Preaching Sola Fide Better

by on April 14, 2025 | Comment

Editor’s Note: The following is the complete chapter as it appeared in R. Scott Clark, ed., Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry: Essays by the Faculty of Westminster Seminary California (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2007), 309-30. In 2021, the publisher returned the publication rights to the copyright holder and the chapter is presented here as a service to the public by the Heidelberg Reformation Association. The material is copyrighted. All Rights Reserved. You are welcome to link to this chapter but you are not entitled to reproduce it in any way without permission of the copyright holder.

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The confession of divine justification touches man’s moral life at its heart, at the point of its relationship to God. It defines the preaching of the Church, the existence and progress of the life of faith, the root of human security and man’s perspective of the future.
—G. C. Berkouwer

If there is one thing that the Church needs today it is the republication with faith and passion of the presuppositions of the doctrine of justification, and the reapplication of [it], the article of a standing or falling church.
—John Murray

Introduction

The above statements by two respected Reformed theologians of the last century set the stage for our inquiry.1 The first indicates how sola

1. See G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Justification (trans. Lewis B. Smedes; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954), 17; and John Murray, Collected Writings of John Murray (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976–82), 2.202.

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fide is central to almost everything Christian; the second appeals for a clearer proclamation of its truth (for a more comprehensive discussion of sola fide as a doctrine see chapter 9 above). This essay is about those matters: the message and its proclamation. They will be dealt with in turn and in the conviction that one must be a sola fide preacher in order to be a preacher of the gospel of Christ.

The Need for Preaching sola fide Better

After a conference address that expounded the doctrine of justification by faith and showed its contemporary importance, the following comments were overheard during a coffee break. Someone said, “What is all the fuss about? The terms justification, righteousness, grace, and faith are still being used aren’t they? And the terms active obedience and imputation can’t matter that much, surely?” Another replied, “Theologians are always quibbling over terms. So, let them argue about it and not trouble us with the matter or disturb the churches.”

To hear such comments at all was a shock to the system, but even more disturbing was the realization that they were being made by folk who would have listened to many sermons in their lifetime and who belonged to the very tradition represented by Berkouwer and Murray. It is not only in Reformed churches, however, that the message of sola fide needs to be preached, but also in every strand of the ecclesiastical spectrum, especially the evangelical. Richard Lovelace points this out by way of a breathtaking claim:

Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. Many have so light an apprehension of God’s holiness and of the extent and guilt for their sin that consciously they see little need for justification, although below the surface of their lives they are deeply guilt-ridden and insecure. Many others have a theoretical commitment to this doctrine, but in their day to day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification drawing their assurance of acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance or the relative infrequency of their conscious, willful disobedience. Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand on Luther’s platform; you are

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accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in the quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude.2

The message of sola fide is therefore vital in the life of the Christian and the church and, by extension, her mission in the world. Much good work has recently been done by way of explaining and maintaining it on both the scholarly and popular levels, but more needs to be done at the level of the local congregation via the regular pulpit ministry. In a word, the message of sola fide needs to be preached— and preached better.

The Benefits of Preaching sola fide Better

Some benefits have already been alluded to in general terms, but there are three that we want to specify in the hope of generating interest in the subject matter of this essay. First, when ordinary folk possess the message of sola fide as their gospel—the light of their minds and the life of their souls—they will have a firm assurance of their salvation and make progress in holiness and evangelistic zeal. Second, the church’s worship will become more fervent and her orthodoxy will be guarded as office bearers pay particular attention to the preservation of this biblical teaching, even initiating disciplinary procedures against any who present a revision of it. Third, a generation of preachers will be raised up who can declare the message well, promoting vigorous outreach into the world. If, as some argue, there is need for another reformation, then this is where one is greatly needed. Interestingly, it is also where the old one started!

The Method of Preaching sola fide Better

In light of our title and what has already been said, it will be no surprise that we are going to consider this subject from the standpoint of the preacher. After all, it is he who has the great privilege and

2. Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1979), 101.

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chief responsibility for ensuring that sola fide is the lifeblood of the church. In what follows we will address two questions: What does the preacher need to be believe about this doctrine? How can it be preached more effectively to a congregation?

Doctrinal Distinctions

What Is Justification by Faith All About?

Every gospel preacher must be able to answer the question what justification by faith is all about, because there is no hope of preaching the message any better than it is clearly understood. However, raising this specific question goes against the tide, because the prevailing tendency in today’s church wants to deal with justification only in its relationship to other doctrinal loci and not by focusing on it particularly. One example of this trend is the second phase of the Anglican and Roman Catholic International Commission, whose assignment was to study this very doctrine.3 Its report was awaited with keen interest because of the known Protestant-Roman divide on the subject, in spite of the attempted narrowing of the gap following Hans Küng’s work and Karl Barth’s comment on it.4 When the report appeared, however, its title did not even include the term justification, but bore the title Salvation and the Church.5 Ecclesiology is important, but if the truth of justification and the need for it are never allowed to challenge the visible church, then somehow its message has been neutralized or even lost. Sadly, the biblical theme of covenant has also been used to that unhappy effect by spokesmen from the Episcopalian, Reformed, Presbyterian, and Baptist traditions,

3. The Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission was a theological study group inaugurated following the visit of Archbishop A. M. Ramsey to Rome in 1966. It received fresh impetus after Archbishop F. D. Coggan’s visit to Pope Paul VI and their Common Declaration in 1977. Three areas were identified for attention: Eucharist, ministry, and authority, and all three are available in The Final Report (London: Catholic Truth Society/SPCK, 1992).

4. Hans Kung, Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Barth and a Catholic Reflection; Together with a Letter from Karl Barth (trans. Thomas Collins, Edmund E. Tolk, and David Granskou; New York: Nelson, 1964), ix–xxvi.

5. ARCIC II: Salvation and the Church (London: Church House Publishing/Catholic Truth Society, 1987). See also Hywel R. Jones, Gospel and Church: An Evangelical Evaluation of Ecumenical Documents on Church Unity (Bridgend: Evangelical Press of Wales, 1989).

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as sola fide has become conditioned by the view that there is only one kind of covenant in Scripture.6

In our ecumenical and revisionist age, theologizing no longer proceeds in terms of the old, well-founded, and well-tested categories, and to draw lines of differentiation between various religious communions is not welcome at all. (If this trend merges with political correctness, orthodoxy is, to use a colloquial British expression, on a hiding to nothing—in other words, no outcome would be favorable and success would be impossible!) Earlier ages, however, were not so squeamish or cagey about sola fide. This was because people recognized that it was specifically mentioned in Scripture by way of both question and answer (Job 9:2; John 6:27–29; Acts 16:29–30), and also because they knew something of its importance and worth in their own souls. They were therefore more protective of the truth than about the survival of their churches as institutions or even about their own lives, for that matter. This is, of course, implicit in the well-known phrase that sola fide is “the article of the standing or falling church”7 and also in Calvin’s view of it as the “hinge on which religion turns” (Institutes 3.11.1).

J. I. Packer made this same point some twenty years before the second Anglican and Roman Catholic International Commission. Borrowing an analogy from the world of classical mythology, he compared sola fide to Atlas bearing “a whole world on his shoulders, the entire evangelical knowledge of saving grace.” Setting this in opposition to Roman dogma, which he described as “committed by its official creed to pervert the doctrine of justification, [and so sentencing] itself to a distorted understanding of salvation at every point,” he proceeded to warn Protestants that they too would lose “the true knowledge of salvation” if they “let the thought of justification drop out of their minds.” Memorably he wrote, “When Atlas falls everything else comes crashing down too.”8

6. There is no lack of names that could be mentioned, as is evident from other essays in this volume.

7. On the history of this phrase, see Alister E. McGrath, Iustitia dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991–93), 2.193n3.

8. J. I. Packer, “Foreword” to James Buchanan, Introduction to the Doctrine of Justification (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1967), 7.

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This concern to focus narrowly on sola fide did not, however, result in its links with other doctrines going unidentified or unappreciated. Far from it! Over the last five hundred years, scholars have indicated that many primary Christian truths are inseparably connected with the message of sola fide. Robert Traill did so in his 1692 Vindication of the Protestant Doctrine concerning Justification from the Unjust Charge of Antinomianism: “All the great fundamentals of Christian truth centre in this of justification.”9 As noted at the head of this essay, Berkouwer said much the same, and so did Packer:

This theme is theological, declaring a work of amazing grace; anthropological, demonstrating that we cannot save ourselves; Christological, resting on incarnation and atonement; pneumatological, rooted in Spirit-wrought faith-union with Jesus; ecclesiological, determining both the definition and the health of the church; eschatological, proclaiming God’s truly final verdict on believers here and now; evangelistic, inviting troubled souls into everlasting peace; pastoral, making our identity as forgiven sinners basic to our fellowship; and liturgical, being decisive for interpreting the sacraments and shaping sacramental services. No other biblical doctrine holds together so much that is precious and enlivening.10

What Is Special about Justification by Faith?

Given that there are so many connections between sola fide and other doctrines (are any doctrines not connected with it, one may wonder?), in what way can it be distinguished from them all? It does this for us by its very terms—almost. It tells us that justification is “by faith.” Could it be put any more clearly? Only by the addition of the word alone, which brings out what is implicit in its being said that it is “by faith”—period: “Not of works lest anyone should boast” (Eph 2:9).

Justification is therefore distinguishable from all the other blessings of salvation because while they all have some connection with faith, only justification can be said to be by faith alone. Some of the others like election and foreordination precede and anticipate faith.

9. Robert Traill, Justification Vindicated (repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2002), 5.

10. J. I. Packer, Here We Stand (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1986), x–xi.

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Regeneration is productive of faith. Sanctification proceeds by faith and works, while glorification consummates both, albeit in different ways. Only justification is “by faith”—alone—and that entails reconciliation and adoption.

Another way of highlighting the uniqueness of justification is to say that while all saving blessings are traceable to the grace of God and not to any merit or accomplishment by human beings, only one of them is received by faith alone, but this blessing conveys a title to all the rest! It installs a sinner in God’s favor and gives access to God and joy at the prospect of his glory (Rom 5:1–2).

This is the one distinctive point that is absolutely crucial for a preacher to bear in mind, because it enables him to make a genuine offer of a salvation that is not only free but also full to everyone who hears the word that he preaches. Without an appreciation of this, no preacher will ever preach sola fide properly, let alone preach it better.

As is well known, several sixteenth- and seventeenth-century confessions state what justification is in the most succinct and lucid of terms, and their agreement is remarkable, given their differing ecclesiastical provenance (Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, Westminster Standards, Savoy Declaration, and London Confession). They all affirm that justification is a divine verdict, based on Christ’s obedience that is imputed to the guilty sinner by faith. While each of these items needs explaining and applying, they can all be presented and defended as the essential lineaments of the doctrine. They are closely connected, especially in terms of the all-embracing reality of union with Christ, but they are not to be conflated. Indeed, distinctions between them must be maintained:

  1. The first element is the verdict of God: it is altogether divine. Justification is the declaration of God, the judge of mankind. He declares a sinner to be “not guilty” with reference to the law; he forgives all his sins and installs him in his favor. It is his judicial verdict, announced in heaven.
  2. The second element is divine-human, namely, the life and death of God’s incarnate son, Jesus Christ. Being just, God cannot absolve sinners without upholding the demands of

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his law and executing its penalty, or else he himself ceases to be just. So he must find (provide) a substitute who acts for the transgressor with respect to both the demands and liabilities of the law that bear upon him. This righteousness is the ground of atonement and the object of faith.

  1. The third element is a fully human act—faith, that is, trust. In making this assertion, such faith as the gift of God is not being minimized, let alone denied (Eph 2:8). It is true that no one can believe for himself apart from regeneration and effectual calling, which are divine acts, but the point stressed here is that no one can believe for another; neither God nor Christ does so for the sinner. While one can stand proxy for another in a marriage, no one can stand proxy for another in the matter of union with Christ being actualized. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to every sinful individual who, knowing he or she is guilty before God and is hopeless and helpless, believes the gospel message.

For justification to take place, therefore, all three things must cohere. A divine intention to justify the ungodly cannot pass into force without a substitute who provides the righteousness the law requires and bears the pending curse. Justification is not a general amnesty issued automatically by God on the first Good Friday when the Savior died and atonement was accomplished. It differs from that in two important respects. First, it is not universal in the sense that it applies to every individual; rather, it applies only to the elect. Second, and this is really material for our study, the divine verdict is only issued as and when people believe the gospel. Just as God did not justify sinners when an atonement was made in accord with his plan, so he did not absolve the elect from guilt along with choosing and predestinating them when the plan was drawn up. In heaven he justifies whoever turns to Christ on earth, but only and when he does so in time and space. It is an irreversible declaration that, though not made in eternity past, is made with regard to eternity future!

The justification of a sinner by God is therefore on the ground of Christ’s active and passive obedience that meets the demands and bears the penalties of his law. God could not justify one sinner, not

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even the least sinful let alone the worst, without the cross; but, equally, he does not justify any sinner without faith—an accomplished atonement notwithstanding. If words mean anything, faith alone is no less a part of being justified than Christ’s work is, although the latter (the ground) is much more important than the former (the instrument). What needs to be asserted, however, is that it is as impossible for a sinner to be justified without his believing as it is for him to be justified without Christ’s obeying. Although people were justified before Christ lived and died, it was by means of faith that the Messiah would “bruise the serpent’s head.”

To conclude, therefore, election and predestination take place in eternity past in Christ; justification takes place in time as people trust in Christ. Election and predestination are not in any way conditional on our believing; justification is. The nature of that connection is vital to understand, so that it may not be incorrectly expressed. Faith is not a condition of justification in the sense in which that word is generally understood by the sinner. It is not something that he must do in order that he might be justified. That would make him his own savior. Even saying that faith is a nonmeritorious condition still leaves things unclear because a condition is something that must be done, and believing is that condition, and it is not something that God will do for the sinner, he must do it for himself. Sola fide is, of course, part of God’s eternal plan for saving the elect, and it results from his gracious love. Nothing is conditional on human merit or effort. Everything is ordered and sure. Believing is the hinge on which the door into God’s favor turns both really and consciously for the guilty sinner. It alters his relationship to God and also God’s dealings with him. It therefore has two sides. No longer is he the object of God’s wrath and displeasure and no longer does he react to God with opposition and impenitence. Being justified is as much “a once-for-all” reality as was the death of the mediator: “There is therefore now no condemnation” (Rom 8:1 ESV, emphasis added). Repenting of one’s sin and believing in Christ continues throughout the Christian’s life, but being justified is not a process. What is more, it is never reversed and never needs to be repeated: “Whom he justified them he also glorified” (8:30 ESV).

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Homiletical Directions

Given what has been said, we approach the homiletical part of our task in the realization that the message of sola fide forms the nexus between God’s truth and man’s saving reception of it. Such a connection gives to the preaching of sola fide an importance that is second to none from the standpoints of the differing responsibilities of both preacher and hearer. The preacher is “to make the message clear and plain,” and the hearer is to receive it with understanding. Luther was right: “This is the truth of the gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consisteth. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.”11 This essay is based on the conviction that Luther’s directive has not been followed as it should have been—for many a long day.12

Many books on preaching either give a noticeable lack of prominence to sola fide or omit it altogether. This is due to an overattentiveness of a twofold kind. First, there is a concentration with the text in its narrow (immediate) context, noting all the features of its literary character but often neglecting its larger (canonical) context—all in the desire to be expository and say what is actually in the text. This kind of sermon can lack a focus on the centrality of Christ; indeed, he may not be actually mentioned, and so sola fide cannot be properly preached. Second, there is a preoccupation with determining the placement of the text in the flow of redemptive history and displaying the interconnecting threads it opens up that lead on and up to Christ. In this kind of sermon, the call to trust Jesus Christ alone can be overlooked, as if to preach Christ will inevitably include sola fide. Hermeneutics and homiletics are to be consecrated to the service of

11. Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (trans. Philip S. Watson; repr. London: Clarke, 1953), 101.

12. Two books about preaching provide some evidence for this claim: Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994); and David Larsen, The Evangelism Mandate: Recovering the Centrality of Gospel Preaching (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1992). In these valuable works there is no highlighting of justification as a subject/theme that is to receive special attention, even though the specifics of evangelistic preaching are dealt with. The same is true of Millard Erickson and James L. Heflin, New Wine in Old Wineskins (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997), which addresses the need for the preaching of Christian doctrine but not the doctrine of sola fide.

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preaching Christ and the necessity of faith in him. The composition of the congregation is therefore to be as much in the preacher’s mind as the text that he is to preach. In our view the best way to do this is by using the categories of law and gospel and certainly not a single, undifferentiated view of covenant.13

Given the degree of importance that has rightly been accorded to sola fide by Protestants, there is therefore a crying need for its importance to be underlined in courses and writings on homiletics, but nothing can compare with its being preached. That is how it survives in the church and how the church thrives. So how can sola fide be preached more effectively in all our churches? Three matters will greatly help in this task.

The Biblical Support for Preaching sola fide

The outline of the essentials of justification, offered earlier, is largely derived from Paul’s epistle to the Romans. As is well known, the message of sola fide is summarized early in that letter in the immortal words: “The righteous shall live by faith” (1:17 ESV), but it is then unpacked in what immediately follows.

The first part of 1:18–5:21 majors on sin and law, guilt and wrath. Human sin invites divine wrath on account of the law’s transgression by ungodliness and unrighteousness: “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (3:23 AV), and “the wages of sin is death” (6:23 AV). No one is without some awareness of God and of his requirements and also of liability to his wrath if they are in any way infringed (1:19–21, 32; 2:14–16). This knowledge is now inscribed on the moral DNA of every human being because of what it means to have been created in the image of God and also to have

13. In Norman Shepherd, The Call of Grace: Covenant Light on Evangelism (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2000), there is no mention of justification by faith as an item in the gospel that is to be preached—in spite of the book’s subtitle. There are chapters entitled “Covenant and Election” and “Covenant and Regeneration” but not “Covenant and Justification.” Is Shepherd implying that given the reality of the covenant there is no need for the message of justification by faith? Shepherd’s definition of sola fide is virtually unrecognizable by any confessional measure; see “Justification by Faith Alone,” Reformation and Revival 11 (2002): 75–90. His definition of faith as it functions in justification flatly contradicts WCF 11.1–2’s “resting and receiving” and that of WLC 72.

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fallen in Adam. These truths about God and man can be summarized as follows:

  1. God demands perfect righteousness from his human creatures and subjects. This includes the majestic holiness and righteousness of God and his kingly authority to legislate, uphold, and execute the sanctions of his law.
  2. Man is unable to perform what God requires. This includes man’s subservience and accountability to God, his inherited and personal unwillingness and inability to keep God’s law, his overweening inclination to sin in all its forms, and his consequent guilt and condemnation before God.

These truths about God, law, and sin are absolutely necessary to the message of sola fide and therefore to its proclamation. At one and the same time they are the props on which it rests (theo)logically and the chords that it strikes communicatively. Consequently, the message cannot be preached better if it is disconnected from them, and using them will have an effect in the hearer, whatever might be said to the contrary.

These truths are not just to be stated in a generalized form or didactic mode. While they are great and vast truths that must be treated in some depth and at some length, they are to be presented in a pointed way and with some passion. The character of God must be discussed and the character of the sinner must be dissected. The statements in confessions and catechisms on God and sin provide categories for doing this, and the Old and New Testaments contain an abundance of all kinds of material about them by way of proposition and illustration (e.g., Ps 51; Rom 3:9–20). A more thorough use of all this sacred information will contribute greatly to a worthier and more effective preaching of sola fide.

The Focus of Preaching sola fide

Every sermon worthy of the name must have a point, one main point to which everything else in it must be connected and to which it moves. That is what is meant by the term focus. This main theme or

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grand point is therefore something other than any of its underpinnings. Applied to sola fide, this means that neither human sin nor divine law and justice are the grand theme in the preaching of sola fide. Their function in the sermon is to strengthen and sharpen the main point. What then is that point? Is it faith? No! It is “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2 ESV). Changing the analogy, we can say that what is said in Scripture about sin, law, and God can be compared to three roads that run up to Calvary and to what happened there—or they “are the schoolmaster to lead to Christ that [people] may be justified by faith” (Gal 3:24).

Sola fide is therefore all of a piece with solo Christo, and so a third point needs to be added to the two sets of truths already mentioned:

  1. Jesus Christ provides sinners with righteousness before God. Paul focuses on this in Romans 3:21–5:21. By becoming incarnate, the Son of God became the representative and substitute for sinners, in his life keeping the law of God in all its demands and in his death bearing the full punishment that sin merits in the estimate of God. This provision of righteousness coram deo is the supreme expression of the grace of God—not just something undeserved but the opposite of what is deserved.

Jesus, the Christ of God, is to be the focus of every Christian sermon because he is the focal point of the entirety of Scripture. Adumbrated in the Old Testament by what is said, positively or negatively, about servants of God, whether prophets, priests, kings or wise men, whatever Jesus Christ says and does, as reported in the Gospels, is part and parcel of his “fulfill[ing] all righteousness” (Matt 3:15 ESV). As the God-man he is the one and only mediator, both before his birth (that is, by way of promise) and throughout his life on earth and now in heaven, but exclusively and fully in and by his death. That is what Paul highlighted by the term crucified in 1 Corinthians 2:2 and the place of importance he gave to it there—not merely referring to “Jesus” or even just to “Jesus [the] Christ,” but to “him crucified.” The expression indicates that the entirety of his messianic ministry

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hinges on his accursed and atoning death, and that is pointed up by the amount of space allocated to it in the Gospels.

The message of sola fide has therefore to major on the obedient life of Jesus offered up to God in a propitiatory death as the only ground, the only rock of a sinner’s righteous acceptance with God. On the basis of that life and death that answers all the law’s demands, God remains “just” but can also be “the justifier of the one [i.e., everyone, anyone] who has faith in Jesus” (Rom 3:26 ESV).

The Aim of Preaching sola fide

Although the focal point of a sermon about sola fide is the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, this should not diminish the importance of faith but the reverse. Jesus associated both, in John’s Gospel, by following his claim to be the “I Am” with “whoever believes in me.” The importance of sola fide is therefore derived from the significance of solo Christo. As a camera lens focuses on an object (other than the photographer) and by adjustment brings it into sharpest relief, so faith uses Scripture to concentrate on Christ. It is extraspective and not introspective.

Imagine that someone were to say “I love” but be unable to answer the question, “Who or what do you love?” Their silence would warrant concluding that such a person knew nothing about love, real love at all—or about the English language. So it is with faith. Faith must have an object outside itself, outside the believer, in order to meet the definition of faith in the languages of the Bible.

The apostle Peter wrote, “Unto you therefore which believe he [Jesus Christ] is precious[ness]” (1 Pet 2:7 AV). If faith were possible without Christ, it would be worthless, but he also described faith as “precious” (2 Pet 1:1), because of course it is by means of it—and it alone—that the merit and worth of the only mediator between God and men is personally and individually received.

The aim of the kind of preaching that we are thinking of is therefore to bring sinners to Christ by faith. This involves a renunciation of any supposed righteousness in self and a reliance on the righteousness of Christ. This touches the sinner’s conscience, and so Paul described the ministry that he conducted “in the sight of God” as

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being addressed to “everyone’s conscience” (2 Cor 4:2 ESV), whether to Jew or to Gentile.

What is involved in preaching sola fide “to the conscience”? Authentic preaching is never a direct assault on the emotions or the will without a prior address to the understanding. It contains teaching but it cannot be identified with it. Without teaching, preaching becomes a harangue, but preaching cannot be equated with the presentation of true statements taught from the perspectives of biblical exegesis, historical theology, and catechetical reflection, which all too often are couched in general terms. Preaching goes one step beyond all that—a vital step. It goes closer to each individual and also deeper. It digs through the walls of sinners’ hearts (Ezek 8:8), carrying the truth beyond the mind to the door of the sinner’s conscience, knocking repeatedly there until the whole house (heart) is wakened. It is therefore to the conscience—that critical faculty that alarms the mind (understanding) by means of exposing the disposition and censuring the conduct—that the message of sola fide is to be strongly addressed. Such preaching is not congenial to any sinner whose innate and idolatrous tendency to self-righteousness has not been illumined or undermined—especially the religious.

The Augsburg Confession of 1530 declares: “This whole doctrine [of justification] must be related to the conflict of an alarmed conscience, and without that conflict it cannot be grasped. So persons lacking this experience, and profane men, are bad judges of this matter.”14 And in the following century, the Puritan John Owen wrote about preaching sola fide: “It is the practical direction of the consciences of men, in their application unto God by Jesus Christ, for deliverance from the curse due unto the apostate state, and peace with him, with the influence of the way thereof unto universal gospel obedience, that is alone to be designed in the handling of this doctrine.”15

So what is involved in “alarming the conscience”? It is an attempt to bring a sinner into the last judgment ahead of time, issuing a summons to him that he is to appear at the bar of God. The pew becomes the dock, and the pulpit becomes the judge’s seat. He is read God’s

14. Quoted by Packer in Here We Stand, 89 (emphasis added).

15. John Owen, The Works of John Owen (repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1967), 5.4.2 (emphasis added).

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rights—his just demands and threats. The charge of being a transgressor is read; evidence is presented of infringements of the law. He is called to face and answer the charge, but warned that to try and conduct his own defense against the Almighty by way of excuse or mitigation, let alone denial, will but increase the heinousness of his transgression. He is declared to be guilty before God, sentenced to an unbearable and unending punishment in hell, and that most justly.

How can a frail preacher do that? Can it be done? Yes it can, but not by human power or eloquence. It can be done only by the discriminating use of the law and dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit who alone can “reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8 AV). The law has been given specifically for this purpose. By it, a sinner who thinks he is alive before God (Rom 7:9) is enabled to identify sin for what it is, experience its unmanageable power as he seeks to deal with it by himself, and feel death at work within him. This results from the striking description of the “coming” of the commandment to him. This is not the same as being able to quote the commandment or knowing where to find it in Scripture. It is the result of its reverberating in his conscience and his being unable to silence it. It is the Spirit bringing the given, written Word and using it as a sharp, two-edged sword—and being pleased to do so through frail preaching.

All this is to be pursued as the way to conscience being pacified—before God, through Jesus Christ. When people know what it is to be a “wretched man,” they will have had enough of themselves and want to hear only of a “blessed man” who kept the law for sinners and yet bore their curse. They are all to be told that there is nothing left for them to do as a condition of obtaining peace with God and heaven and nothing left for them to fear, though they have sinned (and still will, perish the thought). Jesus has done it all and borne it all. Coming to God as they are by way of trusting in Jesus as he is, God will gladly accept them; he will cancel the sentence, imputing Christ’s righteousness to their account in the ledgers of heaven and freely pardoning them all their sins against him.

In the light of all this, better preaching of sola fide will not focus on Jesus to the exclusion of God, on his love to the neglect of wrath, on forgiveness to the neglect of righteousness, on assent and decision

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to the exclusion of trust. It will differentiate between sin and sins and between regret and repentance; it will seek to abase man and exalt God and to present the Lord Jesus Christ in all his mediatorial glory. It will do this by a firm and searching use of the moral law of God as expressed in the Ten Commandments and a winsome description of the life and death of Jesus that fulfilled them. It will focus on the divine transaction completed on Calvary between the Son and the Father and not on a human decision, on a canceled law and not on a filled-in card. Justification by faith cannot be preached at all where texts are used without any doctrinal explanation and where the message is grounded on felt needs rather than on the need that needs to be felt. And it will exult in speaking of faith without works of any kind, whether those done before by way of preparation to receive Christ or done after by way of gratitude, as if they were part of the basis on which defiled and condemned sinners are accepted by God unreservedly, not put on probation but installed in his favor.

This kind of preaching needs no defense when it is the unbelieving world that is being addressed. To fail to engage in it there for fear of giving offence and merely to focus on psychological frailty and social alienation (real though these felt needs are) is a dereliction of sacred duty, and it is also the greatest unkindness conceivable.

But what about such preaching in the church? Can it be done there—and with good conscience before God and men? Yes, it can— and, what is more, it should be done and often. Here perhaps is the real reason why sola fide has not been given its due prominence and why this subject is in the crosshairs of this essay. Given the existence of a church as the covenant people of God, an appreciative understanding of sola fide can almost be taken for granted. Every preacher should beware of thinking like this because God is said to have “evangelized” Abraham with the message (Gal 3:8)—and, judging from the Genesis record, to have done so more than once.

A basic consideration at this point is that a local Christian congregation is “a mixed company.” The largest percentage of those attending is made up of professing believers and their children. Is there any way in which these need to hear the message of sola fide? Of course there is. The children certainly do if they have not yet professed faith in Christ. Those who have not yet believed are to be regarded as

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“under the law” and “outside of Christ” though they have a promise that God will be gracious to them if they turn to him. They are covenant children by birth and holy (1 Cor 7:14), and baptism incorporates them into the covenant community (visible church)—but not necessarily into Christ. Regeneration does that, and while that is a secret operation of the Holy Spirit, through the preached gospel (Rom 10:14–15), it becomes conscious and evident via a response to the preached message. Covenant children therefore need to hear the message of sola fide desperately, and in any precommunicant class a gentle inquiry is to be made into whether its truth is understood and its worth appreciated.

Adults who have not yet professed faith in Christ, whether brought up in Christian or un-Christian homes, are to be addressed in broadly the same terms. For those who “chance in” on a Sunday morning or evening, not to have a sentence or two addressed to them is serious. (In addition, sola fide is the message for those whose membership has lapsed or been withdrawn.)

What of church members? Here, the fact that the composition of a local congregation cannot be identified in all respects with the elect is to borne in mind, for it is not impossible that baptized communicants may not actually be “in Christ.” This must not lead the preacher to be suspicious of the profession of everyone or to impose extra requirements to satisfy his uncertainty. Such a possibility will be more than sufficiently addressed by a regular preaching of sola fide in dependence on the Holy Spirit who knows men’s hearts. It will also keep the saints in a humble and grateful spirit, and it is the only salve for a conscience troubled by an awareness of sins committed and duties left undone. Sola fide is the only answer to Satan when he sows doubt, accuses of guilt, and even generates a sense of condemnation before God. The message of sola fide is by itself almost a panacea for all spiritual ills.

There is, however, but one exception to this connection between Christ’s worth and human faith that has been noted and acknowledged in the Reformed tradition (see WCF 10.3–4). Those who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word because they either die in infancy or cannot understand the gospel call because of mental incapacity will be admitted to heaven because they are

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“regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth.”

Two things, however, need to be remembered at this point. The first, by way of necessary implication, is that such persons were born in sin and were destitute of spiritual life. Another way of salvation is not therefore being taught, but sola gratia is being reinforced in that the one group cannot properly be said to act and the other cannot be said to understand. Here, perhaps, lies the rub of the debate over sola fide in every age—no capable and knowledgeable adult likes to have to admit being as helpless in spiritual things as those described.

The second is a matter that is explicitly stated. Westminster Confession of Faith 10.4 forbids that this exception should be extended to cover those who do not profess “the Christian religion . . . be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature and the law of that religion they do profess.” It also adds that “to assert and maintain that they may [be saved in any other way whatsoever] is very pernicious, and to be detested.” Ordinarily, no one can be justified before they themselves actually believe—and that is the standing order for both preacher and church.

The preacher must therefore assert the nature and the necessity of faith alone. Doing this in the church means dissociating it from being faithful. As mentioned earlier, Shepherd omits all reference to justification in dealing with covenant evangelism. He also lacks clarity because he never mentions justifying faith without referring to works or obedience. He comes nearest to doing this when he says that God “forgives us our sins and receives us as righteous because of Jesus Christ and his redeeming activity on our behalf,” but he continues immediately:

At the same time, faith, repentance, obedience, and perseverance are indispensable to the enjoyment of these blessings. They are conditions but they are not meritorious conditions. Faith is required but faith looks away from personal merit to the promise of God. Repentance and obedience flow from faith as the fullness of faith. This is faithfulness and faithfulness is perseverance in faith. A liv-

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ing, active, and abiding faith is the way in which the believer enters eternal life.16

We think it is worth reflecting on what the consequences of this emphasis on “active faith” or “faithfulness” might be. Will not Christians think that they ought to keep the law in order that God might accept them? Will not the unconverted be left in worse bondage because having been told to believe and obey, they will try to do so? It is, therefore, distinctly possible that those who have been freed from the law will think they are not, and those who are not will think that they are. Not to close down these gospel-denying options is hardly worthy of the name of evangelism—or of covenant.

The nature of faith is also essentially bound up with “accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace” (WCF 14.2). The term obey does not occur. What then shall be said about Paul’s use of the expression the obedience of faith in Romans 1:5 and 16:26. Should “obey” be added in any sense to the three verbs used by the Westminster Divines? No. The apostle is using the term obedience to describe faith as submission to what Christ did (by way of his obedience) and not to refer to anything the sinner is to do by way of contribution to Christ’s work or even by way of appreciation of it. To understand it in any other way is to create confusion.

Conclusion

This exploration began with quotations from two respected Reformed theologians of the last century. Since their day the situation has not improved but deteriorated—in spite of all that has been claimed as advances in biblical scholarship and theological study. The need to do better is therefore urgent. In the hope of motivating a ringing clarity in the pulpit on this matter and a joyful, humbling certainty in the pew, we conclude with some words from a theologian and seminary teacher of a slightly earlier date.

16. Shepherd, Call of Grace, 50.

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B. B. Warfield (1851–1921) gathered Princeton students on Sunday afternoons to explore “the deeper currents of Christian faith and life.” On one such occasion he spoke to them from Philippians 3:9, entitling his address “The Alien Righteousness.”17 Toward the end of his talk, he referred to J. A. Froude, professor of history at Oxford University, who used the expression immorality of evangelicalism in one of his essays and quoted the following excerpt from a hymn:

Nothing either great or small,
Nothing, sinner, no;
Jesus did it, did it all
Long, long ago.

Warfield then observed:

What was particularly offensive to him [Froude] was the assertion that:
Doing is a deadly thing,
Doing ends in death.

And he responded by saying:

It is, nevertheless, the very cor cordis of the Gospel that is here brought under fire. The one antithesis of all the ages is that between the rival formulae: Do this and live, and Live and do this; Do and be saved, and Be saved and do. And the one thing that determines whether we trust in God for salvation or would fain save ourselves is, how such formulae appeal to us. . . . Just in proportion as we are striving to supplement or to supplant His perfect work, just in that proportion is our hope of salvation resting on works, and not on faith. Ethicism and solafideanism—these are the eternal contraries, mutually exclusive. It must be faith or works; it can never be faith and works. And the fundamental exhortation which we must ever be giving our souls is clearly expressed in the words of the hymn, “Cast your deadly doing down.” Only when that is completely done is it really Christ Only, Christ All in All, with us. (emphasis added)

17. See B. B. Warfield, Faith and Life (1916; repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974), 323–25.

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There is such an intimate connection between sola fide and the truly Christian church. In Scripture, the former produced the latter, and this was shown in the sixteenth century when the church that had lost the gospel underwent a reformation when this connection was recovered. New wine and old wineskins do not last long together. Strenuous efforts must therefore be made to regain and retain for the church the good news of sola fide, the doctrine by which the church does stand or fall and by which people do pass from death to life.

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    Post authored by:

  • Hywel Jones
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    Dr Hywel Jones was ordained in the Presbyterian Church of Wales in 1963 and ministered in several pastorates in Wales and England over 25 years. During those years, he was a member of the executive committee of the British Evangelical Council of Churches, editor of its theological journal and chairman of its study conference. In addition he was co-chairman of the Westminster Fellowship of Ministers succeeding Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. The London Theological Seminary commenced in 1977 and Dr. Jones became its first principal in 1985, lecturing in Hebrew and Biblical Studies, Hermeneutics, and Homiletics. During that time he also taught in Romania, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, and Italy. In 1995, he was Scholar in Residence at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, MS, and since 1998 has been a member of the adjunct faculty at Puritan and Reformed Theological Seminary in Michigan. He became Professor of Practical Theology at Westminster Seminary California in 2000. Upon his retirement, the board made him Emeritus Professor of Practical Theology.

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