Justification through Faith Alone (Sola Fide)

The Five Solas and Sola Fide

This morning we’ll be continuing a sermon series through five of the key, Biblical issues that prompted the Protestant Reformation. Back then, the Reformers identified each of these issues with a Latin phrase. Sola scriptura, scripture alone; sola fide, faith alone; sola gratia, grace alone; solus Christus, Christ alone; and soli Deo gloria, to the glory of God alone – these five are called the “Five Solas” of the Reformation. We considered sola scriptura last week. We saw Biblical rationale for why the Reformers insisted that the highest authority given by God to guide the faith and practice of the Church was scripture alone, rather than Scripture plus tradition, or scripture plus something else. This morning, we’ll consider what the Bible says about fallen human beings, and how wrongdoers like you and I are to be justified in the sight of God – that is, how you and I are to be counted as legally right and good in the sight of God. That’s what it means to be justified: to be counted as right in the sight of God. Specifically, we’ll see that sinners are justified by sola fide – by faith alone.

I imagine that many of you have a decent amount of clarity on this issue. But my hope is that this sermon will help all of us to refine our understanding, to refresh our joy, and to further equip us so we can better explain these truths to others.

We’ll dig into the topic of Sola Fide this morning by considering what God has laid down for us in the book of Romans. So if you have a Bible nearby, please turn with me to Romans, Chapter 3. I’ll be reading from Chapter 3, verse 20 through the end of Chapter 4 verse 8. But before I read this passage from the Word of God, please pray with me:

[Pray and Read Text]

Who Knows?

Last year – this is quite recent – Arizona Christian University released a study, which was aimed at trying to determine how many people attending gospel-oriented, Bible-believing churches actually held to Biblical truth, when it came to matters such as human nature, the work of Christ, and the way of salvation. And though the results should be surprising to us, at the same time, I’m not sure if they will be. Of the regular church attenders who responded, less than 60% were able to affirm “that people are born into sin and can only be saved from the consequences of sin through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.” And about half of these regular church attenders said that “people are basically good” and “that people can earn salvation through their good works.”

Now, make sure you realize here, the people giving these responses aren’t Roman Catholics, or people attending mainline, theologically liberal churches. These responses are coming from people who regularly attend churches that (on paper, at least) are Bible-believing, evangelical, good news-proclaiming churches. And yet many of these people have trouble identifying some of the most basic teachings of the Christian faith. Many people in churches across the country have a distorted view of self, a mistaken view of sin, and a view of salvation that frankly, is flat-out unbiblical.

And so this morning, I want to address clearly one of the most critical questions that humanity is faced with – the question of how can people enjoy a right relationship with their Creator? How can fallen, selfish human beings be saved from eternal judgment, and made right in the eyes of a morally perfect God? I want to make sure you know how to answer this. And I want to make sure you know how to explain it to others, because there are a lot of confused people out there. Fallen human beings are justified (they are counted by God as being right with Him and his law) through sola fide – through faith alone.

And I’ll unpack this important truth from our text under four main points. First, I’ll explain the problem of sin. Second, the provision of divine righteousness. Third, the procurement of righteousness through faith. Then fourth and finally, I’ll explain the practical applications of Sola Fide – faith alone. (Again my four points will be 1) the problem of sin, 2) the provision of divine righteousness, 3) the procurement of righteousness through faith, and 4) the practical applications of sola fide.)

The Problem of Sin

So first, let’s consider the problem of sin. It’s important to notice, the text that I’m preaching on is embedded in the middle of a letter. God gave us this part of the Bible, this letter to the church in Rome, through a special servant – an apostle of Jesus Christ named Paul. And so far in this letter – it’s important to know the context, here – Paul has been made it clear that he wants to explain the good news of Christianity – the gospel. But Paul knows, in order for the good news to make any sense, he first needs to explain the default spiritual condition of the human race. He needs to explain the problem of sin.

And when we’re talking about sin – when we describe something as sinful – we’re saying that that someone or something isn’t in line with God and his law, either because it contradicts the law, or because it fails to measure up to the goodness that God requires. You’ll notice that this is implied in our text, in verse 20, which says, “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” By knowing the moral law of God, that enables us to know sin – because sin, by definition, is anything and everything that doesn’t accord with God’s law.

And keep in mind, here, because the Bible identifies sin as being a matter of unlawfulness, this means that sin is a legal problem against God. Many people today, they almost exclusively want to speak about sin in different terms – they say that people are broken, people have had accidents, that sin is simply a disease that people are suffering from – and though there’s an extent to which these things are true, it must be insisted upon that sin is more than this. It’s worse than this. Sin is a crime. Sin is an expression of rebellion and violence against God’s perfect government over the universe.

And sin is a problem that every human being is faced with. If you look back a few verses, to Romans 3, verse 9, the text makes it clear that all people – from the most God-fearing Jew to the most corrupt, black-hearted Gentile barbarian – all people, in and of themselves, are under sin. Saying that all people are under sin doesn’t (just) mean that they become sinful by doing sinful things. Instead, God is saying here that all people are under sin by nature – human beings are corrupted by sin to the very core of our being. We do sinful things because we, ourselves, are sinful. We think, want, and feel bad things, because our minds, desires, and feelings are wrong and warped under sin.

And so there’s a hideous blemish on us that we can’t clean. We’re guilty of crimes that must be punished. Our own consciences testify against us that all is not right in us – that “No one is righteous – no not one. No one understands; no one seeks for God.” Just as verse 23 testifies: “[that] all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” And this is why verse 20 tells us that “by works of the law, no human being will be justified in [God’s] sight” Because it’s an impossibility for sinful human beings to produce the perfect righteousness that God’s law requires. We would be just as well off asking a blue crayon to draw a yellow line.

This is the problem of our sin, and it does no one any good to ignore or downplay the seriousness of this problem. It’s bad enough when you’re in conflict with a family member, or with your boss at work, or with the American judicial system – it can sometimes feel like Hell on earth. But it’s far worse – and it will be far more painful – for the person who remains under their sin, and at odds with God and his law.

The Provision of Divine Righteousness

But since our sinful nature makes it impossible to keep God’s law perfectly, this means that being made right with God must come from some other means. If there’s going to be any chance of us being set right with God the solution must come from something other than our sinful selves. And this is what our text confirms – it speaks about the provision of divine righteousness. This is my second point: the provision of divine righteousness.

Humanity is sinful and unable to bring themselves to God, yes – “But now,” Paul says in verse 21, “the righteousness of God has been manifested (it has been revealed) apart from the law, although the law and the Prophets bear witness to it – the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus for all who believe.”

Paul recognizes here that God had already revealed his righteousness in the past, in the Old Testament law. His commands revealed the standards of His moral perfection, his requirements for cleanness and holiness, and his unwavering commitment to justice. But even though the law displayed how good God was, the legal standards weren’t something that fallen sinners could duplicate or measure up to. The law explained what it means to fly in goodness and justice – it revealed God soaring like an eagle in his righteousness, but it was powerless to get flightless penguins like you and I off the ground. The righteousness of God, revealed in the law, was something we couldn’t possess for ourselves.

But now Paul identifies that God’s righteousness has been revealed in a different way – through the perfect sinless life of Jesus Christ, who was both truly God and truly man.  And God has revealed his righteousness now, apart from the law, such that sinners can actually receive it. Just as our text says, he provides his righteousness through faith in Christ, for all who believe.

And I want to underscore, the righteousness God provides isn’t just righteousness delivered by God – it’s not as though God has a storeroom filled with some sort of abstract invisible fluff called righteousness, and he brings that out and sprinkles it on sinners. He doesn’t give us righteousness from Mary and Saints from the past, a righteousness produced by human hands. Instead, God gives us something infinitely greater: his righteousness. Not just righteousness delivered to us by God, but the very righteousness of God himself. God takes away the tattered rags of human sin, and covers us with His own everlasting righteousness. And, of course, this divine righteousness is flawless and complete in every way. The sinner who has taken hold of the righteousness of God will never have to wonder whether God will be satisfied with it – or whether God will find this righteousness to be acceptable on the day of judgment. There is no truer righteousness than the divine righteousness provided by God for sinners, through the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ.

The Procurement of Righteousness by Faith Alone

But it’s important to clarify, the perfection of Jesus’s work, and the substitutionary death that he died on the cross, to deal with sin – it doesn’t universally benefit everyone everywhere, automatically. In order for the righteousness of God to be yours, it must be received. In order for you and I to have this righteousness of God, credited to our account, there must be a change in how we view Christ – a real response to what Jesus has done.

And this brings us to my third point, regarding the procurement of righteousness – the receiving of righteousness by faith alone.  This third point in the sermon is the one that deals most specifically with the issue of sola fide. The way that people are justified – the way that they gain righteousness, and are declared to be just with respect to God’s law – is through sola fide, through faith alone. That’s how righteousness is procured – obtained.

I don’t think that it’s hard to see this strong emphasis on faith in our text. We just saw in verse 22 that the righteousness of God is brought to sinners, “through faith in Christ, for all who believe.” And in verse 26, we’re told that God has done all this, “… so that he might be just and the justifier of the of the one who has faith in Jesus.” And finally, I want to point out that Paul clearly insists on sola fide when he says in verse 28, “For we hold that one is justified by faith, apart from works of the law.”

And yet chances are, a number of you may have trouble explaining how faith sets us right with God. So I’d like to take some time to clearly explain (first) what faith is, and then (second) how we gain righteousness by faith (& how we don’t).

So first, what exactly do we mean, when we’re talking about faith? The Bible describes what faith is in Hebrews 11, verse 1: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” And the language here is helpful, because it helps to clarify that faith isn’t just about knowing true information about who God is or what he’s done – although that’s an important component of faith. And faith doesn’t just consist of knowing the right way to apply information about God, either. Because it’s totally possible that a man could know that Jesus died for sins, and to even know intellectually that the right way to respond is to rely on Jesus’s sacrifice for forgiveness and righteousness – and yet that man could neglect to respond that way himself. It’s possible for someone to know the gospel forward and backward, and yet not be relying on Jesus. So when the Bible talks about true, justifying faith, it isn’t just talking about knowing information, or knowing how that information should be applied – but it’s talking about trust – actually having personal confidence of things hoped for, and having a conviction of God’s truth that affects how you live, even with respect to things you can’t see.

But how does this faith make us right with God? This is the second question I want to explain: How do we gain righteousness by sola fide – faith alone? Listen carefully here: we are justified – we are declared to be right with God, not because of the righteousness of our faith, itself, and not because of the righteousness of the works that our faith produces. Rather we are counted as righteous because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, when our faith rests on him.

And this is because Jesus Christ is the Righteous One, uniquely sent from heaven to live a perfect life in the place of sinners. He came to bear the death penalty for their evil deeds. And the work of Christ is counted to us – his righteousness is declared to be ours – when we receive him by faith.  This is what verses 24 and 25 are in our text are getting at. Sinners are “justified by [God’s] grace as a gift through the redemption (through the saving work) that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation (as a sacrifice for sin) by his blood, to be received by faith.” Righteousness is given to us, not on the grounds of any work we’ve done, but on the grounds of the perfect work of Jesus.

It’s important to be clear on this, because there are a number of people who aren’t really receiving or relying on Christ to be right with God. But they’re instead trusting in faith itself. They imagine that faith is some sort of good work we must do to please God. They suppose that our rightness in the eyes of God goes up and down, depending on how much faith we have, or how good its quality is. But we need to be careful to distinguish here – as Christians, we don’t trust in our faith to make us right with God. We trust in Christ. Do you see the difference? Faith is like an electrical wire. Faith itself doesn’t contain any power to make us right in God’s eyes. But instead faith is simply what connects us to the power source – to Jesus.

Faith is only as good as the thing we’re placing our faith in. The faith of a sailor is of no value if he’s putting his faith in a leaky boat. The stock market investor will be gravely disappointed if he places his faith in a failing company. The main question isn’t so much how strong your faith is, or how stable it is – but instead we must ask what our faith is in. The only faith that makes us righteous is the faith that relies totally on the Righteous One – on the righteousness of Christ.

The Scottish Presbyterian, Horatius Bonar, helpfully summarized this point, by saying: “Faith is not our saviour. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died on Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us; that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for our sins. Faith is one thing, the Saviour is another. Faith is one thing, and the cross is another. Let us not confound them, nor ascribe to a poor, imperfect act of man, that which belongs exclusively to the Son of the living God.”¹

But trusting in your faith itself to make you right with God – that isn’t the only issue we need to watch out for. It’s common for people, instead, to trust in the good works that their faith produces. In fact, this is essentially the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. They would deny that Jesus’s life and death fully satisfied the legal requirements on God’s law on our behalf. They would insist that if you’re going to be right with God, then you must look to Jesus – not as the one who has given you peace with God, but merely as the one who perhaps makes it possible for you to bring yourself into peace with God and his law, insomuch as you produce good works.

But does this really fit with what the text is saying? Just look at the example of Abraham that’s spoken about in Romans 4, here, starting at verse 3: “For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’” The text is quite plain: Abraham was counted as right with God and his law – on account of sola fide – faith alone. Our text labors to make the point here that our righteousness in God’s eyes is not in any way built upon our works – either before or after we come to faith. A clear contrast is made between the person who works and the person who believes in verses 4 and 5: “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.”

This righteousness is a gift that’s given. It’s a blessing that’s counted to us, “just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.” And when God gives us this blessing – it isn’t just imaginary righteousness that he blesses us with – but the Judge of the Universe legally accepts on account of the everlasting righteousness of Christ. The billionaire Jesus, pays off our debts and floods our bank account with true righteousness that sets us right with God. And this righteousness is accounted to us, in the same way that it was counted to Abraham – through faith alone, sola fide.

Now, I’m fully aware that there’s one part of the Bible, James Chapter 2, that appear to say something different – and that’s because James is dealing with a different issue. His point is that works have an important role to play in proving that our faith is more than just an empty list of affirmations. And we can dig into the nuances of that passage on a different day.

But when the Bible speaks specifically to the question of how we are declared to be right with God – in a saving way – in a way that affects our eternal standing before God – the Bible is clear that we receive that new judicial status by faith alone ­– sola fide. Consider a couple other sections of Scripture: Galatians 2:16: “[Y]et we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Christ…” And Philippians 3:8 and 9 – “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and 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 of God that depends on faith.” This is why we insist that we’re justified by faith alone – sola fide – because this is the teaching of Scripture. This is the teaching of God.

The Practical Applications of Sola Fide

So now that we know that this is the case, how should we apply this truth? Look with me at Romans 3:27 through 31 – and from this section of the text, let me leave you with three practical applications of Sola Fide. This will be my last point: The practical applications of Sola Fide.

First, our text makes it clear that the truth of sola fide takes away our ability to brag. Verse 27: “Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” In other words, since our righteousness comes fully through faith in Christ – since it’s fully a gift, we can’t brag as though we’ve done something to earn it. We can’t look down on our brothers and sisters in the church and imagine that we’re better than them. We can’t look at our family members or friends who are unbelievers, and despise them for not being as good as we are. The Lord’s kindness to count sinners as righteous through faith in His Son – it shouldn’t make us haughty before men – but rather it should make us humble before God.

Second, the truth of sola fide highlights the real power of Jesus to save people from every type of background. Verse 29 points out that the effectiveness of “justification by faith” doesn’t depend on someone’s religious history. Religiously-observant Jews aren’t any more saveable than people from idol-worshipping nations – Gentiles like the Greeks, the Romans, and the Persians. Because a person’s rightness with God and his law doesn’t depend on his past – it doesn’t depend on what he’s done, or what he has failed to do. Instead, even the vilest person can be made clean through faith. Because the righteousness that Christ imputes – the perfect righteousness that Jesus credits to the account of a believing sinner is never deficient. There are no people who are too lost – no personal histories that are too ugly – such that Christ’s work inadequate to help them. And this should make us all the more confident to proclaim the work of Jesus, and to call people to faith in him. Because anyone – literally any sinner who comes and relies on Christ will be counted as right with God. It’s tremendously good news – and thousands of people around our church in Mt Pleasant need to hear it.

But you’ll notice the third and final application of sola fide in the last verse of Chapter 3. Justification by faith alone – sola fide – should lead us to uphold the law – we see this in verse 31: “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.”

There are many people who take issue with sola fide because they assume that if people really are declared to be just in God’s sight through faith alone, without there being a requirement for works, then people will abuse God’s kindness, and they’ll be motivated to live ungodly, immoral lives instead of living lives of obedience to God and his law.

But the apostle Paul here says that the exact opposite is true. He understands the true logic of the matter. Just think about it. If an employer paid you double the market rate for your salary, and gave you a state-of-the-art office, and stellar benefits, do you really think you’d be motivated to treat your boss with contempt, and to go on doing all the things that you know get on his nerves? Of course not. We wouldn’t expect kindness to motivate us into greater rebellion and recklessness. Instead, we would expect it to result in greater loyalty.

And this is precisely the effect that God’s kindness should have on us. Paul recognizes, that once people understand what God has done – how he has given us His Son, and every benefit of salvation, to be received freely by faith – once people really believe this is true, it shouldn’t make them less eager to live for God, but more. Being justified by faith alone doesn’t motivate Christians to overthrow the law. Instead, it moves us to uphold God’s law out of our love for him. When we understand that we are justified by faith alone – sola fide – these are the kinds of practical ways it will affect how we live.

And in closing, I simply want to affirm – sola fide is good news. The fact that God declares us to be righteous with the unshakeable righteousness of Christ, all through faith – it is an incredible gift. To be able to face life and death, knowing that you have peace with God, and the promise of eternal life, is a rare treasure. So let’s not take sola fide for granted. Let’s make sure that our households are planted deeply in the good news of the gospel, here. And let’s protect and proclaim the good news of sola fide in the years to come. Let’s pray: