Justification By Faith Alone Quotes

I'm afraid that in the United States of America today the prevailing doctrine of justification is not justification by faith alone. It is not even justification by good works or by a combination of faith and works. The prevailing notion of justification in our culture today is justification by death. All one has to do to be received into the everlasting arms of God is to die.

It was only by faith in Christ that they could secure pardon of sin and receive strength to obey God's law. They must cease to rely upon their own efforts for salvation, they must trust wholly in the merits of the promised Saviour, if they would be accepted of God.

A purposeless virtue is a contradiction in terms. Virtue, like harmony, cannot exist alone; a virtue must lead to harmony between one creature and another. To be good for nothing is just that. If a virtue has been thought a virtue long enough, it must be assumed to have practical justification - though the very longevity that proves its practicality may obscure it. That seems to be what happened with the idea of fidelity... Our age could be characterized as a manifold experiment in faithlessness, and if it has as yet produced no effective understanding of the practicalities of faith, it has certainly produced massive evidence of the damage and disorder of its absence. (pg.115-116, "The Body and the Earth")

Justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.

Faith is not the ground or basis upon which we are justified, but the means, the "instrument," by which we are united to Christ, in whom our justification, our "right-wising" with God, has been accomplished.

Just as the sin of Adam was imputed to all people, so also the obedience of Christ has been imputed to believers. Adam

Justification is by faith alone, but it isn’t a faith that is alone, for true faith produces good works. Still, good works are not the ground or cause of salvation; they are the fruit of one’s faith. The perfect righteousness of Christ is imputed to believers, so that their righteousness is not inherent but is theirs because they are united to Jesus Christ.76 At the final judgment God will declare publicly what was already the case in the lives of believers, i.e., that they are righteous by faith, and their works will verify (but will not be the foundation of) that declaration.

Those who respond in trust or faith to the faith of Christ are moved into Christ, into the sphere of his life. In that sphere, and there alone, is justification to be found. Simultaneously, those who move into Christ find that Christ has moved into them, so to speak.

For the word of God cannot be received and honoured by any works, but by faith alone. Hence it is clear that as the soul needs the word alone for life and justification, so it is justified by faith alone, and not by any works. For if it could be justified by any other means, it would have no need of the word, nor consequently of faith.

Believing in the gospel isn’t optional. It is imperative, for those who don’t put their trust in Jesus will face eschatological humiliation (Rom 9:33; 10:11). Conversely, believers are the children of Abraham (Gal 3:6; cf. 3:8) and therefore the children of God (3:26). They belong to God’s family and are members of the true Israel of God (6:16). Those

Manifest in this trade (commercial sale of indulgences via bankers) at the same time was a pernicious tendency in the Roman Catholic system, for the trade in indulgences was not an excess or an abuse but the direct consequence of the nomistic degradation of the gospel. That the Reformation started with Luther’s protest against this traffic in indulgences proves its religious origin and evangelical character. At issue here was nothing less than the essential character of the gospel, the core of Christianity, the nature of true piety. And Luther was the man who, guided by experience in the life of his own soul, again made people understand the original and true meaning of the gospel of Christ. Like the “righteousness of God,” so the term “penitence” had been for him one of the most bitter words of Holy Scripture. But when from Romans 1:17 he learned to know a “righteousness by faith,” he also learned “the true manner of penitence.” He then understood that the repentance demanded in Matthew 4:17 had nothing to do with the works of satisfaction required in the Roman institution of confession, but consisted in “a change of mind in true interior contrition” and with all its benefits was itself a fruit of grace. In the first seven of his ninety-five theses and further in his sermon on “Indulgences and Grace” (February 1518), the sermon on “Penitence” (March 1518), and the sermon on the “Sacrament of Penance” (1519), he set forth this meaning of repentance or conversion and developed the glorious thought that the most important part of penitence consists not in private confession (which cannot be found in Scripture) nor in satisfaction (for God forgives sins freely) but in true sorrow over sin, in a solemn resolve to bear the cross of Christ, in a new life, and in the word of absolution, that is, the word of the grace of God in Christ. The penitent arrives at forgiveness of sins, not by making amends (satisfaction) and priestly absolution, but by trusting the word of God, by believing in God’s grace. It is not the sacrament but faith that justifies. In that way Luther came to again put sin and grace in the center of the Christian doctrine of salvation. The forgiveness of sins, that is, justification, does not depend on repentance, which always remains incomplete, but rests in God’s promise and becomes ours by faith alone.

Lutheran ideology unleashed libido to achieve its political and ecclesial ends, and Luther, like Hugh Hefner, discovered that the only way to make use of libido effectively was to create for his contemporaries an escape from the guilt that accompanied its satisfaction. The sixteenth-century equivalent of the Playboy Philosophy was justification by faith alone, culminating in the doctrine of the enslaved will. De Servo Arbitrio, it should be remembered, was published in the same year that Luther married. Luther, in creating his doctrine of the enslaved will, became the first modern man, and Lutheranism became the first modern ideology. Its primary attraction to the hordes of apostate priests and nuns who flocked to Wittenberg to follow him lay in its ability to rationalize sexual license and broken vows.

we shouldn’t attribute the power of justification to something formed in us that makes us pleasing to God. We must attribute it to faith, which takes hold of Christ the Savior and keeps him in our hearts. This faith justifies us apart from love and prior to love. We concede that we must also teach about good works and love. But we only teach these at the proper time and place—when the question deals with how we should live, not how we are justified.

Mankind could point with pride to this fine flower of the human spirit--if it were not for one thing: namely that God is God and grace is grace. At this point begins the destruction of our illusions and of our cultural enthusiasm, the great destruction which God himself effects, and which the ancient myth of the tower of Babel typifies. 'And if by grace, then it is no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace.' Our way to the eternal is interrupted and we are plunged back into the depths from which we came, with out philosophy and art, our morality and religion. For another way now opens, the way of God to man, the way of revelation and grace, the way of Christ, the way of justification by faith alone. 'My ways are not your ways,' that is the answer now. It is not we who go to God, but God who comes to us. It is not religion that sets us right with God, for God alone can do this; it is his action on which we must depend.

The genius of the divine way of salvation by faith is that in it we are personally, actively united to Jesus Christ, but in a way that contributes nothing to His work. Faith is by definition noncontributory; it is the reception of Christ, not an addition to His finished work. B. B. Warfield finely puts it this way: It is not faith that saves, but faith in Jesus Christ.... It is not, strictly speaking, even faith in Christ that saves, but Christ that saves through faith. The saving power resides exclusively, not in the act of faith or the attitude of faith or in the nature of faith, but in the object of faith.14 In this sense, even though we are actively involved in faith, we are passive with respect to the accomplishing of justification. In the deepest sense, then, it is by grace that we are saved through faith, and that (whether the grace, the faith, or the union of the two in justification) is the gift of God; it is not of works, lest anyone should boast (Eph. 2:8-9; notice the reiteration of the theme of non-boasting of Rom. 3:27).

At the heart of the Reformation message was a rejection of the power of individual believers, or of the church acting on their behalf, to affect God's judgment about who should be saved and who should be damned. Martin Luther had been convinced, like Augustine, of the powerlessness and unworthiness of fallen humanity, and struck by the force of God's mercy. Good works could not merit this mercy, or affect a sovereign God; instead individual sinners were entirely dependent on God's mercy and justified (saved) by faith alone. Jean Calvin, a generation later, developed more clearly the predestinarian implications - since some men were saved and some were damned, and since this had nothing to do with their own efforts, it must mean that God had created some men predestined for salvation (the elect). This seemed to imply that He must also have predestined other men for damnation (double predestination), a line of argument which led into dangerous territory. Some theologians, Calvin's close associate Beza among them, went further and argued that the entire course of human history was foreordained prior to Adam and Eve's fall in the Garden of Eden. These views (particularly the latter, 'supralapsarian' arguments) seemed to their opponents to suggest that God was the author of the sin, both in Eden and in those who were subsequently predestined for damnation. They also raised a question about Christ's sacrifice on the cross - had that been made to atone for the sins of all, or only of the elect? Because of these dangers many of those with strong predestinarian views were unsure about whether the doctrine should be openly preached. Clever theologians, like expensive lawyers, are adept at failing to push arguments too far and there were many respectable positions short of the one adopted by Beza. But predestination was for many Protestants a fundamental - retreat from this doctrine implied a role for free will expressed in works rather than justification by faith. It thus reopened the door to the corruptions of late-medieval Christianity.

Fascism rested not upon the truth of its doctrine but upon the leader’s mystical union with the historic destiny of his people, a notion related to romanticist ideas of national historic flowering and of individual artistic or spiritual genius, though fascism otherwise denied romanticism’s exaltation of unfettered personal creativity. The fascist leader wanted to bring his people into a higher realm of politics that they would experience sensually: the warmth of belonging to a race now fully aware of its identity, historic destiny, and power; the excitement of participating in a vast collective enterprise; the gratification of submerging oneself in a wave of shared feelings, and of sacrificing one’s petty concerns for the group’s good; and the thrill of domination. Fascism’s deliberate replacement of reasoned debate with immediate sensual experience transformed politics, as the exiled German cultural critic Walter Benjamin was the first to point out, into aesthetics. And the ultimate fascist aesthetic experience, Benjamin warned in 1936, was war. Fascist leaders made no secret of having no program. Mussolini exulted in that absence. “The Fasci di Combattimento,” Mussolini wrote in the “Postulates of the Fascist Program” of May 1920, “. . . do not feel tied to any particular doctrinal form.” A few months before he became prime minister of Italy, he replied truculently to a critic who demanded to know what his program was: “The democrats of Il Mondo want to know our program? It is to break the bones of the democrats of Il Mondo. And the sooner the better.” “The fist,” asserted a Fascist militant in 1920, “is the synthesis of our theory.” Mussolini liked to declare that he himself was the definition of Fascism. The will and leadership of a Duce was what a modern people needed, not a doctrine. Only in 1932, after he had been in power for ten years, and when he wanted to “normalize” his regime, did Mussolini expound Fascist doctrine, in an article (partly ghostwritten by the philosopher Giovanni Gentile) for the new Enciclopedia italiana. Power came first, then doctrine. Hannah Arendt observed that Mussolini “was probably the first party leader who consciously rejected a formal program and replaced it with inspired leadership and action alone.” Hitler did present a program (the 25 Points of February 1920), but he pronounced it immutable while ignoring many of its provisions. Though its anniversaries were celebrated, it was less a guide to action than a signal that debate had ceased within the party. In his first public address as chancellor, Hitler ridiculed those who say “show us the details of your program. I have refused ever to step before this Volk and make cheap promises.” Several consequences flowed from fascism’s special relationship to doctrine. It was the unquestioning zeal of the faithful that counted, more than his or her reasoned assent. Programs were casually fluid. The relationship between intellectuals and a movement that despised thought was even more awkward than the notoriously prickly relationship of intellectual fellow travelers with communism. Many intellectuals associated with fascism’s early days dropped away or even went into opposition as successful fascist movements made the compromises necessary to gain allies and power, or, alternatively, revealed its brutal anti-intellectualism. We will meet some of these intellectual dropouts as we go along. Fascism’s radical instrumentalization of truth explains why fascists never bothered to write any casuistical literature when they changed their program, as they did often and without compunction. Stalin was forever writing to prove that his policies accorded somehow with the principles of Marx and Lenin; Hitler and Mussolini never bothered with any such theoretical justification. Das Blut or la razza would determine who was right.

Antinomianism and legalism conspire in forcing us to make a false choice: Is salvation a matter of God's forgiveness or is it moral transformation? This is a trick question from the Reformers' point of view. Calvin reasons, "Surely those things which are connected do not destroy one another!" Forensic justification through faith alone is not the enemy but the basis of sanctification.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones taught that the gospel emphasis on grace could be lost in several ways. A church might simply become heterodox — losing its grip on the orthodox tenets of theology that under-gird the gospel, such as the triune nature of God, the deity of Christ, the wrath of God, and so on. It may turn its back on the very belief in justification by faith alone and the need for conversion and so move toward a view that being a Christian is simply a matter of church membership or of living a life based on Christ’s example. This cuts the nerve of gospel renewal and revival.2 But it is possible to subscribe to every orthodox doctrine and nevertheless fail to communicate the gospel to people’s hearts in a way that brings about repentance, joy, and spiritual growth. One way this happens is through dead orthodoxy, in which such pride grows in our doctrinal correctness that sound teaching and right church practice become a kind of works-righteousness. Carefulness in doctrine and life is, of course, critical, but when it is accompanied in a church by self-righteousness, mockery, disdain of everyone else, and a contentious, combative attitude, it shows that, while the doctrine of justification may be believed, a strong spirit of legalism reigns nonetheless. The doctrine has failed to touch hearts.3 Lloyd-Jones also speaks of “defective orthodoxy” and “spiritual inertia.”4 Some churches hold to orthodox doctrines but with imbalances and a lack of proper emphasis. Many ministries spend more time defending the faith than propagating it. Or they may give an inordinate amount of energy and attention to matters such as prophecy or spiritual gifts or creation and evolution. A church may become enamored with the mechanics of ministry and church organization. There are innumerable reasons that critical doctrines of grace and justification and conversion, though strongly held, are kept “on the shelf.” They are not preached and communicated in such a way that connects to people’s lives. People see the doctrines — yet they do not see them.

Wilberforce understood that massive practical action for good comes about not first as a result of moral exhortation or appeals to change but rather as a result of understanding and embracing doctrine — most centrally the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

we cannot leave behind our doctrine and theology in an effort to be more pragmatic and productive. Rather, the way to become truly productive is to anchor our lives squarely and securely on the great truths of the Bible, especially the gospel of justification by faith alone.

I heard the sound of a mill. As I followed the sound I came to a building that was full of cracks. The entrance went down underground. Inside I saw a man who was collecting [on slips of paper] a number of passages from the Word and other books concerning justification by faith alone. Copyists in the next room were writing out on a full sheet the passages he had found. When I asked him the topic of the passages he was collecting now, he said, “The point that God the Father lapsed from an attitude of grace toward the human race, and therefore sent his Son to make atonement and appease the Father.” By way of response, I said that it goes against Scripture and sound reason to think that God could lapse from an attitude of grace; that would be lapsing from his own essence, and that would mean he was no longer God. When I thoroughly demonstrated this, he became angry and ordered his copyists to throw me out. As I was walking out on my own, he picked up a book that happened to be at hand and threw it at me. The book was the Word.

There are no marks in these books which would attest a divine origin. . . . both Judith and Tobit contain historical, chronological and geographical errors. The books justify falsehood and deception and make salvation to depend upon works of merit. . . . Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon inculcate a morality based upon expediency. Wisdom teaches the creation of the world out of pre-existent matter (11:17). Ecclesiasticus teaches that the giving of alms makes atonement for sin (3:30). In Baruch it is said that God hears the prayers of the dead (3:4), and in I Maccabees there are historical and geographical errors.17 It was not until 1546, at the Council of Trent, that the Roman Catholic Church officially declared the Apocrypha to be part of the canon (with the exception of 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh). It is significant that the Council of Trent was the response of the Roman Catholic Church to the teachings of Martin Luther and the rapidly spreading Protestant Reformation, and the books of the Apocrypha contain support for the Catholic teaching of prayers for the dead and justification by faith plus works, not by faith alone

The sixteenth-century parallel: (1) medieval scholasticism as a synthesis between the Bible, Plato, and Aristotle; (2) the heresy of works-salvation, perhaps with Tetzel as an extreme case; (3) Luther the Reformer, who like Athanasius pushes hard for the fundamental principle of justification by faith alone; and (4) Calvin the consolidator, who rethinks the whole of theology in the light of the knowledge gained in the Reformation.

We have seen that the early church fathers didn’t have clarity on justification by faith alone. At the same time, they didn’t blatantly deny the truth as Trent did. It is one thing to be fuzzy or inconsistent regarding a truth in the Scriptures, but it is quite another thing to explicitly deny it altogether. Neuhaus

How do we correlate what Paul and James teach about justification? To begin, it should be recognized that they are addressing different circumstances and situations. Paul responds to those who desire to keep the law to gain justification, whereas James responds to those who are antinomians — those who think faith without obedience is saving. Neither Paul nor James was writing a treatise on justification. Both were responding to issues facing the churches they addressed.

The Christian life comes to mean nothing more than living in the world and as the world, in being no different from the world, in fact, in being prohibited from being different from the world for the sake of grace. The upshot of it all is that my only duty as a Christian is to leave the world for an hour or so on a Sunday morning and go to church to be assured that my sins are all forgiven. I need no longer try to follow Christ, for cheap grace, the bitterest foe of discipleship, which true discipleship must loathe and detest, has freed me from that. Grace as the data for our calculations means grace at the cheapest price, but grace as the answer to the sum means costly grace. It is terrifying to realize what use can be made of a genuine evangelical doctrine. In both cases we have the identical formula—“justification by faith alone.” Yet the misuse of the formula leads to the complete destruction of its very essence.

If Paul was not reacting to a legalistic Judaism which understood salvation to be dependent ultimately on human achievement, then what was he reacting to? Sanders himself saw Paul’s reaction to be essentially confused. But James Dunn argued that the new perspective shed light on Paul’s theology by allowing us to see that its polemical thrust was directed not against the idea of achieving God’s acceptance by the merit of personal achievement (good works), but against the Jewish intention to safeguard the privilege of covenant status from being dissipated or contaminated by non-Jews. Paul was reacting primarily against the exclusivism which he himself had previously fought to maintain. In particular, he was reacting against the conviction (shared by most other Christian Jews) that ‘works of the law’, such as (or particularly) circumcision and laws of clean and unclean, continued to prescribe the terms of covenant relationship for Gentiles as well as Jews. It was in and from this conflict that Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith alone achieved its classic expression (Gal. 2:1–21). (p.10)

The Bible teaches that justification is by faith alone, yet ultimately there is only one way anybody is ever saved in the presence of God, and that is through works. The question is not whether we are going to be saved through works; the question is whose works. We are saved through the works of the One who alone fulfilled the terms of the covenant of works. That is why it is not just the death of Christ that redeems us, but it is also the life of Christ.

Those whom God effectually calleth he also freely justifieth; not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone; not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience, to them as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves; it is the gift of God.

the gospel is the power-releasing story of Jesus’s life, death for sins, resurrection, and installation as king, but that story only makes sense in the wider framework of the stories of Israel and creation. The gospel is not in the first instance a story about heaven, hell, making a decision, raising your hand after praying a certain prayer, justification by faith alone, trusting that Jesus’s righteousness is sufficient, or any putative human tendencies toward self-salvation through good works.4 It is, in the final analysis, most succinctly good news about the enthronement of Jesus the atoning king as he brings these wider stories to a climax.

Key Themes All people are sinners and need to be saved from their sin (1:18–3:20; 5:12–19). The Mosaic law is good and holy, but only Christ can remove sin and overcome its power (2:12–29; 3:9–20; 5:20; 7:1–25; 9:30–10:8). Through the righteousness of God, sin is judged and salvation is provided (3:21–26; 5:12–19; 6:1–10; 7:1–6; 8:1–4). With the coming of Jesus Christ, a new age of redemptive history has begun (1:1–7; 3:21–26; 5:1–8:39). The atoning death of Jesus Christ is central to God’s plan of salvation (3:21–26; 4:23–25; 5:6–11, 15–19; 6:1–10; 7:4–6; 8:1–4). Justification is by faith alone (1:16–4:25; 9:30–10:21). Those who are in Christ Jesus have a sure hope of future glory (5:1–8:39). By the power of the Holy Spirit, those who have died with Christ live a new life (2:25–29; 6:1–7:6; 8:1–39). God is sovereign in salvation. He works all things according to his plan (9:1–11:36). God fulfills his promises to both Jews and Gentiles (1:18–4:25; 9:1–11:36; 14:1–15:13). Because of God’s grace, Christians should be morally pure, should show love to their neighbors, should be good citizens, and should welcome their fellow believers into fullest fellowship (12:1–15:7).

Believers in Jesus Christ are “not guilty” by virtue of Jesus’ death and resurrection (Rom 4:25). Since they are “in Christ” (Eph 1:3 – 14) and united to him by faith, they are no longer in Adam (Rom 5:12 – 19; 1 Cor 15:21 – 22). Hence, Jesus’ vindication at his resurrection is their vindication, his status is their status. Believers, even now, enjoy by faith the status of the resurrected one. In other words, in the resurrection of Jesus the last times have invaded history.

justification by faith alone frees me to love my neighbor disinterestedly, for his or her own sake, as my sister or brother, not as the calculated means to my own desired ends.

Sola Gratia, meaning “grace alone,” and Sola Fide, meaning “faith alone”: Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. It is not by works; we come to Christ empty-handed. This is the great doctrine of justification by faith alone, the cornerstone of the Reformation.

We are justified by faith alone, but not by faith that is alone.

Homily IX. Rom. IV. 23 “Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him for righteousness; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead.” After saying many great things of Abraham, and his faith, and righteousness, and honor before God, lest the hearer should say, What is this to us, for it is he that was justified? he places us close to the Patriarch again. So great is the power of spiritual words. For of one of the Gentiles, one who was recently come near, one who had done no work, he not only says that he is in nothing inferior to the Jew who believes (i.e. as a Jew), but not even to the Patriarch, but rather, if one must give utterance to the wondrous truth, even much greater. For so noble is our birth, that his faith is but the type of ours. And he does not say, If it was reckoned unto him, it is probable it will be also to us, that he might not make it matter of syllogism. But he speaks in authentic words of the divine law, and makes the whole a declaration of the Scripture. For why was it written, he says, save to make us see that we also were justified in this way? For it is the same God Whom we have believed, and upon the same matters, if it be not in the case of the same persons. And after speaking of our faith, he also mentions God’s unspeakable love towards man, which he ever presents on all sides, bringing the Cross before us. And this he now makes plain by saying, Ver. 25. “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

All, therefore, were glorified and magnified, not through themselves or their own works or the righteous actions which they did, but through his will. And so we, having been called through his will in Christ Jesus, are not justified through ourselves or through our wisdom or understanding or piety or works, which we have done in holiness of heart, but through faith, by which the almighty God has justified all who have existed from the beginning, to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

I no way doubt but that many men do receive more grace from God than they understand or will own, and have a greater efficacy of it in them than they will believe. Men may be really saved by that grace which doctrinally they do deny; and they may be justified by the imputation of that righteousness, which, in opinion, they deny to be imputed: for the faith of it is included in that general assent which they give unto the truth of the gospel,

The Reformation happened for a reason! Still, the danger for many Protestants is to assume that the church had little to no understanding of the Pauline gospel for its first 1,500 years. Such a judgment is a gross exaggeration.

But when we rise to the heavenly tribunal and place before our eyes that supreme Judge . . . then in an instant the vain confidence of men perishes and falls and conscience is compelled . . . to confess that it has nothing upon which it can rely before God.” — Francis Turretin

Faith doesn’t transport us to paradise immediately because we still struggle with sin. “Thus a Christian man is righteous and a sinner at the same time, holy and profane, an enemy of God and a child of God.

Besides justification by faith alone other doctrines held by Catholics which Protestants do not find in the Bible include the sacrifice of the Mass, the infallibility of the Pope, penance, and indulgences.

O the sweet exchange, O the incomprehensible work of God, O the unexpected blessings, that the sinfulness of many should be hidden in one righteous man, while the righteousness of one should justify many sinners!

In John’s writings, believing is a dynamic and vital reality. Believing that Jesus is the Christ and God’s Son is necessary to enjoy eternal life. John uses many different terms and expressions to convey the nature of faith. Faith obeys, keeps, abides, follows, comes, enters, goes, eats, drinks, loves, hears, and sees. All that God requires for life is belief in the Son, but faith is no cipher for John. Faith “is the victory that has overcome the world” (1 John 5:4 NIV). Faith is a many-splendored thing; it is a living, breathing, and pulsating reality. Yes, salvation is by faith alone, but faith is dynamic, energetic, and life-changing.

We find this even more clearly expressed in Paul, who stresses that justification is apart from works of the law. We might be surprised, then, to see that Paul also emphasizes the necessity of good works for final salvation. God repays every person “according to his works” (Rom 2:6). Those who do evil will suffer “wrath and indignation” (2:8) and “affliction and distress” (2:9), while those who do good will enjoy “eternal life” (2:7, 10). Some have taken these verses to be hypothetical, but the conclusion to Romans 2 shows that the hypothetical reading isn’t convincing, for we see that those who obey do so because of the work of the Spirit in them (2:26 – 29). Their obedience isn’t self-generated but the result of the supernatural work of the Spirit in their lives. Hence, their obedience doesn’t earn or merit eternal life but is the result of the new life they already possess, showing that God’s grace has transformed them in Jesus Christ. It is important to recognize that obedience isn’t motivated by a desire to be accepted by God. Acceptance with God is by faith alone through the work of Christ alone and to the glory of God alone. Obedience, then, stems from joy, from a delight in God, from a desire to do what pleases him. Obedience is necessary, for those who don’t obey reveal that they haven’t truly been accepted by God and show that they don’t know God’s love. But the obedience of believers isn’t animated by a desire to receive God’s love. On the contrary, it is a response to his love. All Christian obedience enshrines the principle: “we love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). So too, we obey because we know his love. Obedience, then, flows out of our freedom and joy. Though it is required, it isn’t simply a duty, it is a delight.

Justification is a theological term referring to our movement from being separated from God to our being in communion with him. Justification by faith alone was the cardinal teaching of Martin Luther, and any agreement between Catholics and Lutherans on this matter is of great significance to those who pray, as should we all, for visible unity among all those who call Jesus Lord.

Therefore, any human concern that has only to do with this world, no matter how global, no matter how painful, no matter how enduring — ​if it has only to do with this world — compares to the importance of saving faith as a thimble to the ocean.

Christ came to save us from our sins. His coming and our consequent justification through his death and resurrection make possible our salvation. Our being justified by Christ is pure gift, which is why the agreed statement says that “by grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit.

The genius of the Reformation lay in the fact that human beings were made free under God. Justification “by faith alone” cut away the bureaucratic jungle of human authorities and subservience. But where this liberty was not balanced by responsibility, the Reformation made human beings so free under God that it was only a short step to their being free from God. We might say that the despair of existentialism is simply the logic of atheism, but this is true only insofar as atheism itself is the logic of ungrateful Protestantism.

Wherefore it ought to be the first concern of every Christian to lay aside all confidence in works and grow in the knowledge, not of works, but of Christ Jesus, who suffered and rose for him.” — ​Martin Luther

It is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone: just as the heat alone of the sun which warms the earth, and yet in the sun it is not alone, because it is constantly conjoined with light.

For Rome justification is the result of faith plus works. In Reformed theology justification is the result of faith alone, a faith that always produces works. Antinomianism teaches justification by faith minus works. Reformed theology rejects both the Roman and the antinomian views.

Justification is received by faith and perfected by works of charity, but it is not earned by works alone.

God shatters our self-confidence and self-righteousness, so that we will put our faith in Jesus Christ. Luther goes on to say that “hunger is the best cook. As the dry earth thirsts for rain, so the Law makes the troubled heart thirst for Christ. To such hearts Christ tastes sweetest, to them He is joy, comfort, and life. Only then are Christ and His work understood correctly.

I wish the reader to understand that as often as we mention Faith alone in this question, we are not thinking of a dead faith, which worketh not by love, but holding faith to be the only cause of justification. (Galatians 5:6; Romans 3:22.) It is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone: just as it is the heat alone of the sun which warms the earth, and yet in the sun it is not alone, because it is constantly conjoined with light. Wherefore we do not separate the whole grace of regeneration from faith, but claim the power and faculty of justifying entirely for faith, as we ought.

Second, I address the issue of the duplex gratia Dei; that is, how they treated the “double grace of God,” or dual benefit, arising from gracious union with Christ—namely, justification as an imputed declaration of the forgiveness of sins as well as a righteous standing before God, clothed in Christ’s righteousness, achieved by Christ alone, given by grace alone, received through faith alone, and the call to grow in godliness—in other words, to pursue sanctification viewed as not only a salutary but a necessary consequence of such a gracious faith-union.

Protestants are particularly vulnerable to this distortion. We seek refuge in our precious doctrine of justification by faith alone, forgetting that the very doctrine is to be a catalyst for the pursuit of righteousness and obedience to the preceptive will of God.

opposition to Rome the Reformers emphasized that all initiative unto salvation lay with God alone. This conviction lies at the root of Luther's teaching on justification through faith, by grace, and of Calvin's doctrine of predestination. Luther and Calvin did not, however, interpret the emphasis on God's initiative in any rigid way; God's action did not militate against human responsibility, which was upheld very forcefully. Orthodoxy tended to give up the creative tension between the two and to put all the emphasis on God's sovereignty and initiative.

Before whom am I guilty? Myself and my gods. But before God? I would be guilty before God IF God had not disclosed himself as forgiving, taking my place, rendering a verdict of pardon upon me. But upon that IF hinges the force of justification by grace through faith alone. For precisely amid our failure to actualize values we mistakenly imagine as ultimate, God himself continues to perceive us AS IF we were clothed in Christ's own righteousness. The Reformation formula, simul peccator et justus, meant: I am a sinner, deserving condemnation for my idolatry; but from God's point of view I am AT THE SAME TIME pardoned, regarded as if the charge against me were canceled out! the final verdict is thus not the one I give myself or the one that may be given in the courts of law or gossip or peer pressure. Rather, it is what God himself has decided about my situation, how he has regarded and perceived me. Through God's own incomparable initiative, our sin is not remembered against us, even though we may oddly persist in remembering it against ourselves.

It is today widely held that Paul's teaching on the Law cannot be understood solely within the framework of Luther's attempts to oppose a works-oriented Roman Catholicism with the precept of justification by faith alone. Paul is now often seen as having had a far more positive attitude toward Jews and Judaism in general and toward the Law in particular.

stressing the necessity of personal holiness should not undermine in any way our confidence in justification by faith alone. The best theologians and the best theological statements have always emphasized the scandalous nature of gospel grace and the indispensable need for personal holiness. Faith and good works are both necessary. But one is the root and the other the fruit. God declares us just solely on account of the righteousness of Christ credited (imputed) to us (2 Cor. 5:21). Our innocence in God’s sight is in no way grounded in works of love or acts of charity. Whereas a Catholic might answer the question “What must I do to be saved?” by saying, “Repent, believe, and live in charity,”7 the apostle Paul answers the same exact question with, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31). Getting right with God is entirely and only dependent upon faith.8

GOSPEL REDISCOVERY Along with extraordinary, persistent prayer, the most necessary element of gospel renewal is a recovery of the gospel itself, with a particular emphasis on the new birth and on salvation through grace alone. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones taught that the gospel emphasis on grace could be lost in several ways. A church might simply become heterodox — losing its grip on the orthodox tenets of theology that under-gird the gospel, such as the triune nature of God, the deity of Christ, the wrath of God, and so on. It may turn its back on the very belief in justification by faith alone and the need for conversion and so move toward a view that being a Christian is simply a matter of church membership or of living a life based on Christ’s example. This cuts the nerve of gospel renewal and revival.2 But it is possible to subscribe to every orthodox doctrine and nevertheless fail to communicate the gospel to people’s hearts in a way that brings about repentance, joy, and spiritual growth. One way this happens is through dead orthodoxy, in which such pride grows in our doctrinal correctness that sound teaching and right church practice become a kind of works-righteousness. Carefulness in doctrine and life is, of course, critical, but when it is accompanied in a church by self-righteousness, mockery, disdain of everyone else, and a contentious, combative attitude, it shows that, while the doctrine of justification may be believed, a strong spirit of legalism reigns nonetheless. The doctrine has failed to touch hearts.3 Lloyd-Jones also speaks of “defective orthodoxy” and “spiritual inertia.”4 Some churches hold to orthodox doctrines but with imbalances and a lack of proper emphasis. Many ministries spend more time defending the faith than propagating it. Or they may give an inordinate amount of energy and attention to matters such as prophecy or spiritual gifts or creation and evolution. A church may become enamored with the mechanics of ministry and church organization. There are innumerable reasons that critical doctrines of grace and justification and conversion, though strongly held, are kept “on the shelf.” They are not preached and communicated in such a way that connects to people’s lives. People see the doctrines — yet they do not see them. It is possible to get an “A” grade on a doctrinal test and describe accurately the doctrines of our salvation, yet be blind to their true implications and power. In this sense, there are plenty of orthodox churches in which the gospel must be rediscovered and then brought home and applied to people’s hearts. When this happens, nominal Christians get converted, lethargic and weak Christians become empowered, and nonbelievers are attracted to the newly beautified Christian congregation.

In cities we will also meet a lot of people who hold to other religions or to no religion who are wiser, kinder, and more thoughtful than we are, because even after growth in grace, many Christians are weaker people than many non-Christians. When this surprises you, reflect on it. If the gospel of grace is true, why would we think that Christians are a better kind of person than non-Christians? These living examples of common grace may begin to show us that even though we intellectually understand the doctrine of justification by faith alone, functionally we continue to assume that salvation is by moral goodness and works. Early in Redeemer’s ministry, we discovered it was misguided for Christians to feel pity for the city, and it was harmful to think of ourselves as its “savior.” We had to humbly learn from and respect our city and its people. Our relationship with them had to be a consciously reciprocal one. We had to be willing to see God’s common grace in their lives. We had to learn that we needed them to fill out our own understanding of God and his grace, just as they needed us.

We should not interpret this to mean that repentance is another thing a person has to do to receive salvation in addition to faith. Rather, genuine faith includes repentance. Faith that doesn’t include repentance is false faith, for those who truly believe turn away from evil.

When Luther boldly declared the biblical doctrine of jus.ifrcation by faith alone, he said, "Justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.

We guard the truth because we cherish it, and we cherish the truth because it is our life. When

Now we shall possess a right definition of faith if we call it a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

To believe the doctrine of it [imputation], or not to believe it, as thus or thus explained, is one thing; and to enjoy the thing, or not to enjoy it, is another. I no way doubt but that many men do receive more grace from God than they understand or will own, and have a greater efficacy of it in them than they will believe. Men may be really saved by that grace which doctrinally they do deny; and they may be justified by the imputation of that righteousness, which, in opinion, they deny to be imputed: for

New perspectivists (who aren’t all the same, of course) often comment on how Philippians 3 fits with their paradigm. And they are certainly right, at least to some extent. We see the ethnic and nationalist flavor of the Jewish opponents here. Still, this passage is interesting in another way, for nationalism is aligned with works-righteousness as well. We don’t have an either-or between nationalism and activism, between ritual and works-righteousness. Instead, these are included together. Such a state of affairs is hardly surprising. If one ethnic group thinks it is superior to another, it typically believes that it is morally superior as well. Indeed, alleged moral superiority is often one of the chief reasons for believing that they are better than another people group.

Wesley also found fault with their new method of encouraging people to claim perfection by faith (“The bidding them say, ‘I believe,’” as Wesley put it) with no other evidence, and then affirming that those people were perfected because they said they believed. Here they were taking Wesley's teaching a step further than he was willing to go, but in a direction that seemed logical. Wesley had long taught that the blessing of perfection comes by faith alone and does not depend on the preparation or worthiness of the recipient. So why could someone not believe to have received it without any further evidence, for why would faith need evidence? Wesley, however, was never willing to affirm this conclusion. Years later he expressed his position as follows (by “absolute decrees,” he means the idea that a man is predestined to believe or not believe, and can do nothing but wait and see): To say that every man can believe to justification or sanctification when he will is contrary to plain matter of fact. Everyone can confute it by his own experience. And yet if you deny that every man can believe if he will, you run full into absolute decrees. How will you untie this knot? I apprehend very easily. That every man may believe if he will I earnestly maintain, and yet that he can believe when he will I totally deny. But there will be always something in the matter which we cannot well comprehend or explain.

It belongs to the very essence of the type of Christianity propagated by the Reformation that the believer should feel himself continuously unworthy of the grace by which he lives. At the center of this type of Christianity lies the contrast of sin and grace; and about this center everything else revolves. This is in large part the meaning of the emphasis put in this type of Christianity on justification by faith. It is its conviction that there is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only “when we believe.” It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in Christian behavior may be. It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest. There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His place, or that can take a place along with Him. We are always unworthy, and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace. Though blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, we are still in ourselves just “miserable sinners”: “miserable sinners” saved by grace to be sure, but “miserable sinners” still, deserving in ourselves nothing but everlasting wrath. That is the attitude which the Reformers took, and that is the attitude which the Protestant world has learned from the Reformers to take, toward the relation of believers to Christ. from '"Miserable-Sinner Christianity" in the Hands of the Rationalists

I made a brief reference earlier to the first Evangelism Explosion diagnostic question: “Have you come to the place in your spiritual life where you know for sure that if you were to die tonight you would go to heaven?” The second diagnostic question is this: “If you were to die tonight and stand before God, and God were to say to you, ‘Why should I let you into My heaven?’ what would you say?” Once, when my son was young, I asked him these two questions. I was delighted that he immediately answered the first question by saying “Yes.” But when I asked him the second question, he looked at me as if I had just posed the silliest question he had ever heard. He said, “Well, I would say, ‘Because I’m dead.’” What could be simpler? My son was being reared in a home committed to biblical theology, but not only had I failed to communicate justification by faith alone to him, he already had been captured by the pervasive view in our culture that everyone goes to heaven and that all you have to do to get there is to die.

Thus, to return to the Letter of James, if the theory of justification by faith alone really is central to Christian faith, then James must be read as supporting it, despite appearances. It must be saying, not literally that faith is dead without good works, but that the reality of faith can only be seen in the good works that people of faith perform: without good works their faith is not real but only apparent. (This may be a correct interpretation of James: my point here is simply that a commitment to the congruence of the Bible with Christian teaching more or less obliges one to adopt it.)

It would be the eternal return – the renunciation of ressentiment against time. ‘Reverence for oneself; love for oneself; unconditioned freedom with respect for oneself. This revaluation would surely involve ‘the invention of an even more abstract form of existence … than one conditioned by an organized Church. For how can the eternal return be distinguished from justification by faith alone? Unless such love appears in the world, with reverence for the boundaries between man and man, it would be indistinguishable from hate.

If you preach a gospel that has only to do with the forgiveness of sins, on the other hand, you will be as we are today: stuck in a position where you have faith over here and obedience and abundance over there, and no way to get from here to there because the necessary bridge is discipleship. If there is anything we should know by now, it is that a gospel of justification alone does not generate disciples. Discipleship is a life of learning from Jesus Christ how to live in the Kingdom of God now, as he himself did. If you want to be a person of grace, then, live a holy life of discipleship, because the only way you can do that is on a steady diet of grace. Works of the Kingdom live from grace.

I am passionate about theology, passionate about the faith. I honestly do not understand how anyone can say “I believe the Bible is the Word of God” without being passionate about that confession. I love the Trinity, justification by faith, the Resurrection, and sola scriptura. I do not pretend to be dispassionate about these things, and, as such, I stand firmly on this assertion: Christian scholarship that lacks passion about the truth is not worthy of the name Christian to begin with.

The contradictions (antilogia) found in Scripture are apparent, not real; they are to be understood only with respect to us who cannot comprehend and perceive the agreement everywhere, but not in the thing itself. And if the laws of legitimate contradiction are attended to (that opposites should agree with the same thing [tō autō], in the same respect [kata to auto], with reference to the same thing [pros to auto] and in the same time [tō autō chronō]), these various apparent contradictions in Scripture might be easily reconciled. For the discourse does not concern the same thing, as when James ascribes justification to works, which Paul denies to them. For the former speaks of declarative justification of the effect a posteriori, but the latter of justification of the cause, a priori. Thus Luke enjoins mercy, 'Be ye merciful' (Lk. 6:36) which Deuteronomy forbids, 'Thou shalt not pity' (Dt. 19:13). The former refers to private persons, the latter to magistrates. Or they are not said in the same respect, as when Matthew denies the presence of Christ in the world, 'Me ye have not always' (Mt. 26:11*); and yet it is promised, 'I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world' (Mt. 28:20). The former is said with regard to his human nature and bodily presence, but the latter with regard to his divine nature and spiritual presence. Or the statements are not made with reference to the same thing, as when something is said absolutely and another comparatively. 'Honor thy father' (Ex. 20:12); 'if any man hate not his father' (Lk. 14:26). The former must be understood absolutely, the latter comparatively for loving less and esteeming less than Christ. Or not in the same time, hence the expression 'distinguish times and you will reconcile Scripture.' Thus at one time circumcision is extolled as a great privilege of the Jews (Rom. 3:1*); at another it is spoken of as a worthless thing (Gal. 5:3). But the former refers to the Old Testament dispensation when it was an ordinary sacrament and a seal of the righteousness of faith, but the latter concerns the time of the gospel after the abrogation of the ceremonial law. At one time the apostles are sent to the Jews alone by a special mission before the passion of Christ and prohibited from going to the Gentiles ('Go not into the way of the Gentiles,' Mt. 10:5); at another they are sent to all nations by a general mission after the resurrection (Mk. 16:15).

The contradictions (antilogia) found in Scripture are apparent, not real; they are to be understood only with respect to us who cannot comprehend and perceive the agreement everywhere, but not in the thing itself. And if the laws of legitimate contradiction are attended to (that opposites should agree with the same thing [tō autō], in the same respect [kata to auto], with reference to the same thing [pros to auto] and in the same time [tō autō chronō]), these various apparent contradictions (enantiophanē) in Scripture might be easily reconciled. For the discourse does not concern the same thing, as when James ascribes justification to works, which Paul denies to them. For the former speaks of declarative justification of the effect a posteriori, but the latter of justification of the cause, a priori. Thus Luke enjoins mercy, 'Be ye merciful' (Lk. 6:36) which Deuteronomy forbids, 'Thou shalt not pity' (Dt. 19:13). The former refers to private persons, the latter to magistrates. Or they are not said in the same respect, as when Matthew denies the presence of Christ in the world, 'Me ye have not always' (Mt. 26:11*); and yet it is promised, 'I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world' (Mt. 28:20). The former is said with regard to his human nature and bodily presence, but the latter with regard to his divine nature and spiritual presence. Or the statements are not made with reference to the same thing, as when something is said absolutely and another comparatively. 'Honor thy father' (Ex. 20:12); 'if any man hate not his father' (Lk. 14:26). The former must be understood absolutely, the latter comparatively for loving less and esteeming less than Christ. Or not in the same time, hence the expression 'distinguish times and you will reconcile Scripture.' Thus at one time circumcision is extolled as a great privilege of the Jews (Rom. 3:1*); at another it is spoken of as a worthless thing (Gal. 5:3). But the former refers to the Old Testament dispensation when it was an ordinary sacrament and a seal of the righteousness of faith, but the latter concerns the time of the gospel after the abrogation of the ceremonial law. At one time the apostles are sent to the Jews alone by a special mission before the passion of Christ and prohibited from going to the Gentiles ('Go not into the way of the Gentiles,' Mt. 10:5); at another they are sent to all nations by a general mission after the resurrection (Mk. 16:15).

The contradictions (antilogia) found in Scripture are apparent, not real; they are to be understood only with respect to us who cannot comprehend and perceive the agreement everywhere, but not in the thing itself. And if the laws of legitimate contradiction are attended to (that opposites should agree with the same thing [tō autō], in the same respect [kata to auto], with reference to the same thing [pros to auto] and in the same time [tō autō chronō]), these various apparent contradictions in Scripture might be easily reconciled. For the discourse does not concern the same thing, as when James ascribes justification to works, which Paul denies to them. For the former speaks of declarative justification of the effect a posteriori, but the latter of justification of the cause, a priori. Thus Luke enjoins mercy, 'Be ye merciful' (Lk. 6:36) which Deuteronomy forbids, 'Thou shalt not pity' (Dt. 19:13). The former refers to private persons, the latter to magistrates. Or they are not said in the same respect, as when Matthew denies the presence of Christ in the world, 'Me ye have not always' (Mt. 26:11*); and yet it is promised, 'I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world' (Mt. 28:20). The former is said with regard to his human nature and bodily presence, but the latter with regard to his divine nature and spiritual presence. Or the statements are not made with reference to the same thing, as when something is said absolutely and another comparatively. 'Honor thy father' (Ex. 20:12); 'if any man hate not his father' (Lk. 14:26). The former must be understood absolutely, the latter comparatively for loving less and esteeming less than Christ. Or not in the same time, hence the expression 'distinguish times and you will reconcile Scripture.' Thus at one time circumcision is extolled as a great privilege of the Jews (Rom. 3:1*); at another it is spoken of as a worthless thing (Gal. 5:3). But the former refers to the Old Testament dispensation when it was an ordinary sacrament and a seal of the righteousness of faith, but the latter concerns the time of the gospel after the abrogation of the ceremonial law. At one time the apostles are sent to the Jews alone by a special mission before the passion of Christ and prohibited from going to the Gentiles ('Go not into the way of the Gentiles,' Mt. 10:5); at another they are sent to all nations by a general mission after the resurrection (Mk. 16:15).

Jesus Christ has no need to shed his blood for a mother’s need to depend on other women for fellowship. The eternal Son of God did not go to the cross and suffer crucifixion and the wrath of God to atone for a mom’s inability to accomplish everything she wants to do in a day. The Lamb of God was not esteemed stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted for the sake of women who simply don’t know everything there is to know about nutrition, or the Bible, or childhood development, or whatever. Before we call upon the great doctrine of justification by faith alone to redeem us out of our so-called calamity, or before we herald the massive truth that we are counted righteous in Christ by faith in him, we ought to consider the nature of our need.

Sharing his faith, the good news of grace, the gospel message of salvation and justification, the truth that we come to God by faith alone in Christ alone, was dear to Paul’s heart. Paul would go on to write in 1 Corinthians 9:16, “Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!”  Hopefully the heart Paul had for the gospel of Jesus Christ is the same heart each of us has: to share our faith and proclaim the good news of God’s grace to a lost and dying world.

This is the great ground of joy in the word of the cross: Justification is by grace alone (not mixed with our merit), through faith alone (not mixed with our works), on the basis of Christ alone (not mingling his righteousness with ours), to the glory of God alone (not ours).

these teachings of Christ and the apostles are not denials of the essential Christian doctrine of justification by faith alone. They are simply affirming the universal truth that the inward reality of a thing is revealed by its accompanying character and deeds.

Does he know the Minotaur of this cave from experience? . . . I doubt it, indeed, I know otherwise: – nothing is stranger to these people who are absolute in one thing, these so-called atheist ‘free spirits’, than freedom and release in that sense, in no respect are they more firmly bound; precisely in their faith in truth they are more rigid and more absolute than anyone else. Perhaps I am too familiar with all this: that venerable philosopher’s abstinence prescribed by such a faith like that commits one, that stoicism of the intellect which, in the last resort, denies itself the ‘no’ just as strictly as the ‘yes’, that will to stand still before the factual, the factum brutum, that fatalism of ‘petits faits’116 (ce petit faitalisme,117 as I call it) in which French scholarship now seeks a kind of moral superiority over the German, that renunciation of any interpretation (of forcing, adjusting, shortening, omitting, filling-out, inventing, falsifying and everything else essential to interpretation) – on the whole, this expresses the asceticism of virtue just as well as any denial of sensuality (it is basically just a modus of this denial). However, the compulsion towards it, that unconditional will to truth, is faith in the ascetic ideal itself, even if, as an unconscious imperative, make no mistake about it, – it is the faith in a metaphysical value, a value as such of truth as vouched for and confirmed by that ideal alone (it stands and falls by that ideal). Strictly speaking, there is no ‘presuppositionless’ knowledge, the thought of such a thing is unthinkable, paralogical: a philosophy, a ‘faith’ always has to be there first, for knowledge to win from it a direction, a meaning, a limit, a method, a right to exist. (Whoever under- stands it the other way round and, for example, tries to place philosophy ‘on a strictly scientific foundation’, must first stand on its head not just philosophy, but also truth itself: the worst offence against decency which can occur in relation to two such respectable ladies!) Yes, there is no doubt – and here I let my Gay Science have a word, see the fifth book (section 344) – ‘the truthful man, in that daring and final sense which faith in science presupposes, thus affirms another world from the one of life, nature and history; and inasmuch as he affirms this “other world”, must he not therefore deny its opposite, this world, our world, in doing so? . . . Our faith in science is still based on a metaphysical faith, – even we knowers of today, we godless anti-metaphysicians, still take our fire from the blaze set alight by a faith thousands of years old, that faith of the Christians, which was also Plato’s faith, that God is truth, that God is Logos, that truth is divine . . . But what if precisely this becomes more and more unbelievable, when nothing any longer turns out to be divine except for error, blindness and lies – and what if God himself turned out to be our oldest lie?’ – – At this point we need to stop and take time to reflect. Science itself now needs a justification (which is not at all to say that there is one for it). On this question, turn to the most ancient and most modern philosophies: all of them lack a consciousness of the extent to which the will to truth itself needs a justification, here is a gap in every philosophy – how does it come about? Because the ascetic Christian ideal has so far been master over all philosophy, because truth was set as being, as God, as the highest authority itself, because truth was not allowed to be a problem. Do you understand this ‘allowed to be’? – From the very moment that faith in the God of the ascetic ideal is denied, there is a new problem as well: that of the value of truth. – The will to truth needs a critique – let us define our own task with this –, the value of truth is tentatively to be called into question . . . (Anyone who finds this put too briefly is advised to read the Gay Science, s 344)

It was tough. I was trying to walk away from guilt and shame, and it wasn’t easy: guilt and shame had more guns than I did. But fear lies, hiding self-disgust in self-justification, and sometimes you don’t know how afraid you were, until you leave all your fearful friends. I felt things that I’d justified and rationalised for too long fall like leaves, washed from my body by a waterfall. Alone is a current in truth’s river, like togetherness. Alone has its own fidelity. But when you navigate that closer view of the shore, it often seems that the faith you have in yourself is all the faith there is. I took a deep breath, put my heart in the decision, and made a mental note to clean and load my gun.

Karl Marx ranks as one of the most remarkable thinkers in history - remarkable for the degree to which and the rapidity with which his ideas had an impact on world culture. When I was in high school, the population of the world was 2 billion; by the time I was forty-five the population of the world had increased dramatically. What stunned me, however, was that by that time 2 billion people were living behind the Iron Curtain. By the time I was forty-five, as many people lived under Marxist regimes as had lived in the entire world when I was a teenager.

Saint Paul (whom I had thought of as the first Luther) taught in Romans, Galatians and elsewhere that justification was more than a legal decree; it established us in Christ as God’s children by grace alone. In fact, I discovered that nowhere did Saint Paul ever teach that we were justified by faith alone! Sola fide was unscriptural!

Some argue that defining faith as an instrument is a theological imposition on the text, but I would suggest that such a conclusion is exegetically reasonable and theologically sensible. First, no one reads texts with a blank slate. Everyone comes to texts with a theological map, and having such a map shouldn’t be rejected as a disadvantage, as long as we recognize that we all come to the text with preconceptions. Those who believe they are reading the text historically and neutrally without any theological presuppositions are naïve and are deficient readers precisely because they think their reading is completely objective. A satisfying reading recognizes, at least in part (since none of us can succeed completely in this enterprise), our biases and theological preconceptions and then attempts to read the text afresh and anew, probing to see if the text reshapes and reconfigures our theology.

To be justified, is to be approved of God as a proper subject of pardon, with a right to eternal life. Therefore, when it is said that we are justified by faith, what else can be understood by it, than that faith is that by which we are rendered approvable, fitly so, and indeed, as the case stands, proper subjects of this benefit?

Fesko also misreads the contrast that Calvin subsequently draws in the Institutes between the “law” and “gospel.” Fesko interprets Calvin’s contrast to teach a real contrast between the Mosaic administration of the covenant of grace (at least at some level) and the gospel of Jesus Christ. According to Fesko, the contrast is that between the Mosaic covenant, which communicates a “works principle” for obtaining life, and the gospel, which communicates a promise of life by grace through faith in Christ alone. However, the passage that Fesko adduces for his understanding of this contrast shows that Calvin identifies the contrast as that between a “legalistic” misappropriation of the law of Moses, abstracted from its setting within the broader administration of the Mosaic covenant and used as a means of justification before God, and the gospel. In the passage to which Fesko appeals, Calvin is explaining the contrast in Hebrews between the law and the gospel, and the reason the author appeals to the promise of Jeremiah 31:31–34. In his explanation, Calvin maintains that the contrast is between the law in the narrowest sense, namely, in terms of what it demands, promises, and threatens, and the gospel. However, this contrast is not between the Mosaic administration of the covenant of grace and the gospel, since the Mosaic administration also reveals God’s promises of mercy and gracious correction of human depravity. For the apostle [author of Hebrews] speaks more opprobriously of the law than the prophet does—not simply in respect to the law itself, but, because of certain wretches who aped the law and, by their perverse zeal for ceremonies, obscured the clarity of the gospel. Their error and stupid predilection prompt Paul to discuss the nature of the law. It behooves us therefore to note that particular point in Paul. But both Jeremiah and Paul, because they are contrasting the Old and New Testaments, consider nothing in the law except what properly belongs to it. For example: the law contains here and there promises of mercy, but because they have been borrowed from elsewhere, they are not counted part of the law, when only the nature of the law is under discussion. They ascribe to it only this function: to enjoin what is right, to forbid what is wicked; to promise a reward to the keepers of righteousness, and threaten transgressors with punishment; but at the same time not to change or correct the depravity of heart that by nature inheres in all men.15 For Calvin, the law as such was never intended to play an independent role within the broader administration of the Mosaic covenant, which was an evangelical covenant that communicated the gospel of God’s gracious promise of salvation through Christ. The contrast between the “law” and the “gospel,” therefore, is not between the Mosaic administration and the gospel. In Calvin’s view, when the apostle Paul and other NT writers oppose the “law” and the “gospel,” they are speaking of the law in the narrowest sense, wrested from its evangelical setting and misappropriated by those who falsely boast of their justification before God through obedience to the law’s demands. Though the law is holy and good, it can only demand perfect obedience and remind its recipients of the consequences of any failure to do what it requires. When the law is viewed in isolation from its evangelical setting, it can only condemn fallen sinners who are incapable of doing what it requires. Contrary to Fesko’s reading of Calvin, there is no basis for interpreting Calvin to teach that the Mosaic administration included at some level a kind of “legal” covenant that republished the prelapsarian covenant of works.

God has designed things to exalt his Son at the cross, and any gospel that does not center on the cross of Jesus Christ is not truly God-centered in a real sense.

Because the Holy Spirit is received by faith, our hearts are now renewed, and so put on new affections, so that they are able to bring forth good works. For thus says Ambrose: "Faith is the begetter of a good will and of good actions."... Hereby every man may see that this doctrine [of justification by faith alone] is not to be accused, as forbidding good works; but rather is much to be commended, because it showeth after what sort we must do good works. For without faith the nature of man can by no means perform the works of the First or Second Table. Without faith, it cannot call upon God, hope in God, bear the cross; but seeketh help from man, and trusteth in man's help. So it cometh to pass that all lusts and human counsels bear sway in the heart so long as faith and trust in God are absent.

The prevailing doctrine of justification today is not justification by faith alone. It's not even justification by good works or by a combination of faith and works. The prevailing notion of justification in Western culture today is justification by death. It's assumed that all one has to do to be received into the everlasting arms of God is to die.

It is a childish cavil wherewith in the matter of justification our adversaries do so greatly please themselves, exclaiming that we tread all Christian virtues under our feet and require nothing in Christians but faith, because we teach that faith alone justifieth; whereas by this speech we never meant to exclude either hope and charity from being always joined as inseparable mates with faith in the man that is justified, or works from being added as necessary duties, required at the hands of every justified man, but to show that faith is the only hand which putteth on Christ unto justification, and Christ the only garment which, being so put on, covereth the shame of our defiled natures, hideth the imperfections of our works, preserveth us blameless in the sight of God, before whom otherwise the very weakness of our faith were cause sufficient to make us culpable, yea, to shut us out from the kingdom of heaven, where nothing that is not absolute can enter.

If I could sum up the problems at the outset, Wright tends to introduce false dichotomies, presenting an either – or when there is a both – and instead. To put it more sharply, even when he sees a both – and, he at times puts the emphasis in the wrong place, seeing the secondary as primary and the primary as secondary.

The gospel is “believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31), not “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and cooperate with transforming grace and you shall be saved.” There is nothing we contribute to our salvation but our sin, no merit we bring but Christ’s, and nothing necessary for justification except for faith alone.

The idea is that we are “meritorious,” righteous before God, by both justification and infusion. Christ’s strength is infused, it fills us, and then we are enabled to do good works. This is salvation by cooperation. God works and God infuses us to do good works. Salvation is by faith and works, not by faith alone. Infusion is about cooperation. Imputation, on the other hand, is the work of one.

problematic within post-Reformation dogmatics. Is faith something I `do' to earn God's favour, and, if not, what role does it play? Once we release Paul's justification-language from the burden of having to describe `how someone becomes a Christian', however, this is simply no longer a problem. There is no danger of imagining that Christian faith is after all a surrogate `work', let alone a substitute form of moral righteousness. Faith is the badge of covenant membership, not something someone `performs' as a kind of initiation test.

The central issue of Christianity is the issue of justification. It faces the dilemma squarely. The only possible way for an unjust person to stand in the presence of a just and holy God is to be justified. If we remain unjustified, we die in our sins. The only way we can be justified is by the righteousness of Christ. He alone has the merit necessary to cover us. That righteousness is received by faith. If we trust in Christ, we are covered by His righteousness and are justified by faith. If we do not trust in Christ, we will stand before God's judgment alone, unjust people before a just God.