Romans 4:4-6: "Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: 'Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.'"
The issue of Justification by Faith is, and always has been, a very central issue in the Christian church. While pretty much everyone (Catholics, Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, etc.) concurs that faith plays a role in justification, when it comes to the sufficiency of faith they differ radically. Most often, the history of religion has been filled with people trying to make "minor" additions to the equation by saying "Yes, Christ is in the equation, but we need to add [insert whatever: circumcision, baptism, restitutions, good deeds, alms, time in purgatory, etc.] to make it sufficient". However, from Galatians we lean that such additions are not "minor". If any one of those things enter into our perception of how we are made right with God, we are frustrating the grace God! ( Gal.2:21)
The Biblical position is that the only thing that can make us right before God is the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom.4:23-25, Eph.1:7, etc.). This means that when God judicially declares a believer righteous, the only basis for that declaration is Christ's finished work, which excludes works ( Rom.4:3-4, Rom.3:28, Rom.11:6). The believer clings to that work of Christ made on their behalf via faith and receives His righteousness because his own righteousness is futile in regard to justification (Phil.3:9 ). Our works are not what is under consideration when God graciously saves us--if they were we would be all destined to eternity in hell ( Rom.6:23). And even that faith that we have, according to the Bible, is an empty hand grasping on Christ's sacrifice. And, incidentally, even the faith is granted to the believer by God (Phil.1:29, Luk.7:5, Eph.2:8, John 6:28-29, etc.). We stand as the poor, weak beggar on the receiving end in every aspect of our salvation.
Salvation is God redeeming us from our lawlessness unto a new life and that new life can only come about by a decisive act of God (Titus 3:5). This is not to diminish good works. God's delight is that those who are saved through faith be zealous about good works ( Mat.5:16. Tit.2:7-14, Titus 3:14, etc.) . We are God's workmanship unto good works (Eph.2:10). But the good works flow from the regeneration and the faith, not the other way around. So it is that we say that the Bible teaches Sola Fide (a Latin term used to refer to Salvation by 'Faith Alone'). A theologian put it well when he once said: "We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone". This concept is supported by careful study of both Romans 4 and James 2 in their individual contexts.
Being justified by faith, we are not only liberated from the burden of trying to measure up to God's perfect standards with our filthy-rag works, but our hearts are changed as sons and daughters of the living God. We then should look for evidence of this lively faith. As the London Baptist Confession says of a believer's good works: "These good works, done in obedience to God's commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith; and by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the gospel, stop the mouths of the adversaries, and glorify God, whose workmanship they are, created in Christ Jesus thereunto, that having their fruit unto holiness they may have the end eternal life."
Here are some quotes from the history of the church on the matter:
Jerome (347-420) on Romans 10:3: "God justifies by faith alone." (Deus ex sola fide justificat). In Epistolam Ad Romanos, Caput X, v. 3, PL 30:692D.
Chrysostom (349-407AD): The patriarch Abraham himself before receiving circumcision had been declared righteous on the score of faith alone: before circumcision, the text says, "Abraham believed God, and credit for it brought him to righteousness." Fathers of the Church, Vol. 82, Homilies on Genesis 18-45, 27.7
Ambrose (c. 339-97): "Therefore let no one boast of his works, because no one can be justified by his works; but he who is just receives it as a gift, because he is justified by the washing of regeneration. It is faith, therefore, which delivers us by the blood of Christ, because blessed is he whose sins are forgiven, and to whom pardon is granted." George Finch, A Sketch of the Romish Controversy (London: G. Norman, 1831), p. 220.
Augustine (354-430): "But what about the person who does no work (Rom 4:5)? Think here of some godless sinner, who has no good works to show. What of him or her? What if such a person comes to believe in God who justifies the impious? People like that are impious because they accomplish nothing good; they may seem to do good things, but their actions cannot truly be called good, because performed without faith. But when someone believes in him who justifies the impious, that faith is reckoned as justice to the believer, as David too declares that person blessed whom God has accepted and endowed with righteousness, independently of any righteous actions (Rom 4:5-6). What righteousness is this? The righteousness of faith, preceded by no good works, but with good works as its consequence." John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., ed., WSA, Part 1, Vol. 11, trans. Maria Boulding, O.S.B., Expositions of the Psalms 1-32, Exposition 2 of Psalm 31, ¡±7 (Hyde Park: New City Press, 2000), p. 370.
Martin Luther (1483-1546): "Therefore it is clear that, as the soul needs only the Word of God for its life and righteousness, so it is justified by faith alone and not any works; for if it could be justified by anything else, it would not need the Word, and consequently it would not need faith."
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758): "This is evident by these words — 'that justifieth the ungodly' (Rom 4:5), which cannot imply less than that God, in the act of justification, has no regard to anything in the person justified, as godliness or any goodness in him, but that immediately before this act, God beholds him only as an ungodly creature, so that godliness in the person to be justified is not so antecedent to his justification as to be the ground of it. When it is said that God justifies the ungodly, it is as absurd to suppose that our godliness, taken as some goodness in us, is the ground of our justification, as when it is said that Christ gave sight to the blind to suppose that sight was prior to, and the ground of, that act of mercy in Christ. Or as, if it should be said that such an one by his bounty has made a poor man rich, to suppose that it was the wealth of this poor man that was the ground of this bounty towards him, and was the price by which it was procured."
Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892): ". There is no means among men of justifying a man of an accusation which is laid against him, except by his being proved not guilty. Now, the wonder of wonders is, that we are proved guilty, and yet we are justified: the verdict has been brought in against us—guilty—and yet notwithstanding, we are justified. Can any earthly tribunal do that?"
Labels: doctrine, justification, reformed theology
