Rev. Angus Stewart
(Slightly modified from an article first published in the British Reformed Journal)
A. Introducing the Righteousness of God
Luther’s Autobiographical Testimony
I begin this article commemorating the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s nailing his Ninety-Five Theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg (31 October, 1517), the beginning of the great Protestant Reformation, by smashing in pieces a cardinal rule: No lengthy quotes in an essay! Yet I am going to provide a very lengthy citation and that at the start of this article.
My defence consists of several elements. First, the German Reformer himself broke a lot of rules and shattered many moulds. Second, in an article on “Martin Luther and God’s Saving Righteousness,” we need to hear the Wittenberg theologian in his own words as to how he came to understand this very subject. Third, the quotation I am going to provide is not only a historic and famous statement, but it is also personal and gripping (as especially Luther can be), as an account of the coming of the gospel with power in a man’s soul. Fourth, this quote will provide us with an orientation for the whole article and I will cite parts of it later.
From the year before Martin Luther’s death, we have this moving 1545 autobiographical testimony of his decisive theological conversion in the 1510s:
I had indeed been captivated with an extraordinary ardor for understanding Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. But up till then it was not the cold blood about the heart, but a single word in Chapter 1[:17], “In it the righteousness of God is revealed,” that had stood in my way. For I hated that word “righteousness of God,” which, according to the use and custom of all the teachers, I had been taught to understand philosophically regarding the formal or active righteousness, as they called it, with which God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner. Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, “As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!” Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience. Nevertheless, I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul wanted. At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, “In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’” There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which [the] merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.” Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me. Thereupon I ran through the Scriptures from memory. I also found in other terms an analogy, as, the work of God, that is, what God does in us, the power of God, with which he makes us strong, the wisdom of God, with which he makes us wise, the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God. And I extolled my sweetest word with a love as great as the hatred with which I had before hated the word “righteousness of God.” Thus that place in Paul was for me truly the gate to paradise.1
Clearly, Luther had an intensely personal, spiritual problem: his sin and sinfulness before God; his guilty and “extremely disturbed conscience;” his awareness that, no matter what he did, he could never satisfy the justice of God.
This terrible personal guilt was exacerbated by an exegetical and theological problem: the righteousness of God in Romans 1:17. Luther understood it to mean that God, being righteous Himself, must and will righteously punish sinners. Thus he was doubly condemned, not only by the law, which curses transgressors, but also by the gospel, in Romans 1:17.
Meaning of “the Righteousness of God”
So what is meant by the key term, “the righteousness of God”?2 As a starting point, we note that righteousness is conformity to a moral standard. As for the righteousness of God, there are four main possible meanings.
First, the righteousness of God could refer to a divine attribute or perfection or virtue. This is God’s intrinsic or essential righteousness, which is His unswerving conformity to Himself as His own standard. Jehovah constantly adheres to His own character in all His thinking, willing, speaking and acting. He is always in perfect harmony with Himself as His own standard and He never fails to conform to Himself as His own standard. This is the idea in Romans 3:5: “But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance?” But this is not what is meant by the righteousness of God in Romans 1:17.3
Second, the righteousness of God could refer to His giving a law to man—His rational, moral creature—and requiring that he obey it. Since He is His own righteous standard, Jehovah cannot leave man without a standard for his thoughts, words and deeds. Thus the Lord gives man a standard: His moral law which is summed in the Decalogue. As the righteous One, God demands that man obey His moral law and so conform to this standard. What about Martin Luther and Romans 1:17? “Though [he] lived as a monk without reproach,” he knew well that he could not keep the Decalogue, the righteous standard God required of him. Thankfully, this definition of the righteousness of God is not what Romans 1:17 is dealing with.
Third, the righteousness of God could refer to His inflicting punishment upon those who break His moral law, His standard for mankind. This is what Luther, at first, thought Romans 1:17 meant: the gospel reveals that God righteously punishes sinners. This is especially what Luther calls God’s “active righteousness,” the exercise of His justice in punishing the unrighteous, who do not conform to His standard of the law. Luther “hated” God’s punitive righteousness. Against it, he “murmur[ed] greatly.” Worse, it was the God of punitive righteousness whom Luther “hated,” for he later confessed that “secretly, if not blasphemously … I was angry with God.”4 But is this what Romans 1:17 speaking of? No, and Luther would come to realize this.
Fourth, the righteousness of God could refer to His providing deliverance for sinners in accordance with the standard of His own character. This is what the German Reformer calls God’s “passive righteousness,” whereby He “justifies us by faith.” This is the meaning of Romans 1:17 and this was Martin Luther’s personal breakthrough. As he himself tells us, it opened to him both Scripture and “the gate to paradise.” In fact, he “extolled” it as the “sweetest” divine word to him.
This was also Martin Luther’s Reformation breakthrough. Romans 1:17 speaks of the righteousness of God in justification! Justification was at the heart of the Reformation and its greatest doctrinal development. This was the good news that transformed much of the church and many countries of Western Europe, and in the last 500 years it has brought untold blessings to Christ’s true church all around the world.
To summarize, the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel in Romans 1:17 is not God’s essential righteousness (His attribute or perfection of righteousness), nor His legislating righteousness (His moral demands summed in the Decalogue), nor His punitive righteousness (His cursing transgressors of His law). Instead, Romans 1:17 speaks of God’s saving righteousness, the righteousness we sinners desperately need!
God’s Saving Righteousness
Let us prove that “the righteousness of God” is Jehovah’s saving righteousness by considering in turn several texts in Romans which contain this key phrase.
We begin with Romans 1:16-17: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.”
Note, first, that the subject is the “gospel [or good news] of Christ” (v. 16). Second, the apostle refers to “salvation” (v. 16). Paul states that he is “not ashamed” of the “power[ful]” “gospel” of “salvation” (v. 16). Why? “For therein [i.e., in the gospel] is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith” (v. 17). Since “the righteousness of God” here is the “gospel” or good news of “salvation,” Romans 1:17 speaks of God’s saving righteousness. This is what Luther was thinking of when he “gave heed to the context of the words.”
For our second passage in Romans, we turn to chapter 3: “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe … Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (vv. 21-22, 24).
Here too “the righteousness of God” (vv. 21, 22) is God’s saving righteousness because it is a faith righteousness and a righteousness in Jesus Christ (v. 22). Verse 24 adds that it is a justifying righteousness, a free righteousness, a gracious righteousness and a redemptive righteousness.
Romans 10:3-4 provides our third excerpt from this great doctrinal epistle: “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” Again, “the righteousness of God” (v. 3) is a faith righteousness and a righteousness in Christ (v. 4).5
Paul teaches the same truth in other canonical epistles. II Corinthians 5:21 proclaims, “For he [i.e., God] hath made him [i.e., Christ] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Philippians 3:9 uses only slightly different terminology but it too teaches God’s saving righteousness: “And be found in him [i.e., the Lord Jesus], not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.”
Besides these texts in Paul’s epistles, Martin Luther also rightly saw “the righteousness of God” in II Peter 1:1 as a reference to God’s saving righteousness that “excludes all human righteousness” and is received “solely through faith” or by “faith alone,” as “in Rom. 1:17.”6
Luther would have approved of referring to “the righteousness of God” as God’s saving righteousness. In the Reformer’s 1532 recollection of his famous “Tower Experience,” recorded by Conrad Cordatus, he speaks three times of “salvation” or being “saved” by the righteousness of God:
The words “righteous” and “righteousness of God” struck my conscience like lightning. When I heard them I was exceedingly terrified. If God is righteous [I thought], he must punish. But when by God’s grace I pondered, in the tower and heated room of this building, over the words, “He who through faith is righteous shall live” [Rom. 1:17] and “the righteousness of God” [Rom. 3:21], I soon came to the conclusion that if we, as righteous men, ought to live from faith and if the righteousness of God contributes to the salvation of all who believe, then salvation won’t be our merit but God’s mercy. My spirit was thereby cheered. For it’s by the righteousness of God that we’re justified and saved through Christ.7
Three Views of God’s Saving Righteousness
Having determined that “the righteousness of God” is a saving righteousness, the next question is, What sort of saving righteousness does the gospel bring (Rom. 1:17; 3:21-22; 10:3; II Cor. 5:21; II Pet. 1:1; cf. Phil. 3:9)? There are three main views in ecclesiastical circles in our day.
First, Roman Catholicism claims that the righteousness of God in the gospel is that whereby the Almighty makes man righteous inwardly by the infusion of His grace. For Rome, therefore, justification (or “righteous-ification”) is God’s making man righteous inwardly, an inner transformation.
Second, the Reformation proclaims that justification (or “righteous-ification”) is God’s declaring or pronouncing us righteous with the righteousness of God.
Third, there is the view of the New Perspective(s) on Paul (NPP), a movement in recent decades (and long after the Reformation) that is especially associated with N. T. Wright. The New Perspective on Paul, and especially N. T. Wright, reckons that justification (or “righteous-ification”) is God’s declaring or pronouncing that we are His people.
Here are simplified definitions of the three main views of justification (or “righteous-ification”) for easy comparison:
Rome: God’s making us righteous inwardly.
Reformation: God’s declaring us righteous.
NPP: God’s declaring that we are His people.
Now we need to delve further into Scripture (and Luther and the Reformation) regarding the righteousness of God as God’s saving righteousness. We will consider in turn four characteristics of God’s saving righteousness. This will show which of the three definitions of justification given above is correct.
B. Four Central Characteristics of God’s Saving Righteousness
1. Faith Righteousness
First, the righteousness of God or God’s saving righteousness is a faith righteousness. This is a truth concerning the righteousness of God that Martin Luther emphasized first and most in his Reformation preaching and teaching.
That faith righteousness is a scriptural doctrine is evident from all three passages in Romans that speak of the righteousness of God as God’s saving righteousness. Romans 1:16-17 mentions faith or believing four times: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” Romans 3:21-22 refers to believing or faith twice: “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference.” Romans 10:3-4 mentions believing once: “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”8 These three texts on “the righteousness of God” in Romans speak of faith or believing seven times.
Throughout Romans and Galatians, the two New Testament epistles which deal most with God’s saving righteousness or justification, it is emphasized that this gift is received by faith without works. Galatians 2:16 is very sharp, because it is repeatedly antithetical: “Knowing that a man is [1] not justified by the works of the law, but [2] by the faith of Jesus Christ, even [3] we have believed in Jesus Christ, that [4] we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and [5] not by the works of the law: for [6] by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” This one verse contains an amazing six statements as to the means of justification, three of which are positive (2, 3 and 4) and three of which are negative (1, 5 and 6).
According to Romans 4, in justification, faith “worketh not” (v. 5). It refuses to work, for this would occasion sinful boasting (v. 2), and would be merely a futile and wicked effort to earn with God and put Him into man’s “debt” (v. 4). Yea more, faith repudiates all our works for they do not constitute even the tiniest part of the righteousness of God.
In his 1518 Heidelberg Disputation, Luther stated,
Thesis 25. He is not righteous who works much, but he who, without work, believes much in Christ.
Thesis 26. The law says, “do this,” and it is never done. Grace says, “believe in this,” and everything is already done.
Gerhard O. Forde comments that Thesis 25 “is really nothing other than a statement of justification by faith alone without the deeds of the law. In fact, Luther quotes the Pauline passage (Rom. 3:20) to that effect in his proof.”9
In his powerful teaching on faith righteousness, the Wittenberg theologian engaged in perpetual warfare against justification by the law or justification by Moses. Before the great German Reformer, no one had ever preached so sharply or so frequently the antithesis between law and gospel in justification or, to use different terminology, between Moses and Christ (cf. John 1:17). Here is just one example taken from Luther’s comments on Deuteronomy 18:15, the beautiful messianic prediction of the coming Prophet “like” Moses, the mediator of the old covenant:
Moses is a minister of the Law, sin, and death; for he teaches and stresses works, and through the rays of the Law he makes everyone guilty of death and subject to punishment for sin. He demands, but he does not give what he demands. However, since this Prophet [i.e., Christ] finds Moses teaching this and is Himself set up as a Teacher next to him, His Word must teach something else. But He cannot teach anything else than sin, wrath, and death unless He teaches righteousness, grace, and life. Therefore it is necessary that He be a teacher of life, grace, and righteousness, just as Moses is a teacher of sin, wrath, and death. But both these teachings must be heard just as they have been raised up by God; for through the Law all must be humbled, and through the Gospel all must be exalted. They are alike in divine authority, but with respect to the fruit of their ministry they are unlike and completely opposed to each other. The sin and wrath which Moses arouses through his ministry that Prophet cancels through righteousness and grace by His ministry. That Prophet, therefore, demands nothing; but He grants what Moses demands. In this passage we have those two ministries of the Word which are necessary for the salvation of the human race: the ministry of the Law and the ministry of the Gospel, one for death and the other for life. They are indeed alike if you are looking at their authority, but most unlike if you are thinking about their fruit. The ministry of Moses is temporary, finally to be ended by the coming of the ministry of Christ, as he says here, “Heed Him.” But the ministry of Christ will be ended by nothing else, since it brings eternal righteousness and “puts an end to sin,” as it is said in Dan. 9:24.10
Following Holy Scripture, Luther avers that justification is “without the law,” “without the deeds of the law” and apart from “works” (e.g., Rom. 3:20, 21, 27, 28). Appealing to Romans 3:9-20 and Romans 7:7, as well as other powerful theological arguments, the German Reformer, in a disputation in 1535, proves that the apostle Paul excludes from justification all of man’s works according to the moral law and condemns the Romish evasion: “Those who think that he is speaking of the ceremonial law err to high heaven.”11
Whether or not the standard of the works are any of God’s laws or man’s laws, whether they are works before or after conversion, whether or not they are wrought with the motive of meriting, whether or not they are performed out of gratitude and whether or not they are genuinely good works in God’s sight, they are all excluded from man’s justifying righteousness. Contra Rome, man has no merit, whether merit of congruity or merit of condignity.
Listen to this bold, clear testimony of the German Reformer on faith righteousness, justification by faith alone:
I, Dr. Martin Luther, the unworthy evangelist of the Lord Jesus Christ, thus think and thus affirm:—that this article,—namely, that faith alone, without works, justifies us before God,—can never be overthrown, for … Christ alone, the Son of God, died for our sins; but if He alone takes away our sins, then men, with all their works, are to be excluded from all concurrence in procuring the pardon of sin and justification. Nor can I embrace Christ otherwise than by faith alone; He cannot be apprehended by works. But if faith, before works follow, apprehends the Redeemer, it is undoubtedly true, that faith alone, before works, and without works, appropriates the benefit of redemption, which is no other than justification, or deliverance from sin. This is our doctrine; so the Holy Spirit teaches, and the whole Christian Church. In this, by the grace of God, will we stand fast, Amen!12
In Paul’s epistle to the Romans, the German Reformer is especially antithetical regarding grace and works, first, concerning justification: “Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt” (4:4); and, second, concerning election: “And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work” (11:6).13
This is a massive contrast with Roman Catholicism, both in the sixteenth century and in the twenty-first century. Rome teaches justification by faith and works, especially works! The gospel of Christ is that of justification by faith alone. The good news is that of a faith righteousness.
The German theologian also rightly saw that faith righteousness destroys “free-will” righteousness. After quoting Romans 3:20-25, 28, Luther declares,
From all this it is very plain that the endeavour and effort of “free-will” are simply null; for if the righteousness of God exists without the law, and without the works of the law, how shall it not much more exist without “free-will”? For the supreme concern of “free-will” is to exercise itself in moral righteousness, the works of the law by which its blindness and impotence are “assisted.” But this word “without” does away with morally good works, and moral righteousness, and preparations for grace. Imagine any power you can think of as belonging to “free-will,” and Paul will still stand firm and say: “the righteousness of God exists without it!”14
The true, living faith that justifies is highly personal. Time and time again, Luther points out that “I” must believe in Christ and His righteousness “for me.” Thus in The Theses Concerning Faith and Law (1535), he avers,
22. True faith with arms outstretched joyfully embraces the Son of God given for it and says, “He is my beloved and I am his.”
23. Paul gives an example of this to the Galatians from his own case, saying, “Who loved me and gave himself for me” [Gal. 2:20].
24. Accordingly, that “for me” or “for us,” if it is believed, creates that true faith and distinguishes it from all other faith, which merely hears the things done.15
2. Legal Righteousness
Second, the righteousness of God is not only a faith righteousness but also a legal (or forensic or judicial or juridical) righteousness.
This is the argument in the opening chapters of Romans. Man is sinful and guilty before God (Rom. 1:18-3:20)—both Jews and Gentiles! The human race is arraigned before the Almighty in His courtroom: “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Rom. 3:19). The judge is God. The standard of His judgment is the law. The accused in the dock is man who is “under the law.” The verdict is “guilty before God.” The evangelistic purpose of the apostle and of the preaching of the law by ministers of the gospel is “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.”
Then comes gospel deliverance: “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference” (vv. 21-22). This righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ, answering to man’s own guilt as a lawbreaker before God the judge, is, of course, a legal righteousness.
For our second passage in this epistle, we turn to Romans 8:33-34: “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” Again we have courtroom language: a “charge” is laid against us (v. 33) and there is an attempt to obtain our “condemn[ation]” on account of this charge (v. 34).
However, we have the Lord Jesus Christ as our advocate in God’s court. He “died” for our sins and “maketh intercession for us” “at God’s right hand” (v. 34). On this basis, God “justifieth” us (v. 33) in the courtroom, legally. This is both our present peace and our future hope!
Preaching on Romans 8:34, Herman Hoeksema declared,
The fact that Christ makes intercession for us also reveals that He is our advocate. Jesus is our Attorney. He pleads for us. He pleads! He insists! He says, “I will that My people receive the blessings of salvation.” Jesus is a strong lawyer, pleading for our justification. He says, “I will, Father, that Thou give Me power to justify My people.” In addition He says, “I will that Thou give Me the power to give them the blessing of eternal life.” If Jesus can at all accomplish it, He will win His plea.16
Christ, our great lawyer, advocate and attorney in the divine court of law, could and did accomplish it, and won His case for us! The antonym of “condemn” (declare guilty) is “justify” (declare righteous): “It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?” (vv. 33-34).
Thus to justify means to declare or pronounce righteous. This is the case with the New Testament Greek word (dikaioun), the Old Testament Hebrew word (hasdiq) and even our English word. If someone justifies the United Kingdom’s entering World War II, they are not retroactively making that entry just but they are declaring that it is just. In the Bible (e.g., Rom. 1:18-3:22; 8:33-34) and sound theology, justification is not to make righteous inwardly (Romanism) but to declare or pronounce righteous legally (Reformation).17
However, Luther typically does not use the later, standard Protestant terminology of justification as a “legal declaration.” A significant factor in this is the focus of the theological polemic or the nature of the issues debated at that time, as Herman Bavinck points out:
In the early days, the opposition between Rome and the Reformation [including Luther] in the locus of justification was not formulated in terms of “ethical” [i.e., God’s infusing grace into man] versus “juridical,” but in terms of justification by works (love) versus justification by faith, on the basis of our own works or on the basis of the righteousness of Christ accepted in faith.18
Jaroslav Pelikan notes that the idea of forensic, legal, judicial or juridical justification is there in the teaching of the German theologian:
Although Luther himself was not always so utterly precise as that, those who systematically formulated his teaching [in the 1531 Apology of the Augsburg Confession 4.305-306] explained that in the Epistle to the Romans “‘justify’ is used in a forensic fashion to mean ‘to absolve a guilty man and pronounce him righteous,’ and to do so on account of an alien righteousness, namely that of Christ, which is communicated to us through faith.”19
As in Romans 8:33-34, Dr. Luther speaks of justification as the opposite of condemnation (a legal declaration that one is guilty and worthy of punishment) in the following two strongly parallel statements: “Through [1] the Law, therefore, we are [2] condemned and [3] killed; but through [1] Christ we are [2] justified and [3] made alive.”20
For Luther, “it certainly is” the truth that “the doctrine of justification” is that believers are “pronounced righteous” in our Lord Jesus Christ:
But the doctrine of justification is this, that we are pronounced righteous and are saved solely by faith in Christ, and without works. If this is the true meaning of justification—as it certainly is, or it will be necessary to get rid of all Scripture—then it immediately follows that we are pronounced righteous neither through monasticism nor through vows nor through Masses nor through any other works.21
Paul Althaus is not going too far when he summarizes the German Reformer’s doctrine of justification in legal or forensic terms:
The fact that God declares the unrighteous to be righteous transcends all human understanding and reason. God’s judgment contradicts the judgment of man and each man’s judgment of himself. A man condemned as a sinner both by himself and by other people is declared righteous.22
3. Alien Righteousness
The righteousness of God is not only a faith righteousness and a legal righteousness, but also, third, an alien righteousness. That is, it is not a righteousness produced by us or wrought in us. Our alien righteousness is a foreign righteousness, an extrinsic or external righteousness, the righteousness of another, even our covenant head and legal representative, our Lord Jesus Christ. This alien righteousness was wrought by another Person, in a different country (Israel), almost two thousand years ago—all outside of us! This is a righteousness that is completely finished some two millennia ago and vicarious, for Christ obtained it for us.
Martin Luther was very strong on this, including in his commentary on Christ’s words “Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more” in John 16:10:
This righteousness, however, is completely concealed, not only from the world but also from the saints. It is not a thought, a word, or a work in ourselves … No, it is entirely outside and above us; it is Christ’s going to the Father, that is, His suffering, resurrection, and ascension. Christ placed this outside the sphere of our senses; we cannot see and feel it. The only way it can be grasped is by faith in the Word preached about him, which tells us that He Himself is our Righteousness. Thus St. Paul says in 1 Cor. 1:30: “Whom God made our Wisdom, our Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption,” in order that before God we may boast, not of ourselves but solely of this Lord.23
This crucial point is also made in the Pauline texts on the saving righteousness of God. It is not in the child of God but in “the gospel of Christ” that “the righteousness of God [is] revealed” (Rom. 1:16-17). It is by believing on Jesus that one receives this righteousness: “Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe” (Rom. 3:22).24
Romans 10 speaks of the Jews (and all who seek to justify themselves):
For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth (vv. 3-4).
Those who believe in the Lord Jesus, who “is the end of the law for righteousness,” receive righteousness, “the righteousness of God.”
That “the righteousness of God” is Christ’s righteousness is very clear from II Peter 1:1. The most accurate translation of this verse speaks of “the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
II Corinthians 5:21 explicitly links Christ’s righteousness to His great work of redemption: “For he [i.e., God] hath made him [i.e., Christ] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Thus Jehovah’s believing people receive “the righteousness of God in him [i.e., Christ].”
Philippians 3 teaches the same truth of Christ’s alien righteousness. Paul speaks of his personal Jewish pedigree in which he had formerly trusted for his justification and which he had come to repudiate for any part of his righteousness before God: “If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews” (vv. 4-5). N. T. Wright and the New Perspective on Paul would agree that these Jewish traits must be excluded from divine justification. However, contrary to the New Perspective, the apostle goes on to rule out his personal moral achievements as contributing to his justification: “as touching the law, a Pharisee; Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless” (vv. 5-6). These human works do not meet the divinely required standard, for they are mere “dung” (v. 8).25 Finally, the apostle to the Gentiles expresses his new hope and assured confidence for justification: “And be found in him [i.e., Jesus], not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (v. 9).
Jesus’ sufferings on the cross for us (His bearing the punishment due to all the elect for our transgressions of Jehovah’s law) and His sinless, lifelong obedience to God’s moral will for us satisfy and meet the divine standard. This is the righteousness of God, the perfect righteousness wrought by God the Son incarnate, an alien righteousness. Clearly, though the terminology of alien righteousness is alien to Scripture, the concept of alien righteous is not at all alien to God’s Word.
In Luther’s preaching and writing, he uses the language of “alien” to drive his hearers and readers away from their own sinful, personal achievements to the glorious work of the incarnate, crucified and risen Son of God outside of us. Thus we are saved not by our own works but by Christ’s “alien works.” We are justified not by our own merit (we have none) but by Christ’s “alien merit.” It is only by an alien mercy and an alien Saviour that God provides for believers an “alien righteousness.”
In these theses on justification, the German Reformer explains that alien righteousness establishes faith righteousness (justification sola fide), since our works cannot appropriate a “foreign” righteousness that is “outside of us”:
27. Now it is certain that Christ or the righteousness of Christ, since it is outside of us and foreign to us, cannot be laid hold of by our works;
28. But faith itself which is poured into us from hearing about Christ by the Holy Spirit, comprehends Christ.
29. Therefore, faith alone justifies without our works, for I cannot say, “I produce Christ or the righteousness of Christ.”26
In Two Kinds of Righteousness, one of his early sermons, dated in late 1518 or early 1519, Martin Luther contrasts the “alien righteousness” of Christ with “alien” unrighteousness in Adam: “this alien righteousness … is set opposite original sin, likewise alien, which we acquire without works by birth alone” (cf. Rom. 5:12-21).27 Dr. Luther states that “‘the righteousness of God’ in Rom. 1[:17] … is the righteousness given in place of the original righteousness lost in Adam. It accomplishes the same as that original righteousness would have accomplished; rather, it accomplishes more.”28 Christ’s righteousness is an “infinite righteousness” and Luther states that we have by faith “the same righteousness as he.”29 This is exactly what we need!
In this same sermon, the German Reformer speaks powerfully of the comfort of those who receive this alien work, alien merit and alien righteousness, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus, by faith alone:
Therefore a man can with confidence boast in Christ and say: “Mine are Christ’s living, doing, and speaking, his suffering and dying, mine as much as if I had lived, done, spoken, suffered, and died as he did” … Through faith in Christ, therefore, Christ’s righteousness becomes our righteousness and all that he has becomes ours; rather, he himself becomes ours.30
4. Imputed Righteousness
Not only is the righteousness of God a faith righteousness, a legal righteousness and an alien righteousness, but it is also, fourth, an imputed righteousness. To impute means to account or reckon to someone’s account. If justification is a legal term, imputation is an accounting term.
The two saving imputations regarding us in justification are especially clear in Romans 4. First, there is a negative imputation: our sins are not imputed to us. The apostle writes, “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (vv. 7-8). In the language of this text, the forgiveness or covering of iniquities and sins is their non-imputation, God’s not reckoning them to our account.
Second, there is a positive imputation: the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ is imputed to us. Besides the non-imputation of sin (v. 8), the positive imputation or counting or reckoning to believers of God’s righteousness is taught throughout this chapter (vv. 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 22, 23, 24). With 90% of the references to imputation being positive, speaking of the reckoning of righteousness through faith, it is very strongly emphasized in Romans 4.
Dr. Luther himself underscored the prominence of imputation or reckoning in Romans 4:
The other righteousness [in contrast to the accursed righteousness of works] is that of faith, and consists, not in any works, but in the gracious favour and reckoning of God. See how Paul stresses the word “reckoned”; how he insists on it, and repeats it, and enforces it. “To him that worketh,” he says, “the reward is reckoned, not of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness,” according to the purpose of God’s grace. Then he quotes David as saying the same about the reckoning of grace. “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin,” etc. (vv. 4ff.). He repeats the word “reckon” in this chapter about ten times.31
The imputation of righteousness to believers is necessarily implied in each and every reference in both the Old Testament and the New Testament to sin’s forgiveness, covering, blotting out, pardoning, putting away, casting down, wiping out, washing away, not being seen, not being remembered, being cast behind one’s back, being cast into the depths of the sea, etc., or God’s not entering into judgment regarding it or His hiding His face towards it.32
Why is this? Because of the logic of Paul’s argument in Romans 4:6-8. After stating that David “describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works” (v. 6), one would expect the apostle to quote a Davidic Psalm speaking of positive imputation, the imputation of righteousness, but he does not. Instead, he quotes a text on negative imputation, the non-imputation of iniquity: “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (v. 8; Ps. 32:2).
Since positive imputation (Rom. 4:6) is proved by negative imputation (v. 8), the former is necessarily implied by the latter.33 In God’s accounting, the unbeliever is a debtor and the believer whose debt of sin is not imputed also has the righteousness of God credited to him. No child of God merely has his debt of guilt cancelled without also having Christ’s righteousness reckoned to his account. These two are sides of one blessed gospel coin, so to speak (Belgic Confession 23).34
Martin Luther understood this too. Commenting on Romans 4:6-8 in 1515-1516, he wrote,
God regards as righteous a man to whom these two evils [i.e., both original and actual sins] are forgiven. Hence, the next line: “Blessed is the man to whom God will not impute iniquity.” What our text calls “sin” must more correctly be understood as “unrighteousness” in order to be consonant with the intention of the apostle who wants to prove from this word that righteousness is given without works by the reckoning of God; and this happens only by the nonimputation of unrighteousness. Therefore, it is one and the same thing to say: to whom God reckons righteousness, and: to whom God does not impute sin, i.e., unrighteousness.35
The German Reformer even makes these two imputations (or rather one non-imputation and one imputation) definitive of a Christian:
Therefore we define a Christian as follows: A Christian is not someone who has no sin or feels no sin; he is someone to whom, because of his faith in Christ, God does not impute his sin. This doctrine brings firm consolation to troubled consciences amid genuine terrors. It is not in vain, therefore, that so often and so diligently we inculcate the doctrine of the forgiveness [or non-imputation] of sins and of the imputation of righteousness for the sake of Christ.36
In Romans 4:1-8, Paul refers to two highly prominent Old Testament worthies in connection with the two imputations regarding us in justification. The first is Abraham, the father of all believers, whose positive imputation is spoken of in verse 3: “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness” (quoting Gen. 15:6).37 The second is King David, the man after God’s own heart, who rejoiced in his negative imputation: “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Rom. 4:8; quoting Ps. 32:2).
Clearly, the righteousness of God is not what Rome claims: an infused righteousness transforming us from within—that is sanctification, not justification. The righteousness of God is an imputed righteousness, one that is reckoned to our account, as Luther and the whole Reformation proclaimed.38 Blessed and happy are all who believe the gospel!
Summarizing God’s Saving Righteousness
Now let us pull all of this material together. The righteousness of God or God’s saving righteousness is a faith righteousness (not a works righteousness), a legal righteousness (not an organic righteousness), an alien righteousness (not an internal righteousness) and an imputed righteousness (not an infused righteousness).
Some or all of these four points can be related in various formulations. For example, the righteousness of God is the righteousness of Jesus Christ (alien righteousness) reckoned to our account (imputed righteousness) and received only by believing (faith righteousness). Again, justification is God’s pronouncing us righteous (legal righteousness) because of the substitutionary sufferings and perfect obedience of Jesus Christ (alien righteousness) reckoned to our account (imputed righteousness) through believing alone (faith righteousness). Again, justification is the declaration of God the judge that we are righteous before Him (legal righteousness), because the righteousness of God is reckoned to us (imputed righteousness) by faith alone (faith righteousness) in Christ alone (alien righteousness).
This could be expressed by way of a short catechism on God’s saving righteousness:
Q. 1. Who wrought and achieved the righteousness of God?
A. Not I by my own righteousness or rather unrighteousness but our Lord Jesus Christ Himself (alien righteousness).
Q. 2. How does God make this alien righteousness, the righteousness of One who is now in heaven, yours?
A. By graciously reckoning it to me (imputed righteousness).
Q. 3. By what means or instrument do you receive this imputed righteousness?
A. Only by believing (faith righteousness).
Q. 4. So, on the basis of this alien righteousness imputed to you by faith alone, you cannot be condemned by God?
A. Correct, because the divine promise to me and all who believe in Jesus Christ is that we are justified or declared righteous by God both now and at the final judgment on the last day (legal righteousness).
What Scripture calls “the righteousness of God” and what I have been calling “God’s saving righteousness” (a faith righteousness, a legal righteousness, an alien righteousness and an imputed righteousness), we have seen Luther refer to as “passive righteousness.” He also calls it “Christian righteousness,” especially throughout the lectures he delivered in 1531 on Galatians. These were published in Latin in 1535 as his great commentary on Galatians, which begins with “The Argument of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians,” in which the German Reformer explains the teaching of the apostle and himself on the righteousness of God.39
Luther begins “the argument” by stating that “the issue with which Paul deals in this epistle” is “Christian righteousness”: “Paul wants to establish the doctrine of faith, grace, the forgiveness of sins or Christian righteousness, so that we may have a perfect knowledge and know the difference between Christian righteousness and all other kinds of righteousness.”40 Throughout his many writings, the Wittenberg theologian refers to these “other kinds of righteousness” as including, in our English translations, philosophical righteousness, political righteousness, civil righteousness, civic righteousness, secular righteousness, ceremonial righteousness, earthly righteousness, home-made righteousness, human righteousness, personal righteousness, self-righteousness, external righteousness, outward righteousness, active righteousness, inherent righteousness, infused righteousness, moral righteousness, works righteousness, the righteousness of the law, the righteousness of habit, the righteousness of man, the righteousness of the flesh, the righteousness of reason, etc.
James Buchanan notes that God’s saving righteousness in justification is spoken of in Scripture under various terms or phrases, with all finding their unity in Jesus Christ, the “righteous Branch” and “the Lord our righteousness” (Jer. 23:5, 6):
The righteousness, which is the ground of a sinner’s Justification, is denoted or described by various terms in Scripture, so that its nature may be determined by simply comparing these terms with one another; and then ascertaining whether there be any righteousness to which they are all equally applicable, and in which they all coincide, in the fulness of their combined meaning. That righteousness is called in Scripture,—“the righteousness of God” [Rom. 1:17; 3:21-22; 10:3; II Cor. 5:21; II Pet. 1:1; cf. Phil. 3:9],—“the righteousness of Christ” [cf. Rom. 10:4],—the “righteousness of One” [Rom. 5:18],—“the obedience of One” [Rom. 5:19],—the “free gift unto justification of life” [cf. Rom. 5:16, 18],—“the righteousness which is of,” or “by,” or “through, faith” [Rom. 4:11, 13; 9:30; 10:6; cf. 3:22; Gal. 5:5; Phil. 3:9],—“the righteousness of God without the law” [Rom. 3:21],—and “the righteousness which God imputes without works” [cf. Rom. 4:6]. It will be found that, while these various expressions are descriptive of its different aspects and relations, they are all employed with reference to the SAME RIGHTEOUSNESS,—that there is one righteousness, in which they all find their common centre, as so many distinct rays converging towards the same focus, while each retains its distinctive meaning,—and that there is no other righteousness to which they can all be applied, or in which they can find their adequate explanation. It is called, pre-eminently and emphatically, “The righteousness of God.”41
Why is this righteousness called the righteousness of God? It is called the righteousness of God because God alone eternally planned it in His counsel; God alone produced it through the lifelong, substitutionary sufferings and obedience of Jesus Christ, God the Son incarnate; God alone provides it; God alone gives it; God is well pleased with it; God fully approves of it; God accepts it as infinitely worthy; it always avails with God.42
Furthermore, it is called the righteousness of God because it comes up to the standard of God Himself and His law for mankind. It meets God’s standard now and it will meet God’s standard on the Judgment Day. All who believe in Jesus Christ ought to be completely assured of all this! By the biblical phrase “the righteousness of God,” our heavenly Father designed to create this blessed confidence in His children.
Lecturing on Romans 1:17, which is not only a key text in his own spiritual biography but also the first verse in the New Testament, as arranged in our Bibles, to use the crucial phrase “the righteousness of God,” Dr. Luther goes right to the heart of the matter: “The righteousness of God must be distinguished from the righteousness of men which comes from works.”43 Commenting on John 16:10, Luther is more detailed, for he speaks of it as “a righteousness recognized by God,” “a righteousness far different from that acknowledged by the world,” a “righteousness” identified “exclusively with Himself,” a “righteousness which is valid before God [and] centers only in Christ” and a righteousness “related to the words ‘because I go to the Father.’”44 In short, it is called “the righteousness of God” because it is an altogether divine righteousness, not a human righteousness which the sinner himself achieves or produces.
C. Four Key Distinctions Involving Justification
So far, we have identified “the righteousness of God” as God’s saving righteousness. Through our consideration of four characteristics of God’s saving righteousness (and their relationships), we have seen that the Reformation definition of justification (or “righteous-ification”) is true, and the definitions of Rome and the New Perspective on Paul are false. In the course of all this, we have noted several important antitheses in Scripture and in Luther as regards justification, such as, the law versus the gospel and faith versus works. Now we shall turn to four key distinctions regarding justification that arise from Holy Writ, and were made by Luther and the Reformation.
1. Justification of God and Justification of Believers
Martin Luther was well aware of the fact that the Scriptures not only speak of God’s justification of believers but also of man’s justification (or non-justification) of God (e.g., Job 32:2; Ps. 51:4; Matt. 11:19; Luke 7:29, 35; Rom. 3:4).45 The Reformer’s longest treatment of this important subject—over twenty pages!—is found in his lectures on Romans 3:4-7, which passage includes two of the six texts just cited (Rom. 3:4 which quotes Ps. 51:4) and is found in the canonical book which most systematically sets forth the truth of justification by faith alone.46
In this section of his lectures on Romans, Luther uses a lot of different words to make clear what man does when he either justifies or condemns the Almighty. God is justified by man when he “accepts,” “acknowledges,” “admits,” “confesses,” “declares,” “recognizes,” “receives,” “regards,” “reputes” or “yields to” Him, His acts and His words as righteous or true, or when he “lets God be so” or when Jehovah “becomes so in” or to him. On the other hand, God is condemned by man when he “contradicts,” “disbelieves,” “judges,” “opposes” and “resists” Him, His acts and His words as if they were unrighteous or untrue, or “makes God a liar.” Thus the university lecturer states,
Now, God is justified in his words when his word is reputed and received by us as just and truthful and this is done by faith in his word. And he is [condemned or] judged in his words when his word is reputed as false and deceitful and this is done by unbelief and “pride in the imagination of the heart” (Luke 1:51).47
Being a great theologian, Luther not only explained the justification (or non-justification) of God from Romans 3:4-7 and other passages, and set forth the justification of believers. Luther the dogmatician also powerfully related the two: “By this ‘justification of God’ we are justified.”48 He explains by declaring what is true of every believer:
I acknowledge that I have acted unrighteously and cease to do so in order to embrace the righteousness of God or that which comes from God, for all my righteousness is unrighteousness before him. Wherefore I do not boast but am covered with shame before God. And thus he alone is glorified in the righteousness by which he justifies me, because he alone is justified (i.e., acknowledged as righteous).49
Of course, when believers condemn themselves and justify God, we are merely confessing what is painfully true regarding us as wretched sinners and eternally true regarding His infinite glory. But when God justifies believers, He is acting according to His rich grace in Jesus Christ.
Three main parties can helpfully be considered in turn with regard to justification and condemnation. First, unbelieving man justifies himself and condemns God. Second, believing man condemns himself and justifies God. Third, God condemns unbelieving man who justifies himself and condemns God, and He justifies believing man who condemns himself and justifies God.
Scripture speaks in so many words of the terrible sin of justifying oneself rather than justifying God (Job 9:20; 32:2; Luke 10:29; 16:15). From John 9, Luther also points out the soul-damning sins of those who condemn Christ, as though He were “not of God” (v. 16) but “a sinner” (v. 24), and who justify themselves as if they were not “blind” (v. 40).50
We have seen that in Luther’s lectures on Romans 3:4-7, he speaks repeatedly and clearly of justification as a pronunciation or declaration that someone is righteous, and contrasts justification with condemnation, which is a pronunciation or declaration that someone is unrighteous. Luther is particularly clear on the meaning of justification here because this scriptural passage deals with the justification or condemnation of the immutably just God. Since He can neither be made righteous (for He is eternally and essentially righteous) nor transformed so as to become unrighteous (for He is unchangeably perfect), the justification or condemnation of Him can only refer to His being pronounced or declared righteous or unrighteous.51 Moreover, since the justification or condemnation of man is spoken of in intimate connection with the justification or condemnation of God, God’s justification of believers is not in any sense His infusion of righteousness into them but wholly His pronunciation or declaration that they are righteous (legal righteousness).
Not only does the consideration of our justification of God reinforce the truth that God’s saving righteousness is a legal righteousness. It also fits with and supports the Reformation teaching that the righteousness of God is an imputed righteousness, for just as our justification of God is our imputing or reckoning righteousness to Him, so His justification of us is His imputing or reckoning righteousness to us. The chief difference here, though it does not undermine the point being made, is that our justification of God reckons Him to be what He essentially is, whereas His justification of us reckons us to be what we are not in ourselves but are only in Christ, our alien righteousness.
Faith righteousness is another central characteristic of God’s saving righteousness that dovetails with all this. The only way in which a man can condemn himself and justify God, His works and His words is by faith, and it is precisely in this way that we receive the righteousness of God—only by believing!
Let us make Luther’s prayer our own:
Oh, that we might willingly be emptied that we might be filled with thee; Oh, that I may willingly be weak that thy strength may dwell in me; gladly a sinner [who knows himself to be such] that thou mayest be justified in me, gladly a fool that thou mayest be my wisdom, gladly unrighteous that thou mayest be my righteousness!52
2. Justification and Sanctification
Having seen that those who justify God are also and thereby justified by Him, we need now to consider that those whom God justifies He also sanctifies. Those who receive “the righteousness of faith” (Rom. 4:13) in justification will perform “the righteousness of the law” (Rom. 8:4) because of their sanctification, though never perfectly in this age.
Justification must be distinguished from sanctification but never separated from it, as the Westminster Larger Catechism, expresses so well:
Q. 77. Wherein do justification and sanctification differ?
A. Although sanctification be inseparably joined with justification, yet they differ, in that God in justification imputeth the righteousness of Christ; in sanctification his Spirit infuseth grace, and enableth to the exercise thereof; in the former, sin is pardoned; in the other, it is subdued: the one doth equally free all believers from the revenging wrath of God, and that perfectly in this life, that they never fall into condemnation; the other is neither equal in all, nor in this life perfect in any, but growing up to perfection.
Martin Luther not only proclaimed the truth about imputed righteousness in justification, as we have seen, but he also did not omit the Bible’s teaching on inward righteousness in sanctification. Indeed, the German Reformer highly extolled practical godliness.
Let us return to Luther’s sermon Two Kinds of Righteousness, delivered relatively early in his reformatory ministry.53 The Wittenberg theologian begins with the first kind of righteousness, “alien righteousness, that is the righteousness of another,” before adding, “This is the righteousness of Christ by which he justifies through faith, as it is written in I Cor. 1[:30]: ‘Whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.’”54
After a couple of pages of the sermon (in the form in which it has been recorded and handed down to us), Luther moves from “alien righteousness” to the “second kind of righteousness” which is “our proper righteousness,” the inner righteousness by which the believer becomes active in a godly life.55 In connection with this second kind of righteousness, the Reformer speaks of “good works,” the battle between the flesh and the spirit, loving one’s neighbour, “the fruit of the spirit” (Gal. 5:22-23), mortifying “the old Adam,” crucifying “the flesh,” following “the example of Christ” (I Pet. 2:21), being “transformed” into Christ’s likeness (II Cor. 3:18), yielding one’s “members to righteousness for sanctification” (Rom. 6:19), imitating Christ’s humiliation by emptying ourselves (Phil. 2:5-7), serving and pleasing others, caring for the weaker members of the church, not desiring vengeance, etc.56
This is a representative statement from Luther on the (already) justified believer doing good works out of a heart that is joyful because of God’s free salvation:
When we have taught faith in Christ this way, then we also teach about good works. Because you have taken hold of Christ by faith, through whom you are righteous, you should now go and love God and your neighbor. Call upon God, give thanks to Him, preach Him, praise Him, confess Him. Do good to your neighbor, and serve him; do your duty. These are truly good works, which flow from this faith and joy conceived in the heart because we have the forgiveness of sins freely through Christ.57
The German theologian states the truth pithily: “It is one thing that faith justifies without works [which is the case]; it is another thing that faith exists without works [which is not the case].”58 He carefully explains that faith is alone in justification, yet the faith that alone justifies us is also lively and active, and so works by love:
Therefore faith always justifies and makes alive; and yet it does not remain alone, that is, idle. Not that it does not remain alone on its own level and in its own function, for it always justifies alone. But it is incarnate and becomes man; that is, it neither is nor remains idle or without love … I make a distinction here and say: “The Law is not faith, and yet faith does works. Faith and works are in agreement concretely or compositely, and yet each has and preserves its own nature and proper function.”59
Here is Paul Althaus’ faithful summary of Luther’s teaching:
Christ fulfils the law in relationship to us in a twofold way. First, he fulfils it for us outside of us. Second, he fulfils it in us through his Holy Spirit who enables us to follow Christ. Faith in Christ is thus the only way in which God transforms a sinful man so that he becomes like God. Faith looks only and solely to the Christ for us, toward his righteousness “outside of us”; yet it thereby becomes the presence and the power of Christ in us. One and the same faith in Christ gives both forgiveness of sins and the triumph over sin.60
3. Justification of Believers and Justification of Believers’ Works
Since the justifiers of God are not only justified by Him but also sanctified, they perform good works. Here Luther distinguishes between the justification and acceptance of the believer, and the justification and acceptance of his works, with the former being logically and chronologically prior to the latter.
He repeatedly appeals to Abel in Genesis 4:4:
God does not accept the person on account of his works, but the works on account of the person, and the person before the works. As it is written: “And the Lord had respect” (first) “to Abel” and (afterward) “to his offerings.” (Gen. 4:4.)61
Luther also uses the scriptural illustration of a tree and its fruit, as here in his Theses Concerning Faith and Law (1535):
34. We confess that good works must follow faith, yes, not only must but follow voluntarily, just as a good tree not only must produce good fruits, but does so freely [Matt. 7:18].
35. Just as good fruits do not make the tree good, so good works do not justify the person.
36. But good works come from a person who has already been justified beforehand by faith, just as good fruits come from a tree which is already good beforehand by nature.62
Luther’s biblical insight has two main applications. First, it completely rules out any notion that a sinner can justify himself by his own works or performances. Second, it encourages the believer, who is justified as to his person, to do good works out of gratitude. The God who forgives our sins and pronounces us righteous through faith in Christ is also the One who forgives the sins in believers’ works and even rewards us for the good that we do by the power of His sanctifying grace. This is known as the justified believer’s reward of grace: “we do not deny that God rewards our good works, but it is through His grace that He crowns His gifts” (Belgic Confession 24).
The truth of the justification of the believer before the justification of his works was completely subverted by three groups who rejected the righteousness of God and turned the initiatory sacraments into human works by which people are justified. First, the Wittenberg theologian correctly saw that Judaism turned circumcision into a work. He writes this about the Old Testament initiatory sacrament:
Paul does not call circumcision righteousness; he calls it a sign of righteousness [Rom. 4:11; cf. Gen. 17:11]. For to be justified through works and to do works after being justified are not the same. First the person is righteous. Then he is commanded to be circumcised, not to become righteous through circumcision. When these facts have been carefully considered, they will disclose the error and the godless arrogance of the Jews.63
Second and unsurprisingly, Luther repeatedly critiques the doctrine of baptism in the Church of Rome. Since baptism is the New Testament equivalent of circumcision, it too is the “sign” and “seal” of “the righteousness of … faith,” a righteousness which is received by imputation (Rom. 4:11). Yet Rome turned baptism into a sign and seal of the righteousness of man’s works!
Third and perhaps surprisingly, the German Reformer attacked the Anabaptists on this issue, especially in his Concerning Rebaptism (1528). Paul Althaus presents Luther’s teaching here:
[The Anabaptists] denied the priority of God’s action through the sacrament and made the administration of the sacraments dependent on the condition of faith. Thus baptism was changed from a sign and an assurance of God’s promise to a sign of man’s faith, and consequently lost its significance for salvation … By depending on faith in this way [the Anabaptists] make it a “work.” The Baptists’ practice is thus nothing else than a new work righteousness. They speak about faith, but they actually emphasize human activity and work.64
This is the seriousness of the Anabaptist heresy:
Being baptized for the second time because one rejects infant baptism and the Christian existence and righteousness which it gives as “inadequate,” means that the transition from the righteousness of faith to the righteousness of works has been made. For in all this, the second baptism ends up as the “better righteousness.” Luther sees this as a repetition of the Galatians’ apostasy from the righteousness of faith. “We Germans are and remain true Galatians”; this is the devil’s masterpiece; he could not permit the Germans to “truly recognize Christ through the gospel,” that is, the righteousness of faith. For this reason he sent the Anabaptists.65
4. Justification Before God and Justification Before Men
Another key distinction in the thinking and teaching of Dr. Martin Luther is that between man’s justification before God (coram Deo) and his justification before man (coram hominibus). This is doubly evident from the Reformer’s third disputation concerning Romans 3:28 (1536). First, it is expressly stated in the disputation’s heading: “The one line of reasoning deals with the justification of man in the sight of God, the other in the sight of men, etc.” Second, it is repeatedly set forth in the opening theses:
1. It is clear enough from this passage that the method of justifying man before God must be distinguished from the method of justifying him before men.
2. For Paul expressly contrasts faith and works, for he takes justification in God’s sight away from works and attributes it to faith.
3. If a man is truly justified by works, he has glory before men, but not before God.
4. A man is truly justified by faith in the sight of God, even if he finds only disgrace before man and in his own self.66
Later, as he defends a thesis from this disputation, Dr. Luther uses this valuable distinction to explain Luke 7:36-50 on the believing woman who washed Christ’s feet with her hair:
Christ is there speaking of both kinds of righteousness [i.e., righteousness before God and righteousness before men], first because above all we should know that by faith in Christ our sins are forgiven in the sight of God, and this is called inward righteousness. Next, after the forgiveness of sins, love ought to follow. This love shows all men that we have remission of sins and that we have been pronounced righteous by God, and this is called outward righteousness. This righteousness follows, the former precedes, since the order is a priori … so that he may show by his works that he has faith … For Christ proclaimed both kinds of righteousness, those who are righteous secretly before God in spirit and those who are righteous openly before men. Spiritual justification, then, is twofold in nature. Where justification is between God and man, this is from the efficient cause. The other is corporal and outward, which takes place between man and man; this is from the effect. Before God, faith is necessary, not works. Before men works and love are necessary, which reveal us to be righteous in our own eyes and before the world … [this] becomes apparent in this woman, who would not have poured out her tears if she had not placed her trust in Christ [Luke 7:50].67
Luther states and applies this crucial distinction to James 2:
Insist on it, then, that inwardly, in the spirit, before God, man is justified through faith alone, without all works, but outwardly and publicly, before the people and himself, he is justified through works, that is, he thereby becomes known and certain himself that he honestly believes and is pious. Therefore you may call the one a public justification, the other an inward justification, but in this sense that the public justification is only a fruit, a result, and a proof of the justification in the heart. Accordingly, man is not justified by it before God but must previously be justified before Him. Just so you may call the fruits of the tree the obvious goodness of the tree, which follows and proves its inner, natural goodness. This is what St. James means in his Epistle when he says (2:26): “Faith without works is dead,” that is, the fact that works do not follow is a certain sign that there is no faith, but a dead thought and dream, which people falsely call faith.68
The preceding could be summed up in these three statements:
- Man is not justified before God on the basis of his works (Ps. 143:2; Rom. 3:20; 4:2; Gal. 3:13).
- Man is justified before God by faith alone (Rom. 4:16-17).
- The man who is justified before God by faith alone is then justified before his fellow men by works alone (Luke 7:36-50; James 2:14-26).
Let us return to James 2:14-26 to summarize its teaching in the light of man’s justification before God and his justification before man:
James 2 quotes the locus classicus for justification before God by faith not works: “Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness” (v. 23; cf. Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:3; Gal. 3:6).
James 2 states twice the principle that justification before one’s fellow men is by works not faith:
- “Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works” (v. 18).
- “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified [before man], and not by faith only [as is the case with justification before God]” (v. 24).
James 2 gives two historical instances of justification before one’s fellow men by works not faith:
- “Was not Abraham our father justified [before man] by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?” (v. 21).
- “Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified [before man] by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?” (v. 25).
Believers are not justified before God by their good works; rather their works are evidence and proof that they have already been justified before God. Luther’s writings abound with assertions like these two: “[works] show evidence that we are righteous and that there is faith in a man which saves inwardly;” “works are necessary in order to prove that we are righteous.”69 The believer’s good works are the basis of his justification before men, because others thereby recognize him as righteous.
Two additional points arise from all this. First, not only in man’s justification before God but also in his justification before man, justification is a proclamation or declaration. Since people declare or proclaim Abraham and Rahab righteous (James 2:21, 25), for example, we have supporting evidence that “the righteousness of God” is a declaratory or legal righteousness. Second, this distinction between man’s justification before God and his justification before man presupposes the inseparable connection between justification and sanctification, and that, therefore, believers perform good works which are visible to man, we saw earlier.
In fact, all our four distinctions involving justification are closely related. By believing the words of the gospel, we justify God, who thus justifies and sanctifies us by grace alone. The God who justifies us also justifies the works which are the fruit of our sanctification. On the basis of our good works, men justify those who are justified before God by faith alone in Christ alone.
D. Four Other Aspects of Justification
Next we shall consider another four points. So far we have examined four characteristics of God’s saving righteousness (faith righteousness, legal righteousness, alien righteousness and imputed righteousness) and four key distinctions involving justification. Now we turn to four other elements in the teaching of Luther and the Reformation that help us grasp the great truth of the righteousness of God.
1. Simul Iustus et Peccator
The German Reformer coined a helpful and enduring Latin theological phrase simul iustus et peccator (at once righteous and a sinner). Richard Muller describes this as
Luther’s characterization of the believer [who is] justified by grace through faith. Since faith, not works, is the ground of our justification, and since justification is not an infusion of righteousness that makes a sinner righteous in and of himself, the sinner is both righteous in God’s sight because of Christ and a sinner as measured according to his own merits.70
Simul iustus et peccator presents in pointed form the truth of such Scriptures as Romans 4:5: “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” In himself, the Christian is “ungodly,” through his original and actual sins. In Christ, the believer is justified or pronounced righteous because of the righteousness of God “counted” or imputed to him through faith alone. Thus simul iustus et peccator (at the same time righteous and a sinner) is both a pithy and a profound doctrinal truth.
We can go deeper into the doctrinal basis for this Reformation slogan. On the one hand, with respect to the alien righteousness of Christ imputed to us through faith alone, we are 100% righteous. Iustus! On the other hand, with respect to the alien unrighteousness of Adam imputed to us through conception and birth, we are 100% unrighteous. Our own proper unrighteousness consists both in our original sin in Adam and our actual sins. Though we have been definitively sanctified and are being progressively sanctified, we are far from entirely sanctified in this life. Peccator! Putting both together: Simul iustus et peccator!
The Disputation Concerning Justification (1536) is just one of the many places where Dr. Luther presents the simul iustus et peccator:
23. For we perceive that a man who is justified is not yet a righteous man, but is in the very movement or journey toward righteousness.
24. Therefore, whoever is justified is still a sinner; and yet he is considered fully and perfectly righteous by God who pardons and is merciful.71
This was a massive offence to the Romish theologians because they refused to admit the truth of imputed righteousness. They saw justification as God’s infusing His righteousness into believers and then declaring them righteous on the basis of what He had imperfectly made them to be. Thus Luther went on to say in The Disputation Concerning Justification,
The adversaries do not want to admit this. Therefore they laugh when we say that faith justifies and yet sin remains. For they do not believe that incredible magnitude of God’s power and mercy beyond all mercy. He who is righteous is willing to concede this, but he who is not righteous wants to consider himself righteous. This imputation is not something of no consequence, but is greater than the whole world and all the holy angels.72
Though phrased in Latin and a deep theological concept, the simul iustus et peccator provides great help for the vexed conscience of the child of God. Let us consider this in terms of the doctrinal truths of the opening eight chapters in Paul’s letter to the Romans. The believer experiences the fierce internal struggles of Romans 7:14-25. He feels in himself the total depravity described in detail in Romans 1:18-3:20. What is he to conclude from this? That he does not have true faith and that he is not really saved after all? That he is not one who has received God’s declaration of righteousness as described in Romans 3:21-5:21? No! Simul iustus et peccator! Romans 7:14-25 is the battle within the perfectly justified (Rom. 3:21-5:21) but imperfectly sanctified believer (Rom. 6:1-8:39). In this biblical confidence, the child of God has peace.
2. Justification Leads to Christian Liberty
Following especially his beloved epistle to the Galatians, Luther promoted true Christian liberty and freedom of conscience, grounding both in one’s gracious, legal standing (justification) before God:
Paul found in the words “children of the free woman and of the slave” [Gal. 4:30-31] a wonderful opportunity to argue in support of the doctrine of justification. And he deliberately took hold of this word “free” and urged and developed it also in what follows. From it he took the occasion to discuss Christian liberty, the knowledge of which is extremely necessary. For the pope has completely destroyed it and has subjected the church to a miserable and bitter slavery by means of human traditions and ceremonies. The liberty that has been granted to us through Christ is today our chief defense against the tyranny of the pope. Therefore the doctrine of Christian liberty must be carefully considered, both to support the doctrine of justification and to encourage and comfort our consciences against the many disturbances and offenses which, as our opponents claim, have arisen from the Gospel. Now Christian liberty is a completely spiritual matter. The unspiritual man does not understand it (1 Cor. 2:14). In fact, even those who have the first fruits of the Spirit (Rom. 8:23) and who can discourse about it at great length have difficulty keeping it in their hearts. To reason it appears to be a matter of little importance. Therefore unless the Spirit magnifies it and adds weight to it, it will be despised.73
Christian liberty is freedom from the crippling terror of the avenging God, death and hell, Satan and the world, tyrannical ecclesiastical dominion and legalism. Christian liberty is the freedom to love and serve God willingly and gladly, and to keep His commandments out of gratitude.
Where Christian freedom and true liberty of conscience are not rightly enjoyed, there is a weakness in the church’s teaching and/or in the believer’s appropriation of the truth of justification and grasp of the inspired epistle to the Galatians.74 Clearly, the gospel of Christ proclaimed by Paul and Luther is not being preached and/or appropriated as it should be.
The enemy of legalism attacks both justification and sanctification. It may subtly enter the heart of a church member or a family or a part of the congregation or the pulpit. Legalism involves the terribly destructive idea that we may have to earn some righteousness before God in order to be justified after all. Legalism also includes bondage to ecclesiastical or man-made rules, instead of obedience to the glorious God out of thankfulness for the imputed righteousness of Christ.
3. Justification Is Paradoxical
By stating that justification is paradoxical, we mean merely that it is only seemingly contradictory and not that it is truly at odds with reality. To carnal man with his unbelieving reason, philosophy and theology of glory, God’s gospel appears absurd. Because of the world, the flesh and the devil, even believers stagger at it, especially in times of fierce temptation.
Probably out of all the theologians and preachers in the history of the Christian church, Martin Luther gloried most in the paradoxical nature of justification, so far was he from being ashamed of it. Here are some theses that he drafted concerning the paradox of the simul iustus et peccator (at once righteous and a sinner):
5. This is a mystery of God, who exalts his saints, because it is not only impossible to comprehend for the godless, but marvelous and hard to believe even for the pious themselves.
6. For human nature, corrupt and blinded by the blemish of original sin, is not able to imagine or conceive of any justification above and beyond works.
7. Hence that battle of the hypocrites against the believers about justification which must be decided by the judgment of no one but God alone.75
Besides the simul iustus et peccator, all the main points in this article on the biblical and Reformation doctrine of justification run contrary to man’s deeply ingrained thinking about humanity, righteousness and God. Surely a man becomes righteous by works and not merely by believing? How can anyone be justified by a righteousness that is alien and not one’s own? How can the righteousness of someone else be imputed to my account? If we are justified by faith without works, why should we perform good works (cf. Heidelberg Catechism, Q. & A. 86)? Surely Christian liberty only leads to license (cf. Heidelberg Catechism, Q. & A. 64)?
Furthermore, if original sin is beyond men’s ken, how much more the cure for original sin in a crucified Saviour? Can Scripture’s teaching that unbelief in Him is a mortal sin really be true (John 3:18, 36; 16:9)? Thus in another series of theses, Luther notes that the whole gospel of grace is paradoxical to fallen, finite man:
5. Root sin, deadly and truly mortal, is unknown to men in the whole wide world.
6. How much less could they know of the remedy for sin, since they did not know sin, the disease.
7. Not one of all men could think that it was a sin of the world not to believe in Christ Jesus the Crucified.76
Alister McGrath observes that justifying righteousness, “according to Luther,” is, first, “a righteousness which is revealed in the cross of Christ” and, second, “a righteousness which contradicts human preconceptions.” McGrath explains both these concepts and how they fit with Luther’s paradoxical theology of the cross:
For Luther, the “righteousness of God” is revealed exclusively in the cross, contradicting human preconceptions and expectations of the form that revelation should take. This insight is essentially methodological, as the autobiographical fragment [quoted at the very start of this article] indicates, and is capable of being extended to all the remaining divine attributes – such as the “glory of God,” the “wisdom of God,” and the “strength of God.” All are revealed in the cross, and all are revealed sub contrariis, contradicting human expectations. It is this understanding of the nature of the revelation of the divine attributes which underlies Luther’s theologia crucis, and which distinguishes the “theologian of glory” from the “theologian of the cross.”77
Paul Althaus elaborates on God’s revelation sub contrariis:
Luther emphasizes that God makes what he makes under the veil or form of its opposite, and therefore also out of its opposite. He creates life under the form of death, yes, by way of death. When he intends to exalt a man, he first humbles him … The fact that he deals in such a paradoxical way and hides his work under its opposite is also God’s “nature.” “You exalt us when you humble us. You make us righteous when you make us sinners. You lead us to heaven when you cast us into hell” … Luther expressly includes justification as part of God’s paradoxical creative activity. The justification of the godless appears as a special example of God’s way of doing things.78
4. Justification Means That God Is God
For Martin Luther especially, justification means that God is God! Paul Althaus has a superb presentation of the German Reformer’s theocentric perspective on justification, which includes the following:
Whoever wishes to be righteous before God through his ethical achievement assumes the place of the creator. Creating righteousness, destroying sin, and giving life—these are all the work of the creator alone [cf. Rom. 4:17] … The desire to become righteous through one’s own works is the equivalent of reversing the biblical word and preaching, “It is not God who made us but we ourselves” [contra Ps. 100:3]—both are equally blasphemous. Luther’s criticism of moralism is therefore characterised by its theocentricity. Its standard is the fact that God is really God. Moralism is regarded as idolatry and blasphemy. “Work righteousness is actually and essentially idolatry” … This is the way in which Luther understood Psalm 130:4: “‘There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared,’ that is, that you may remain God.” This verse of the Psalm constantly made Luther aware of the theocentric meaning of justification. This verse was his decisive scriptural basis. Ethical pride indicates the loss of the fear of God and hence also the denial that God is God.79
Besides these two verses from the Psalms (100:3; 130:4), Romans 4 stresses the theocentricity of justification in especially two texts. Verse 5 honours God as “him that justifieth the ungodly,” and verse 17 identifies the God of justification as the quickening God and the calling God. Abraham was justified by faith alone in God’s promise through grace alone (v. 16) as he stood “before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were” (v. 17). This is true for all Abraham’s spiritual seed, both Jews and Gentiles, for he “is the father of us all”—all who trust in Jesus (v. 16).
Thus justification by faith alone is to the glory of God alone. Sola fide leads to soli Deo gloria, as Scripture and Reformation theology have always proclaimed!
E. The Significance of the Righteousness of God
It only remains to stress three aspects of the importance of God’s saving righteousness, both practically and ecclesiastically. We shall consider in turn its significance for Luther personally, for his reformatory labours and for reformation generally.
1. Significance for Luther Personally
First, the truth of the righteousness of God meant salvation for the German monk. He would not have to endure endless, divine punishment for, through the gospel, he had been delivered from guilt and hell. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1)! Luther knew the blessedness of David in Psalm 32 and Paul in Romans 4, the blessedness of all who believe the gospel that God preached to father Abraham (Gal. 3:8-9, 14). As the former papist put it in his famous testimony, through believing and receiving the righteousness of God, he felt that he “had entered paradise itself through open doors.”
Second, Martin Luther was assured by the Holy Spirit of his salvation. The answer to the old questions—Have I done enough? Are my works good enough? Have I now rendered sufficient satisfaction to the Almighty for my sins?—was found in the gospel of the righteousness of God. Luther, the Reformers and all true believers were and are justified by faith alone, not only in the divine or heavenly forum but also in the forum of their consciousness (in foro conscientiae).
Commenting on Galatians 4:6, this great sixteenth-century preacher of God’s grace declared,
Let us thank God, therefore, that we have been delivered from this monster of uncertainty … The Gospel commands us to look, not at our own good deeds or perfection but at God Himself as He promises, and at Christ Himself, the Mediator. By contrast the pope commands us to look, not at God as He promises, not at Christ our High Priest, but at our own works and merits. From the latter course, doubt and despair necessarily follow; but from the former, certainty and the joy of the Spirit. For I am clinging to God, who cannot lie. He says: “I am giving My own Son into death, so that by His blood He might redeem you from sin and death.” Here I cannot have any doubts, unless I want to deny God altogether. And this is the reason why our theology is certain: it snatches us away from ourselves and places us outside ourselves, so that we do not depend on our own strength, conscience, experience, person, or works but depend on that which is outside ourselves, that is, on the promise and truth of God, which cannot deceive. The pope does not know this; therefore he and his furies have the wicked notion that no one, not even those who are righteous and wise, can know whether he is worthy of love. But if they are righteous and wise, they surely know that they are loved by God; otherwise they are not righteous and wise.80
Third, the truth of “the righteousness of God” not only opened “the gate to paradise” to Martin Luther; it also opened the Word of God to him. Knowing the blessedness of God’s saving righteousness, he also knew the joy of a clear understanding of the divinely inspired oracles: “a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me.” This made him a superb expositor, lecturer, preacher and theologian of the Word of God.81
For Luther, the Holy Bible can only be truly understood by those who know themselves to be wicked sinners who have received the righteousness of God by faith alone. This is the case because of the content of Scripture:
The entire Bible has two principal thoughts. The first: Human nature is in its entirety damned and ruined by sin, nor can it come out of this calamity and death by its own powers and efforts; the second: God alone is just and out of mercy destroys sin and justifies.82
Fourth, the gospel of gracious justification was crucial in his theology, and central in his doctrinal perspective and task. Preaching on John 6:37, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,” Dr. Luther declared,
We perceive clearly from this text how St. John stresses the great and chief article of our Christian faith above all others, namely, faith in Christ. It is from this article that we derive the name “Christians.” John’s Gospel contains but few references to the Ten Commandments. This is his chief task, to implant and imprint this sublime article of the righteousness of faith into man’s heart. Wherever it remains pure, unadulterated, and firmly upheld, all is well; but where it falls, we are all lost. Then we are no better than the Jews, pagans, Tartars, and Turks; yes, then we are even as bad as the papists. Therefore the evangelist John is to be commended highly for treating this doctrine with such diligence.
Thus Luther saw that everyone needed to hear the gospel truth of God’s saving righteousness: his university students and faculty, the people of Wittenberg and Saxony, the Germans, other Europeans and, indeed, men, women and children all around the world.
2. Significance for Luther’s Reformatory Labours
Now we come to the massive importance of the righteousness of God in justification in Luther’s reformatory labours. We begin with indulgences, the issue that precipitated the Reformation over 500 years ago. Some years after the posting of his Ninety-Five Theses (1517), the German Reformer thundered,
All heretics have continually failed in this one point, that they do not rightly understand or know the article of justification. If we had not this article certain and clear, it were impossible we could criticise the Pope’s false doctrine of indulgences and other abominable errors, much less be able to overcome greater spiritual errors and vexations.83
Second, since indulgences are intrinsically connected to penance, and penance was, and is, one of Rome’s seven sacraments, the gospel of God’s saving righteousness meant a reform of sacramental theology. This was necessary not only because Rome’s sacramental theology is false but also because its sacraments are a substitute for the true gospel of justification.84
This leads us to a third issue: the church. Rome taught that the church is primarily institutional, that organization with the pope as its head which, it foolishly claims, can never apostatize. Luther came to understand that the true church is the body that believes the good news of God’s saving righteousness in Jesus Christ alone. The Wittenberg theologian proclaimed that the church was recognised by two central marks: the preaching of the gospel of justification by faith alone, and the sacraments that signify and seal this gospel.85
Moreover, Luther frequently and forcefully warned that a church’s apostasy from the gospel of the righteousness of God is not only possible but, especially over a longer period of time, probable (cf. II Tim. 4:1-4), because of the radical sinfulness and deceitfulness of fallen man, who instinctively, wickedly and self-destructively seeks justification by works, as did the Jews (Rom. 9:30-10:5). His dire predictions have been fulfilled in most of Lutheranism, his native Germany and, indeed, Protestantism.
The alien righteousness of Christ alone graciously imputed to us only through faith is such an altogether spiritual and heavenly doctrine that it is the radical exposure, denial and repudiation of all of puny man’s reason, wisdom, works and virtues. Dr. Luther explains, “Justification is hard to hold (lubrica est), not indeed in itself—for in itself it is most sure and certain—but so far as our relation to it is concerned.”86 Therefore, it is no wonder that
Luther admonishes his pupils in the introduction to a [1537] disputation: We cannot emphatically and often enough sharpen our thinking on this doctrine. We must devote ourselves to it with the greatest theological diligence and seriousness. For neither reason nor Satan is so opposed to anything else as they are to this. No other article of faith is so threatened by the danger of false teaching.87
Fourth, what about the papacy? As he grasped the ramifications of the righteousness of God, Luther came to realize that the pope was not ignorant of the “abuses” of indulgences, nor was he merely a badly advised leader. Rather the papacy is the Antichrist because it (and its hierarchy), worse than all the other false teachers and movements, most fiercely denied, hated and cursed the gospel of God’s free justification in Christ. The Wittenberg theologian declared,
One antichrist fights against the person of Christ, another against the humanity, a third against the divinity of Christ. These are antichrists in part, as are the enthusiasts (Schwärmer) [or Anabaptists]. Another is against the entire Christ, and he is the head of all, as is the papacy. For the head of Christian doctrine is that Christ is our Righteousness. He who attacks this article robs us of the entire Christ and is the true Antichrist, while the others offer him assistance.88
Rome was, and is, a false church, since it repudiated and repudiates the article of a standing or a falling church.89
3. Significance for Reformation
The truth of God’s saving righteousness was the platform for the Reformation. What a mighty doctrine for smashing the imposing, but false, Church of Rome, and building up the grand edifice of the Lord’s true church!
The significance of this cardinal article is well stated by Paul Althaus:
The doctrine of justification is not simply one doctrine among others but—as Luther declares—the basic and chief article of faith with which the church stands or falls, and on which its entire doctrine depends. The doctrine of justification is “the summary of Christian doctrine,” “the sun which illuminates God’s holy church.” It is the unique possession of Christianity and “distinguishes our religion from all others.” The doctrine of justification preserves the church. If we lose this doctrine, we also lose Christ and the church; for then no Christian understanding remains. What is at stake in this doctrine is the decisive question as to how man can continue to stand before God.90
The alien righteousness of Christ imputed by faith alone is the legal basis for God the Judge’s declaration that we are innocent and just before Him. This leads to Christian liberty and the simul iustus et peccator: our state before God is that of righteousness yet our condition in this life is that of sinner. The truth of God’s saving righteousness is profoundly paradoxical and deeply doxological.
All of this is further clarified by various distinctions arising from the Word of God. First, who justifies whom? Does God justify the believer or does the believer justify God or both? Second, what sort of righteousness does a text of Scripture speak of? Justifying righteousness or sanctifying righteousness? Third, who or what is justified? The believer or his works or both? Fourth, before whom is the believer justified? God or man or both?
The biblical and Reformation doctrine of God’s saving righteousness involved a radically biblical view of the gospel and, hence, of theology. Justification by faith alone was rightly understood within the biblical and Augustinian framework of God’s sovereign grace, and made central in the theological task.91 A. Skevington Wood is correct:
Luther coordinated theology in a creative fashion by seizing on the biblical fulcrum of justification by faith and using it to move the entire structure of belief into a new position. Whereas others have systematized the doctrines of the Word by arranging them in logical sequence with impressive cohesion, Luther did so by using a single though crucial article to interpret the whole.92
Along with justification’s transformation of theology came the new ethic which flowed from it. In the very first paragraph of his fine treatise on Luther’s ethics, Paul Althaus maintains, without exaggeration,
Luther’s ethics is determined in its entirety, in its starting point and all its main features, by the heart and center of his theology, namely, by the justification of the sinner through the grace that is shown in Jesus Christ and received through faith alone. Justification by faith determines Christian ethics because, for the Christian, justification is both the presupposition and the source of the ethical life.93
The rediscovery of the gospel of justification by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone according to Scripture alone, and the massive reorientation of theology and ethics that this caused, led to an outburst of new ecclesiastical confessions.94 It also brought massive improvements in preaching and the theological training of ministers, as well as new understandings of the office of believer, work, marriage, the family and much more.95
Post tenebras lux (after darkness light)! With the rediscovery of justification by faith alone, a new age, so to speak, in the New Testament church dawned over 500 years ago. We are blessed to enjoy this light, to walk in this light and to spread this light. The gospel of “the righteousness of God” or justification by faith alone is our personal comfort and our platform for Reformation too!96
