Grace alone, faith alone

Grace that is really grace

If Scripture alone was the Reformation's rule (the last lesson), grace alone and faith alone were the gospel the Reformers heard again in that Scripture. Paul puts it in one sentence:

For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9

Grace is God's free favour to those who have no claim on it, and Paul insists that it cannot be mixed with merit: "if it is by grace, then it is no longer by works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace" (Romans 11:6). Matthew Henry puts the choice starkly: "Salvation from the first to the last must be either of grace or of debt" Matthew Henry. Titus says the same: God "saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy" (Titus 3:5).

Grace alone does not mean that grace helps our efforts along. It means that the whole of salvation, from raising the spiritually dead to bringing them home, is God's work. So the Reformed confess that even the faith which receives salvation is God's gift. The Westminster Confession ends the first section of its chapter on justification on that note: this faith "they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God" Westminster Confession 11.1. This is not a Reformed peculiarity. The Council of Orange (529) confessed that every good will, and the very beginning of faith, come from grace Council of Orange.

Faith, the empty vessel

How is grace received? Paul answers that "a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law" (Romans 3:28), and that "a man is not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ" (Galatians 2:16). A worker's wages are owed, he says, but "to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness" (Romans 4:5). The verb is logizomai (λογίζομαι), to count or reckon something to someone's account, and it runs through Romans 4 like a refrain. God reckons the ungodly righteous, not because of what they have done, but because of the one in whom they trust.

Is faith, then, a smaller kind of work that God rewards? The Reformed answer is no. Calvin compared faith to a vessel: unless we come empty, with the mouth of the soul open to seek Christ's grace, we cannot receive him. Faith justifies not because it has any worth of its own, but because it brings us Christ Calvin, Institutes 3.11.7. The Heidelberg Catechism says the same: I am righteous by faith only, not because my faith is worthy, but because only the satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ is my righteousness before God, and I can receive it in no other way than by faith Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 61.

Whose righteousness, then? Paul's own longing answers:

and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God on the basis of faith.

Philippians 3:9

Matthew Henry comments: "There is a righteousness provided for us in Jesus Christ, and it is a complete and perfect righteousness. None can have benefit by it, who trust in themselves" Matthew Henry. Paul names the exchange that makes it ours: "God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Our sin is counted to Christ; his righteousness is counted to us.

The Westminster Confession states this with great care. God justifies "not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone". He does not count faith itself as our righteousness, but justifies "by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith" Westminster Confession 11.1. The Heidelberg Catechism turns this into the language of a troubled conscience. Though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God's commandments and of being still inclined to all evil, God, without any merit of mine, out of sheer grace, credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinned and had myself accomplished all the obedience Christ accomplished for me Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 60.

A faith that is never alone

The only place the New Testament speaks of ‘faith alone’ is James, and there it is denied: "As you can see, a man is justified by his deeds and not by faith alone" (James 2:24). Luther, translating Romans 3:28 into German (1522), added the word ‘alone’ and defended it as Paul's meaning. The Reformed read Paul and James as answering different questions. Paul asks what makes a sinner right with God; James asks what kind of faith is real. James warns that bare assent is not enough: "Even the demons believe that — and shudder" (James 2:19). In Abraham, by contrast, "his faith was working with his actions, and his faith was perfected by what he did" (James 2:22).

The Westminster Confession holds the two together: "Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification: yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love" Westminster Confession 11.2. Calvin, replying to the Council of Trent, put it in a famous phrase: faith alone justifies, yet the faith that justifies is not alone Calvin, Antidote. He also taught that in union with Christ we receive a double grace, justification and sanctification, together, for Christ justifies no one whom he does not also sanctify Calvin, Institutes 3.11.1, 3.16.1. Or as Matthew Henry puts it, "Works must be in the saved, but are not among the causes of their salvation" Matthew Henry.

Other traditions agree that grace comes first, but describe justification differently. The Catholic Church teaches that justification is not only the forgiveness of sins but the inward renewal and sanctification of the person by grace. The Council of Trent (1547) taught that this grace is given in baptism and that the justified grow in it through faith working by love. It held that nothing which precedes justification, whether faith or works, merits its grace, but rejected ‘faith alone’ understood as excluding any cooperation of the will moved by grace Council of Trent, Decree on Justification. In 1999 the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church confessed together that we are accepted by God by grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work, and not because of any merit of ours Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. In 2017 the World Communion of Reformed Churches formally associated itself with that declaration. Differences remain, but the churches had begun to listen. The Christian Doctrine course's lesson on faith and justification sets out the traditions more fully.

Who will bring a charge?

Above all, this is comfort.

Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is there to condemn us? For Christ Jesus, who died, and more than that was raised to life, is at the right hand of God— and He is interceding for us.

Romans 8:33-34

If our standing with God depended on the strength of our faith or on how well we did today, we would never be at rest. But our righteousness is in Christ at God's right hand, and it does not waver. So the Heidelberg Catechism can let the accusing conscience speak: the answer is Christ. Those freed from the fear of condemnation begin to serve God, not to earn his favour, but in gratitude, the theme of Guilt, grace and gratitude. See also What is grace? and What is justification? The next lesson shows that all this grace is found in Christ alone, and so all glory belongs to God alone.

Practice