There is no greater arrogance than not to desire to be justified by faith in Christ.[1] -Luther
In keeping with celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, I wanted to do two posts on how we are justified before God. In other words, how do we make peace with God? How do we please Him?
All Christians care deeply about these questions and the doctrine of justification.
All, however, are not all are agreed on how justification happens.
Here’s a case in point: When I showed my historian and Anglo-Catholic son, Timothy, the ending of last week’s post on Luther he responded:
“’Why not pick up and read?’ is a great overture to a movement based on increasing literacy of holy documents. In many ways, Luther (an Augustinian who kept wearing his Augustinian habit and saying mass) simply wanted to remind the world of Augustine’s conversion in Confessions, of a man who, when he could not change his own behavior or please God, heard the voice of a child in a garden: “Tolle lege, take up and read.” Looking down, he saw the epistle to the Romans, and read that only by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ can one please God. That, if anything, is what Luther was trying to rehabilitate as the prime fact of Christian experience and worship. That things turned out the way they did is sad, but it gives us at least something to celebrate these 500 years later.”
I especially love what he says in bold above. It’s a wonderful statement which I suspect all three branches of Christianity would gladly rally around. What’s fascinating, however, is that we (just like Luther and the Reformers) are still left with the need to give nuance and definition to the statement “only by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ can one please God.”
Exactly how does one put on the Lord Jesus Christ? Do we do this by faith alone and not works? Or by faith and works? Or by faith alone that will express itself in works? Or, is putting on the Lord Jesus Christ just trying really hard to be like Jesus?
How are we justified before God?
As a minister in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, I subscribe (with 3-4 exceptions) to the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF). The WCF defines justification as “the legal and formal acquittal by God as Judge from guilt, the pronouncement of the sinner who believes in Christ as righteous. This has nothing to do with one’s keeping of the Law (Rom. 3:9-20; Gal. 2:16; 3:10, 22; 5:44); it is solely based on the death of Christ which one accepts by faith (Phil.3:9; Rom. 5:1; 1 Jn. 2:2).”
Understood as such, I believe in justification by faith alone, or sola fide as it’s sometimes called. The doctrine was central for Luther and is core to what it means to be Protestant.
More importantly, justification by faith alone—as defined above—is clearly taught in Scripture:
- “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” (Rom. 3:28)
- “And to the one that does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” (Rom. 4:5)
- Both Abraham and David were justified by faith and not by works (Rom. 4:1-8; Gal. 3:6-9)
- “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 5:1)
As the hymn says, “my Hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness!” For all of us—whatever tradition we’re in—it’s not about the Mass, or the bread and wine, or baptism, or good doctrine, or prayers honoring saints, or confession, or Tim Keller preaching, or Mother Teresa good works. All those things, at their very best, point to or are directed at Christ. When any of them become ends in and of themselves, they are idols that keep us from God. We please God by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. By standing in the perfect righteousness of His sacrifice on the cross. It’s faith and trust in Christ alone that brings peace with and pleases God. We stand before God naked of our own righteousness and cry, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” (Luke 18:13b) That’s the heart of a true Christian.
These verses say it plainly:
- “Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6, ESV)
- “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” (Heb. 11:6, ESV)
- “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9, NIV)
BUT, and as we shall look at more next week, true faith in Christ expresses itself in works. Thomas R. Schreiner, New Testament Professor at Southern Seminary gives this helpful illustration:
“If I said the room you were in was about to blow up in one minute, and you believed me, desired to live, and were physically able to leave, you would hurry to the exit. True faith would lead to works! Leaving the room would be the result of your faith. So, its right to say as the Reformers did that we are justified by faith alone, but that true faith is never alone.”[2]
Next week: The Problems with Justification by Faith Alone
On the painting above: “Shortly after Luther’s death, his friend, the artist Lucas Cranach, Jr., painted one more portrait of the Reformer. Cranach has him in the pulpit of the castle church, Bible opened, congregation looking on. What is most stunning, however, is the center. There Cranach painted Christ on the cross. As Luther preached, he preached Christ and him crucified. And his congregation did not see Luther, but instead saw Christ. Luther pointed the way to Christ” (S. J. Nichols, New Horizons, October 2005, p. 4).
[1] Martin Luther, Romans (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1985), 77.
[2] Southern Seminary Magazine, Fall 2017, Vol. 85, No. 2, 68.