Does the Bible teach the doctrine of Justification by
Faith Alone?
Affirmative Opening Statement
Moses Flores
It has been rightly said that the issue of justification is the essential issue of all religion, for the issue of justification seeks to answer how sinful man may be acceptable before a holy God. Many religions have answered this question by appeals to sacrifices offered or to some form of obedience which their god will find acceptable in some way. As of late, we have seen expressions of acts of obedience from the Islamic faith in the bombing of the world trade center which were done in order to be found acceptable to Allah and gain paradise.
Christianity, as a completely revealed religion from the one true God, alone stands in stark contrast to other religious systems. As a Reformed Protestant, I believe that the Gospel of God, that is the good news of how we as sinful creatures are able to stand in the presence of God and be judged favorably by Him in His court, is found in the unique doctrine of justification by faith alone. The doctrine is stated well in the Westminster Larger Catechism which says,
“Justification is an act of God’s free grace unto sinners, in which He pardoneth all their sins, accepteth and accounteth their person as righteous in His sight: not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them, and received by faith alone.”
Simply stated, this means that the only basis upon which any sinner can be found acceptable to God is to have faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ – that He lived a perfect life, that He was obedient fully to God when we could not be, that He suffered the penalty which we so rightly deserved, and that He alone is the only One acceptable to God on the basis of His own merit. We are accepted by God not on our own account, but rather we are acceptable to God “in Christ”. We bring and contribute nothing at all to our justification. We simply have faith and trust Christ alone to be judged as “righteous” before God.
I will simply assume that the reader is familiar with the official and dogmatic statement of the Roman Catholic Church especially those of the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent and the ensuing anathema’s that dogmatically define the Roman view of justification. To devote more space to the presentation of my material I will only refer to those statements when necessary, but the reader is encouraged to view them when possible.
Let me begin my presentation of the doctrine of Justification by faith alone by first surveying the condition of man, the need for justification and the impossibility of being justified by any other person and work other than that of Jesus Christ the Righteous.
The Roman Catholic view of man is in
accord with a Semi-Pelagian view of man.
This view is essentially that the fall of man in Adam has left man in a
state of “spiritual sickness”. In such a
state, man is “sick” with sin but retains a level of freedom within sin so that
he is still able to make righteous choices on his own accord. Arminian Protestants share this same
view. As such, the general idea from
here is that when the “prevenient grace” of God comes to them, men are able to
place their faith in Christ which then brings about their new birth (I
recognize that
On the other hand, the Augustinian view of the depravity of man is such that man is completely “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). Man is so bound to sin that he is said to be a “slave” (John 8:34). Romans 8:7-8 says that “the mind that is set on the flesh [the carnal mind, NKJV] is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (ESV). The Scriptures present a clear picture of man’s lack of righteousness. For instance, the Psalmist notes that when we are scrutinized by the law of God, we are unable to stand (Psa. 130:2). In Psalm 143, the Psalmist pleads with God, His Judge, to have mercy “for no one living is righteous before [God]” (v. 2). Even Isaiah makes it plain that the things that we do that seem righteous in our sight are but “filthy rags” in the sight of God (Isaiah 64:6). The best summation about man’s unrighteousness is found in the letter to the Romans. Paul says this about ALL mankind:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
No one understands;
No one seeks for God;
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
No one does good, not even one.
Their throat is an open grave;
They use their tongues to deceive.
The venom of asps is under their lips.
Their mouth is full of bitter curses and bitterness.
Their feet are swift to shed blood;
In their paths are ruin and misery,
And the way of peace they have not known.
There is no fear of God before their eyes.
This is God’s assessment of all mankind. “There is no one righteous.” Even our apparent “goodness” still has the taint of sin in it. As such, as Isaiah said, it is unacceptable to God for it is like a “filthy rag” before Him. The holy God of the universe demands perfection in all for He is worthy of such obedience. Thus, it is impossible to man to seek to attain any righteousness that proceeds from himself to present before God on judgment day. Were we to present our sinfully tainted works before God, even the blood of bulls and goats, we would be rejected and condemned rather that justified before the Holy Lord.
Many are on this path. Many seek to attain their right standing before God by “being a good person.” Of course, what they mean by this is that when compared to other fallen human beings, they don’t appear to be “as bad” as others. “Well I’m no Hitler” one might say. Or, “I’ve lived the best that I know how to live, therefore, God must grant me access to heaven.” Such statements are common belief about justification. But if what has been said above is true, it is impossible – absolutely impossible – to be accepted by God with our own works at all.
So now that the Scriptures have sufficiently shown that man has nothing at all that can be rendered to God that would be meritorious toward God from a sinner, what must the sinner do? The answer is given, first, in what God has already done. Romans 3:21-26 says,
“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it – the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God put forth as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
When Paul set forth the universal human dilemma of our state of sin and absolute hopelessness in it, Paul did not prescribe any sort of sacramental system, or a system of obedience. He said, that our need for righteousness before God is solved in the redemptive and propitiatory work of Jesus Christ. Our justification is grounded in the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is not a “legal fiction” as some have called it. Jesus Christ really was righteous. It is His person and work that is acceptable to the Father on behalf of sinners who have faith in Jesus. I Corinthians 1:30 says of God, “He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”
Many times in this Scripture and elsewhere in the New Testament, we are told that salvation, particularly justification, comes to us through faith, and even through faith “apart from the law”. Thus, it is faith alone (Sola Fide) that is necessary and sufficient to bring about justification before the Judge of all the Earth. There are plenty of Scriptures to show that faith alone is what is the sufficient condition for being justified before God. Let me begin with some statements from Jesus himself requiring only faith as the sufficient condition to find acceptance for eternal life, which includes justification.
First, there is John 3:16. This is a well known passage of Scripture which says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Here, the promise of eternal life is for “all the ones believing” (literal from the Greek). The verb “to believe” here, is in the present tense, signifying an ongoing continual faith. The one who is believing and continues believing in Christ is the one who has eternal life (present tense as well). There is no mention at all of “believing and…..” to have eternal life. It is faith alone that suffices for accessing eternal life.
Further in the same Gospel, in chapter 6 after having just fed a few thousand people, the mob seeks Jesus for more material gain from Him. Jesus rejects them and says to them,
“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet you do not believe. All that the Father gives to me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Again, we see that Jesus’ requirement as per the will of the Father, is that the one who is believing (again, present tense) shall not hunger or thirst. It is the one who “looks on the Son” through faith – “and believes in Him” – that will have eternal life and be raised up on the last day. Faith alone in Christ alone is what is required; nothing else.
Elsewhere, and more clearly and forcefully, in the New Testament, Paul argues that since our condition is sinful before God and we can do nothing to merit anything from Him, the only way to approach God and to be found acceptable before Him is to have faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. In Romans 3:28 Paul says, “for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” He echoes similar statements in Galatians 2:16-21 which says,
“yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.”
Again, we see clearly in Paul that justification CANNOT come through obedience to the law. In fact, in Romans 6 and 7 Paul argues that the purpose of the law was not to bring about salvation. Rather, it was meant to expose sin as sin. Since even “good works” do not justify any, Paul says that even he has trusted, or believed in, Christ just as everybody else has had to. The Apostle Paul, great as this man was for Christianity, admits that his justification, like everybody else’s is not the result of his endeavors for Christ, or good moral character, etc… Rather, it is rooted in his faith in Jesus Christ. In the overall theme of Galatians, when Paul says, “For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor,” he is referring to living by the law in order to gain acceptance, or justification before God. In other words, if he – after having been justified by faith – sought to be justified by the law, then the only thing the law could do for him is to reveal more sin to him in his own life and condemn him further.
But this cannot be! For Paul sees the believers union in Jesus Christ and can boldly say, “I have been crucified with Christ…” When Jesus was hanging on the Cross shedding His blood for the remission of our sins, Jesus was not acting on His own behalf. Rather, all the elect were somehow united with Him so that His death was their death. Jesus’ obedience and death were substitutionary (cf. Isa. 53). Just as Adam, when He fell represented the whole human race and plunged the entire race into sin (Original sin, cf. Romans 5:12-21; I Cor. 15:22), so Christ is the representative of His elect people and He acts on their behalf so that what He was, did and is, is credited (imputed) to the person of the believer.
Other passages of Scripture that show faith to be the sole sufficient condition for justification include, but are not limited to Romans 4. In Romans, the clearest expression of the doctrine is laid forth as the book of Romans appears to be Paul’s “treaty” of the Christian faith. Here, Paul strongly argues that justification comes solely through faith and not through works at all.
As space is fleeting, I must end
here. But I want to close by commenting
on the last words of the Galatians passage mentioned above. Paul says, that if justification could come through the law, then
Christ died for no purpose. That is, if
it was ever God’s intention to save sinners through a system of merit in which
they must adhere to in anyways, then the death of Christ is absolutely
meaningless. If salvation, especially
justification could come through “works” of any kind, Christ’s death is not
necessary, at least as an atonement. If God’s intention was to use our merits –
sacraments, obedience, penance, indulgences (still practiced by
The only way of justification by which a sinner – one who is absolutely guilty and worthy of God’s supreme and ultimate wrath expressed in the hell fire – is through faith alone in the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is understanding that He acted as our substitute both in obedience to God and in accepting the wrath of God on the Cross. “He who knew no sin, became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Cor. 5:21). Amen.