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Justification

Justification is the pardon of sin. Justification by works, in its broad and unqualified application, belongs only to those who have kept the law of innocence. What does that law say? Do this and live! Whereas justification by faith, belongs unto the law of grace. But what does that say? Believe and be saved! Justification by works, can only be attained by those who have not sinned; whereas, justification by faith is adapted to the case of the guilty.

The doctrine of justification by works is laid down by St. James, in the text "By works a man is justified, and not by faith only" [James II. 24], with great simplicity and force of argument. Without works faith is dead, and, being dead, cannot profit. It is no better, than that benevolence which expresses good wishes to the naked and hungry, but does nothing for them — leaves them hungry and naked still. And when Abraham, set up from the oldest time as the great exemplar of effective faith, gained of God the testimony and honor of being called the father of the faithful, — why was it, except that he did the works — he obeyed? And as with him, so with all, — by works is a man justified, and not by faith alone.

By works a man is justified, because it is thus determined whether he have faith. Abraham's faith was put to the trial — the trial, namely, whether he would still believe and trust God, notwithstanding the mysterious and apparently ruinous consequences of his commandment. The patriarch had received the divine promise that his son should become the head of a vast and illustrious nation. But now he is commanded to take that same son and slay him on the altar. He knows that both are from God — the promise and the command. He cannot reconcile them. The trial, then, is — will he trust when he cannot see? or will he follow his own judgment, and disobey? Will he go on confidingly, like a docile child, not doubting that to the Father there is a way to make all clear? or will he take on himself to accuse that Father of a manifest inconsistency, and withdraw his trust, and follow, as a higher light, his own judgment?

Works alone can put beyond contradiction the testimony of other signs. They alone can be a warrant to himself against the deceitfulness of his own heart, or an assurance to others that the signs he sets forth are signs of substantial reality. The daily works of his life; the consistent deeds, which evince, by their uncompromising adherence to duty, that the will of God is his law; the whole works of his whole life — no less a part of the homage due to God, than the sensibility of the affections, and the hours appointed for worship — these are the only indubitable, incontrovertible evidences of his piety.

Justification by Faith was the central Lutheran doctrine. According to Luther, this central truth of the New Testament, involving the very heart of Christ's incarnation and redemptive work, had been lost sight of during the Middle Ages. Instead of teaching that the sinner was justified freely by faith in Christ's blood and righteousness, justification had been made dependent on human works and merits and narrowed to priestly intervention. Consequently a system of penances, indulgences, masses, repetitions, and monkish routine, had come in vogue, instead of simple spiritual piety. Not only did these heavily burden and oppress the conscience, but they placed a bar between the soul and its immediate living intercourse with the Savior.

If the Word of God, as the sole fountain of authority for the christian conscience, as over against the authority of Popes and Councils, was the chief means of the Reformation, the doctrine of that Word most potent in the movement was Justification by Faith. This central truth of the New Testament, involving the very heart of Christ's incarnation and redemptive work, had been lost sight of during the Middle Ages. Instead of teaching that the sinner was justified freely by faith in Christ's blood and righteousness, justification had been made dependent on human works and merits and narrowed to priestly intervention. Consequently a system of penances, indulgences, masses, repetitions, and monkish routine, had come in vogue, instead of simple spiritual piety. Not only did these heavily burden and oppress the conscience, but they placed a bar between the soul and its immediate living intercourse with the Savior. All christendom was groaning under this intolerable perversion.

When Luther had reopened the Bible, and studied it carefully for himself, he discovered this "lost cardinal principle" of christianity. Especially one day, when on a pious pilgrimage to Rome, while, as a work of penance, climbing Pilate's staircase, the Pauline passage: "The just shall live by Faith,"- flashed upon his mind. Then it was, that he also saw the "falsity and absurdity of this whole system of meritorious works". He realized that it was a "total misconception" of the gospel. That it was the servile routine of the slave and not the loving, joyous obedience of the Son. At this discovery a great burden rolled from Luther's soul. He saw that what all his monastic penances and self-mortifications failed to procure, was freely offered him through simple trust in the all atoning merits of the crucified Lamb of God. Then Luther for the first time experienced true and perfect spiritual peace. He had now, so to speak, found the key of the lost Paradise. And he now goes forth from his closet where God has made him a free man in Christ Jesus, to give this boon of spiritual freedom to the world.

Henceforth this becomes "the one central point in Luther's heart and life, in his theology and in the testimony of the Church called after him, namely, the clearness, firmness, and joyfulness, of that justifying laith which was, then, for the first time since the days of the apostles, restored in its fullness to the Christian Church." Wielding in his unique personality this vital Evangelical doctrine he broke the Papal bondage of a thousand years, reformed the corrupted Church of Christ, created a new historic epoch, opened the door of the modern era, and transformed the whole condition of man. That we are "justified by faith," that this faith introduces us into a personal union with Christ, and that this new spiritual life issues in good works — this pivotal gospel truth—is the explanation of all unwonted modern progress.

Other subsequent Protestant denominations did not make such a fundamental distinction between the two forms of justification. Methosists held that justification by works, evangelically considered — and in this sense only, was it to be considered, in its application to Christian believers — the justification of a saint; whereas, justification by faith was the justification of a sinner. Justification by works, as belonging to a believer, consisted in the evidence afforded by his life, of his being in a justified state; whereas justification by faith, is that state of grace of which good works were the outward evidence and proof. Justification by faith, in the economy of mercy, is the first of which a penitent sinner becomes the partaker; whereas justification by works follows it, and will be the last.

Having once laid down (namely, in 1740) the doctrine of Justification by Faith in "the true sense of those words," Wesley went on from step to step, ever making it more and more manifest that he had no part or share in the Protestant "by faith alone", and its distortions of the Scriptural and Primitive doctrine. Already, on this ground, he had withdrawn himself from the Moravians, and the year after saw him part company with Luther. Wesley wrote "1. That none shall finally be saved, who have not, as they have had opportunity, done all good works; and 2 That if a justified person does not do good, as he has opportunity, he will lose the grace he has received, and if he ' repent' not and 'do the former works' will perish eternally." Wesley says, in a letter to an inquiring disciple, "By resolutely persisting, according to your little strength, in all works of piety and mercy, you are waiting on God in the old Scriptural way: and therein He will come and save you."