- Faith is not alone

10. ‘Faith is Not Alone in The Person Justified’

Please note carefully the declaration that ‘faith is not alone in the person justified.’ Doesn’t this statement itself tell us that faith is the fruit of justification; that faith, together with other saving graces, is found in the person justified by God? Faith is one among the many saving graces that accompany justification, at the effectual call unto life. Saving graces are the effects of justification. Faith is a fruit of justification. A person who receives and rests (present tense) on Christ and His righteousness can only do so because he has been effectually called, justified and bestowed with eternal life. It is only the just – the justified ones – that shall live by faith. The life of living by faith begins at repentance and faith in Jesus Christ through the gospel call. Faith as the ‘alone instrument of justification’ means that faith in Jesus Christ is the only instrument or means appointed by God to reveal or make manifest His work of justification that has taken place by grace prior to faith.

Faith, which is receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument that God has been pleased to appoint to bring to light, to make manifest His gracious act of justifying His elect people. This explains the great necessity of preaching the gospel, and the necessity of calling all our hearers to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ is the only way one may know that he is embraced in the glorious redemptive purpose of God. Salvation is indeed by grace alone, through Christ alone, and made manifest and evidenced through faith in Christ alone.

The Scriptures also say, ‘The just shall live by faith.’ The word ‘faith’ cannot be replaced by anything, i.e., any other saving graces. It is the alone instrument – divinely ordained. For all the virtues that a man may have cultivated and manifested, if he rejects the gospel, there is no warrant to claim that he is a justified man; he is therefore still a child of wrath and under condemnation of sin and death. Though faith is the alone instrument of justification, yet it is not alone in the person justified because a justified person possesses the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is (singular) “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” It is a package. The grace of faith is always accompanied by other graces in the one wonderful gift pack. Often other graces are already manifested in some measure in the lives of a justified person before faith is made manifest by the gospel call – consider those Jews converted in Acts 2, the Ethiopian eunuch, Cornelius, the Berean Jews, Lydia, etc. The gospel call and the ministry of the word establish them in the gospel truth, and instruct them in godliness, Tit 2:11-15.

In the person justified, faith is always accompanied by all other saving graces, for faith without good works is dead. But only one of these saving graces has been divinely ordained as the sole instrument to evidence one’s justification, i.e., faith that receives and rests in Christ for salvation demonstrates one’s justified state on the basis of Christ and His righteousness. It is faith in Jesus Christ… because the justification that took place at effectual calling is based solely upon the Person and the finished works of Christ. This is an instrument that cannot be counterfeited, and cannot be mistaken. All other evidences of saving grace do not have such a unique quality. When there is no faith in Jesus Christ in the presence of the gospel call then there is no evidence that there was justification, there is no evidence that a person has been delivered from condemnation and wrath.

The lives of many civil and respectable people in a so called ‘civilized’ or ‘christianized’ society may easily be mistaken as trophies of God’s saving grace, except that by their open rejection of Christ, their refusal to rest themselves in Christ alone shows that their ‘works’ are not works of faith. Apart from this, they may be kind, loving, caring and generous to the poor, etc. Sometime such ‘good’ people put even professing believers to shame. All these ‘virtues’ are evidences of salvation, if they are accompanied by faith in the blessed Saviour for their sole acceptance with God. Though they are evidences, yet they are not suitable instruments to demonstrate the justified state if they are not accompanied by faith. There is only one instrument ordained for such task – faith in Christ. The grace of righteousness – the blessedness of knowing one’s acceptance with God will not be experienced and enjoyed apart from faith in Jesus Christ. One’s righteous standing with God is experienced through faith in Christ alone because it pleases God to account faith to the believer for righteousness – ‘faith is accounted to him for righteousness.’ ‘Faith’ characterizes all other graces. It is ‘faith’ that is accounted to the believer for righteousness.

Phinehas’ courageous act was an act of faith and it was accounted to him for righteousness – “Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment: and so the plague was stayed. And that was counted unto him for righteousness unto all generations for evermore” Ps 106:30-31. It was certainly not the using of a javelin on the two whoremongers that effected his legal justification, i.e., his right standing before God. There was no imputation of the righteousness of Christ to Phinehas here! It was his great act of faith that was counted unto him for righteousness – he was blessed to experience the blessedness of his justified and righteous state, evidenced by his faithful act.

Faith is not merely the sole instrument to evidence the justified state of the person by free grace. Faith is also the only means for an elect to enter into a conscious experience and enjoyment of the benefits of salvation, even ‘those benefits which in this life accompany or flow from justification, adoption and sanctification. They include “assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Spirit, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end” (SC Q.36). By faith in Christ the Saviour, a justified man experiences the blessedness of all sins forgiven at justification; he experiences the blessedness of the righteousness of Christ imputed at effectual call. These blessings are accounted to him by God’s free grace. By faith in Jesus Christ, a regenerated elect of God ‘really and personally’ enters into the enjoyment and experience the ‘liberties and privileges’ as adopted children of God. This is what Gen 15:6 speaks of concerning Abram. Abram was already a justified man in Gen 12-14.

This is what is meant when the Confession says, “they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith, which faith they have not of themselves; it is the gift of God” 1689.11.1. This is justification experienced through the instrument of faith. This is not justification secured through the instrument of faith – i.e., right standing with God is secured through the instrument of faith, double imputation of sins and righteousness is through the instrument of faith – as espoused and defended by the leaders of these seven churches.