What “Faith Alone” means
“Faith alone” is a common phrase we Lutherans use. “Faith alone” means that we cannot save ourselves, which also means that our works don’t save us either. God is our Savior.
So, how then does faith fit in? Faith is a gift, which God gives to someone in the ways He chooses to do so. “By grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
God is the cause of your salvation—not you! Of course, you happen to be physically alive when God comes to give you spiritual life, and your perception of your role may differ from what God tells us in His Word. But remembering “scripture alone,” what God reveals overrides our thoughts and feelings.
- Ephesians 2:1: You were dead in your trespasses and sins.
- Colossians 2:13: You were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh.
The Apostle Paul made that statement within a series of verses where he explained God makes us spiritually alive:
In Christ, you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands by stripping off the corrupt nature through the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. Even when you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ by forgiving us all our sins, having destroyed the record of the debt we owed, which stood against us and condemned us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. [Colossians 2:11-14]
- How does God perform our “spiritual” circumcision?
- Why does baptism do what the verses above say?
- What is linked to baptism so it has the power to bury us in Christ and raise us with faith in Christ?
We say justification is by grace through faith because of Christ. Baptism testifies to God saving us because it is an external act (from outside of us), which God uses to work His will. Indeed, God makes us righteous by grace through faith alone, apart from works!
- Titus 3:4: When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy…
What is left unanswered in this verse is how God’s mercy comes to us to save. Fortunately, Titus 3:5 tells us:
- Titus 3:5: … through the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.
- What is the only washing commanded by God for His people?
- Again, how does God choose to save us?
Getting Called on the Carpet
In our dialogue with the Roman-Catholic Church in the 1500s, they pointed out an error in Martin Luther’s translation of Scripture.
- Romans 3:28 reads: For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
- Luther’s translation: For we maintain that a person is justified by faith alone, apart from the works of the law.
Luther inserted the word “alone.” This wasn’t an aberrant theology (although it could be understood that way). Paul, however, didn’t want to say “alone”; he wanted to say “apart from the works of the Law.” Paul was making a different point—and we have to allow the point Paul was making to stand.
In Romans 3:28, Paul wasn’t contrasting faith and good works. (He does that clearly in other passages.) He’s contrasting faith against the “works of the Law.” What were the “works of the Law”? They were parts of the Old Covenant that Judaizers were teaching were needed for salvation, even for God’s New-Covenant people. Included was the idea that Old-Covenant circumcision was required for salvation, even for someone in the New Covenant.
But how do we know Paul was using “works of the Law” to mean that? He tells us in the next two verses: “Is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the gentiles, too? Since there is only one God, he will justify the circumcised through faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith” (Romans 3:29-30). The “works of the Law” were something distinctively Jewish, which distinguished Jews from Gentiles in the Old Covenant.
Paul is saying “no” to the Old-Covenant Law, for Christ fulfilled the Old-Covenant. So, of course “the works of the Law” don’t justify. Today, God does not justify us by what He had set up for His Old-Covenant people. We are in the New Covenant!
God’s Old-Covenant people did have faith in the Messiah to come, just as we have faith in the Messiah who came (and will come on the Last Day). The means, which God uses to effect such faith, however, have changed.
Since we Lutherans also hold to “scripture alone” (when properly understood), “Scripture alone” overrides “Luther alone.” Here, we must agree with Rome that Luther erred in his translation of Romans 3:28 and not try to explain away his actions, as some Lutherans are tempted to do.
What “Faith Alone” Doesn’t Mean
Read James 2:17-18
- Discuss: Good works are necessary for salvation.
- Discuss: Good works are not necessary for salvation, but they are necessary.
- Discuss: Faith without works needs to be taught.
- Discuss: Faith without works is dead.
The Meaning of Justify (dikiaoo)
James and Romans seem to contradict. It only does so because we don’t understand the range of meanings for the word “justify.” To help us understand “justify” as the 1st century Greek language understood it, we turn to Clement, the 4th Bishop of Rome.
We read in 1 Clement 30:3, “Let us be justified by works and not by words.” Clement wrote that to encourage the Corinthians to be humble and not to boast in themselves. He encouraged each person to let his praise come from God and others, not himself. When Clement was telling the Corinthians not to boast, the question was not how someone became righteous, but how he lived out or showed that righteousness. Here, Clement used “justify” to mean “show to be righteous.”
Clement also wrote: “We, having been called through God’s will in Christ Jesus, are not justified through ourselves or through our own wisdom, understanding, piety, or works that we do in holiness of heart, but through faith” (1 Clement 32:4). Here, Clement used “justify” to mean “declared and/or made righteous.”
Clement doesn’t contradict himself. What he does do is show us the range of meanings for “justify.” 
Clement uses justify to mean “show to be righteous,” but also “made righteous” or “declared righteous.” Those same two meanings of “justify” also show up in the New Testament. In Romans, Paul used “justify” to mean to be “made and/or declared righteous.” James used “justify” to mean “show to be righteous.” Works show that God has declared and made us righteous, for that reason they are necessary.
“Faith Alone” Doesn’t Mean Works aren’t Necessary
Within the Lutheran Church, a dispute took place among Lutheran theologians after Luther died whether good works are necessary for salvation. This dispute was settled and recorded in the Formula of Concord. We concluded that good works are necessary, but good works are not necessary for salvation.
- Romans 5:2: We have gained access through him [Jesus] by faith into this grace in which we stand.
- Romans 11:20: They [the Jews, who rejected Jesus as the Messiah] were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand by faith.
- Colossians 1:22: Christ has reconciled you by his physical body through his death to present you holy, without blemish, and blameless before him [God the Father].
- 1 Peter 1:5: You are being protected by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
“Faith Alone” in the Protestant Churches
A challenge within Protestantism to the teaching that God saves us through faith, not works, is “decision theology.” The call to “decide for Christ” is harmful for two reasons. First, it gives to sinners the ability to make the right decision, which is a spiritual impossibility—if someone is spiritually dead as Scripture says. Second, it takes away from God by crediting the person for bringing about His conversion (if only in some small way).
A Baptist pastor will say, “If you believe, you will be forgiven.” A Lutheran pastor will say, “You have been forgiven; believe it!” For the Baptist, justification is conditional; it depends on the person’s decision. To the Lutheran, justification is God’s unconditional declaration, which God-given faith believes, receives, and benefits from.
