The formal doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide, Latin) has been openly contested since the Reformation, sometimes even within various Protestant or Evangelical congregations. Scripture speaks of baptism in strong salvific language, leading some to worry that justification by faith alone removes the need for baptism. Some have concluded that because baptism seems to be a clear part of the application of salvation, justification cannot be by faith alone. But does faith alone actually require that?
On the opposite side of the spectrum, others have suggested that, if justification is by faith alone, no other element can be part of the application of salvation. Some even claim that “faith alone” just means that the moment one believes is the moment one is saved. But this is both absent from the New Testament and not actually how it was originally used in the early days of the Reformation by Martin Luther.
First, What Is Faith?
Faith is first and foremost an inward disposition of trust or reliance. The author of Hebrews calls it, “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen” (Hebrews 11:1, ESV). Importantly, faith is not an abstract psychological concept. It is concrete because it trusts in something. Faith always has an object. So, being an inward disposition of the heart, it is necessarily a disposition toward something or someone.
Now, before going further, it must be said that the faith that saves should never be thought of as a mere mental assent. Saving faith is not the same as believing that some facts are true. Rather, faith is a firm confidence which resides in the heart and results in faithful living.
Luther, who popularized the doctrine of justification by faith alone, affirms this by his understanding of faith. He states,
“Faith is a work of God in us, which changes us and brings us to birth anew from God...makes us completely different people in heart, mind, senses, and all our powers, and brings the Holy Spirit with it. What a living, creative, active, powerful thing is faith! It is impossible that faith ever stop doing good. Faith doesn’t ask whether good works are to be done, but, before it is asked, it has done them. It is always active. Whoever doesn’t do such works is without faith...”1
For Luther, faith is not merely mental recognition. Instead, it is a change in one’s allegiance which must result in a changed heart and actions, or it is not truly faith. This is exactly what James asserts when he states, “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead” (James 2:26).
This is why Scripture can call “our common salvation” the “faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Faith is behind every part of the Christian walk. Therefore, faith is not a one-time agreement with reality, but a perpetual conviction by which the Christian life is lived. Whether it be the initial acts of conversion in repentance, confession, and baptism, or our walking in “newness of life” marked by obedience, works, and perseverance, all of it is by and through faith.
What Faith Alone Is NOT
Before deciding to dismiss or accept the phrase “justification by faith alone,” we should seek to understand what it does not mean. Importantly, the doctrine of sola fide is not a denial of the means God has assigned to enjoin us to Christ. We do not have to deny “faith alone” to preserve baptism for the forgiveness of sins, as if they are mutually exclusive. The two are not opposed! Rather, Paul identifies our trusting in Christ as the receiving element of Christ in baptism:
“having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Colossians 2:12).
It is by faith that we were buried and raised with Christ, becoming partakers with him in new life.
In baptism, we are promised forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38, Acts 22:16), union with Christ (Romans 6:3-4, Galatians 3:27), and salvation (1 Peter 3:21). Faith trusts what is promised in the waters of baptism and there receives Christ and all his benefits.
This is precisely what Luther affirms in his Large Catechism, stating:
“But as our would-be wise, new spirits assert that faith alone saves...It is true, indeed, that nothing in us is of any avail but faith, as we shall hear still further. But…faith must have something which it believes, that is, of which it takes hold, and upon which it stands and rests. Thus faith clings to the water, and believes that it is Baptism, in which there is pure salvation and life; not through the water...but through the fact that it is embodied in the Word and institution of God, and the name of God inheres in it.”2
Clearly, the Reformation Father asserts that “faith alone” neither negates a proper understanding of, nor a need for, baptism. Rather, he attests that it is through faith alone that baptism becomes the vehicle for the believer’s contact with “pure salvation and life.”
Additionally, he follows these statements by making specific mention of Mark 16:16. Here he affirms its full weight as compatible with the doctrine of faith alone, as he says:
“He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. That is, faith alone makes the person worthy to receive profitably the saving, divine water. For, since these blessings are here presented and promised in the words in and with the water, they cannot be received in any other way than by believing them with the heart. Without faith it profits nothing...Therefore this single word (He that believeth) effects this much that it excludes and repels all works which we can do, in the opinion that we obtain and merit salvation by them. For it is determined that whatever is not faith avails nothing nor receives anything.”3
The doctrine of Sola Fide is not inconsistent with the means God has set his promises to. Rather, it should be the very basis on which we enter into the waters of baptism to begin with. When one comes to baptism, he comes believing in God’s promise to grant salvation.
On What Basis Are We Justified?
To be justified means to be declared righteous. Scripture makes it clear that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), and that God’s wrath is imminent on those who are unrighteous (Romans 1:18), and unless we are perfect as he is perfect (Matthew 5:48), we will not be justified before him. So, how can we be righteous before the God we have sinned against?
Paul answers this in Philippians, stating that he hopes to be,
“...found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Philippians 3:9).
In our sin, we stand condemned before a just God. Yet, there is hope, not of achieving our own righteousness, but of receiving another’s: Christ’s (Romans 3:21-26). We do not merit our justification, but rather, Christ’s righteousness is counted to us by faith, and we are treated as if it were our own (Romans 4:3-6).
In summary, “faith alone” is ultimately a statement revealing the basis on which one comes to acquire his justification. Faith trusts in Christ, and Christ alone, to achieve the righteousness he needs to be justified before God. But are we right to call it “faith alone?”
Justification By Faith Alone
Since faith requires an object for one to entrust himself to, it should never be understood apart from that object. This means that “faith alone” fundamentally refers to faith in Christ. R. C. Sproul once affirmed this thought by his statement, “Saying that we are justified by faith alone is simply shorthand for saying that we are justified by Christ alone.”
So, faith is the basis on which God accepts the sinner because through it, we receive the very righteousness we cannot procure on our own. The doctrine of sola fide excludes everything but Christ as the source of our righteousness. Justification must come to us by faith alone, for if it came by anything else, it would mean that we could somehow become the source of our own righteousness.
This is exactly the argument made by Paul in Romans 4, where he states,
“Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,” (Romans 4:4-5).
Paul makes himself clear. Faith plus anything (as the basis on which God accepts the sinner) moves us from being a recipient of a righteousness that isn’t our own to being a manufacturer of a righteousness that merits our acceptance before God. So, yes, it is certainly right to call this truth by what it is: “faith alone.”
Conclusion
After an examination of the doctrine of faith alone in its proper form, we can see that it is no threat to the biblical witness of how a sinner becomes saved. If we use the simple questions we as children were taught to ask, we may discover a better picture of this application of salvation: Grace is why we come to be saved; Christ’s atonement is what saves us; faith is how we receive Christ; baptism is the where and therefore the when we are joined to him. What is offered in baptism is not a righteousness of our own, but the righteousness of Christ, counted to us by faith in Christ (Romans 4:3-5; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Titus 3:3-5).
While it may be helpful to ask what exactly others mean by “faith alone,” properly understood in light of the biblical text, we should not be afraid to affirm this truth rightly discerned. Although we are justified by faith alone, the faith that saves is never alone.
Luther, Martin. "Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans." Translated by Charles M. Jacobs, revised by E. Theodore Bachmann. Pages 365–80 in Word and Sacrament I. Edited by E. Theodore Bachmann. Vol. 35 of Luther's Works. Edited by Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1960.
Luther, Martin. "Part Fourth: Of Baptism." In The Large Catechism. Translated by F. Bente and W. H. T. Dau. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/luther/largecatechism.vi_2.html.
Luther, Martin. "Part Fourth: Of Baptism." In The Large Catechism. Translated by F. Bente and W. H. T. Dau. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/luther/largecatechism.vi_2.html.