Reformation Month: Faith Alone
Faith Alone
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” - Romans 1:16-17
Introduction
There are many sketches in the life of Martin Luther that seem almost larger than life. They inspire courage and greatness, even amongst unbelievers. We may think of the great day when Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. Although Luther was just putting some points of scholarly debate on what was the public bulletin board of the time, what he actually did was put an end to the Medieval era whilst planting the seed that would grow to be modern Western Civilization. We may think of the Diet of Worms, when Luther stood before the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and declared under threat of being burned alive that he would not renounce his teachings. However, I think the most important moment of Luther’s life is often overlooked. This is because the most important event for him was a spiritual experience produced by doctrinal study, which are not usually points of emphasis in history books. This event I refer to has come to be known as The “Cloaca” Experience or The Tower Experience.
The main section of the monastery where Luther did his studies was at the top of a tower; however, at the base of this tower was located the monastery bathroom. Though Luther did his studies at the top of the tower, all the monks just called that tower the “Cloaca,” which is the ancient latin for “sewer.” I find it so interesting when, where, and who our God chooses to use to change the world. God didn’t choose the tall and handsome king Saul to take down Goliath and lead Israel, He chose the puny and unimpressive shepherd boy David. He didn’t choose a palace, but the feeding stable of a barn to birth the Savior of the world. Our God always chooses the most unlikely people in the most unlikely times and places to glorify His name. When all of Christendom was almost lost in the Dark Ages, God chose a radical German monk when he was studying next to the outhouse to reveal the gospel of salvation to His people again! Luther was terrified of the righteousness of God. The mere thought of the smallest inkling of sin in his own life, along with the eternal damnation he deserved from the eternally righteous God of the universe, would send Luther down a bottomless pit of despair. This even brought him to the point of hatred toward God. Luther reasoned that if he couldn’t escape his sin no matter how hard he worked for it, why then is God still just in His condemnation? However, all of this changed when Luther came upon this passage in Romans at the “Cloaca” Experience. Here’s what he had to say:
“At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, ‘in it the righteousness of God is revealed,’ as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’ There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely the passive righteousness with which the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’ Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.”1
Luther came to realize that God’s righteousness wasn’t just the standard by which we are damned, but the means by which we are delivered. God’s righteousness is offered to us on the grounds of Christ’s life, death and resurrection; consequently, we do not receive this righteousness by earning it, but by believing it. By faith we are made just and alive in Christ. Over time, this Biblical gospel-truth would come to be known as justification by faith alone. This was the moment when Martin Luther was born again. Let us take heed to the words of the Apostle Paul now, that by the grace of God we too may experience what Luther did in the tower as he meditated upon this passage.
Unashamed of the Gospel
The gospel is the good news of Christ’s crucifixion for our sins, and resurrection from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). By saying he’s not ashamed of this good news, he declares the gospel’s sufficiency to save at the expense of every other false teaching in the world. He declares that the gospel is the ultimate hill to die on; that no matter what everyone else thinks, he will not be moved from this stonewall.
Eric Metaxas, Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World (New York: Penguin Random House, 2017), 96.
In order to grasp the significance of this statement, specifically for Paul, we need to consider his personal history. If anyone in Biblical times had a testimony that would have earned heaven, it would’ve been the Apostle Paul. In Philippians 3:4-6, Paul lists his spiritual credentials according to the Law of Moses:
If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
According to Pharisaical religion, Paul had it made. He had the right blood, the right profession, as well as what no person genuinely has in and of themselves, namely, blamelessness before the moral law. However, when confronted with the person and gospel of Christ, here is what Paul had to say in the following two verses:
But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ…
The word “dung” is as strong of a word language can produce to communicate disgust and worthlessness. As if to say, “I have abandoned every possible way of commending myself to God outside of Jesus Christ. All my spiritual and religious credentials are excrement without Jesus.”
This is what brought Paul to the place of saying, “I am not ashamed of the gospel” in the text before us now. When he looked back on his life as a Pharisee, thinking of the things he believed and practiced in an attempt to please God, he was ashamed. But when considering the good news of Christ and Him crucified, Paul had absolute joy and faith. Paul’s epistle to the Romans is arguably the most important book of the Bible; rightly has it been said, “All roads lead to Romans.” It is the clearest articulation of God’s message of salvation in all of Scripture. Romans 1:16-17 is what we might consider the thesis statement for the book of Romans. Here, Paul summarized in two sentences what he would spend the next sixteen chapters fleshing out, namely, how the power and righteousness of God save sinners by faith.
The Power and Righteousness of God
Because we don’t have time to go through the entire book of Romans, let’s examine these two verses as deeply as we can so that we can come away unashamed of the gospel like Paul. First, we find here the pure nature of the gospel. What is the good news? It is the “power of God to salvation.” The gospel does not contain or merely tell of the power of God; it, in and of itself, is the power of God. If you want salvation, you are to look no further than this message.
I think it ought to strike us with conviction that nothing less than the very power of God itself can bring a person to salvation. What does this say about our condition outside of Christ? The next three chapters of the book of Romans are spent answering that very question. The religious jews are condemned before God, for although they had the law, none of them had the ability to keep the law to God’s satisfaction. The pagan gentiles were no better, for they had the law of God written on their consciences, and still rebelled. Romans 3:9-18 contains the clearest condemnation of humanity in the history of literature. It’s teaching is that there is not one single righteous human being. Everyone deserves hell. We are in desperate need of help, and only the power of God can meet our need.
Next, notice what the gospel does. It reveals the righteousness of God. Now if you are in a state of dread and despair as you consider your sinful condition, the revelation of God’s righteousness probably won’t strike you as good news. Just as a righteous judge cannot pardon a wicked criminal, so a righteous God would not bless a rebellious sinner. God gave us a moral law (The Ten Commandments), and because we have violated that law, we must perish. However, according to Paul (and this was the great rediscovery of the Reformation), God’s righteousness is also the primary gift in the good news of salvation. The moral law reveals God’s righteousness to damn us, but the gospel reveals God’s righteousness to save us. The very thing that gives us cause to fear God also commends us to Him again. Christ met the very standards of righteousness that you cannot keep on your own, and He offers that perfect obedience to you as a gift in the gospel.
This may seem confusing, but you must grasp this reality if you are to have peace with God. Two options are presented to you in this information: you can say, “God’s righteousness demands the destruction of sinners, therefore, I should despair because I am a sinner.” Or, you can say, “In the gospel, Christ offers the righteousness of God as a garment to cover sinners like me, therefore, I should rejoice!” It is either a measurement to condemn, or a garment to cover.
This is what theologians call imputed righteousness. You are not heaven-bound because you performed enough good works or produced enough of your own righteousness to get there. You are heaven-bound because the righteousness of God Himself has been transferred/imputed to your account. Christ took your sin on the cross, and exchanged it for His own perfect obedience and fulfillment of the law.
The Necessity of Faith
Three times Paul declares in these two verses that it is by faith that we partake in the gospel: “to everyone that believeth… from faith to faith… the just shall live by faith.” If you believe the gospel, then the power of God has saved you. If you believe the gospel, then God’s righteousness has been revealed and imputed to you. If you believe the gospel then you have been declared just (justified), and granted eternal life. The Christian life begins, is sustained, and ends in faith (“from faith to faith”). Faith is absolutely necessary for communion with Christ.
What is faith, and how are we to understand its role in our lives? The 1689 Baptist Confession states, “Faith that receives and rests on Christ and His righteousness is the only instrument of justification” (11:2) [emphasis mine]. I believe this is a flawless articulation of saving faith. Faith is not a cosmic force that elevates us to a place of right standing with God. Nor is faith a substitute for obedience to the law that God accepts in the place of righteousness. I say again, faith is not a force, or righteousness itself. Faith is the tool (the “instrument”), or better yet, the empty hand that lays hold of Christ and His finished work.
I can imagine a great many may be thinking in their minds, “Yes, it is through faith that we are saved, but my faith is weak. I want to believe, but I am so sinful. My faith isn’t strong enough to lay hold of the gospel.” If faith was a force or righteousness itself, then you would have great cause to despair. But, because faith is only the hand that lays hold of Christ, you have great cause to rejoice. Your salvation is not found in the strength of your faith, but the strength of the object of your faith.
Consider for a moment what kind of faith the average person on board the Titanic would have had that the ship was going to make it to America. People of the time called Titanic the ship that even God Himself couldn’t sink. Their faith in the ship was great, but the ship itself could not safely deliver its passengers across the ocean. Now consider the average cruise ship today.
Most modern cruise ships are substantially larger than the Titanic ever was, yet we seldom hear of them tragically sinking. Imagine a person with Thalassophobia (fear of the ocean) boarding a modern cruise ship. They would have great fear and trembling getting on board. Their faith (confidence/trust) of getting safely across the sea may be very small. However, the object of their faith (the modern cruise ship) is great enough to actually deliver them to their desired destination.
Faith that is the size of a mustard seed can move mountains (Matthew 17:20). Why? Because faith is a powerful force that can do anything if only we strive hard enough to get it? No! Because faith, no matter how small and frail, is enough to lay hold of the God who made the mountains. Don’t look to your faith to save you, that would be having faith in your own faith! Rather, look to Christ to save you. The very act of looking and trusting in Jesus and His finished work, is saving faith. This is what the hymn writer meant when he penned the words, “nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling.” That is faith. Cling to Christ.
The Sufficiency of Faith
Catholics and Protestants probably have a great deal of agreement when it comes to most of what has been said up unto this point. For the most part, I have no doubt we would agree that it is the power of God in the gospel that saves us, and that faith is absolutely necessary to receive it. This level of agreement is what led to what may have been the greatest controversy in the lives of John MacArthur and R.C. Sproul. In 1994, a document came out called Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT). This statement had the goal of uniting the two groups, that by putting aside “secondary issues” they could have a greater degree of fellowship and power in the culture wars. For a moment it seemed like centuries of strife had come to an end, until MacArthur and Sproul entered the picture and exposed the faulty foundation of that disingenuous so-called unity. Very few saw those two men as being on the right at the time, but their courage has exonerated them as having done the godly thing by making a stand for the gospel.
One sentence of the ECT read, “We affirm together that we are justified by grace through faith because of Christ.”2 At first glance, it seems astounding to Protestants that any Roman Catholic would agree to such a statement. At first, it also seems ridiculous that any Protestant could find fault here, but MacArthur and Sproul could not in good conscience agree to it. Why? Because we are not merely justified by grace through faith because of Christ. We are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone! It was not merely “fide” that the Reformation fought for, it was “sola fide.” Yes, we agree on the necessity of faith, but it is the sufficiency of faith that the gospel proclaims. If any human effort is added to what is required for justification, then the gospel is destroyed. This is not hyperbolic language, this is the difference between heaven or hell, apostasy or assurance. Without justification by faith alone, there is no Christianity.
https://www.firstthings.com/article/1994/05/evangelicals-catholics-together-the-christian-mission-in-the-th ird-millennium
In Galatians 1:6-10, Paul makes this very point:
“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.”
The Church of Galatia had been infiltrated by those who were called the Judaizers. They taught that circumcision and obedience to the Ten Commandments was necessary for justification. Apparently, many in the church had been persuaded to go along with that heresy, and Paul was amazed that they abandoned the true gospel so easily. To correct that error, Paul wrote the epistle of Galatians with the goal of settling once and for all that it is only by faith that we are made right with God. That is the gospel. Here at the beginning of the book, he gives a shocking ultimatum; if he himself, any other Apostle, any other person, or an actual angel from heaven proclaimed a different gospel than that of justification by grace through faith alone, then they are to be considered cursed by God.
As the Protestant Reformation swept across Europe, the Church of Rome decided that they needed to make an official response. So, from 1545-1563 they called together the Council of Trent to give official theological statements against the Reformers. Here are just two declarations that came from the Council of Trent:
“If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema (6:4)…If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema” (6:24).3
In other words, the Roman position is not “faith alone” but “faith and works.” Good works, sacraments, and human achievements prepare us for and work with faith in our justification. Good works and individual righteousness are not the fruit of salvation, but part of the way we receive it. Not only this, but justification itself is something that can be lost, regained, and increased over time. Further, according to this, if you believe that faith alone receives justification once and for all, then you are damned to hell. These statements, along with many other atrocious decrees, are still official Roman Catholic doctrines to this day. In their attempt to preserve the gospel, they cursed the gospel. When they declared an anathema (the curse of God) on the Reformers, they anathematized themselves.
Conclusion
The Scriptures proclaim, “The just shall live by faith” (Habbakuk 2:4, Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, Hebrews 10:38). Through faith we are justified and live for God. Not only this, but if any human effort or achievement is added to faith to commend us to God, then it would be as though we had no faith at all. Herein is the righteousness of God revealed to us as our sole means of deliverance. Dear friend, you do not need to live with doubt and guilt any longer. The gates of paradise are opened to you, even now, through this Scriptural proclamation. Do you want life? Do you want to be clothed with God’s righteousness? Do not fear. Only believe. This is the gospel of Christ. May we believe it, proclaim it, and never be ashamed of it.
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/trent/sixth-session.htm
