Justified by Faith: A Meditation on Romans 3 for Reformation Sunday

Now we know that what things soever the law saith,

it saith to them who are under the law:

that every mouth may be stopped,

and all the world may become guilty before God.

Therefore by the deeds of the law

there shall no flesh be justified in his sight:

for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested,

being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ

unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood,

 to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past,

through the forbearance of God;

To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness:

that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

 

Where is boasting then? It is excluded.

By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.

Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith

without the deeds of the law.

 

The great Solas of the Reformation were presented by St. Paul in his letter to the Church of Rome nearly 1500 years before Luther sent them back to Rome again in the 16^th century.  The teaching is built upon the revelations that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; that God is holy, and we are unable to achieve His holiness due to our fall into sin; that only God could rescue mankind from the hell we have justly earned for ourselves; that only Jesus has accomplished that rescue through His life, death, and resurrection as the Eternal Word and Only Begotten Son of the Father; that only Jesus sets the terms of how to receive that rescue from sin, death, hell, and the devil as a free gift of unmerited grace from Him to us; and that only a living, trusting faith in Jesus which abides in Him and His Word can receive that grace unto everlasting life.  Thus the Reformers confess with St. Paul that mankind can only and always be saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, given to us through His Word alone.

 

Much vitriol has been spilled by apologists across the ages against these simple premises, but they are the clear teaching of St. Paul, the Apostles, and Jesus, with their echoes in the Old Testament Prophets.  Some have tried to pit St. James against St. Paul, which is a losing proposition, just as it is to pit Jesus against Moses or Elijah.  In Jesus the Law is fulfilled, the penalty of our sin satisfied in His Cross, and redemption poured out to all who will repent and believe.  But just as wrong as it has been in any age to try and prop up human works or traditions as necessary for salvation in addition to, or in spite of, the grace of Jesus Christ alone, wrong also has been the impulse of some toward a kind of sterile, intellectual ascent to the truth of Jesus without loving or following Him in His Word.  The Reformers were clear that while faith alone receives justification before God by grace alone in Christ alone, such a living, saving faith is never found alone—like a tree that brings forth good fruits according to it kind and in its proper seasons, living faith is always bringing about good works of love for God and compassion for our neighbors.  As St. Paul and St. James would both agree, faith without works is a dead thing, just as Jesus described a dead branch broken off from His living Vine.  While faith alone receives the grace of forgiveness unto eternal life, it is the faith of the contrite and humble heart that lives in Jesus, abiding daily in His living Word, and shown forth in a life reflective of His.  The affirmations of the demons or the pharisees or the hypocrites in any generation have nothing in Jesus, as a mere knowledge of Him without trusting and following Him, leaves such a person cut off from saving grace.

 

This points to another truth of the Scriptural Solas—they are never efficacious apart from each other.  Faith apart from Jesus and His Word is a false confidence without hope; Grace apart of faith in Jesus is unreachable; Jesus as the Eternal Word of the Father is inseparable from the Word He has given through His Prophets and Apostles.  While the Pharisees of 1^st century Israel and the Romans of the medieval period both argued centuries apart that there is no salvation outside the physical institutions which they ruled (famously summarized in the statement that “outside the church there is no salvation,”) the truth is that the only true church is the one which is composed of those people saved by grace through faith in Christ alone.  In a sense, both the ancient Pharisee and medieval Papist were partially correct in noting the unity of the saved with the communion of the saints, yet they misidentified what the actual fellowship of the saints was and remains:  a fellowship of faith in the Word and Person of Jesus Christ.  Thus the particular churchly institution becomes a secondary effect, or a reflection of what lies beneath in its foundation.  The Lutheran Reformers did not deny that Christians could indeed be found in the congregations of Roman Catholics, but they did confess that whether they be found in Rome, Augsburg, Geneva, London, Alexandria, or Constantinople, the only kind of real Christian anyone would ever find is one that is saved by grace through faith in Christ alone.  The political particulars of human fellowships make little difference to the living reality of the individual heart before Almighty God, and wherever such redeemed hearts congregate in living faith around Jesus and His Word, there is the true Church.

 

The Reformation, at least as the Lutheran Confessors envisioned it, was never about splitting or dividing the Church, or creating a new human institution they could pretend outside of which was no salvation.  The principle aim of these Reformers was to return all people to the font of God’s Word, to hear Him speak His convicting Law and saving Gospel, and to live by grace through faith in Jesus alone.  This was a confession declared by the Prophets and the Apostles, as well as the faithful Church Fathers who came after them, handing on to future generations their biblical Creeds and Confessions.  It is in this train of faithful saints and martyrs which we stand today, continuing their witness and passing it along to our children.  They are our great cloud of witnesses who lived and died in this true confession, sometimes in eras of peace and other times in eras of persecution, knowing that regardless of how the faithless world and corrupt ecclesiastics would try to draw people away from Jesus and His Word, the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ remains the only path to eternal life.  These are the saintly witnesses once moved by the same Holy Spirit who calls and enlivens us in the Word of Jesus, to hear Him above all other earthly voices, and to abide in Him regardless of any transitory prosperity or strife.  These are the witnesses of every age who yearn to welcome us home when our earthly struggle is over, that with them we might sing the praises of our saving God and King unto endless ages of ages.

 

In that land of endless day toward which we press, there are no songs of tribute or praise for popes or reformers, for rich or poor, for scientists or engineers or politicians.  The hallowed halls of that Eternal Kingdom are not adorned with the self-aggrandizing portraits of kings or conquerors, of explorers or inventors, of captains of industry or benefactors of the arts, but rather the beatific vision of Christ alone.  For in Christ alone are the lives of all the saints held secure, where the grace of Christ alone is the glory of all who find their rest in Him, in this age, and unto all ages of ages.  Hear the Word of Jesus come to you this day, calling you to turn to Him, abide in Him, trust in Him, and live in Him, together with all the saints in light, forgiven and free, forever.  Amen.