that it involves an infusion of righteousness that genuinely transforms the soul. Calvin targeted the Schoolmen's teaching that moral preparations could precede and enable grace; Luther dismantled the notion that works before or after grace contribute to meriting remission. Both agreed that Rome's system — however subtly — made salvation partly a human achievement. Within Protestantism, Arminius and Episcopius accepted the Reformation's rejection of merit but qualified faith itself as living and active, tied to repentance and love, though non-meritorious — marking the first major intra-Protestant divergence on justification's conditions.
"With Paul we absolutely deny the possibility of self-merit. God never yet gave to any person grace and everlasting life as a reward for merit." Luther's most sustained demolition of the Roman merit system, working through Galatians to show that no works — moral, ceremonial, or judicial — can contribute to justification.
"They say that he merited for us the first grace, that is, the occasion of meriting, and that it is our part not to let slip the occasion thus offered." Calvin identifies Rome's core error: Christ provides the occasion for merit, leaving humans to cooperate. Against this, Calvin grounds justification entirely in imputed righteousness — pardon, adoption, and reconciliation — with no human contribution.
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