Seeking Truth in a Maelstrom of Uncertainty
One of the challenges facing people today is the sifting through the information presented to us in the media in…
Sola Fide- Faith Alone
Galatians 2:15-16
15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 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.
The 31st of this month marks the 500th anniversary of when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the Door of the Wittenburg Castle church, thereby beginning the Reformation. To commemorate this event we are teaching through the 5 major tenets of the reformed faith. Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia, Sola fide, Solus Christus, and Soli deo Gloria. Today we will be looking at the doctrine of Sola fide- faith alone.
In 1517, Luther was teaching through the book of Galatians, as a professor of Bible in the University of Wittenburg. It was through examining this book that compelled him to write the 95 theses.
Later on, Luther called the book of Galatians- mine Kette- my chain. This is a play on words for his wife’s name was Katie. His point was that this book was like his wife to him, and his chain.
One biographer said, that his commentary on the book of Galatians was is most significant work aside from his translation of the scripture. This is understandable for the main point of the book of Galatians is that a person can only be made right with God through faith alone.
The driving issue in Martin Luther’s life was to discover how he could be made right with God. He once said…
“When I was a monk, I wearied myself greatly for almost fifteen years with the daily sacrifice, tortured myself with fastings, vigils, prayers, and other very rigorous works. I earnestly thought to acquire righteousness by my works” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 12, 273).
At another time he said….
Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not be sure that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, “As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity through the 10 commandments, without having God add sorrow upon sorrow by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteous wrath!” Thus I raged with a fierce and trouble conscience. (Luther, 1518 Lectures on the Psalms)
Luther, by virtue of his own testimony tells us the nature of our problem. How can unrighteous people ever make themselves righteous before a holy God? It was this question that drove Luther into the word to find an answer. And having found this longed for treasure his discovery catapulted him into leading the Reformation. This truth was so precious to him and the other reformers they could not compromise. They were not just dogmatic that man could be saved by faith alone- they were bull-dogmatic. For, upon this doctrine everything hinged.
- The Problem- Good works won’t justify
Paul wrote the letter to the Galatians because false teachers had crept into the church and were exerting significant influence to the extent that many of the believers were being tempted to abandon their faith in the gospel. He immediately confronts them at the outset of the letter-
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. (Gal 1:6-7)
foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? (Gal 3:1)
Essentially, what these false teachers were teaching was what can be described as a Christ and gospel. That is, faith in Christ and following the Old Testament law are both necessary for salvation. You need both.
But what Paul demonstrates in this letter is that no amount of good works or law keeping will make one right with God. One can only be saved by their faith alone. To believe differently is to believe a different gospel. And to faith in a different gospel will not save a person- it will damn them.
Paul begins his explanation of this doctrine in Chapter 2 verse 15.
15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ,
The Galatian churches were made up of mostly Jewish Christians. He contrasts them with the Gentiles saying- we are not like Gentile sinners. His point being that Jews have a knowledge of the law unlike the gentiles who never received God’s law. Since they didn’t have God’s law they disobeyed it- thus he calls them sinners. His point is not to bash the gentiles, but rather to highlight that the Jews having the law should recognize its insufficiency to make a person righteous before God.
He says even though we are Jews, as Christians we have come to recognize that no amount of law keeping will make us right with God- that is what is meant by the term justification.
Justification
The Greek word is δικαιόω- which means to be declared righteous. Unlike the Greek, English doesn’t have a verbal form for righteousness. Or else we would say- righteousified and righteousification. So, translators use a synonym for righteousness- justice and use its verbal form- justify. So Justification sounds like a big religious word, but it simply means to be declared righteous. You are not guilty, you have done nothing wrong.
As Paul suggests, the Jews recognized that their problem was that they needed to be made right with God. They had violated not just one law, but multitudes of laws and those multiple times. They not only needed forgiveness, they needed righteousness. So the best of them did the best they could to just keep following the law with the hopes that their best effort would be sufficient to save them from the wrath of God.
This is also called legalism. That is the belief that following certain rules is what makes us right with God. Often religions, even churches will come up with certain rules to follow that give certainty to one’s salvation.
The medieval form of this heresy was called semi-Pelagianism.
The Catholic Church taught that one must have faith in Christ and then perform good works to secure their salvation. Christ and the law. It was a new kind of law established by the church. This law was codified by Peter Lombard a medieval theologian in his book The Sentences- wherein he laid out the 7 sacraments by which one secured their salvation.
- Baptism
- Confirmation
- Eucharist
- Confession
- Penance
- Marriage
- Extreme Unction
Lombard and the Catholic Church taught that if a person dedicated themselves to following these sacraments then they could assure their salvation. It did not teach that a person had to be born-again as Jesus taught Nicodemus. Instead, they taught that a person’s best chance at overcoming their sin was to follow the set of rules developed by the church. There was no saving faith, no change. None of these efforts had any impact on getting people right with God.
The church was like a physician giving his cancer patients a placebo- their system was completely powerless to change the problem. Sure it might have a genuine psychological effect, make them feel better, give them a little hope- but it does nothing to solve the actual problem.
Many other churches today teach something similar- legalism. Doing good things- philanthropy, service- you can secure God’s favor by your actions. But such teaching is patently false- that is the point of Galatians.
Recently, The Pew Research Center surveyed protestant and catholic churches in the West to evaluate the impact of the reformation- given its 500th anniversary. Its findings were astonishing.
About half of U.S. Protestants (52%) say both good deeds and faith in God are needed to get into heaven, a historically Catholic position. The other half (46%) say that faith alone is needed to attain salvation.
Just 30% of all U.S. Protestants affirm both sola fide and sola scriptura.
In nearly all of the European countries surveyed, majorities or pluralities of both Catholics and Protestants adhere to the traditionally Catholic view that both faith and good works are necessary to attain salvation. In fact, in every country except Norway, belief in sola fide is a minority view even among Protestants.
The problem that Paul faced in writing the Galatians is the same problem we face today. Most Christians in the West, at least according to this research have bought into a false gospel. Any gospel that teaches anything other than faith alone saves is a false gospel. Let’s remember again Paul’s warning in chapter 1, verse 9…
9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. (Gal 1:9)
- The Principle: We are saved by faith
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.
Having realized that there was nothing that they could do to make themselves right with God through the law Paul and his audience have turned to the only way of becoming righteous. For there is only way one could become righteous before God- through faith in Christ.
The first thing we need to recognize in this statement is that there is an object of the faith. We are saved through faith in Christ. We are not saved simply by having faith. For everyone has faith, everyone believes in something. Baal worshipers have faith. One can believe that fluffy the unicorn is their god, but that will not save them. Having faith is not what saves but what one’s faith is in. One must have faith in Jesus. But we need to clarify this even more.
For there are many other religions that believe in Jesus- Muslim’s believe that Jesus was a real man. Hindu’s believe in Jesus- he is just one of many gods. We are not saved merely by believing in Jesus- for even the demons believe in Jesus. (James 2:13)
19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!
This is in fact what many of my students believe saving faith is- simply not being an atheist. One must believe that Jesus is the Christ. That means that Jesus is God, and he is the only one who can save people from their sins. But we must clarify this even more- that faith in him alone saves.
One must believe faith alone justifies- not faith and works
not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
The false gospel that was being taught in Galatia and what was being taught by the church prior to the Reformation was- Christ saves us, then we have to keep performing good works to secure that salvation.
Calvin commenting on this passage says…
For indeed, even the Papists profess to be justified by faith, but this is only half of the truth and it is the rest of the picture which spoils the whole. Sure enough, they are persuaded of the fact that a man cannot be accounted righteous before God unless Jesus is the Mediator and unless that person rests upon him for salvation. The Papists know this only too well, and yet they so often say, 'We are justified by faith but not by faith alone.' This is the point with which they take issue, and this is the principal matter upon which we differ. Paul, however, shows their folly when he says, 'but by faith', for this expression implies that all that men bring to God to please him is rejected. The door is, therefore, tight shut to all merit, for Paul declares that the only way to come to God is through faith.
In fact, any attempt to add to the work of Christ nullifies the work of Christ. In Galatians chapter 5 Paul says…
You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. (Gal 5:4-6)
The reason such a teaching is an abomination- is because it suggests that Christ’s death on the cross wasn’t good enough. But that men need to improve upon it with their own efforts. It also suggests Christ’s death was unnecessary.
21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. (Gal 2:21)
Hugh Latimer who was burned at the stake with Nicholas Ridley days after Blood Mary ascended the throne of England described the belief that Christ and works save us as “patching Christ”. In a sermon he preached in 1552 he said…
Therefore let us study to believe in Christ. Let us put all our hope, trust, and confidence only in him; let us patch him with nothing: for, as I told you before, our merits are not able to deserve everlasting life: it is too precious a thing to be merited by man. It is his doing only.
This is why Latimer called the Roman Catholic theologians “the very enemies of the Christ”, explaining, " for they reckon that "their good works have deserved heaven and everlasting life….this opinion is most detestable, abominable, and filthy in the sight of God. For it diminisheth the passion of Christ; it taketh away the power and strength of the same passion; it defileth the honor and glory of Christ; it forsaketh and denieth Christ, and all his benefits. For if we shall be judged after our own deservings, we shall be damned everlastingly. (Hugh Latimer, Sermon preached on the First Sunday after Epiphany in Works of Hugh Latimer, II, 146-147.)
Saving faith believes Christ’s death alone is what makes you right with God, and that Christ alone keeps you right with God.
It holds fast to the promise of Romans 8-
38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)
What does such faith look like in our life when we have it? What is the nature of saving faith?
- The Practice: Saving faith is definitive
20 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. (Gal 2:20)
Saving faith is definitive- we live by faith. It is definitive in the sense that it now defines us. Faith in God’s promises ultimately determines how we will live and what we will do. A Christian can be defined as- one who lives by faith.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Rom 1:16-17)
The verb is present tense (lives)- on going, not just a one-time decision, but an embrace of Christ that has a lasting and permanent effect on one’s life.
37 For, “Yet a little while,
and the coming one will come and will not delay;
38 but my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.”
39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. (Heb 10:37-39)…Hebrews 11:1- Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
What follows is what is known as the Hall of Faith. The author lists Old Testament believers and how they demonstrated their faith. Which brings up the question- If people are saved by faith alone, how were Old Testament believers saved? Weren’t they saved by law keeping?
Old Testament believers were saved in the same way- by faith alone. To prove that point to the Galatians Paul points back to Abraham. Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? (Gal 3:6) It was Abraham’s faith that justified him before God. How do we know? It says so, but also, this was before the law had been given. The law didn’t come about until 500 years later. The point is, Abraham did nothing but believe and that was what made him righteous. This clarifies the nature of saving faith even more for us then- saving faith is taking God at his word. It is believing all that God has said is true.
- Saving faith takes God at his word
Saving faith believes the gospel and everything else revealed in scripture. In John 10, Jesus describes himself as the shepherd of the sheep, and his sheep will follow him for they know his voice.
But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” (John 10:2-5)
The apostle John says something similar in his first letter-
Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1 John 4:4-6)
- Saving faith is trusting Christ and his word
If you believe God is who he says he is, and Jesus is who he says he is- then there is no way you would continually ignore his instructions. However, one can be genuinely saved, have genuine faith, and yet struggle to understand what God teaches. True Christians believe all of what God says, but that doesn’t mean Christians don’t struggle to understand and even believe.
15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. (2 Pet 3:15-17)
Struggling to understand a truth in scripture is simply to acknowledge your weakness as a mere human. There are many things that are hard to understand in the scriptures: Eternity, Sovereignty and suffering, Hell, Predestination and Free Will, the Trinity. As Christians we simply believe what the Bible says, even if these are hard truths- but we keep pressing on and are warry to not twist the scriptures to please our own sentiments.
Even though we were once led by the passions of our flesh, saving faith now determines our choices- even when what God says seems to conflict with our experience.
- Saving faith is audacious (example of saving faith)
In order to elaborate more on what this faith looks like lived out, I want to take one of the people mentioned in Hebrews 11- Abraham, the father of faith, and see how he demonstrated is faith in Romans chapter 4.
In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. (Romans 4:18-21)
Here Paul elaborates on the kind of faith Abraham had, demonstrating that true faith in God means taking him at his word regardless of circumstances. By all appearances, his situation was hopeless. But, this hopeless situation was in reality the perfect setting for God to demonstrate his power and trustworthiness to all who might worship him.
Similarly, when we are in the midst of a trial and fail to discern how God could possibly use the situation for our good and his glory, we are tempted to question God’s credibility. This is because our confidence is often based more upon what we experience and understand, than upon what the word of God says.
Abraham’s confidence was as well (Hagar), which was why God waited to fulfill his promise until there was no earthly hope that it could be accomplished. So it was when Abraham hoped against hope (v. 18), God demonstrated his power through him. To hope against hope means to believe God- especially when life does not make sense. To take God at his word- despite circumstances.
In fact, it was faith in God’s promise despite the impossible circumstances that allowed Abraham to actually glorify God.
(v. 20) No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,
This is one way sola fide- connects to soli deo Gloria- God is glorified when we exercise this kind of faith.
- Saving faith is not faith in faith
What if after trusting in Christ we begin to struggle with doubt? This is when God’s word and the beautiful truth of justification by faith alone becomes most assuring.
19 By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. (1 John 3:19-20).
In other words, Saving faith is not faith in our faith- it is faith in God’s promises. So even if our faith wavers and our hearts condemn us- saving faith looks away from ourselves and unto the work of Christ and his word.
A friend of John Newton who was struggling with extreme doubt wrote to him pleading for spiritual guidance. She believed that the Lord had rejected her because she had committed some unpardonable sin.
Indeed I will not call it your thought, it is your temptation. You tell me you have children. Then you will easily feel a plain illustration, which just now occurs to me. Let me suppose a case which has sometimes happened: a child three or four years of age, we will say, while playing incautiously at a little distance from home, should be suddenly seized and carried away by a gypsy. Poor thing! how terrified, how distressed must it be! Methinks I hear its cries. The sight and violence of the stranger, the recollection of its dear parents, the loss of its pleasing home, the dread and uncertainty of what is yet to befall it. Is it not a wonder that it does not die in agonies? But see, help is at hand! the gypsy is pursued, and the child recovered. Now, my dear Madam, permit me to ask you, if this were your child, how would you receive it?
Perhaps, when the first transports of your joy for its safety would permit you, you might gently chide it for leaving your door. But would you disinherit it? Would you disown it? Would you deliver it up again to the gypsy with your own hands, because it had suffered a violence which it could not withstand, which it abhorred, and to which its will never consented? And yet what is the tenderness of a mother, of ten thousand mothers, to that which our compassionate Saviour bears to every poor soul that has been enabled to flee to Him for salvation? Let us be far from charging that to Him, of which we think we are utterly incapable ourselves.
What makes Newton’s counsel so effective is that he is both empathetic and yet unswervingly fixated on the truth that we are saved by our faith alone then he points her back to the word of God as the only real resource of hope.
Notice how he finishes…
It is said, the blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sin; that all manner of sin shall be forgiven for its sake; that whoever cometh He will in no wise cast out; and that He is able to save to the uttermost. Believe His word and Satan shall be found a liar. If the child had deliberately gone away with the gypsy, had preferred that wretched way of life, had refused to return, though frequently and tenderly invited home; perhaps its parent's love might, in time, be too weak for the pardon of such continued obstinacy. But indeed, in this manner we have all dealt with the Lord, and yet, whenever we are willing to return, He is willing to receive us with open arms, and without an upbraiding word, Luke xv. 20-22.
In other words- Saving faith is not faith in our faith. It is faith in God’s word- in particular and the sufficiency of Christ’s work on the cross to forgive us our sin. Saving faith is looking away from ourselves and trusting completely in God.
