Zusammenfassung / Summary
Different understandings of the justification of the sinner by God's grace was one of the major reasons for division in the Western Church. This is why the Churches that are trying to get back together again are expanding and deepening their teaching on justification and thus opening it up to each other. This is where Vatican II's teaching that the Church is God's messianic people "made up of Jews and Gentiles" - found above all in "Lumen gentium" No. 9 - can point the way. For this teaching leads to the recognition that the Church bears within itself a concrete Jewish heritage. To accept and to live this truth enables us to see the many different ways in which the acceptance of justifying grace has aspects that flow from our belonging to God's messianic people.