97. It is very different with the tenets or teachings of the new church, though. All of them are essential elements. Heaven and the church are present in each one of them. The goal toward which they aim is for us to be in the Lord and for the Lord to be in us, according to his own words in John 14:20; 15:4, 5, 6. Simply put, the [true] Christian church is this type of partnership with the Lord.

From the mere handful of points just made, we can clearly see the meaning of the Lord’s words:

The one who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new”; and said to me, “Write, because these words are true and faithful.” (Revelation 21:5)

7. The teachings of the Roman Catholics on justification, as gathered from the decrees of the Council of Trent, can be linked together and summed up as follows:

The sin of Adam was transfused into the entire human race. As a result, the state of the human race and of every individual within it was ruined and alienated from God. People became enemies [of God] and children of wrath. Therefore God the Father as an act of grace sent his Son to reconcile, ritually purge, appease, make satisfaction, and thereby redeem; and to do so by becoming justice.

Christ carried out and fulfilled this task by offering himself to God the Father as a sacrifice on the wood of the cross, that is, through his own suffering and his own blood. Christ alone earned merit. God the Father through the agency of the Holy Spirit assigns, attributes, applies, and transfers this merit of Christ’s to receptive individuals as an act of grace. In this way the sin of Adam is removed from them, although cravings do nonetheless remain and entice them to sin.

Justification is the forgiving of sins, which leads to a renewal of the inner self, by which we turn from an enemy [of God] into a friend and from a child of wrath into a child of grace. This brings us into a union with Christ. We are reborn as a living part of his body.