God’s gospel reveals His gift of righteousness to his people on the basis of his saving work in Jesus Christ. But this righteousness is not something we can earn. It is a gift from God received only by faith in Christ, a faith that rests in Christ alone. This doctrine of justification by faith in Jesus Christ occupies a central place in Paul’s understanding of the good news of the gospel. Paul writes,

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. (Gal 2:16).

The Scriptures teach that we must have faith in Jesus Christ to be saved. When a man called out to Paul and Silas,  “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” … they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household (Acts 16:30-31).”

What does it mean to have faith in the Lord Jesus?

The Protestant Reformers recognized three essential components in a biblical view of saving faith. The first component is understanding (Latin notitia). To believe in Jesus Christ we must first understand something about him. The notitia of saving faith is given to people through learning the word of God (Rom 10:14-17). 

But merely understanding facts about Jesus is not enough for saving faith. We must also affirm our belief in the truth of those facts. Many people know what the Bible says about the life and ministry of Jesus but do not believe it is true. True saving faith also requires belief (Latin assensus). The assensus of faith is the belief that what the bible teaches about Jesus Christ is true.

But merely understanding and believing what the bible teaches about Jesus Christ is also not true saving faith. Even the demons understand and believe what the bible teaches about Jesus. When demons came into Jesus presence, they cried out, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time? (Matt 8:29).”

True saving faith in Jesus Christ also involves trust in him (Latin fiducia). The historic Christian confessions describe the fiducia of our saving faith in Jesus Christ as receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness[1] as our only hope for salvation.

Saving faith is not a cold intellectualism that merely gives assent to believing in a set of propositions about Jesus. Instead, it is a warm and vibrant clinging to, relying on, and trusting in a person–the resurrected and ascended Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver you from all of sin’s consequences.

The New Testament teaches that the object of true saving faith is the living, reigning Savior, who died for our sins and was raised from the dead for our justification. So, the object of our faith, strictly speaking, is not in what we believe about the atoning death of Jesus but in the Jesus who made the atonement. We are not justified by believing in the bible’s teaching on justification, but by believing in the person of Jesus who justifies. Packer writes, “It is not biblical thus to isolate the work from the Worker.”[2]

Theologians refer to saving faith in Christ as the instrumental cause of justification. We must have faith, but faith itself is not the righteousness that justifies us. Our faith is the instrument, the means, through which we receive the benefits of justifying grace from God when we trust in Jesus. We must be careful not to see our faith as a sort of work that somehow merits our justification.

And true saving faith is not faith in our faith but faith in Christ. If we are saved strictly because of our faith, then our justification would be based on our faith and not on Christ. The Apostle Paul is adamant that justification is not based on any human action or effort–including our faith (Rom 4:1-2). Paul even states that our faith is a gift of God: “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 (Eph 2:8-9).” 

Although we are justified by saving faith in Christ alone, totally apart from our good works, the bible teaches that true saving faith is not alone, but always shows itself in our good works. John Gerstner writes, “Although the person is justified by faith alone, this faith is never alone but is always accompanied by all the other saving graces.”[3] Gerstner was referring to the authors of the Westminster Confession when they wrote:

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 works by love.[4]

The Apostle James addresses the error of those who think they have justifying faith but have no evident saving graces of good works.

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead…You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone (James 2:14-17, 24).

At first glance, it appears when James writes, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone (James 2:24), that he is contradicting Paul. But he is not. The word for justify in the New Testament can refer to God’s one-time declaration of “legal justification” as defined earlier. But it can also refer to a “demonstrative justification,” a display of evidence that vindicates or gives proof of someone’s legal justification already received.

Earlier, James uses the Greek verb justify in a demonstrative sense when he writes, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? (James 2:21).” The point James is making is not to contradict the clear biblical teaching that Abraham was justified by faith taught by Moses in Genesis 15:6 and Paul in Romans 4:1-5. James’ point is that, much later in Abraham’s life, his good works of offering up Isaac, recorded in Genesis 22, vindicated and proved his earlier justification by faith alone recorded in Genesis 15.

The Protestant Reformers and historic confessions often distinguish between the biblical concepts of justification by faith in Christ alone and the vindication of the reality of that justification by the demonstration of good works that will inevitably follow it. Our good works vindicate our claim to have true faith, but they don’t justify us. If we say we have true faith, then we will have evidence of that by our good works. This is why Luther, Calvin, and most Protestant Reformers, distinguish justification before God (coram Deo) from justification before men (coram Hominibus).

Because we are now declared justified by faith in Christ, we will never be more justified than we are today. So, what will happen to justified believers on the final judgment day when the bible says all people will stand before God as their judge? The Westminster Larger Catechism Question 90 answers that we shall be “…openly acknowledged and acquitted.” Only those justified by faith in Christ alone will be acknowledged and acquitted as clothed with the perfect robe of Christ’s righteousness.

This is why the Apostle Paul refers to the good news of our justification as “having been justified.” And he refers to our condemnation also in the past tense saying “there is now no condemnation.” There is no such thing as “initial justification” now that is different from a “final justification” to come on the judgment day. The good news is that because we are justified now, God promises we shall be vindicated then.

In the meantime, justification is by a living faith, not a dead faith, a faith that is vindicated by our good works, rather than our mere profession. But faith does not justify because of its connection with works. It justifies because its nature is to trust in the grace of God in Christ. This trust motivates us to please God and therefore to do good works. Since God has saved us from sin, this is our only appropriate response.

The Heidelberg Catechism Question 61 answers the question, “Why do you say you are ‘righteous by faith alone’?: “Not that I am acceptable to God, on account of the worthiness of my faith; but because only the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, is my righteousness before God; and that I cannot receive and apply the same to myself any other way than by faith only.”

Footnotes:

[1] Westminster Confession XI, II

[2] J.I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, pp 64-66.

[3] John Gerstner, A Guide to the Westminster Confession, p. 63

[4] Westminster Confession XI, II