The following is the manuscript of my sermon that I preached on October 20, 2024 at Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, AZ. This was from a series in the five solas of the Protestant Reformation, and this sermon was on the doctrine of Sola Fide, understanding what Scripture teaches about salvation by faith alone in Jesus Christ.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” —Ephesians 2:8-9
As we’ve been going through the five solas—according to Scripture alone, we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone—we have come to the biggest of the five: Sola Fide, that we are justified by faith alone. Why is this the biggest one? Because as Martin Luther said, this is the doctrine by which the church either stands or falls. John Calvin called it the “hinge of the Reformation.”
Charles Simeon likewise said, “Justification by faith alone is the hinge upon which the whole of Christianity turns.” J.I. Packer said, “The doctrine of justification by faith is like Atlas: it bears a world on its shoulders—the entire evangelical knowledge of saving grace.” John Gerstner adds, “Not only does the church stand or fall by this doctrine, but the individual also. This is the doctrine by which you stand or fall before God.”
When we get to our study in the book of Romans—which, by the way, this whole study is a precursor to—that will be Paul’s central point to his letter to the church in Rome. The gospel is that we are justified by faith alone in Christ alone. How providential of God to set it up like that—that it would be the church in Rome to whom Paul would make this crucial theological argument.
As we consider this doctrine, I will again begin with a historical anecdote from the reformation; we’ll come back to Ephesians 2:1-10 and finish up the section, and look at other places where the apostle argues for justification by faith alone; I will further argue that Jesus Christ Himself taught justification by faith alone; then I want to take you to a common rebuttal against this doctrine using the book of James. So once again, our outline is this: I. History Argues, II. Paul Argues, III. Jesus Argues, IV. James Argues justification by faith alone.
I. History Argues
On October 1, 1553, Mary I was named queen of England succeeding her brother, Edward VI. Edward had been very friendly to the Protestant cause, even drawing up a “Devise for the Succession” at the age of 15, to prevent England from returning to Roman Catholicism. He had ordered that his Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey should be his heir, rather than his sisters Mary or Elizabeth. But upon his death, this decision was disputed, and Jane was removed as queen after ruling for only nine days. Mary assumed the throne and had Jane and her husband Lord Guildford Dudley executed. Jane was only 17 years old, and her husband was 19, martyred for the Christian faith.
In the five years of her short reign, Mary would put over 250 Christians to death, 56 of whom were women, earning her the nickname Bloody Mary. Two of the most widely known martyrs at Mary’s hand were the English Bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, and subsequently the execution of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. These three together would be known to history as the Oxford Martyrs.
According to 19th century Anglican bishop JC Ryle, “No one of the Reformers probably sowed the seeds of Protestant doctrine so widely and effectually among the middle and lower classes as Hugh Latimer.” He was a fiery preacher, and assisted Cranmer in reforming the English church.” Nicholas Ridley was 20 years younger than Latimer, but he was one of England’s most brilliant scholars, having memorized the entire New Testament—in Greek.
There is less record of Ridley’s teachings than Latimer’s. But we know that Ridley rejected the supremacy of the pope and renounced the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation—the teaching that claims the eucharist and the cup literally transform into the actual flesh and blood of Jesus and are therefore worshiped as Christ. He, Latimer, and Cranmer were critical of the Roman Catholic teaching that we can attain salvation by our merit. Rather, the Bible teaches that we are justified or made innocent by faith alone in Jesus Christ.
Latimer preached that to believe Rome’s teaching that salvation was on the basis of faith and works made the pope and all who followed him “the very enemies of Christ,” for they reckon that “their good works have deserved heaven and everlasting life… If we shall be judged after our own deservings,” Latimer said, “we shall be damned everlastingly.” In another sermon, Latimer preached the following:
“By Christ’s passion, which He hath suffered, He merited that as many as believe in Him shall be as well justified by Him, as though they themselves had never done any sin, and as though they themselves had fulfilled the law to the uttermost. For we, without Him, are under the curse of the law; the law condemns us; the law is not able to help us; and yet the imperfection is not in the law, but in us: for the law itself is holy and good, but we are not able to keep it, and so the law condemns us.
“But Christ with His death hath delivered us from the curse of the law. He has set us at liberty, and promised that when we believe in Him, we shall not perish. The law shall not condemn us. 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. God has given Him unto us to be our deliverer, and to give us everlasting life. O what a joyful thing was this!”
At about the ages of 70 and 50 respectively, Latimer and Ridley were arrested for heresy, mainly for denying that the eucharist transformed into the actual flesh of Jesus. In March of 1554, they were sent to Bocardo Prison where they were expected to debate in public with Roman Catholic theologians, which Latimer and Ridley did brilliantly. Latimer labeled his opponents “Mass Mongers,” and called Rome the enemy and persecutor of Christ’s true flock.
From their cell they’d have witnessed other Christians being burned at the stake, the first of whom was John Rogers, a Bible translator who had worked with William Tyndale. On October 16, 1555, which was 469 years ago this past week, the two reformers would meet the same end. As they were led to their deaths, Ridley kissed the stake to which they would be tied, and the two men knelt and prayed. As they were bound together about to be burned, Latimer said to his younger friend, “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England as shall never be put out.”
If you go to Oxford today and visit St. Michael at the North Gate church in Cornmarket Street, you can see the very same jail cell door Ridley and Latimer were locked behind. There are granite stones forming a cross in the center of the road in front of Balliol College marking the spot where it is believed Latimer and Ridley gave their lives for the gospel of Jesus Christ—the gospel of justification by faith alone.
Now, Rome does teach that we are justified by faith. Remember that the Council of Trent was Rome’s response to the Reformation, and in Chapter VIII, the council declared, “We are therefore said to be justified by faith, because faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and root of all justification, without which it is impossible to please God.” The thing however that separates what we believe about justification by faith and what Rome teaches is that word “alone.”
Same council, Canon 9 says, “If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema,” or let him be accursed.
Martin Luther was so firm on this point of justification by faith alone, that he said if the pope would just submit to this doctrine, Luther would have been willing to submit to the pope. Personally, I wouldn’t have gone that far. There are other problems than just Rome’s view of justification. Nonetheless it illustrates how serious this doctrine is.
One of the things I’ve noticed about arguing with Roman Catholics is that they tend to flatten justification and sanctification and make them the same thing. But they’re not the same thing. Justification is an event; sanctification is a process. Justification is being made innocent; sanctification is to be made more holy.
You’ve probably heard this about justification: to be justified, it’s just-if-I’d never done it. Well, that’s fun, but I think it downplays the significance of justification. The fact of the matter is that you did do it. You sinned. Frank Sinatra’s song, I Did it My Way—that title could be the slogan of every sinner. You didn’t just break God’s law, you blasphemed God doing it. You proclaimed your ways as being higher than God’s ways, that you knew better than Him. You committed high treason against the King of the Universe, and what you deserve for that is death. You did it.
But Jesus has declared you innocent. Colossians 2:14 says that He took our “record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross.” And there as He died, He proclaimed, “It is finished.” Paid in full. The legal pronouncement is that you have been justified—made innocent.
In Christ, I am completely justified, I have not yet been fully sanctified. Being justified, I am in Christ Jesus. Being sanctified, I am becoming more like Jesus. I am not being justified, I am justified. I am being sanctified, and I’m not fully sanctified yet. If I am justified, I will be sanctified. If I’m not being justified, I haven’t been sanctified. In justification, I’m given His righteousness. In sanctification, I then do His righteousness.
What Rome teaches is that you must be sanctified in order to be justified. If my justification depends on reaching a certain degree of sanctification, then I’m in trouble. Why? Because God demands perfection. In Matthew 5:48, Jesus said, “You must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” If I have to be sanctified to a certain point to receive justification, then I have to be sanctified to the point of perfection, and I won’t ever get there. Yet this is what Rome teaches, that your justification depends on your sanctification. Listen to this from R.C. Sproul:
“At the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which formulated Rome’s response to the Reformation, the Roman Catholic authorities declared that faith affords three things: the initium, the fundamentum, and the radix. That is, faith is the beginning of justification, the foundation for justification, and the root of justification. But Rome held that a person can have true faith and still not be justified…
“In reality, the Roman view of the gospel, as expressed at Trent, was that justification is accomplished through the sacraments… God does not justify anyone until real righteousness inheres within the person. In other words, God does not declare a person righteous unless he or she is righteous. So, according to Roman Catholic doctrine, justification depends on a person’s sanctification. By contrast, the Reformers said justification is based on the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus. The only ground by which a person can be saved is Jesus’ righteousness, which is reckoned to him when he believes.”
And the Reformers believed this not because they invented this doctrine but because the Bible says so. Let’s come back now to our text and see the arguments that Paul makes regarding justification by faith alone.
II. Paul Argues
We’ll begin by picking up with the text we read last week, in Ephesians 2. We have read that we were dead in the trespasses and sins in which we once walked. But God being rich in mercy made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved. He has shown us immeasurable riches in Christ Jesus, with whom we have been seated in the heavenly places.
Look at verses 8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” None of this is your doing. Grace, salvation, and faith are all the gift of God. Remember that we considered last week how you have faith because God was first gracious to you. You don’t have faith and then you get God’s attention, because then it wouldn’t be grace. It would be based on something you did. But this is the gift of God, and it is not on the basis of works.
Let’s consider another one. We’re in Ephesians; let’s go back one book to Galatians 2. This is Paul writing to the Galatians. We’re looking at chapter 2, verse 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.”
That is as clear a statement of justification by faith alone as there could be. We are justified through faith in Jesus Christ; no one will be justified by their works of the law. And just to be clear: that’s any law. There was a prominent theologian who a few years ago wrote a book in which he claimed that Paul was talking only about the Jewish laws. Since circumcision was the law particularly in view in Galatians, then Paul was only arguing that you will not be justified by keeping the Jewish law, including dietary laws and Sabbath laws and the Jewish feasts.
No, you will not be justified by keeping any law because you cannot keep any law. You cannot keep your own laws. No one will be justified by their works of God’s law. No one will be justified by their works of Roman Catholic laws. No one will be justified by their works of Mormon laws, or Eastern Orthodox laws, or the laws of nature, or American laws, or tax laws, or the walk-don’t-run laws at the swimming pool. “By works of the law, no one will be justified.”
Look at the start of the next chapter, Galatians 3:2, Paul said to them, “Let me ask you this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?” Which is it? It’s not both/and. There is only one way to be reconciled to God. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.
Let’s look at another one. Turn with me a few more books to the left, skip past 1 and 2 Corinthians, and let’s go to Romans. This will be Romans 4:4-6. It says, “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.” And remember, we considered last week how God owes us nothing. Why? Because we cannot work to obtain His favor. Verse 5: “And to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, His faith is counted as righteousness.”
We are counted righteous by our faith. And Paul didn’t just say we are counted righteous by our faith. He explicitly said we are counted righteous by our faith and not by our works—justified by faith alone. Friends, that is exactly contrary to the teaching of Rome. It is astonishing that anyone who knows their Bible could ever fall for Roman Catholicism. To deny justification by faith alone is to deny the gospel and embrace heresy.
Paul said to the Galatians, “You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace” (Galatians 5:4). If you’re going to say your justification is by your faith and by your works, you believe a different gospel. And as Paul said to the Galatians, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one that we preached to you, let him be anathema (Galatians 1:8-9).
Now Rome is not the only system that denies justification by faith alone, but it is the largest one. About 18% of the world’s population, or about 1 in every 6 people on the planet, will claim to be Roman Catholic—over a billion people. But just about every religion on earth from true, biblical Christianity denies justification by faith alone.
I was once evangelizing to a couple of Mormon elders. And the first question I had for them was, “If I were to ask you how can I be saved—how can I be forgiven my sins and have eternal life—what would you tell me?” And they said, “Well, in the Articles of Faith, Article 4 says you have to have faith, repent, be baptized, and have hands laid on you to receive the Holy Spirit.” I said, “So I cannot be saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ. There are other things I have to do.” And they said, “Yes.”
I watched a teaching from an Eastern Orthodox priest named Father Spyridon, who said, “Salvation is a free gift. But we must work and repent in order to enable ourselves to receive God’s grace.” So salvation is the free gift of God, but you must do something first to make yourself able to receive it. What weak kind of grace is this? I heard that, and I was like, thank God for Irresistible Grace. If you have to fix yourself to get God’s grace, you won’t ever get God’s grace, and then grace wouldn’t be grace.
I could go on naming other categories of religions: Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, a great number of charismatics and Pentecostals, all believe in some form of justification by faith plus works. At the end of the sermon last week, we considered the most prominent world religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, all proclaiming justification by works. Even an atheist believes he can be justified by his works. But Roman Catholicism remains the largest in the world teaching justification by faith plus works.
Are there Catholics who are Christians? Yes, I believe there are—because they’re bad Catholics. They’re bad at Roman Catholicism and better at Christianity. But by and large, Roman Catholics and Protestants are not co-workers on the mission field. Roman Catholics are the mission field. What is taught by Rome is contrary to the very teachings of Christ. And with that, let’s consider what Jesus has argued about justification by faith alone.
III. Jesus Argues
I was listening to an old sermon by Phil Johnson of Grace to You, and he was talking about a Roman Catholic apologist on the radio who argued that justification by faith alone is a doctrine that was invented by Martin Luther. He challenged any evangelical to show him any place in the gospels where Jesus taught this doctrine. So Johnson took him up on that dare, pointing to where in the gospels that Jesus taught justification by faith alone. Johnson said:
“If it is true that justification by faith alone is so crucial, as I have said that it is, then we should expect to find it clearly taught somewhere by Christ. Indeed, that is exactly what we discover. Christ made no formal explication of the doctrine—He didn’t stand up and systematically teach like Paul did in Romans. Jesus didn’t teach specifically about justification by faith, but it’s very easy to demonstrate from His evangelistic ministry everything He said about the gospel depended on this doctrine of Sola Fide.”
In John 5:24, Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” That happens without any sacrament. There’s no purgatory. There’s no saying of Hail Mary’s or some pope-ish declaration from a priest. Jesus said whoever believes has passed from death to life. This of course is two chapters after we had just read, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
In Luke 23, as Jesus was dying on the cross, a thief on the cross next to his said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus replied, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Again, without baptism, without holy orders, without last rites. He couldn’t even do the sign of the cross. His hands were nailed down. He did nothing but have faith.
And he didn’t even have to go through purgatory. This man was a criminal—if there’s anyone who needed to be purified by fire for a thousand years, surely it’s this guy! Yet because of his faith, the only way he could have been justified, Jesus told him, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.”
How many times did Jesus heal someone and commended that person for their faith? In Matthew 8, when the Centurion asked Jesus to heal his servant, he said, “I know if you will only say the word, my servant will be healed.” And Jesus marveled and said, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.”
In the next chapter, when Jesus healed the paralytic, He demonstrated that He alone had the power and authority to forgive sins. His ability to heal was visible proof of His authority to forgive a person of their sins. For He said, “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins—” and then He healed the paralytic and told him, “Pick up your bed and go home.”
Later in the chapter, verse 22: “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” Again, not by any work that they did. It was only by faith. Also in Mark 5:34 and 10:32, Luke 8:48 and 17:19—there are many other references of Jesus healing, granting it to them by faith and only by faith. When Jesus said, “Your faith has made you well,” His point was you are justified by faith alone.
Still don’t believe me? Let’s look at the passage where Jesus taught this most clearly. In fact, it’s the only passage in the gospels where Jesus declared someone justified. Turn with me to Luke 18. Let’s read verses 9-14:
“He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’
“13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
This would have been an astonishing parable to the people who heard it. This man who did nothing but humble himself before God, acknowledging he had nothing to boast in, but beat his chest and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” this is the one on whom Jesus pronounced justification—by his faith and only by his faith. The Pharisee had all these works he had done, but not one of them made him justified.
In Matthew 5, Jesus said, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” And that would have shocked the people, too. The Pharisees were the most righteous people they knew. But it wasn’t good enough. You need a righteousness that’s even greater than theirs. You need the righteousness of Jesus Christ. A person who rejects the doctrine of justification by faith alone is self-righteous, and that’s what this Pharisee was. He was self-righteous. And he was not justified.
Roman Catholic priests, scholars, apologists, bishops, cardinals, the pope, and the whole lot of them—they are among the Pharisees of this age, adding to the word of God, elevating the traditions of men, and you must do all of these things in order to be saved. Not one of them has kept all of their own laws, let alone God’s law. If they truly knew the teachings of Christ, they would know He taught justification by faith alone.
IV. James Argues
Now I think it would do us well to consider the main, central objection to the doctrine of justification by faith alone. And you have heard this no doubt many times before. The Romanist will say that the only place in the Bible that the expression “faith alone” is even used is in James chapter 2 where it is said, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” James straight up says it—that a person is not justified by faith alone. So how can we say that the gospel itself is justification by faith alone without denying a clear statement in God’s word?
Romans 3:28 says, “We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” We’ve already considered Romans 4:5 which says, “And to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” Then you go to James 2:17, and you read that faith without works is dead. It’s not even real faith. We affirm that 100%. Martin Luther gravely misunderstood James, saying at one point that the book should be excluded from canon. That is not where we are.
Let me also say, matter of factly, that James absolutely would have repudiated Roman Catholicism. Look at verse 10: James says, “Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” So if someone is going to use James to argue that we can somehow do good works in order to merit peace with God, James would have told them, okay, then you must keep the law of God perfectly every day. And who has done that? You have not loved God or your neighbor perfectly today, and neither have I. And the day isn’t even half over.
James then goes on to challenge the person who “says” he has faith. Notice in verse 14, this is specifically about the person who “says he has faith but does not have works—can that faith save him?” Can that kind of faith—a faith one confesses but does not do—there is no fruit in that person’s life giving any evidence of their faith—can that faith save him? No. Verse 17: “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
Verse 24 says, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” He is justified in the sense of his claim—that he says he has faith, back up to verse 14.
It’s just as if I were to say to you, “I play baseball for the Arizona Diamondbacks.” But you can’t find my name in any Diamondbacks lineup, you don’t see any kind of work ethic worthy of a major league baseball player, you cannot even find a Diamondbacks jersey in my wardrobe. My claim is dead. It’s a stupid claim.
But if you were to find my jersey after the game, with my name on it and evidence of dirt and sweat all over it, if you were to look at me and you saw the physique of a major league baseball player, and you turned on a Diamondbacks game and you saw me on the field with the team, I would be justified—meaning that by the evidence of my works, there is a reasonable basis for my claim. That’s the point of James’ argument.
When James says, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works, can that faith save him?” his question has nothing to do with whether a person is reconciled to God through faith plus works. His question is simply this: How do you know if that guy has a real and living faith? Answer: By what he does. It’s not that what he does saves him. It’s that what he does is evidence that he is saved.
That’s the exact same thing we’ve been saying here this morning and last week with Ephesians 2:1-10. Good works will not save you. If you are saved, you will do good works. In this way, Paul and James do not disagree. How is a person reconciled to God? By faith and not by works. That’s what the Bible says.
If a person were to say, “I believe in Jesus, and therefore I’m saved,” but they were to continue to live a life of sin, living just like anyone else who is of this world, with no conviction or sense of repentance, that would be just as much a perversion of the gospel as what Roman Catholicism teaches. By the way, this guy whom James describes—the one who says, “I have faith,” but doesn’t have the works to back it up—this is the most common type of Christian on the planet. James would say the professing Christian who is not a doing Christian is not a Christian at all.
When a person is saved, God dwells within them. He gives them a new nature that desires to do good works. The person who does not do good works does not have the faith that results in good works. The faith he says he has is dead. He has not been made alive together with Christ—he is still dead in his sins.
Works are still important to our salvation. They are not the cause of it, but they are part of it. Again, right after Paul says we are saved by grace through faith and not of works, he says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Faith alone justifies, but justifying faith is never alone.
In Titus, the Apostle Paul said that, “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy… so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
This was after he said that the grace of God trains “us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives, in the present age.” Jesus Christ gave Himself for us, “to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works.” Friends, without them, He has not justified us.
Seventeenth century reformed theologian Francis Turretin put it like this: “Good works are required as the means and way for possessing salvation. Though works do not contribute anything to the acquisition of our salvation, still they should be considered necessary to the obtainment of it, so that no one can be saved without them.” He went on to argue:
“Good works have the relation of the means to the end (John 3:5, 16; Matthew 5:8); of the way to the goal (Ephesians 2:10, Philippians 3:14); of the sowing to the harvest (Galatians 6:7-8); of labor to the reward (Matthew 20:1); of the contest to the crown (2 Timothy 2:5; 4:8). Everyone sees that there is the highest and an indispensable necessity of good works for obtaining glory. It is so great that it cannot be reached without them” (Hebrews 12:14; Revelation 21:27).
We will be judged by our works, but so that it may be seen that our works have been carried out in God. In Revelation 2:23, Jesus says, “And all the churches will know that I am He who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works.” Revelation 20:12 says, “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which was the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.”
Remember that this is still all of Christ, and it is not under our power but by the power of God within us. Philippians 2:12-13 says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”
Conclusion
So we have considered here what History Argues. What has been argued in the history of the church for this doctrine? There are people, men and women—teenagers, middle aged, and older—who gave their lives because they believed that we are justified by faith alone and not of works. They believed this because it’s what the Bible says.
So we have also considered what Paul Argues. Romans 4:5 says, “To the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” We have considered what Jesus Argues. John 5:24 says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
And we have considered what James Argues. If you want to say you’re justified by faith and works, you have to keep the whole law. He makes no argument in James 2 about being reconciled to God, but he argues that the one who says he has faith but does not have the works as evidence of that faith, then he has no faith at all. And all four of these proclaim we are justified by faith alone.
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