The Meaning Of Sola Fide For Luther

By Samuel E. Waldron

Samuel E. Waldron is a doctoral student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY.

The classic articulation of sola fide by Luther must be defined in terms of the answers he found in sola scriptura to his anfechtung (distress of soul). In other words, Luther’s doctrine of “faith alone” must be understood as the outgrowth of (and in terms of) the biblical insights to which he was driven by his troubled, spiritual experience.

Why Re-Examine “Faith Alone” In Luther?

Recent developments reveal an amazing convergence of interest among Evangelicals in the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The Ecumenists of the last century have been forced to address the issue of justification as the rock that split the Western church. They have recognized that if that church is ever to be re-united, the breach opened by Luther’s doctrine of justification must be repaired. Major steps have been taken in that direction, as the publication of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church shows.[1]

Though evangelicals were not involved deeply in the ecumenical developments of the 20th century, as they kept a wary eye on these developments, some attention was of necessity focused on the doctrine of justification by faith alone. With the publication of Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission, evangelicals have been faced with a movement toward rapprochement with Rome in their own midst.[2] Complaints from prominent evangelicals about a lack of clarity with regard to the subject[3] led to the inclusion of a statement about justification by faith alone in a publication entitled, The Gift of Salvation.

Affirming that the gift of justification is received by faith, this document adds: “We understand that what we here affirm is in agreement with what the Reformation traditions have meant by justification by faith alone (sola fide).”[4]

Other contemporary winds also are blowing through the stately (though somewhat dusty) halls of the doctrine of justification. A tendency toward easy-believism crept over evangelicalism in the last century. Many Evangelicals defended theories of the carnal Christian, receiving Christ as Savior and not as Lord, and eternal security that others (especially those in the Reformed tradition) attacked as contrary to the Bible and to fundamentals of the Reformed tradition.[5]

Perhaps it was their reaction to easy-believism that prepared some Reformed evangelicals to consider and then accept the revisions of the doctrine of justification contained in what has come to be called “the new perspective on Paul.” N.T. Wright, through books like What Saint Paul Really Said, has brought the new perspective to evangelicals in a form that they find acceptable. Among the revisions that Wright’s perspective brings is a radically different view of the righteousness of God (as “covenant faithfulness”) than that descending from Luther and the Reformation tradition.[6] That Reformed evangelicals are listening to Wright is evident. Reformation & Revival Journal, for instance, dedicated an entire issue to “Justification: Modern Reflections.” In this issue a number of articles appeared sympathetic to the “new perspective,” including the second part of an interview with Wright himself.[7] John Piper, the well-known evangelical author and preacher, has greeted this sympathetic ear for the new perspective with alarm. His concern has led to the recent publication of a popular defense of one of the issues at the heart of the Reformation doctrine of justification denied by the “new perspective,” i.e., the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.[8]

Representing the perspective described as easy-believism above, the Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society dedicates itself to an exegetical and systematic defense of the view that justification is by faith alone. The so-called “free grace” movement argues that perseverance and good works must never be connected in any way (even as the inevitable result of faith) to justification, assurance, or salvation.[9]

Church History is not able to act as our final authority, but it is able to act as a kind of quality control on our interpretation of the Bible.[10]

Certain teaching-gifts that God has given to the Church are identified with the defense of specific doctrinal issues. For instance, the presumption of orthodox Christians is that Athanasius “got it right” with regard to the deity of Christ and that the Nicene Creed and the Cappadocian fathers “got it right” with regard to the Trinity. The assumption of most theologians in the Western tradition is that Augustine “got it right” in the Pelagian controversy. Just so and for exactly the same reasons, we would be surprised that Luther did not “get it right” on the doctrine of justification. It will serve as useful quality control on modern Evangelicals to consider “the meaning of sola fide in Luther.” The reason is, of course, that Martin Luther’s teaching ministry is forever bound up with the doctrine of sola fide. E. Gordon Rupp, in his often-praised work, The Righteousness of God, concludes that Luther was a pioneer with regard to this doctrine.[11] Alister McGrath rejects the idea that there were in any strict sense forerunners of Luther’s doctrine of justification.[12] He notes a fundamental discontinuity in the western theological tradition at this point.[13] Precisely at the point of the nature of justification he sees Luther’s view as differing from all that precedes.[14] Timothy George, quoting Rupp, says:

Luther later evaluated his definitive position on justification vis a vis Augustine thus: “Augustine got nearer to the meaning of Paul than all the Schoolmen, but he did not reach Paul. In the beginning I devoured Augustine, but when the door into Paul swung open and I knew what justification by faith really was, then it was out with him.”[15]

The conclusion must be that any proposal by evangelicals to re-define justification cannot be taken seriously unless it grapples face to face with Martin Luther on this subject.[16]

The two pivotal or critical points that form the mountain peaks of Luther’s doctrine are “imputed righteousness” and “faith alone.” Luther’s distinctive understanding of the “the righteous shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:17) resides in these doctrines. Luther comments on Rom. 1:17 (in his well-known autobiographical reflections) that the righteousness of God is that righteousness through which God makes us righteous by faith.[17]

Though the meaning of “faith alone” is controlled by what imputed righteousness signifies, the focus of this article is on sola fide.[18] It proposes for the reasons given to examine in a little detail what Luther meant by “faith alone.” As Luther’s statement on Rom. 1:17 (just cited) indicates, his breakthrough was not merely intellectual or cerebrally scriptural. His doctrine of faith alone must be understood in terms of the two great and formative principles of his teaching: his unique experience and his biblical scholarship. Citing H. Boehmer, Rupp begins his discussion of Luther’s “bruised conscience”: “One thing is more and more clear from recent research: the inner, personal experience of Luther, and his scholarly, theological and, above all, exegetical discoveries cannot be separated.”[19] We begin with Luther’s “inner, personal experience.”

Luther’s Experiential Milieu

1. Anfechtung

Sola fide was the discovery that brought peace to a troubled Martin Luther. We must, therefore, attempt to understand his trouble. Luther’s spiritual troubles began in a horrifying confrontation with sudden death. James Atkinson gives this version of the story of how Luther decided to join a monastery:

It would appear, though there is some uncertainty about details, that he and his companion were overtaken by a violent storm, when Martin had the horrifying experience of seeing his friend struck dead by lightning. Certainly there was some extraordinary experience. In this Luther believed he saw the hand of God in His wrath; and in great fear, and gratitude for his preservation, he immediately offered himself to God and His service. In those days that meant only one thing, entering a monastery.[20]

Luther later left no doubt that the mission that brought him to the monastery was that he wanted to escape hell by being a monk.[21] At first the remedy seemed to work. Years later he commented that he knew from his own experience that one’s first years as a monk could be peaceful.[22] Nevertheless, as the years passed Luther failed to enjoy the peace he thought he had found. Anfechtung, the distress of soul that combined all the troubles of his life with the worries of one uncertain of escaping the wrath of God began to plague Luther. All Luther could see was hell and the eternal God’s wrath which can never have an end.[23]

Staupitz, his confessor and friend, was of some help. He pointed Luther to the “wounds of Jesus.”[24] Luther always remained grateful and expressed this with typical emphasis.[25] Luther’s woes, however, went beyond Staupitz’s consolations. Timothy George records:

He would confess to Staupitz for hours, walk away, then come rushing back with some little foible he had forgotten to mention. At one point Staupitz, quite exasperated, said: Look here, Brother Martin. If you’re going to confess so much, why don’t you go do something worth confessing?[26]

Luther’s spiritual needs exceeded Staupitz’s ability to meet them.[27]

2. The Via Moderna

Luther eventually found the source of his spiritual struggles in the spiritual structure and theological system in which he had been schooled.[28] If others found peace within it, he came to believe that it was because they allowed their spiritual maladies to be treated superficially and lacked real earnestness of soul. Rupp notes that “he believed that a false security of conscience was one of the great evils of the age.”[29]

Roman Catholic apologists have found this scathing assessment of the state of Medieval theology to be based on terrible ignorance of its real purport. It is likely that such apologists held Luther accountable not for knowing Scholastic theologians he had never read and to whom he was not referring. Rupp says:

But it is no proof of Luther’s bad faith or ignorance to cite against him scholastic writings he could never have read, or even to contrast St. Thomas Aquinas with Luther’s account of scholastic teaching, when we consider the overwhelming bias of his teachers towards the systems of Ockham and Scotus and the new theological problems raised (e.g., by Peter of Auriol and Gregory of Rimini) in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.[30]

What was the lens through which Luther viewed Scholastic theology and rejected it? The evidence suggests that within the general context of Occamist and Nominalist thought, Luther was influenced by a view of justification taught by Gabriel Biel. This view seems to have been semi-Pelagian and incapable of offering the concerned sinner any assurance. McGrath in his monumental Iustitia Dei supports this view:

There is every indication that Luther is referring to the specific concept of iustitia Dei [righteousness of God] associated with the via moderna: God is iustus [righteous], in the sense that he rewards the man who does quod in se est [what is in him] with grace, and punishes the man who does not. In view of Gabriel Biel’s unequivocal assertion that man cannot know for certain whether he has, in fact, done quod in se est, there is clearly every reason to state that Luther’s early concept of iustitia Dei was that of the righteousness of an utterly scrupulous and impartial judge, who rewarded or punished man on the basis of an ultimately unknown quality.. . . 

Luther’s early understanding of justification (1513–1514) may be summarized as follows: man must recognize his spiritual weakness and inadequacy, and turn in humility from his attempts at self-justification to ask God for grace. God treats this humility of faith (humilitas fidei) as the precondition necessary for justification under the terms of the pactum (that is, as man’s quod in se est), and thus fulfils his obligations under the pactum [pact or covenant], by bestowing grace upon him.[31]

Further exacerbating the tendency of the theology in which he was schooled to cast the sinner on his own resources was the doctrine that Luther called synteresis. Synteresis was classically defined by Jerome “as that spark of conscience. .. which is not extinguished in Adam even as a sinner, after he was ejected from Paradise. .. and by which we know we are sinning.”[32] This definition would not have troubled Luther greatly. Indeed, even in the lectures on Romans (Rom. 1:20) in which his new theology first becomes clearly manifest, he “discusses the pagan knowledge of God which he ascribes to a ‘synteresis theologica,’ and which, he says, is ‘inobscurable in all.’”[33] The problem, however, with synteresis is that in the Scholastic theology with which Luther was familiar it came to mean a tiny or weak inclination to good in the sinner. Luther says that this tiny motion to good “they dream to be an act of loving God above all things.”[34] Luther, with his deep experience of his own sinfulness and with growing Augustinian views of the deep sinfulness of man, no longer could accept this concept. It clearly was part and parcel of a Pelagianizing system of salvation. In Lectures on Romans, commenting on Rom. 4:7–8, he heaps scorn on the whole idea.[35]

Here, then, is something of the spiritual dilemma in which Martin Luther, the serious-minded monk, found himself. He was tormented by terrible worries about his soul and confronted with a God of wrath. He was trained in a system that told him of a covenant (a pact) that God had made with man to bless him with grace if he did “what was in him.” This covenant, however, offered him no assurance or way of knowing that he, the sinner, had actually done quod in se est [what is in him]. This covenant addressed itself to a tiny inclination of good that it assumed to be in men even after the fall. Both experientially and scripturally, he came to doubt that such an inclination to good could be found in the sinner.

Luther came finally to see that this was a recipe for spiritual disaster. Bitter experience had taught him the improbability of finding even a tiny inclination of good in himself. Sometimes he was more inclined to hate God than to love Him. He could not even be sure that he had confessed all his sins in the sacrament of penance. How then could he be sure that he had done quod in se est? Finally, how could he live without assurance that his soul was saved from eternal fire? Everything about this theological system served to focus Luther’s attention on himself and his own deeds and the result was utter despair.

Staupitz—moved perhaps by a profound pastoral instinct—half persuaded and half ordered Luther into the study of theology and especially biblical studies.[36] God used these studies to lead Luther out of the spiritual and scholastic morass described above.

Luther’s Biblical Scholarship

The significance of Luther’s biblical insights can only be understood and appreciated against the backdrop of the Scholastic system of thought that cast him on his own resources spiritually and, thus, robbed him of spiritual hope. It was in an escape from this hopeless system of self-help that his biblical insights came to him.

1. The Course Of Lectures

The first matter to be treated here is to make clear the course of the early, biblical lectures in which Luther’s saving insights developed. These lectures began shortly after Luther received his doctorate in theology. “On October 18, 1512, the degree was solemnly conferred.”[37] Timothy George succinctly provides the scholarly consensus with regard to this matter:

In the winter of 1512, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther began preparation for his lectures on the Psalms (1513–1515), which were followed in turn by Romans (1515–1516), Galatians (1516–1517), Hebrews (1517), and again Psalms (1518–1519). He later remarked: “In the course of this teaching, the papacy slipped away from me.”[38]

2. The Timeline Of Development

But where in the course of these lectures did these insights come to Luther? A superficial reading of Luther’s important autobiographical 1545 quotation suggests the year 1519:

In that year (1519), I had meanwhile turned once more to the interpretation of The Psalms, relying on the fact that I was better schooled after I had dealt in the classroom with the letter of Saint Paul to the Romans and the Galatians and that to the Hebrews. I had been seized with a really extraordinary ardor to understand Paul in the letter to the Romans, but until then there stood in my way not coldness of blood, but this one word, i. e., Rom. 1:17: “The justice of God is revealed in it.” For I hated this word ‘the justice of God’ which by the use and usage of all the doctors I was taught to understand philosophically in terms of that so-called formal or active justice with which God is just and punishes the sinners and the unrighteous. 

For however irreproachably I lived as a monk, I felt myself before God to be a sinner with a most unquiet conscience, nor could I be confident that I had pleased with my satisfaction. I did not love, nay, rather I hated, this righteous God who punished sinners, and if not with tacit blasphemy, certainly with huge murmurings I was angry with God, saying: ‘As though it really were not enough that miserable sinners should be eternally damned with original sin and have all kinds of calamities laid upon them by the law of the Ten Commandments, God must go and add sorrow upon sorrow and even through the gospel itself bring his justice and wrath to bear!’ I raged in this way with a wildly aroused and disturbed conscience, and yet I knocked importunately at Paul in this passage, thirsting more ardently to know what Paul meant.[39]

A closer look at these words suggests that we need not, against much other evidence, date the breakthrough in 1519 or shortly before. Luther had clearly developed his new theology in its substance by the time of his lectures on Romans and even more clearly by the time of his famous lectures on Galatians. A more careful reading of this citation leads to the conclusion that Luther is referring to a period of time during his first lectures on the Psalms.[40] The discussion can be somewhat technical, but the following points seem sufficiently clear. First, Luther does not say that the change came at or shortly before 1519. He only says that before he returned to the Psalms he felt better prepared to expound them because of his previous studies of Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews. Second, the reference to the iustitia Dei that troubled Luther so much likely does not refer only or even mainly to Rom. 1:17, but to that phrase as it frequently occurred throughout the Psalms. Luther’s lectures on Rom. 1:17 in 1515 show that by then he had unraveled the puzzle of that passage. In the 1545 quotation Luther says that he read Augustine’s On the Spirit and the Letter after coming to his new insight. On the Spirit and the Letter is cited in his exposition of that verse in his Lectures on Romans.[41] Third, McGrath shows that Luther’s exposition of the early Psalms reflects an understanding of justification that is immature and primitive compared even to the lectures on Romans. All this means that we must date the new, biblical insights in Luther’s thinking sometime after he began to lecture for the first time on the Psalms, but sometime before he began his lectures on Romans.[42]

3. The Identity Of The Insights

The 1545 quotation also enables us to identify the two major insights that combined to make Luther feel that he had been born anew. The new circle of theology that Luther drew had a circumference and a center. What may be called the Augustinian insight (emphasizing sola gratia) is the circumference of this new theology. What may be called the Lutheran insight (focusing on sola fide) is the center.

The circumference of the Reformation breakthrough refers to the Augustinian insight. The Augustinian insight in turn refers to the anti-Pelagian writings of Augustine. The practical upshot of the via moderna in which Luther had been educated, as we have seen, was to focus attention on what man had to do first in order to move God to give him grace and to meet the condition of the covenant. This was the meaning of the synteresis and the quod in se est. The really pivotal movement and action in salvation depended on the sinner. Somewhere in 1513 or 1514 Luther came to understand that in reality the really pivotal thing was the irresistible and selective grace of a sovereign God.

Then and there, I began to understand the justice of God as that by which a righteous man lives by the gift of God, namely, by faith, and this sentence ‘The justice of God is revealed in the gospel’ to be that passive justice with which the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written: ‘The just shall live by faith.’ 

This straightway made me feel as though reborn and as though I had entered through open gates into Paradise itself. From then on, the whole face of Scripture appeared different. I ran through the Scriptures then as memory served, and found that other words had the same meaning, for example: the work of God with which he makes us strong, the wisdom of God with which he makes us wise, the fortitude of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God.[43]

This statement makes clear that Luther now viewed faith as a gift of God and that the righteousness of God is that righteousness with regard to which we are passive and by which God justifies us.[44] It is evident that from this time on Luther rejected both the idea of the synteresis and the idea that man could before grace do quod in se est. He was convinced that there was nothing good in him spiritually by which he could do anything pleasing to God. Some of Luther’s most violent denunciations are launched against the Pelagianizing of late Medieval theology. In his first lectures on Romans (at 4:7–8), vituperation against scholastic Pelagianizing abounds:

For this reason it is sheer madness to say that man can love God above everything by his own powers and live up to the commandment in terms of the substance of the deed but not in terms of the intention of Him who gave it, because he does not do so in the state of grace. O you fools, you pig-theologians! So then grace was not necessary except in connection with a new exaction over and above the law! For if we can fulfill the law by our own powers, as they say, grace is not necessary for the fulfillment of the law but only of a divinely imposed exaction that goes beyond the law. Who can tolerate such sacrilegious opinions![45]

Later in his famous response to Erasmus entitled De Servo Arbitrio Luther made clear his complete rejection of free will and his embrace of a thoroughly predestinarian view of grace. In the way that Luther puts it in the 1545 quotation, it seems evident that the “Blessed Augustine” (as he often called him) had provided him with the foundational insight that changed his view of salvation and justification. It was God who justified and not man who justified himself!

And now, much as I hated the word ‘justice of God’ before, so much the more sweetly I extolled this word to myself now, so that this passage in Paul was made a real gate to Paradise. Afterward, I read Augustine[’s] On the Spirit and the Letter, where unexpectedly I came upon the fact that he, too, interpreted the justice of God in a similar way: namely, as that with which God endues us when he justifies us. And although this was said still imperfectly, and he does not clearly explain about ‘imputation,’ it was gratifying to me that he should teach a justice of God by which we are justified.[46]

Here is Luther’s opinion of Augustine. He interpreted the righteousness of God in a similar way to Luther. He simply spoke imperfectly. For Luther, sola fide must be understood in this Augustinian framework. The faith alone that saves is a faith that is the gift of God—a faith in which He takes the initiative and not man.

We may call the center of the Reformation breakthrough the Lutheran insight (after Luther himself). The 1545 quotation just cited makes clear that Luther’s breakthrough cannot be characterized as simply a return to a thoroughgoing Augustinian anti-Pelagianism. Luther leaves no doubt that there remained something imperfect and unclear in Augustine’s explanation of grace. He did not clearly explain imputation. This also is crucial for the meaning of sola fide in Luther.

It is clear from the above that McGrath is correct in rejecting the thesis that the doctrine of imputed righteousness is simply the flip side of Luther’s Augustinianism.

It must be emphasized that it is totally unacceptable to characterise the doctrines of justification associated with the Reformation solely with reference to their anti-Pelagian character, or their associated doctrines of predestination. Although an earlier generation of scholars argued that the Reformation resulted from the sudden discovery of the radical anti-Pelagianism of Augustine’s soteriology, it is clear that this judgement cannot be sustained.[47]

The difference here has everything to do with the nature and function of faith in justification. For Augustine and all of Roman Catholicism, the righteousness in view in justification (on the basis of which, at least partly, men are justified) is the faith working by love that fulfills the righteousness of God as required in the law of God. For Luther, faith was a grasping (fides apprehensiva) of a righteousness extrinsic to ourselves.

It is clear that an extrinsic (synthetic) rather than an intrinsic (analytic) view of justification is contained already in Luther’s lectures on Romans:

The saints are intrinsically always sinners, therefore they are always extrinsically justified; but the hypocrites are intrinsically always righteous, therefore they are extrinsically always sinners.. .. . Hence, we are extrinsically righteous in so far as we are righteous not in and from ourselves and not in virtue of our works but only by God’s regarding us so. 

For inasmuch as the saints are always aware of their sin and implore God for the merciful gift of his righteousness, they are for this very reason also always reckoned righteous by God. Therefore they are before themselves and in truth unrighteous, but before God they are righteous because he reckons them so on account of this confession of their sin; they are sinners in fact, but by virtue of the reckoning of the merciful God they are righteous.[48]

It is clear that faith functions very differently in the Augustinian and Lutheran views of justification. In the Augustinian system faith formed and working by love creates the righteousness in view in justification. In such a view it makes no sense to speak of faith alone justifying. In the Lutheran view, however, faith neither creates nor constitutes the righteousness in view in justification. In this sense it is not active, but passive. It is simply the fides apprehensiva.[49] It personally grasps, receives, and entrusts itself to the righteousness of another, Jesus Christ. In this way, it is faith alone that justifies. Faith is only what it is, then, in relation to Christ. It is Christ alone come into the heart of the sinner. Althaus can even say that for Luther the work of Christ

... is not a material achievement which would be valid and effective even without our knowing about it and without personal sharing with Christ. In this sense it is definitely not “objective.” It demands “subjective” appropriation in faith; it actually works salvation only for and in faith. When salvation is at stake, God deals with men always and only in a personal way, that is, through faith. Thus faith belongs to the work of Christ.[50]

4. A Lack Of Clarity?

In the foregoing it was assumed that the doctrine of Martin Luther and that of his orthodox Lutheran and Reformed successors were one and the same. Questions have been raised, however, about this very issue. In the Lectures on Romans, for instance, Luther is fond of illustrating justification from the parable of the Good Samaritan with the Samaritan interpreted as Christ.

In the same way, our Samaritan Christ took the man who was half dead in order to cure him by promising him the most perfect well-being in the life to come. Therefore, also, this man was righteous and sinful at the same time, a sinner in fact but a righteous man by virtue of his faith in the promise and of his hope that it would be kept. 

It is as with a sick man who believes his physicians as he assures him that he will most certainly get well. In the meantime, he obeys his orders in the hope of recovery and abstains from whatever is forbidden to him, lest he slow up the promised cure and get worse again until finally the physician accomplishes what he has so confidently predicted. Can one say that this sick man is healthy? No; but he is at the same time both sick and healthy. He is actually sick, but he is healthy by virtue of the sure prediction of the physician whom he believes. For he reckons him already healthy because he is certain that he can cure him and does not reckon him his sickness as death. In the same way, Christ, our good Samaritan, brought the man who was half dead, his patient, to an inn and took care of him . .. and commenced to heal him, having first promised to him that he would give him absolutely perfect health unto eternal life. He does not reckon him his sin, i.e., his sinful desires, for death, but in the meantime, i.e., holding up to him the hope that he will get well, he forbids him to do or not to do anything that might impede his recovery and make his sin. .. worse. Now can we say that he is perfectly righteous? No; but he is at the same time both a sinner and righteous, a sinner in fact but righteous by virtue of the reckoning and certain promise of God that he will redeem him from sin in order, in the end, to make him perfectly whole and sound.[51]

Karl Holl presses this aspect of Luther’s early statements so far as to raise questions about Luther’s understanding of imputed righteousness.[52] McGrath, however, responds by showing that Luther’s anthropology of the “whole man” (totus homo) makes necessary and clear his commitment to imputed righteousness, even in spite of the lack of clarity in such statements. It was by his totus home anthropology that Luther was able to make his famous statements that the believer is iustus et peccator simul [at the same time righteous and a sinner] and semper peccator, semper penitens, semper iustus [always a sinner, always repentant, always righteous]. Elsewhere Luther strikingly says: “In myself outside of Christ, I am a sinner; in Christ outside of myself, I am not a sinner.”[53] McGrath remarks:

The justified sinner is, and will remain, semper peccator, semper penitens, semper iustus. This point is important, on account of the evident divergence from Augustine.. .. It will therefore be clear that Luther was obliged to develop a radically different understanding of the nature of justifying righteousness if he was to avoid contradicting the basic presuppositions implicit in the totus homo anthropology.[54]

Inconsistencies and some lack of clarity there may have been, especially in Luther’s early statements of this issue, but his fundamental commitment to an alien righteousness is clear.[55]

This discussion has an important practical point. Faith is a deeply religious matter.[56] In the first place, for Luther it is born in an acceptance of the judgment of God against our sins.

For inasmuch as the saints are always aware of their sin and implore God for the merciful gift of his righteousness, they are for this very reason also always reckoned righteous by God. Therefore they are before themselves and in truth unrighteous, but before God they are righteous because he reckons them so on account of this confession of their sin; they are sinners in fact, but by virtue of the reckoning of the merciful God they are righteous.[57]

Faith grasps (fides apprehensiva) Christ and brings Him near. In the words of McGrath this means “the real and redeeming presence of Christ.”[58] Thus, faith always bears the fruit of good works. Luther can even speak of two dimensions of justification.59 Faith justifies before God, but good works demonstrate the believer’s justification by God and reveal the falseness of hypocrites.[60] Luther says, “We must therefore most certainly maintain that where there is no faith there also can be no good works; and conversely, that there is no faith where there are no good works.”[61]

Faith is born out of a deep and feeling acceptance of the judgment of God against our sins. It is semper penitens. It has in view the eventual perfection of the believer. It brings Christ and the Spirit into the heart and life. It produces good works inevitably and these good works demonstrate our justification by God to others and to ourselves. For all these reasons, we must conclude that the true and saving faith that justifies by resting on Christ also works by love.

Conclusion: The Meaning Of Sola Fide For Luther

What is the meaning of sola fide for Luther? Faith alone is not the product of human free will or goodness remaining after the fall. It is a supernatural faith introduced into the soul by the sovereign grace of God through the gospel. Faith alone means Christ alone comes into the soul of man. It is a fides apprehensiva. It grasps Christ, brings Him into the heart, makes the soul one with its heavenly bridegroom, and clothes itself in an alien righteousness. Thus, the believer is at one and the same time a sinner and a righteous man. He is always a sinner, always a penitent, and always a righteous man. Bringing the soul into contact with Christ and His Spirit, this faith is a lively, active, and productive power bearing fruit unto Christ, but this faith does not justify or grasp Christ through its working, but through its grasping, receiving, and resting on Christ alone for salvation. It was this understanding of faith alone that focused Luther’s attention on God and His Son, took his attention off his works, and brought him an assurance that could only be found by receiving and resting on Christ alone for salvation. Thus, faith alone reverses the hopeless introspection that Luther’s schooling produced and summons the sinner to a glad extraspection in which Christ alone fills the eyes of the soul.

Were Martin Luther alive today he might have stinging things to say to evangelicals. Sola fide, he would say, cannot be compromised for the sake of peace within the professing church of Christ. It represents everything about the gospel that can bring peace to the soul weary of its own sins.[62] Sola fide cannot be defined in terms of obedience to the law or as a response to the gracious commands of God. It cannot be defined without reference to Christ.[63] The faith of the Bible is “faith toward (εἰς) our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). When it is made in any sense the righteousness by which a Christian is justified, its true nature is destroyed. Sola fide can only be understood as resting on and receiving an alien righteousness. Christ alone is the meaning of faith alone.[64] Sola fide cannot be possessed by the irreligious and careless. It is semper penitens. It grasps Christ and brings His Spirit into the heart and life.[65]

Notes

1. Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, English Language Edition, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000); cf. also Justification by Faith: Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue VII, ed. H. George Anderson, T. Austin Murphy, Joseph A. Burgess (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1985).
2. Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission, ed. Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1995).
3. Cf. Mark Seifrid’s comments in his review of R.C. Sproul’s Faith Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine of Justification. In Review and Expositor 92 (1995), 437.
4. “The Gift of Salvation,” in First Things 79 (January, 1998), 21.
5. One of the opening salvoes in this attack came from Walt Chantry in his Today’s Gospel: Authentic or Synthetic? (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1970). Cf. also Sam Waldron’s Easy Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Truth for Eternity Ministries, 1984). The public declaration of civil war among evangelicals came, however, in John MacArthur’s The Gospel according to Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1988). This issued in what has been called the Lordship controversy. Note, for instance, Richard P. Belcher, A Layman’s Guide to the Lordship Controversy (Southbridge, MA: Crowne Publications, 1990).
6. N.T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), has popularized many of the views of E.P. Sanders. Sanders’ major works are Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1977); Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1983); and Paul (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1991).
7. “Justification: Modern Reflections,” editor-in-chief, John Armstrong, Reformation & Revival Journal 11:2 (Spring, 2002).
8. John Piper, Counted Righteous in Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2002). Piper’s book is prefaced by the commendations of no less than 22 well-known evangelical leaders. See Jeff Smith’s review of this book in the current issue of RBTR.
9. Note the recent review articles in the Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society of The Race Set Before Us by Tom Schreiner and Ardel Caneday. In these review articles John Robbins, Bob Wilkins, and Ken Keathley criticize the idea that perseverance is unto salvation.
10. If the importance and significance of a scrutiny of Martin Luther’s doctrine of justification is to be understood and appreciated, something must be said about the importance of Historical Theology and Church History in coming to a knowledge of the truth. The preceding statement would be met by many evangelicals today by almost total confusion. Some would greet it with flat rejection. Such would ask if we had ever heard of, and if we really held to, another of the great sola’s of the Reformation, sola scriptura. Does not our commitment to the Scriptures alone as the source of doctrinal authority simply destroy any supposed significance or importance for Church History when it comes to doctrine? Much might be said by way of biblical response to this question. The heart of it all, however, would be to lay emphasis on the teaching of Scripture with regard to the importance of the teaching gifts that Christ promised to the church and has been giving to the church for almost two thousand years. Passages like Rom. 12:3–8, Eph. 4:11–13, 1 Pet. 4:10–11, and 1 Cor. 12:27–31 indicate that one of the great blessings of the church is the gift of pastors and teachers. This indisputable fact means that sola scriptura must never be understood in such a way as to make such gifts unnecessary. Indeed, the mention of “the man of God” in 2 Tim. 3:15–17 (the classic statement of scriptural sufficiency) refers to the Christian minister and means that the sufficiency of Scripture is precisely its sufficiency to enable the man of God to teach the people of God. The application of all this to the issue at hand is that there is at least unwitting pride and lack of self-knowledge in the attitude that sees no importance in understanding the history of doctrine in the church. When we attempt to discern the meaning of the Bible, two thousand years of the teaching gifts of Christ to the church cannot be ignored without folly. Closely related to this misunderstanding of sola scriptura (and also related to insensitivity to the importance of Church History) are successionist views of Church History. Such views (whether they are Roman Catholic, Baptist, or something else) assume that the once-for-all deposit of inspired truth given us in the Bible automatically means that there can be no development in the Church’s understanding of that deposit. Of course, this follows neither logically nor historically. In fact, the Bible itself suggests a progressivist view of Church History. A number of the statements and parables of the Lord suggest a progressive view of the history of the church and therefore of the history of its doctrine (Matt. 16:18; Matt. 28:18–20; Mark 4:26–29; Luke 13:13–20; Eph. 4:11–15). An unbiased examination of the history of the church leads inexorably to the conclusion that its understanding of the message of the Bible has developed in a gradual and progressive way. For helpful discussions of this issue cf. James Edward McGoldrick, Baptist Successionism: A Crucial Question of Baptist History (Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1994); and also Peter Toon, The Development of Doctrine in the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979).
11. E. Gordon Rupp, The Righteousness of God (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1943), 256.
12. Alister E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 180–187.
13. Ibid., 186.
14. Ibid., 183-184.
15. Quoted in Timothy George, Theology of the Reformers, (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1988), 68. George is discussing the redefinition of justification by Luther in this context.
16. Since this article addresses the subject of “faith alone” in Luther, it is important to note that Luther did insert “alone” (sola) in his translation of Romans 3:28. Cf., W. J. Kooiman, By Faith Alone, trans. Bertam Lee Woolf (London: Lutterworth Press, 1954), 111. Roman Catholics attacked this translation. Luther defended this translation at some length saying that it was both “clear and strong” German and true to Paul’s intent. Cf. Hugh Thomson Kerr, A Compend of Luther’s Theology (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1943), 100–102. With regard to sola fide, George remarks: “Luther did not, of course, invent this phrase. The German Bible published at Nurnberg in 1483 translated Galatians 2:16 as “gerechtfertigt. .. nur durch den glauben.” Further, the term sola fide was well-established in the Catholic tradition having been used by Origen, Hilary, Chrysostom, Augustine, Bernard, Aquinas, and others. . .” But he goes on to say that the earlier fathers who utilized this phrase used it without “Luther’s particular nuances.” George, Theology of the Reformers, 70–71.
17. Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke, D. Martin Luther (Weimar, 1883), 54:185 (lines 14–186). The statement is from the year 1545. Gerhard Ebeling, Luther: An Introduction to His Thought, trans. R. A. Wilson (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1964), 40.
18. John Piper here remarks: “In my view, a detailed defense still needs to be done on the historic Protestant view of the relationship between faith and obedience, so that the two are not conflated in the instrumentality of justification, as many in biblical-theological circles are doing these days.” Piper, Counted Righteous, 42.
19. Rupp, Righteousness of God, 102.
20. James Atkinson, The Great Light: Luther and the Reformation (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1968), 12–13.
21. Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke, D. Martin Luther, 47:90 (line 35). The statement is from 1538. Cf., also Gerhard Ebeling, Luther: An Introduction to His Thought, trans. R.A. Wilson, (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1970), 35.
22. Ibid., 8:660 (line 31); Rupp, Righteousness, 103.
23. Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke, D. Martin Luther, 5:210 (line 13); Rupp, Righteousness, 107.
24. Rupp, Righteousness, 119.
25. This statement sounds characteristic of Luther: “If I didn’t praise Staupitz I should be a damned, ungrateful, papistical ass, for he was my very first father in this teaching, and he bore me in Christ.” Ibid., 117-118.
26. George, Theology, 64–65.
27. Lohse remarks: “Staupitz was a very wise pastor who was personally formed by the devotio moderna and on this basis he was able to be of some help to Luther in his spiritual temptations. Neither through his interpretation of biblical passages nor through his theological reflections, however, was he able to overcome Luther’s terrors in the face of God the divine judge. Scholars still have not yet entirely clarified Staupitz’s theological position. In particular, we still are not clear about the extent to which Staupitz’s theology was genuinely oriented to Augustine.” Bernard Lohse, Martin Luther: An Introduction to His Life and Work (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1986), 28.
28. Reacting to Luther’s testimonies to the emotional trauma with which these years were filled for him, some modern Luther scholars have argued that the source of these struggles was that he was emotionally or mentally disturbed. This analysis probably provides more insight about its purveyors than Luther! Lohse provides a summary of what has been said on this issue. Lohse, Martin Luther, 25–27. Ebeling seems reasonable when he notes the workload carried by Luther during these years and says: “This was a programme of work of which someone who was mentally disturbed would have been incapable. Thus, a superficial explanation should not be sought for his temptations.” Ebeling, Luther, 37. Lohse concludes his summary: “Any psychiatric study of a person who lived several hundred years ago confronts extraordinary difficulties. It is extremely difficult for us to determine the significance that ideas then universally accepted could have had for the personal development of the individual. Certainly it is not particularly helpful in understanding a person like Luther to deny the uniqueness of the religious factors. We thus continue to need a description of Luther from a medical viewpoint that does justice to Luther in both historical and theological terms. If such a description should ever be written, it would be necessary for theologians to be very open to the psychoanalytic and psychiatric dimensions. It would, however, be equally necessary for the psychoanalysts and psychiatrists to be ready basically to admit the unique character of religious ideas and experiences.” Lohse, Martin Luther, 27.
29. Rupp, Righteousness, 91–92.
30. Ibid.
31. McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 192.
32. Rupp, Righteousness, 150.
33. Ibid., 152.
34. Ibid., 150.
35. Rupp, Righteousness, 150. Cf. also Martin Luther, Luther: Lectures on Romans, ed. and trans. Wilhelm Pauck (London: S. C. M. Press Ltd., 1961), 128–131; and George, Theology, 67.
36. Ibid., 117. Cf. also Henry Chadwick, The Reformation (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books Ltd., 1978), 45.
37. George, Theology, 55.
38. Ibid.
39. Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke, D. Martin Luther, 54:179–187. The translation is Wilhelm Pauck’s in his general introduction to Luther: Lectures on Romans, xxxvi-xxxvii.
40. Rupp, Righteousness, 122–127; McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 192–194. McGrath agrees with Rupp that the 1545 quotation does not imply a 1519 date for the great change and that the decisive change took place before the lectures on Romans and therefore sometime during Luther’s first lectures on the Psalms in the years 1513–1514. McGrath discusses the dating of Luther’s new insights extensively in Luther’s Theology of the Cross (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1990), 92–147.
41. Luther: Lectures on Romans, 18–19. Luther also clearly says there that “the righteousness of God is the cause of salvation” and refers to “faith alone.”
42. It must be remembered, however, that we are talking in terms of substantial insights and not prejudging the question of a remaining lack of clarity at certain points. I will discuss below the possibility that Luther’s doctrine of imputed righteousness is not consistently clear even in his Lectures on Romans.
43. Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke, D. Martin Luther, 54:179–187. The translation is Wilhelm Pauck’s in his general introduction to Luther: Lectures on Romans, xxxvi-xxxvii.
44. McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 202, 205. McGrath thinks that Luther went even beyond Augustine in the matter of sin, grace, and predestination.
45. Luther: Lectures on Romans, 129.
46. Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke, D. Martin Luther, 54:179–187. The translation is Wilhelm Pauck’s in his general introduction to Luther: Lectures on Romans, xxxvi-xxxvii.
47. McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 183.
48. Luther: Lectures on Romans, 124–125.
49. McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 201.
50. Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1966), 213.
51. Luther: Lectures on Romans, 126–127.
52. Karl Holl, Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Kirchengeschichte, 3 vols. (Tubingen, 1928), 1:11–154.
53. Althaus, Theology of Martin Luther, 243.
54. McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 199. “Luther’s concept of faith represents a significant departure from Augustine’s rather intellectualist counterpart” (Ibid.).
55. Althaus, Theology of Martin Luther, 227–233.
56. McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 200.
57. Luther: Lectures on Romans, 125.
58. McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 201.
59. Ibid., 204.
60. Althaus, Theology of Martin Luther, 250.
61. Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke, D. Martin Luther, 12:282. The translation is that found in Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther, 246.
62. It is to be feared that such compromise is impossible to avoid in any rapprochement with Rome that does not include Rome’s renunciation of The Council of Trent.
63. This seems to be the tendency of both Daniel Fuller and Scott Hafemann. Does Hafemann really mean to say that justification consists in the forgiveness of sins and our being made righteousness in Christ and through the Spirit? Cf., Scott Hafemann, The God of Promise and the Life of Faith (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001), 72, 195, 206.) Is our renewal through the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit partially the ground of our justification? Hafemann has no trouble defining faith early in his book and yet not speaking about the work of Christ at all till almost the end of The God of Promise and the Life of Faith. Fuller raises similar questions about the nature of faith when he denies any contrast between gospel and law. What is faith in such a scheme where it is not a specific response to Christ alone for salvation? Cf., Daniel Fuller, Gospel & Law: Contrast or Continuum? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980).
64. Can the new perspective really, then, hold to faith alone?
65. Thus, the Grace Evangelical Society finds itself teaching a justification that is more free than Luther himself and certainly quite different from Luther’s conception.