Dear EFC Subscribers:

As mentioned in our last edition, I will be sending out newsletters on a much more consistent basis–about one every two weeks.  Up until now, the newsletter contained mostly news.  We will still include news, but will be adding more content such as articles, links and essays. We are looking for contributors to the newsletter who would like to write articles or send along items such as recent discoveries in the news, interesting links and the like. There is a link to an article on Genesis at the end of the newsletter.

But before the first article, we do have some news. I just gave a sermon titled Galatians: Living by Law or by the Spirit. The sermon, notes and power point are at the web site or at this link Galatians Holy Spirit Sermon .  I will be teaching a class on apologetics for teens as a teen camp sponsored by the San Diego Church of Christ on 6/19. The class will be posted.

I have completed the third volume of my series on Church History, The Christian Story: Finding the Church in Church History. As with the previous volumes, this one includes several essays on topics which are not necessarily historical, but which illustrate church history.  The following is one of those essays.  In the book it is in the context of a chapter on Martin Luther.

Faith Alone 

The most important discovery of Luther and the central teaching of the Magisterial Protestant Reformation is the faith alone doctrine. Legitimate membership in the reformation came down to this: If one accepted the sola fide doctrine, then one was in the club. It was the sine qua non (without which none) of the reformers.

This begs the essential question. Was Luther’s sola fide an overreaction to the medieval works-salvation of Roman Christianity, or was it a restoration of an essential of the Christian faith? And what is the long term effect of the a-priori assumption of main stream Protestantism that faith which does not include works can be saving faith?

Are we saved by faith alone? Or perhaps more to the point, what did Luther and the other Protestant reformers mean when they proposed that our salvation is based on faith alone? The bottom line for Luther and other key reformers was the three “alone” doctrines. To them, the Christian faith is established on scripture alone (sola scritura), grace alone and faith alone. To Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and to those who carried out the English reformation as well, Christian truth is established on the Bible alone—with no other source of authoritative truth. Secondly, they taught that our salvation is granted to us due to God’s grace alone—apart from any human works. They taught that no work we do can place us in a better position to be saved. Last, the reformers believed that our part in salvation is due to a faith which is, in principle, alone. What Luther taught is that a faith which does not include any work whatsoever is sufficient for salvation. He also taught that this faith is a gift of God, given to the elect. It is not something we do.

To the first two premises we can agree. The sole arbiter for Christian truth is the inspired Word of God. Any proposition which does not agree with scripture is either a matter of opinion or is outright wrong. In Psalm 119:160 we learn that the sum of God’s word is truth and every one of his righteous laws is eternal. “All scripture is inspired by God.” (2 Timothy 3:16)  We can also agree with Luther that salvation is by grace alone. “It is by grace that 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.” (Ephesians 2:1). God prepared works for us to do, but we do these works because we are saved, not in order to be saved. This is the clear biblical teaching. Salvation is by grace alone.

But here is the question. Are we saved by faith alone? Can the kind of faith which does not include works result in salvation? Jesus, Paul, Peter and James all answered this question. Jesus was asked, “What must we do to do the works of God?” in response, Jesus replied, “The work of God is this: to believe in the One he sent.” (John 6:28-29). Jesus told his hearers that belief itself is something we do—it is a work, and it is certainly something we must “do” in order to be saved. We are told by Paul that when it comes to our salvation, “The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself in love.” (Galatians 5:6) Faith which is not expressed in love is not saving faith. When Peter was asked, “Brothers, what must we do,” he did not say to simply believe. He told his hearers that, in order to be forgiven of their sins, they must repent and submit to baptism. Whether baptism is a work is something to be discussed, but surely repentance is something which we do. James tells us, “You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.” (James 2:24) It does not take a theologian to understand this clear teaching. The biblical answer to the question of whether faith which is alone can save is a resounding no.

Are we mischaracterizing Luther? Are we mischaracterizing much of evangelical Christianity today? The reader can decide, of course, but we should let Luther’s words speak for themselves. Consider the following:[1]

This faith alone, when based upon the sure promises of God, must save us; as our text clearly explains. And in the light of it all, they must become fools who have taught us other ways to become godly. … Man may forever do as he will, he can never enter heaven unless God takes the first step with his Word, which offers him divine grace and enlightens his heart so as to get upon the right way.

Should one imagine he is able to do anything good of his own strength he does no less than make Christ the Lord a liar.[2]

Do you now see how faith justifies without works? Sin lingers in us, and God hates sin. A transfusion of righteousness therefore becomes vitally necessary. This transfusion of righteousness we obtain from Christ because we believe in Him.[3]

Luther was sufficiently convinced of his faith alone doctrine that he was willing to insert a word in his German translation which was not there in the Greek. In his translation of Romans 3:28, he had (translating from his translation into German), “a person is saved by faith alone, apart from the works of the law.” It is common for translators to insert a word in their translation which does not have an equivalent word in the original Greek. They do so for the sake of clarity. However, given the controversy over the doctrine of salvation in his day, Luther’s addition of the word “alone” into the text of Romans shows a clear bias on his part. His insertion of the word “alone” was more of an interpretation than a translation. John Calvin defended Luther’s translation to Martin’s detractors:

[The Sophists] cavil against our doctrine when we say that man is justified by faith alone. They dare not deny that man is justified by faith because it recurs so often in Scripture. But since the word “alone” is nowhere expressed, they do not allow this addition to be made…. Not only by a false but an obviously ridiculous shift they insist upon excluding this adjective.[4]

In fairness to Luther, Zwingli and Calvin, all of them taught that Christian faith will include works. The life which does not include turning from sin, prayer and worshipping God is not the Christian life. The reformers had strong convictions on the importance of works in the Christian life. One could argue that opposing this faith alone doctrine, though it is not biblical, amounts to splitting doctrinal hairs. The problem with this is that the faith alone doctrine has affected many aspects of evangelical Christianity in a negative way. Many are adamant that we have no role whatsoever to play in our salvation. We merely need to “pray Jesus into our hearts.” The result is that the need for repentance as a prerequisite to salvation is greatly downplayed, as the command to repent requires that we do something—that we respond to the command. Another disastrous result of this false teaching is that many deny the biblical truth that forgiveness of sins occurs when we are baptized into Christ. (Acts 2:38) Given that baptism is a work of God, not of man, the imputation that it is a work, and therefore cannot have a part to play in our salvation is not even justified. If “faith alone” takes a central part in our Christian belief system, then Peter’s call to repent and be baptized in order to be forgiven of our sins and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit must be denied. This is no mere hair-splitting point. We will see how the Protestant faith alone doctrine worked itself out over time in the history of the Christian church.

Was Luther’s sola fide doctrine the result of an over-reaction on his part to works-oriented Catholic practices? We certainly have seen many examples in our history of one group reacting against another, rather than finding the truth in the scripture. Perhaps when Luther rediscovered the biblical doctrine of grace as he studied Romans, he was so shocked by Roman practices such as confession, penance and indulgences that he over-interpreted the doctrine of grace, causing him to mistakenly remove our role in accepting our salvation through faith and repentance entirely. It is difficult to judge the motives or the thinking processes from our distant perspective. Perhaps it was not an overreaction by Luther, but instead it may have been the result of his reading Romans through an Augustinian lens.

In any case, let us learn from the mistakes of Church history. Let us not swing the pendulum so far that we put too much emphasis on works and on the part that our response to the gospel plays in our salvation. Let us love, embrace and teach the biblical doctrine of salvation by grace through faith, not by works, so that we will never find ourselves boasting in our good deeds.

[1] Martin Luther, On Faith and Coming to Christ.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Martin Luther Commentary on Galatians.

[4] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.11.19.

John Oakes

There has been much discussion on the important question of how much of the first eleven chapters of Genesis can be taken as historical. Some have claimed that there is little if any historical content in these chapters, implying that God accommodated false cosmology in order to teach correct theology.  A good friend of EFC, David Simmons sent along a link to an interesting article on this important question. The author has an anti-evolution bias. We certainly cannot endorse all he has to say, but thought his perspective can add some light to the question of the historicity of Genesis.  Here is a link.   https://isgenesishistory.com/gnostic-world-of-john-walton/