Justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ is, as the Reformers believed, the fundamental truth of the Christian gospel. It’s the essence of our good-news message for the nations. As such, nothing could be more helpful for defining our mission and for keeping us on mission for our King.

Over the past several decades, this question has been a matter of considerable debate among Christians. Should the term “mission” be used exclusively to refer to the task of evangelism and disciple-making, or can it be broadened to include socially-oriented activities?

Some missiologists, for example, see mission as “as everything God wills to do in the world, whether through the church or outside it.”[1] It can include anything that people do that reflects God’s will for creation, including “the pursuit of justice, the furthering of human dignity, the reconciliation of hostile groups, [and] the care of the environment.”[2]

Others narrow the definition considerably, insisting that mission must involve the proclamation of the gospel, but calling for a “holistic” approach that also includes “the alleviation of human suffering and the elimination of injustice, exploitation, and deprivation.”[3] In this view, the twin concerns of gospel proclamation and social action work in equal partnership in mission like “two blades of a pair of scissors.”[4]

Others, however, have argued that while believers should not be indifferent to suffering in the world and that they should look for practical, creative ways to express the love and mercy of Christ to those around them, the specific mission of the church—the singular task which Jesus sends his church into the world to accomplish—is making disciples of the nations.[5]

What Does Justification by Faith Alone Mean for our Mission?

While the question of the church’s mission is complex and must ultimately be answered through a careful exegesis of Scripture, it can be helpful to consider the issue through the lenses of the Reformers’ rediscovery of the fundamental truths of Christianity. The Reformation was, in essence, a recovery of the gospel. The meaning of the gospel had been all but lost in the medieval church, and nothing was more important for the life of the church than its rediscovery. So although the Reformers didn’t develop a theology of mission, per se, they did helpfully identify the core truths of the Christian message—the message that the church is called to proclaim to the nations. What, then, is this message?

At the heart of the Reformation’s recovery of the gospel was the doctrine of sola fide. Sola fide responds to the question, “How can a person be right with God?” The answer is that God declares us righteous, not on the basis of any merit of our own, but solely through the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, which we receive by faith.

The Reformers considered justification by faith alone to be the essential truth of the gospel. Martin Luther saw justification as “the first and chief article of the Christian faith.”[6] John Calvin called it “the main hinge upon which religion turns” and the “sum of all piety.”[7] While one may disagree with Luther and Calvin about the relative priority of justification among other elements of the gospel message, we cannot disagree with the assumption that lay behind their emphasis on justification – namely, that man’s greatest need is to be reconciled with his Creator.

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[1] Keith Ferdinando, “Mission: A Problem of Definition,” Themelios 33.1 (2008), 49.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid, 53.

[4] Ibid.

[5] For a comprehensive defense of this position, see Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, What Is the Mission of the Church? (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011).

[6] Quoted by Korey D. Mass, “Justification by Faith Alone” in Reformation Theology: A Systematic Summary, 512.

[7] Quoted in Michael Reeves and Tim Chester, Why the Reformation Still Matters (Wheaton: Crossway, 2016). Kindle loc., 374.