Luther’s Reformatory Discovery: Justification by Faith

Abstract

Luther saw from his monastic ascetic experience and the corruption and external ostentation reflected in the sacraments of the Catholic Church at that time that Catholicism had not solved the most critical problem – “How can man continue to stand before God”,that is, the question of why humans can be justified.The doctrine of justification by faith is regarded as the cornerstone and yardstick of Luther's entire theology, the “sun that illuminates God's Holy Church,” and is concerned with the rise and fall of the entire church. This paper combs the historical background of Luther's Reformation and the five theological sources of the doctrine of justification by faith, expounds the essential attributes of "faith" and "justification" as well as the relationship between "faith" and "justification", and intends to make a more comprehensive and in-depth interpretation and analysis of Luther's core doctrine of justification by faith by using the current relatively new literature.