Background Comments on the Doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone

Marc Kolden

The assertion of “justification by faith” in the sixteenth-century Reformation can be understood only if it is clearly seen as a complete break with “justification by grace.”[1]

            This provocative statement will come as a surprise to many Christians and not least to many people who count themselves loyal heirs of the sixteenth-century Lutheran Reformation.  By this statement Gerhard Forde intends to define the central issue of the Reformation as sharply as possible not only in its historical sense but also and especially for contemporary theological understanding.  None of the Protestant or Catholic protagonists in the sixteenth century would have denied that justification is by grace or even by grace alone.  The disagreement was over the meaning of grace, even though this was not always noticed.  The reformers' claim that justification before God is by faith alone is their proposal for the correct understanding of God's gracious saving act in Jesus Christ.

            To specify that justification (which means to be “righteous” or to be in a right relationship with God) is "by grace through faith," as Ephesians 2:8 and article 4 of the Augsburg Confession state it, is problematic as long as "grace" can be construed in terms other than as the gift of faith.  If, for example, grace is understood to be some substance or power that God gives to people which enables them to think, believe, or behave virtuously in order to merit salvation, then faith itself is turned into a good work (that is, the grace-empowered “work” of believing).  "By faith alone" is intended to describe a completely different way of understanding how people are justified (set right) before God.

            All of this is spelled out in the Apology of the CA, article 4.  In order to follow the many different sorts of themes and arguments in the present volume, it is important for the reader to be aware of the way that the Lutheran reformers made their case.  In its simplest form, there are three aspects: 1) The basic religious reality that Jesus brings is the forgiveness of sins; that is, the sins which make us unrighteous are pardoned for Christ’s sake, making us righteous in God’s eyes; 2) The proper doctrinal formula for understanding the way that the forgiveness of sins makes us righteous is "justification by faith"; and 3) to work out the proper theological meaning of justification by faith a distinction must be made in God's word between law and promise (or between law and gospel, as is usually said today).  That is, the method for thinking theologically in light of justification by faith is the law-gospel distinction.

            First, for Martin Luther as well as the other reformers the whole gospel could be summed up in the phrase, "the forgiveness of sins," because for Luther "where there is forgiveness of sins there is also life and salvation," as he puts it in the Small Catechism (5:2).  Sin (or sins) refers to everything that is wrong between people and God.  Jesus bears the sins of the world and on his account God forgives our sins; they are no longer counted against us.  Then all is right between God and sinners, both now and in eternity.  Note that the phrase, “the forgiveness of sins,” is very inclusive, as Luther uses it, for it encompasses everything from the saving work of Christ to there being a “new creation” to the anticipation of (and participation through faith and hope in) eschatological salvation now and eventually for eternity.  Also, since the wages of sin is death, forgiveness amounts to the sinful person being raised from death to life.

            In order to explain all of this properly, the Apology uses the image of being pardoned.  Again and again “pardon” is used to explain divine forgiveness.  When a sinner is pardoned, everything changes.  One who is guilty and deserves to be punished is given a pardon and is no longer considered to be guilty but instead has all the privileges and responsibilities of one who never sinned.  The sinner's role in this is passive; that is, it happens to us, God acts on us.  God is the actor, the pardoner, who changes everything.  Divine forgiveness, therefore, is not one step in a cooperative process of becoming righteous (or right with God); rather, forgiveness is God's undeserved gift that makes things right. 

            Second, to make the case doctrinally or dogmatically within the traditional doctrinal language of justification, the concept of “imputed righteousness” is used to present the centrality of the idea of forgiveness as pardon.  In order to justify us (i.e., make things right between God and us), the reformers said, God imputes to us the righteousness of Christ; that is, we are counted as being or are "reckoned" as righteous, altogether apart from our own worthiness (or lack of it).  Our sins are not ascribed to us or counted against us, but instead Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us; it is counted as ours.  We are declared righteous before God on account of Christ and, as this good news is proclaimed to us (and about us), we can be sure that it is trustworthy because it is God’s word of promise.  God’s own trust-worthiness in Christ engenders trust in the hearer.  Therefore, the reformers said, righteousness before God is through or by faith (trust) in God’s word; hence, “justification by faith.”

            This is a radical departure from the medieval tradition that spoke of some sort of intrinsic or "real" righteousness that comes about in the sinful human being as a result of grace.  The Reformation notion of a "forensic" (law court declaration) righteousness moved the focus away from any sort of "empirical" or "actual" righteousness in the Christian to the justifying act of God in declaring us righteous on account of Christ.  Critics sometimes chided the Lutheran reformers for holding to a "fictitious" righteousness that was not "real" in the sense of bringing about an evident change within the person but was merely verbal and theoretical.  The reformers replied that God's declaration is more real than human historical "reality" because the declaration that one's sins are forgiven is a divine promise – it is the last judgment ahead of time.  God's verdict that we are righteous because our sins are forgiven is said to be more "real" than the present "actuality" of our sins.  We can trust God’s promise or verdict, in contrast to having to depend on our own successful “actualization” of righteousness with the help of divine power: our “actualization” will always leave us in doubt, no matter how many good works we perform.  Hence, “justification by faith apart from works.”[2]

            Third, crucial for the reformers' understanding and development of this doctrine is the theological method of distinguishing between law and gospel or between the law and the promises (to use the language of the Ap 4:5ff.).  The point is that the language of promise or gospel is eschatological; it refers to our ultimate and eternal standing with God rather than to our life in this present age, though of course our eternal standing with God has real importance for our life now.  If no distinction is made between this present age and the age to come, then we will confuse God's word and most likely miss the promise altogether.  In truth, God's law is for living in this age; it is not a means for gaining salvation in the age to come.  The gospel of Jesus Christ is the way of salvation for the age to come and gives us new life in faith even now.  Such new life may or may not look much different to those around us or even to ourselves; its eschatological truth in any case will not be demonstrable because it is founded on a promise, not on empirical facts from this present age.

            For the reformers this was a pastoral matter, above all.  Many pre-Reformation Christians, following the church’s teachings, thought of Jesus as the new Moses (the first law giver) and turned the good news of salvation into a new form of law so that people supposed they could achieve salvation by living according to Jesus' teachings – with the help of grace, of course.  But then the radical, freeing gospel of divine forgiveness is lost and the result is despair over not being able to live up to Jesus’ teachings (or perhaps pride at thinking one has done so).  Luther knew this very well, both from the New Testament and from his own experience as a monk.  This led to the confessional insight that "the law always accuses" (Ap 4:38).  That is, the first and obvious use of the law is to prevent evil and promote good in daily life, but because we are sinners who do not wish to and often fail to keep the law, the law always also will reveal our sin and accuse us.  In fact, the law will convict us and condemn us to eternal death.  Salvation in the face of this can only come by the word of divine promise, of gospel, raising to life a new self, a faithful self that lives by the promise of Christ.

            The Lutheran reformers argued that Christian preachers and teachers must distinguish between law and promise so as not to lose the promise.  Humans beings know the "logic of law" from experience and will naturally (mis)understand God's word in terms of that logic, namely, that we get what we deserve.  For example, if we do thus and so, then such and such will happen; if we do good works, then we will be rewarded.  In contrast, the "logic of promise" contradicts our experience; the wisdom of God is foolishness to the wise of this world.  A promise gives something with no strings or conditions attached.  By making a distinction between law and promise, preachers and teachers will keep the good news good; they will present the gospel as promise, not as demand.  (It might be added that making this distinction also keeps the law focused where God intended it to be: on this life and on love for our neighbor.)

            One additional phrase needs to be mentioned: simul iustus et peccator (simultaneously righteous and sinner).  To test whether one understands justification by faith alone properly and not as a process through which the faithful person achieves righteousness with the help of grace, it must be the case that our righteousness before God is simultaneously another’s (Christ’s) but is ours while we are yet sinners.  This simultaneity (at the same time righteous and sinful) is the test of whether justification is by faith alone, apart from works.  As Luther used it, the simul in all its apparent contradictoriness is a thoroughly eschatological formula.  In terms of historical or civil righteousness (that is, being good citizens), some of us are better and some of us are worse.  Yet before God there is no aspect of our human historical existence that is free from sin. In spite of God’s ongoing creation of our good humanity in every moment, sin thoroughly affects every aspect of every person.  Therefore the reformers said: In ourselves, in this present age, we are sinful and cannot free ourselves; but in Christ, that is, in terms of the age to come which has broken in already through the word of the gospel we are at the same time completely righteous.[3]

            All of this leads to an understanding of faith as "trust," trust in the promise that God counts us righteous in Christ.  Trust in this sense is not something we create or achieve but something that God creates in us by the promise.  Luther used the illustration of someone making a last will and testament, in which it is promised that we will receive our inheritance when the testator dies.  What happens to us in light of this promise?  Do we ask what we have to do to receive this inheritance?  No, it has already been promised.  It will be ours; there are no strings attached.  Rejoice!  Be glad!  Count on it!  The promise itself creates what we (erroneously) want to call "our" response, our trust, our faith, when in fact faith is not our doing at all but the gift that comes with the promise.

            It is helpful to think of the law-gospel distinction in functional terms.  What does the word of God do?  Does it give faith in Christ, inspire hope because of him, raise us to awareness of new life in him?  Then it is gospel.  Or does it exhort us to do good works, demand obedience, or send us to serve our neighbor in need?  If so, it is law.  Both are God’s word.  But they are different.  They do different things.  Both are important, but only the gospel gives salvation.  The point of distinguishing in God’s word between law and gospel is especially to protect the gospel, but also to insure that both functions of that word occur, though not by human speaking but by the Holy Spirit through the spoken word.  Dare we say it this way: The purpose of the doctrine of justification by faith alone (by way of the law-gospel distinction) is to help us not make the Spirit’s work even more difficult by omitting one or the other function of God’s word or by confusing them.

            To conclude: If the above exposition is clear and faithful to the Lutheran reformers, it is not necessarily uncontroversial, either in terms of history or of present understanding.  The essays which follow address themselves to various issues, problems, and debates surrounding the history and meaning of justification by faith, such as, to name but a few: the place of good works; the role of the law for the Christian; the relation between justification and sanctification and between justification and ethics; the connection of justification by faith to understandings of church and ministry; and the critical question of the role and authority of the doctrine of justification in relation to other doctrines.  The Lutheran claim that the doctrine of justification is the "chief article" of the Christian faith (Ap 4:2; cf. FC SD 3:6) has been a point of disagreement in ecumenical relations and among Lutherans themselves both as to what it means to assert that something is the chief article and how the implications of that chief article are worked out in Christian theology and practice. 

            Gerhard Forde has been and remains a major contributor to many of these discussions; it is not surprising that essays written in his honor easily cohere around this Lutheran center.  This is true also when they are written by theologians from other traditions; their contributions support the Lutheran claim that justification by faith alone is not merely a Lutheran way of thinking but is the central Christian claim about what it means to be a Christian theologian and what a church that is faithful to its Lord will believe, teach, and confess.[4]

                                                                        NOTES

This paper was published in the book By Faith Alone: Essays on Justification in Honor of Gerhard O. Forde, edited by Joseph A. Burgess and Marc Kolden (Eerdmans, 2004).