It’s frequently said these days that Luther was an innovator in his doctrine of justification. He appealed to Augustine, but distorted Augustine in the process of defending his forensic understanding of justification.
Mark Ellingsen ( SJT , 2011) argues that such assessments fail to recognize the richness and diversity of Augustine’s statements on justification. Ellingson notes that in the Enchiridion , Augustine writes that “Christ, then, being made sin, just as we are made righteousness (our righteousness being not our own, but God’s, not in ourselves, but in Him.”
Further, “The role of faith in justifying us is no less clearly affirmed in the antiPelagian writings of the African father. At these points Augustine also seems to embrace a forensic view of justification, as he contends that ‘faith is counted for righteousness.’” Following Scriptural images, Augustine says that we are “clothed” in righteousness, and that God “bestows righteousness,” thus seeming “to imply the passivity of faith and the righteousness that saves.”
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