Redemption

Humanity's Only Hope

The Reformation once again celebrated the gospel. This time it overcame the highest powers in the world. God raised up instruments to recover the gospel in a way that had not been witnessed in over a thousand years. The uncontainable flame of the Reformation was the power of the gospel to save sinners and through it to know true peace.

That flame was not kindled by a council, a king, or a new philosophy. It was kindled by a book, read at last in the languages in which God gave it. When Erasmus published the Greek New Testament in 1516, he set the apostles’ own words before a generation of troubled men, and within a few years, in Wittenberg, in Einsiedeln, and in Cambridge, men who had never met one another found the same gospel on the same pages. What they found was not a refinement of the religion they had been taught. It was another message entirely, and it is the burden of this page to say so plainly.

A Monk and the Righteousness of God

Martin Luther had done everything the medieval church asked of a man who wanted to be saved. He fasted, prayed, confessed, and kept the rule of his order with a severity that alarmed his superiors, and none of it brought him peace. One phrase in particular tormented him: “the righteousness of God” in Romans 1:17. He had been taught to read it as the justice by which God punishes sinners, and he confessed that he came to hate the righteous God who punishes sinners. Timothy George notes that Luther “developed his insight into Pauline theology while using Erasmus’s edition of the Greek New Testament.”1 Near the end of his life he described what happened when he pressed upon the text:

At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, “In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’” There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith… Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me.2 Martin LutherPreface to the Latin Writings (1545)

“A totally other face of the entire Scripture.” Luther did not find one new doctrine to add to the many he already held. He found a different Bible, because he had found a different righteousness: not a righteousness God works in us and then rewards, but a righteousness God gives to us and counts as ours. That righteousness belongs to Christ, and the sinner receives it by faith alone. Everything else in the Reformation follows from that discovery, and Luther never wavered on its importance. Of this article, he wrote, “Nothing in this article can be given up or compromised, even if heaven and earth and things temporal should be destroyed.”3

What the Word Means

Why had the church missed what Luther now saw? A large part of the answer lies in a single verb. The Latin iustificare, the word of the Vulgate, was naturally heard as “to make just,” and the western tradition took it so. Augustine, as Alister McGrath has shown, understood iustificare “to mean ‘to make righteous,’” and of Anselm it can be said that “when he read in his Latin New Testament that sinners were justified, he took this to mean regenerated and sanctified.”4 But the apostle did not write in Latin. The Greek dikaioō is a word of the courtroom. Paul sets it directly against “condemn” (Romans 8:33–34), and condemnation does not make a man wicked; it declares him guilty. As Stephen Wellum explains on Romans 4:5, God “‘justifies’ the wicked not by ‘making’ us righteous by transformation but by ‘declaring’ us righteous because of our faith in Christ’s finished work.”5

The Lutheran theologian Martin Chemnitz, answering the Council of Trent point by point, put his finger on exactly this difference:

The Roman theologians understand the word “justify” according to the manner of the Latin composition as meaning “to make righteous” through a donated or infused quality of inherent righteousness, from which works of righteousness proceed. The Lutherans, however, accept the word “justify” in the Hebrew manner of speaking; therefore they define justification as the absolution from sins, or the remission of sins, through imputation of the righteousness of Christ.6 Martin ChemnitzExamination of the Council of Trent

Chemnitz showed at length that the Greek authors used the word the same way, and his conclusion was blunt: “Among the Greek authors, therefore, the word ‘justify’ is not used in that sense for which alone the papalists contend.” Its forensic meaning, he said, “is so manifest” that even Trent’s defenders found it difficult to deny.7 The recovery of the original text did not merely sharpen a definition. It overturned the meaning of salvation itself.

The Same Gospel, Found Again and Again

Luther was not alone, and that is part of the evidence. In the Swiss pilgrimage town of Einsiedeln, Ulrich Zwingli received his copy of Erasmus’s Greek text and, as Stephen Nichols tells it, “copied out Paul’s epistles in Greek and filled the margins with commentary.” “Studying the Greek New Testament,” Nichols writes, “he stumbled upon the gospel.”8 When he set out his teaching for the city of Zurich in 1523, Zwingli began with it: “The sum and substance of the Gospel is that our Lord Jesus Christ, the true Son of God, has made known to us the will of his heavenly Father, and has with his innocence redeemed us from eternal death and reconciled God.” And of good works: “Christ is our righteousness. From this it follows that our works are good so far as they are Christ’s, but not good so far as they are our own.”9

In Cambridge, a young scholar named Thomas Bilney bought Erasmus’s New Testament for the elegance of its Latin and opened it at 1 Timothy 1:15. Where the Vulgate read fidelis sermo, Erasmus had rendered the Greek certus sermo, a sure saying, “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” George observes that “the word certus—certain, sure, true, trustworthy—made all the difference.” Bilney never forgot it:10

This one sentence did so exhilarate my heart, being before wounded with the guilt of my sins, and being almost in despair, that even immediately I seemed unto myself inwardly to feel such a comfort and quietness, insomuch “that my bruised bones leaped for joy.” After this the Scripture began to be more pleasant unto me than the honey or the honeycomb.11 Thomas BilneyLetter to Bishop Tunstall

Bilney would die at the stake in 1531. Calvin, a generation later, gave the doctrine its settled place, calling justification “the main hinge upon which religion turns.”12 Different men, in different countries, working from the same Greek text, arrived at the same gospel. That is what happens when the Word of God is allowed to speak for itself.

Another Gospel

It must now be said without softening: what the Reformers found in Scripture and what Rome defined at Trent are not two versions of one gospel. They are two gospels. Paul himself supplies the category, and he does not leave room for politeness on the point:

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. The Apostle PaulGalatians 1:6–9

The false teachers in Galatia did not deny Christ. They believed in Him, and added one requirement to faith in Him. Paul’s verdict on that single addition was total: “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4). A gospel of Christ plus anything is not a fuller gospel. It is another one.

Measured by that standard, the Council of Trent speaks for itself. It defined justification as “not merely the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man,” whereby “man from unjust becomes just,” so that the justified “are not only reputed, but are truly called, and are, just, receiving justice within us.” It named baptism, not faith, as the instrumental cause.13 Then it pronounced its curse on the gospel the Reformers had found:

“If any one shall say, that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the righteousness of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins… or even that the grace, by which we are justified, is only the favour of God; let him be anathema.” “If any one shall say, that justifying faith is nought else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ’s sake; or that it is this confidence alone by which we are justified; let him be anathema.” “If any one shall say, that the justice received is not preserved, and also increased in the sight of God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of justification received, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema.”14

Nor is this a museum piece. The Catechism of the Catholic Church repeats Trent’s definition word for word, teaches that “justification is conferred in Baptism,” and that it “conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just,” and that the faithful “can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life.”15 Set beside that the Westminster Confession: God justifies “not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous: not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone.”16 The sentences cannot both be true. One of them is the gospel Paul preached.

Fairness requires one clarification, and it does not weaken the point. Rome does not teach that men are saved by works without faith or grace. R. C. Sproul called that charge “a slanderous caricature,” for Trent made faith the beginning, foundation, and root of justification.17 The difference is not faith against works. It is faith alone in Christ alone against faith joined to infused righteousness, sacraments, and merit. That is exactly the Galatian difference, and Sproul drew the conclusion that follows from it: “There were radically different views of salvation. They could not be reconciled. One of them was the gospel. One of them was not.”18

The Power of God unto Salvation

To say this is not to despise Roman Catholic people. Many of them are earnest, and some by God’s mercy trust Christ more simply than their church’s teaching allows. But love does not flatter. Sproul’s counsel is the right one: we must not assume that we are brothers and sisters with Rome in the gospel, for “they are members of a church that has anathematized the gospel, so we ought to pray for them and seek to reach them for Christ.”19 The Reformers did not hold their ground out of pride. They held it because a soul’s eternal peace depends on it.

And that peace is the end of the matter. A sinner who must become inwardly just before God will accept him can never know when he has become just enough. A sinner who is declared righteous for Christ’s sake, the moment he believes, can sing with Bilney that his bruised bones leap for joy. “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:5). “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). This is the gospel Luther found in the tower, Zwingli in his Greek Testament, and Bilney in a single sure saying. It is the only gospel there is, and it is still “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16).

Worldview Next: Purpose

Sources

  1. Timothy George, Theology of the Reformers, rev. ed. (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2013), chap. 1, “Introduction.” The date of Luther’s breakthrough is disputed; Luther placed it in 1519, though many scholars find his evangelical understanding already present in earlier writings. See George, chap. 3. ↩
  2. Martin Luther, “Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther’s Latin Writings” (1545), Luther’s Works 34:336–37, quoted in Stephen J. Nichols, “A Gracious God and a Neurotic Monk,” in R. C. Sproul and Stephen J. Nichols, eds., The Legacy of Luther (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2016), chap. 1. ↩
  3. Martin Luther, Smalcald Articles (1537), part 2, art. 1, quoted in Timothy George, Theology of the Reformers, rev. ed. (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2013), chap. 3, “Yearning for Grace: Martin Luther.” The often-quoted phrase “the article by which the church stands or falls” expresses Luther’s view but was coined later. ↩
  4. Nick Needham, “The Evolution of Justification: Justification in the Medieval Traditions,” in Matthew Barrett, ed., The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands or Falls: Justification in Biblical, Theological, Historical, and Pastoral Perspective (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), chap. 19, citing Alister E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei, on Augustine. ↩
  5. Stephen J. Wellum, “‘Behold, the Lamb of God’: Theology Proper and the Inseparability of Penal-Substitutionary Atonement from Forensic Justification and Imputation,” in Matthew Barrett, ed., The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands or Falls: Justification in Biblical, Theological, Historical, and Pastoral Perspective (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), chap. 11. ↩
  6. Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent, trans. Fred Kramer (St. Louis: Concordia, 1971), 1:467, quoted in Korey Maas, “The First and Chief Article: Luther’s Discovery of Sola Fide and Its Controversial Reception in Lutheranism,” in Matthew Barrett, ed., The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands or Falls: Justification in Biblical, Theological, Historical, and Pastoral Perspective (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), chap. 21. ↩
  7. Chemnitz, Examination, 1:470–76 (quotations at 1:471), quoted and summarized in Maas, “The First and Chief Article,” in Matthew Barrett, ed., The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands or Falls: Justification in Biblical, Theological, Historical, and Pastoral Perspective (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), chap. 21. ↩
  8. Stephen J. Nichols, The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), chap. 3, “Some Middle-Aged Men and a Sausage Supper.” ↩
  9. Ulrich Zwingli, Sixty-Seven Articles (1523), articles 2 and 22. Full text: The Sixty-Seven Articles. ↩
  10. Timothy George, Theology of the Reformers, rev. ed. (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2013), chap. 7, “This One Thing I Do: William Tyndale.” The Vulgate reads fidelis sermo at 1 Tim. 1:15. ↩
  11. Thomas Bilney, letter to Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of London (1527), preserved in John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, quoted in Timothy George, Theology of the Reformers, rev. ed. (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2013), chap. 7. ↩
  12. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion III.xi.1, quoted in Michael Reeves and Tim Chester, Why the Reformation Still Matters (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), chap. 1, “Justification: How Can We Be Saved?” ↩
  13. Council of Trent, Session VI (January 13, 1547), Decree on Justification, chapter 7, in Theodore Alois Buckley, trans., The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (London: Routledge, 1851). ↩
  14. Council of Trent, Session VI, On Justification, canons 11, 12, and 24, in Theodore Alois Buckley, trans., The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (London: Routledge, 1851). ↩
  15. Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§ 1989, 1992, 2010. Online at vatican.va. ↩
  16. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), 11.1. Full text: The Westminster Confession of Faith. ↩
  17. R. C. Sproul, Are We Together? A Protestant Analyzes Roman Catholicism (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2012), chap. 2, “Justification.” ↩
  18. R. C. Sproul, Are We Together? A Protestant Analyzes Roman Catholicism (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2012), introduction, “At Stake: The Gospel.” ↩
  19. R. C. Sproul, Are We Together? A Protestant Analyzes Roman Catholicism (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2012), conclusion, “How Then Should We Proceed?” ↩