What was the primary battle cry of the sixteenth-century Reformation? It is the unifying point of classic, historic evangelicalism: justification by faith alone, sola fide. Anyone who calls himself an evangelical, historically speaking, is saying by that title, “I believe in the doctrine of justification by faith alone.”

Justification has to do with repairing the damage that sin creates in our relationship with God. It describes how we are declared just in the sight of God because God is holy and requires righteousness from His people. Since we fail to meet that requirement, we either stand under God’s judgment or we are justified in His sight. We are justified through the imputation of the merits of Christ so that the basis of our justification is the righteousness of Jesus alone.

I want to call our attention to what I think is a great distortion of justification by faith alone. Incidentally, this is the very thing the Roman Catholic Church feared from the teaching of Martin Luther. They feared that if the doctrine of justification by faith alone was disseminated throughout the Christian community, people would come to the conclusion that works are utterly unimportant in the Christian life.

However, Luther and the other Reformers recognized that the New Testament calls us again and again to do good works. Good works are not the cause of justification, but they are the fruit of justification. One could even say that works are the indispensable fruit of justification. If a man says he has faith but has no works, can that faith save him? That’s the question the Apostle James asks in James 2. If a man says he has faith, but he has no works, will that man be justified? If he doesn’t have any fruit, that proves he doesn’t have any faith. If he doesn’t have any faith, he doesn’t have any justification. Do the works count for justification? No. Must the works be present if a person is truly justified? Yes.

The Lutheran church came up with a formula that I think all Christians should commit to memory: Justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. Justification is not by a lonesome faith that exists in isolation from good works. If it is alone with no works present, then it is not justifying faith. Good works add nothing to our justification, but they are crucial to our sanctification, which follows and flows out of our justification. We do not trust in our good works in order to reconcile ourselves to God, but we should constantly be examining ourselves to make sure that the fruit of the gospel—good works of service to God and neighbor—is being borne in our lives.

Good Works and Cultural Impact

According to the church historians with whom I’ve spoken, never in the history of the Christian church has there been so great an evangelical awakening as there is in our day. Yet at the same time, it has had little impact on the culture in which it is manifesting itself. We are living in a time of intense interest in evangelicalism, yet the evangelical community is making almost no impact on the culture in which it is flourishing. Why is that?

I’m sure there are several factors involved, but one key factor is the myth that grace means the end of work, labor, or effort. Theologically speaking, we call this the false teaching of quietism. Quietism means that the working out of my salvation is strictly and simply the work of God in the sense that we do nothing. We do not have to labor, we do not have to sweat, but instead we “let go and let God.” We allow God to work through us while we quietly wait upon the Lord. Not only does God have no expectations for us to produce good works, but we have no right to expect any other Christian to be laboring diligently for the sake of Christ. Likewise, no other Christian has the right to call us to excellence.

Let me put it in simple language. The underlying motif of this myth is that once a person accepts the grace of God, he or she has a license for sloppiness. It is the belief that forgiveness—the heart of the Christian faith—means never having to make demands on people. No matter what we do, God accepts us wherever we are, never asking us to move from where we are. That is how the myth goes.

It’s easy to fall into the belief that forgiveness means no demands on people. When I tell people, “You can never achieve merit that will get you into the kingdom of God,” what’s the normal human response? People respond by saying: “Well then, I might as well not sweat it. I might as well relax, take it easy, bask in the arms of Jesus, and let it go.” That’s what we call quietism, where someone is totally removed from any serious call to excellence.

So, we have this sense of competition that says the only value is success. The only value is winning. What happens when we say that? We come to the conclusion that it’s not important for us to compete. Since the variety of competition that we see in the world is characterized by ungodliness, ruthlessness, brutality, pride, ego trips, and all the rest, we look at that and say: “We don’t want any part of that. Therefore, we should remove ourselves from the arena of competition. Otherwise, we may be guilty of conformity to the spirit of the age.” Though it is true that we are not called to participate in the brutal, ruthless, pride syndrome of success, nevertheless, we are called to work even more diligently than anyone who is motivated by a success ethic could possibly be. Yes, God accepts us as we are, but He accepts us to change us. He calls us to excellence. He also calls us to discipleship.

Discipline and Discipleship

Discipleship means discipline. Paul says, for example, “I discipline my body and keep it under control” (1 Cor. 9:27). “Run that you may obtain the prize” (v. 24). Other biblical authors echo this teaching. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might” (Eccl. 9:10). Seek the higher things, but with diligence. The author of Hebrews says, “You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood” (Heb. 12:4). The Christian is called to Herculean efforts of discipline and achievement that would make the labor and industry of the world pale in comparison. In other words, Christianity is not an exercise in slumber where we take our ease in Zion and spend the rest of our life being ministered to. I remember when I first became a Christian, and the fellow who led me to Christ said to me one day, “R.C., what you have to do as a Christian with respect to the world is out-think the world, out-fight the world, and out-love the world.” That’s a tall order—to out-think, out-fight, and out-love the world.

Where do we see greatness in Christian art today? Where do we see greatness in Christian music today? Who are the leading great Christian novelists of our age? Who are the great Christian politicians? Where are the great Christian research scientists? Consider the great composers—Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Handel. Of those men, which one most consciously sought to use the medium of music as an instrument to capture men’s minds for the glory of God? It was Bach. Bach was bitterly opposed to the forces of the Enlightenment that were eclipsing the influence of Christianity. Bach determined to use his gifts and talents to stem the tide as far as he could against those forces. Now, consider some of the greatest painters of all time—Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and Raphael. Out of those five, many people would say Michelangelo and Rembrandt were the greatest. Anything peculiar about those two? About 85 percent of Rembrandt’s work centered on Christian themes and biblical themes. The same is true of Michelangelo. Now consider some of the greatest writers of all time—Milton, Shakespeare, Dickens, Donne, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoy. Out of those six, many would say that Shakespeare was the greatest. His work is filled with biblical allusions and imagery. The same is true of Milton, Dostoyevsky, and Donne.

See the influence in history? We could look at other fields. We could go look at the natural sciences. We could look at Galileo; we could look at Kepler. Johannes Kepler, a key figure in the Scientific Revolution, believed that the purpose of science was to think God’s thoughts after Him. We see this down through the ages. The leaders of the classics in all the fields have been Christians.

Today, however, we live in a time of an eclipse of Christian influence on culture. Why? Can we say that it’s simply because the secular forces are so strong that they have strangled any attempts of Christian infiltration and influence? Can we say it’s because Christians are being persecuted? That’s true to a degree, but can that satisfactorily explain this failure of the Christian community to dent the culture?

If somebody paints great art, sooner or later, the level seeks the top. The cream comes to the top. Great novelists have a tendency to get discovered sooner or later. You don’t hide the really great people forever. The great contributors, the great musicians, the great novelists, the great artists, and the great thinkers will be recognized sooner or later. Where are they today? We have a whole generation of Christians who say: “For me, Christianity is a private, personal matter. It’s something I enjoy. I get a trip out of Jesus, but that doesn’t mean I am called to give everything I have back to the glory of God.” One thing I know for sure is that every person has at least one gift they have received from God. We may not know what it is, and I may not be able to recognize what it is, but we all have one. The gift that we’ve been given by God is supposed to be brought back to God and be developed to its ultimate potential.

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