Faith Alone

Guide us, O Lord, by your Word and your Holy Spirit, that in your light we may see light, in your truth find freedom, and in your will discover peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Our text this morning is Romans chapter 3. Two verses. Two verses. Speeding right along. Verses 27 and 28. I was praying beforehand with the elders, and I feel like I say this every week, but these are two of the best, most important verses that you can ever hear. Romans 3:27-28.

“Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”

Now, we’ve already seen several times that the righteousness that we need as sinners – God’s own righteousness credited to our account – that this righteousness comes by faith. We saw this all the way back in chapter 1:17. The thesis statement of the book of Romans there in 16-17, “For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed” – how? – “from faith for faith. As it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” And then we saw it in chapter 3:25, “God put Christ Jesus forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received” – how? – “by faith.” And then in verse 26, “To show his righteousness at the present time, so that God might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” So, we have seen several times that this righteousness comes to us by faith, and now we have made clear what should have been obvious already, that we are justified by faith alone. You’ve heard about the five solas before, a shorthand way of describing the theology of the Reformation. It’s not that anyone in the Reformation put out on a sign, “Here are the five solas,” but it’s a faithful summary of some of the most important doctrines in the Reformation. And the controversy with those solas – that being the Latin word for “only” or “alone” – the controversy was not grace or faith or Christ or Scripture or God. Every Christian knows that those are massively important. The controversy was the sola, that salvation is by grace alone – meaning not with any of our cooperation. Through faith alone – so that the ground of justification is not found in any accompanying works. In Christ alone – no intercession or mediation from Mary or the saints. According to Scripture alone – that is, the Bible is the final and unique authority. That is the norm that norms all the other norms. And all of this is to the glory of God alone – that the whole purpose of this salvation is to redound to God that he alone gets the glory. Nothing left for us. All of the glory to him.

Justification by faith alone means we earn nothing. There is nothing merited for our justification. It means we contribute nothing. There are no works in that ground of the verdict given by the judge that we are innocent and righteous. We do not even contribute something that has been wrought in us. See, lots of people may say, “Well, yes, I know it is. It’s all of grace.” But it is that grace that is wrought in us that then enables us to bring something of our good works that then contribute by God’s grace. No, nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. The gospel is not a message about how God justifies people that he first makes godly, even that he first makes a little godly, or even that he first, by his grace, makes godly. It is the good news that God is just and the justifier of the ungodly. Now, this may be familiar to many of us. If it is, you should give thanks to God that you have heard this teaching before because this teaching, though not completely buried, was obscured for many years in the history of the church, and even today there are millions if not billions of people for whom this would be a new message. This is not the way that religions in the world work. Religions, even if they have some kind of god of mercy or grace, it is yet a measure of the things that we must do – the five pillars we must keep, the sort of family we must raise, and even in some Christian traditions, because it is not the default of the human heart.

You may think that faith alone would automatically sound like good news. I was joking with Derek beforehand. We were talking about our football teams. Their only hope is in faith alone. Now that may sound like good news if you’re thinking about your favorite sports teams, and it may seem like if we hear that, of course, everyone would accept that, except that the human heart is bent toward wanting to prove something, wanting to have some kind of performance, to have something to show for ourselves. We see here in these two verses that there are two contrasting ways by which we can try to stand before God, and “try” with faith is not even the right word. Look at verse 27, “By what kind of law?” Now, we have two options. By a law of works. No, that’s not the way to exclude boasting. That’s not the way in which we stand before God. But by the law of faith. Now, this has tripped up many people. What does it mean? The law of faith. So, it’s not the law of works, but now I have something called faith that I need to prove. Or some people have said maybe he’s talking about the Mosaic law and that the Mosaic law was meant to drive us to faith. And it’s true that the Mosaic law was a gracious covenant, though God’s people often twisted it. Now that’s a true theology, but I think what Paul is talking about here is simply he’s turning on this word “law,” which he has already used so many times – talked about the law according to works – and now he’s saying no, that way will not lead to justification. What we need, rather, is a law – meaning a principle, a system, a method, a rule – according to faith. He’s not saying that now there is something you must strive to keep, and it’s called faith, or that would not make sense with the whole purpose of verse 27, which has to do with boasting. And if he were talking about something in the Mosaic law that leads us to faith, that would not make sense of the question that Lord willing we’ll come to next week – look at verse 31 – “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?” So, he anticipates in everything that he’s saying that people are asking this question, which you may have in your head, “Well, I thought the law was good. Are we just tossing overboard the law of Moses?” We’ll come to that next week.

But this tells us that Paul does not have in his mind two different ways of appropriating the law of Moses, but he’s saying there are these two different roads. When you think about standing before God someday, as all of us will, and there are two different roads. People say, “Well, there’s many roads up the mountain, and they all lead to God.” You know what? That’s true in a way. Every road leads to God. We all will stand before God. Only one road leads to stand before God in a way in which we can be justified. He says there are these two laws, two ways, two approaches, two systems, two methods, and it’s not that they just diverge a little bit and you can have 99% faith and just 1% work, right? We need some work. 99% faith, 1% work. He says, “No, these are diametrically opposed.” And as you think about standing before God and how you live your life and what it means to be a Christian, there is one way, Paul says, and that is to come before God and want to talk about works, to want to talk about the law, to want to talk about fairness and what you have done. Paul has said over and over again, that way leads to condemnation. The first thing out of your mouth when we see God is to say something about what you have done. But I went to church. But I gave to the capital campaign. But I raised my kids. But I read Christian books. But I went to a Bible study. Something that would be some ground of work. Paul says there are two different roads. It’s like Galatians 3:1. Paul says, “Oh, foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? Did you receive the Holy Spirit according to works?” Is that how your Christian life started? That you did enough good works and then God said, giving you kind of a trophy from the cabinet, “Congratulations. You’ve done a good job. You’ve been obeying me for these past six months. You are a good Christian, little boy or girl, and now I give you the Holy Spirit as a reward.” Paul says to the Galatians, that’s not how it works. These two paths, these two methods, these two journeys, they cannot be combined. You cannot have mostly one and a little bit of the other. You can think of standing before God according to the principle of works, or you can hope to stand before God according to the principle of faith, and the principle of faith by its definition renounces the principle of works. There is an absolute antithesis, which is why we are right to describe Paul’s statement as justification by faith alone.

This is the teaching found throughout Paul’s letters. We saw in Romans 3:20, “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight.” Galatians 2:16, “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.” You see the contrast – not this, but that. So, if it’s not this, but that, you can’t say it’s that with a little bit of this. Galatians 3:11, “It is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith.” Philippians 3:9, “Not having a righteousness of my own that comes through the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ Jesus.” Famously, Martin Luther emphasized that Romans 3:28 means we are justified by faith alone. And it’s true that that precious gospel doctrine was obscured, but I don’t want you to think that it was the invention of the Reformers. Several church fathers and medieval theologians understood verse 28 in this way. For example, one of the commentaries that I’m using through this series is from John Chrysostom, the most famous preacher from the 4th century. So, the 300s. Here’s what he says: “What is the law of faith?” This is Chrysostom, 4th century, commenting on verse 28. “It is being saved by grace. Here he shows God’s power in that he has not only saved but has even justified and led them to boasting, and this too without needed works, but looking for faith only.” That’s what the church father Chrysostom says. He interprets verse 28 as Luther does: faith only.

Faith plus nothing yields justification. Faith plus nothing yields justification. And it is the human heart to want to put something in that nothing. Now, of course, not all Christian traditions understand justification in this way. Official Roman Catholic theology, for example, disagrees. Not with the essential nature of faith – of course they underline the importance of faith – but with saying faith alone. And let me just say by parenthesis here, you say, “Pastor, why are you talking so many Sundays about what the Roman Catholics believe?” Or later in chapter 5, I’m going to talk at least in one sermon about what the Eastern Orthodox believe. Probably when we get to chapter 9, I might talk about what Arminians and Calvinists believe. You say why are you talking about these things? Let me be absolutely clear. It is not to pat ourselves on the back. Can you see how tragically, sinfully ironic that would be from verse 27, that we would boast about having non-boasting theology? So, I don’t bring up these distinctions so that we can just sort of, “That’s right. Thank God that I’m not like other people who have their theology wrong.” That would be absolutely to the wrong effect. Rather, I bring up some of these important differences because they are clarifying. They help to explain what we believe and what the Scripture teaches. Also, because they can help us defend what we believe. There is, especially online – you may not realize this – there is a quite a proliferation of YouTube apologetics from Roman Catholics, from anti-Reform, from Eastern Orthodox, and you may find those or young people in your life. You may find those and wonder, well, what do we believe? How do I explain this? It’s also important because it makes us careful. We make no apologies for being people who care about words and about precision. If you don’t like that this church has a lot of theology, blame Romans. Now, if it’s given to you in a way you can’t understand or is really boring, then that falls on the preacher. But there’s a lot in here that requires our careful attention. And most important, I point out some of these distinctions because the truths that they highlight are truths that God means for us to see and delight in. They are precious, and they are life-giving. And justification by faith alone is one of those doctrines.

Here’s what one Catholic writer – and I quote him because he’s one of my favorite Catholic writers – Peter Kreeft. Maybe you’ve read his books. He has lots of good books. He grew up in the Reformed Church in America like I did. He became a Catholic, not like I did. Here’s what he writes: “The Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone contradicts Scripture. St. Paul never says we are justified by faith alone, and St. James explicitly says we are not justified by faith alone.” So, let’s take that objection seriously and look for a moment at James 2, because it is true. James says we are not justified by faith alone. So, how is it that I’ve just made such a point, and so do the Reformers in our theology, that justification is by faith alone? Are we left to say, well Paul was a Protestant and James was a Roman Catholic? Far from it. Let’s look at what James is teaching. James 2. The context is a brother or sister, poorly clothed, lacking in daily food, and someone just says, “That’s alright. Go in peace.” Doesn’t do anything about it. Verse 18, “But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’” (This is important. Somebody who has a need and no one in the church is meeting the need, and James anticipates someone will say well, “Well you’re the works Christian; I’m the faith Christian. That’s good. You do works, but I have faith.”) “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe and shudder.” So, he’s talking about faith here. This is important. If this is a kind of belief that the demons have, it’s not a heartfelt trust. It is a mental assent. It’s affirming certain propositions, because that’s the only way that the demons believe. The demons don’t believe in God as one that they love or one that they rest in. They believe and shudder. It’s just an affirmation. “Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works, and the Scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way, was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way, for as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.”

How then are we to understand what Paul so clearly says, that we are justified apart from works of the law when James seems to say the opposite? Four quick points. Number one, James and Paul are addressing different concerns. Paul is asking the question, how can we be right with God? James is asking, “What does genuine faith look like?” Different controversies. For Paul, the issue is by what principle can sinners stand before God and be declared righteous? For James, the issue is why are people not caring for their brothers and sisters in the church? So, they are addressing two different issues.

Two, they use the word justify in slightly different ways. Paul is thinking justification as what makes you right, and we might say James is thinking of justification as what makes you real? What makes you demonstrate that you are a real Christian, where Paul is thinking what makes you right before God? Paul is dealing with people who trust in the works of the law for their standing with God. And Paul wants to say to those people, you have no grounding in anything you do to stand before a holy God. James is dealing with people who think that mere intellectual assent – just saying the creed – is in itself real Christianity. James is talking about the practical evidence that faith is real.

Third difference, James does not lessen the importance of faith. Perhaps I shouldn’t say a difference, but this is just a similarity not to miss. We shouldn’t think that Paul is hammering away at faith and then James comes along and says, “No, no, no. It’s really works.” Notice that James talks about Abraham. He quotes the same passage that Paul is going to talk so much about, that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. He quotes the same passage where Abraham believed and was counted to him as righteousness. So, James is also talking about faith. We saw that several times in the verses just read. James does not want faith to be supplanted by works or even supplemented by works. He wants faith to be demonstrated by works. Those words are all very carefully chosen. Faith not supplanted by works. Get faith out, put works in. Not supplemented. Well, we have a little bit of faith and a little bit of works. But rather faith demonstrated by works. So, I said earlier with great dramatic effect, “Faith plus nothing yields justification,” which is true, and that justified person will show himself or herself to be one who cares and obeys the commands of God. So that faith on this side – we do not have works in the equation on this side, but on that side. James is saying faith that never produces works is not a real faith.

And then the fourth consideration: in a number of places Paul teaches the same point that James teaches. Galatians 5:6, “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but faith working through love.” There Paul is not talking about his doctrine of forensic justification, but he is talking about what does the justified, born-again Christian look like? He says in 1 Corinthians 6, listing all various sins and vices, that such persons will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Jesus himself says you will recognize them by their fruits. So, there is no conflict between Paul and James. It is right to say we are justified by faith alone, provided we understand what James means when he says we are not justified by an idle faith. “We are not justified by faith alone” – James means not an idle faith, a mere intellectual assent. So, they are talking about different problems, addressing different dangers. James is addressing faith – you can understand this. Someone who says I signed a card when I was younger. I joined a church. I raised my hand. I prayed a prayer. I’m a Christian. James wants to say to those people now, has it made any difference in your life? Paul is talking to people who are tempted to think that they have some ground to boast, that they have some small, little bit of obedience that makes them more acceptable to God than others.

Now, you may say, “That’s all what I expected. That is a classic Protestant interpretation of James, that James is talking about the works that demonstrate our faith, not the works prior to justification that form the ground of our faith, but the works that come after justification to demonstrate our faith. Well, let me read you one other commentator, how he explains Romans 3:28, this phrase, “apart from works of the law.” Here’s what he says. “This means not only without the ceremonial works, which did not confer grace, but only signified it, but also without the works of the moral precepts, as stated in Titus, not because of deeds done by us in justice (Titus 3:5). This, of course, means without works prior to becoming just.” Now, notice the temporal language. He’s saying Paul is talking about no works contribute to justification prior, so apart from works prior, but not without works following it, because as is stated in James – and here he quotes James 2:26, “Faith without works is dead,” and then he puts in other words subsequent works – and therefore cannot justify. So, this commentator is making the same point I was just trying to make, that Romans 3:28 is saying there are no works that contribute prior to this justification and that James 2:26 is talking about the works that come subsequent to justification. Romans 3:28 means we are justified by faith without any works prior to justification, and that does not contradict James because James is talking about works subsequent to or after justification. Who is that commentator I was quoting? Thomas Aquinas. So, Thomas Aquinas, the Catholic theologian par excellence from the Middle Ages. It’s not to suggest that everything about his soteriology lines up with the Reformation. It doesn’t. But in this instance, he is giving the same interpretation of how Romans 3:28 and James 2 do not contradict each other.

Reformed theologian Francis Turretin puts it like this, “It is one thing for works to be connected with faith in the person of the justified and another however in the matter of justification.” Notice the very careful language: works connected to the person. So, you are a justified person. You will show good works. So, works are necessary to be found in the person. But he says not in the matter of justification. Good works must be found in the life of the believer, but good works have no place in what makes the believer justified. That was the heavy lifting.

So, let’s think about faith. What is so special about faith? Faith is not itself virtuous. Faith has value because of the object to which it connects us. Faith is the appropriating organ. Analogy I’ve used before about going out onto a frozen pond and go skating, and you wonder if that’s frozen, as I did often and risked my life, and I’m here to tell about it. You throw big rocks, and then you put one of the skinnier kids – happened to be me often – go out there, and you can have amazing faith, and if the ice is wafer-thin you fall through. It doesn’t matter how strong your faith. Conversely, if you go out there and you’re doubting but you had enough faith, you’re skating on the ice. It’s the thickness of the ice. It’s the object. Faith is that appropriating organ. It’s not that faith by itself – or as if you just had a vague faith. People talk about this sometimes. Well, I’m just a person of faith, and I just have such strong belief. As if whatever you believed was fine. I read this week from James Boice. He told the story of a man who was meeting with his elders to join the church, and they were getting a little worried that he wasn’t giving a very articulate expression of his faith. And they said, “Well, could you tell us exactly what you believe?” And he said, I believe what the church believes. And they said, “Okay, could you tell us what the church believes?” He said, “Sure. The church believes exactly what I believe.” And then a bit exasperated, they said, “Now, please would you then tell us exactly what you believe and the church believes?” And the man said, “I’ve been trying to tell you: the same thing.” So, that kind of faith that has no direct object – is just a generic sort of faith – is not what Paul is talking about. Faith is not in itself some virtue, the one work that outweighs all the bad works. It is rather the means by which we lay hold of Christ. Calvin likened faith to an open mouth by which we drink deeply of God’s grace. J.I. Packer said, “Faith is the outstretched empty hand which receives righteousness by receiving Christ.” Faith is not the good work that saves us. Faith is that which connects us to the work done for our sakes: Jesus’ death and resurrection. So, we must be careful that we not unintentionally – some well-meaning Christians do sometimes – smuggle elements of works back into faith, to say, “Well, justifying faith is faith plus works of charity.” Or you would look to the intensity of your faith. Or you must measure inside the quality of your faith, analyzing how you experience this faith. This is a real danger. When we put all this emphasis on by faith alone, you end up transferring your assurance-bashing introspection away from works to analyzing the quality and integrity of your faith. Well, how do I know, maybe this faith isn’t very good?

Typically, Reformed theologians have said justifying faith consists in three things: knowledge, assent, and trust. You can use the analogy of a chair. Knowledge: this chair exists. There it is. I have knowledge about the chair. Assent: I affirm. Yes, I affirm my belief that this is a sturdy, true chair, more than sufficient to hold me up. And then trust, or fiducia, is sitting down in the chair. Knowledge, assent and trust. It is not to analyze how well one is sitting, what you experience as you do the sitting. Westminster Confession very wisely describes faith as that which receives and rests on Christ. Faith is, to give you a new word and maybe it’s a made-up word, extrinsic. Rather than intrinsic, inside of us; extrinsic. It looks outside of us. Its power lies not in what it is but in what it lays hold of. That’s why justification is by faith alone, by what it lays hold of. It is our resting on Christ, our receiving Christ.

So why then, finally, why is this doctrine – sola fide, faith alone – so personally, existentially important? Two reasons. Faith alone is absolutely critical to the Christian life, because faith alone means we can have 100% assurance, and we ought to have 0% boasting. 100% assurance. 0% boasting. If you think about what was the Reformation about? Corporately, it was about worship. Theologically, it was about justification. Personally, it was about assurance. Can you know when you come to the end of your life that in your next breath you will be more alive than you are now and you will be with Christ and his saints forever? Or do you almost surely have to go through some period of purgatory? Or is it an act of presumption to have that kind of assurance? Now, I said you can have that assurance. Sometimes Christians don’t come to the end of their life with that assurance. I remember talking to my grandmother. She’s now with the Lord, and she was in the church her whole life. Been a Christian her whole life, dying of cancer. Talking to me now as a pastor – I was a young pastor – and not so much as her grandson. Had these questions. Well, have I done enough? And had doubts of assurance and had to explain to her, well, that’s not the question to ask. Have you done enough? Has Christ done enough? Are you trusting in Christ? So, it is not a straight line: be a Christian and just grow and grow and grow in assurance. There are times of doubt. Jude says, “Have mercy on those who doubt.” There can be seasons of darkness. Sometimes we aren’t even in a line that seems to be going up, and we have moments where we doubt, and we don’t feel that assurance, and yet sola fide tells us that nothing in my hands do I have to bring, save that to the cross I cling.

Now this doctrine of assurance will come up again and again in Romans, especially Romans chapter 8. The main point that Paul wants to make here is 0% boasting. Prior to conversion, Paul’s life was defined by boasting. Tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of Hebrews, Pharisee of Pharisees, keeper of the law, at least in his own mind. It’s easy to say, “Well, shame on Paul.” But aren’t we all tempted to find some boasting – and I don’t mean a healthy kind of you love your family, you love your country – but a spiritual boast that makes us better people because of our nation, because of our ethnic heritage, or because you’re more passionate, or because of your performance. Paul thought these things made him a good person, a spiritual person, a righteous person. Paul says, you know what is excluded in the gospel? Doesn’t exclude men or women. It doesn’t exclude Jew or Gentile. Doesn’t exclude any nation or nationality. It doesn’t exclude rich or poor. What’s excluded by the gospel is boasting. Boasting. There is something horribly incongruous about Christians who are spiritually arrogant. Luke 18, the Pharisee and the tax collector: the Pharisee said, “Thank God I’m not like other people.” See, he gave glory to God. God, it’s your grace in me that has made me better than other people. He was giving – God’s grace he talked about, but it was a grace so-called that enabled him to be proud and boastful. Jesus said, “You think that man went home justified?” No. Was a tax collector. Could not even lift his head. He beat his breast and said, “Have mercy on me a sinner.” Faith is self-renouncing. Works are self-congratulatory, which is why Paul for almost all of chapter 4 is going to focus our attention not on the atonement or propitiation that’s underscoring it, but upon faith, because sola fide is necessary to maintain sola gratia, which is necessary that in the end and ultimately it is soli deo gloria. You don’t get to the glory of God alone if you don’t have salvation by faith alone, grace alone, in Christ alone. Christianity is defined first of all by believing rather than doing. It is the celebration, the exaltation, the promulgation of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ and not our own glory. And that is the best news in the world. Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, we give thanks for this glorious gospel that removes all reason for boasting. May we at Christ Covenant, in the midst of many dangers, toils, and snares, yet be such a happy and humble people, for we stand before you not according to the law of works, but by the law of faith. We thank you in Jesus’ name. Amen.