I will say more about the universal nature of faith later. But in the meantime, let’s point out the corollary of this mistaken idea of “total inability.” If we say that sinners are themselves responsible to believe in Jesus (as we saw in Jn. 3:14-18 and our survey above) and therefore are able to believe in Jesus (as implied/taught throughout Paul’s writings and stated in Jn. 20:30-31), then the Calvinist concludes that such a view has the sinner adding “a work” to their salvation or “meriting” their salvation. If faith is viewed as the responsibility of the sinner, the Calvinist maintains that this amounts to “a work” the sinner performs by which they are contributing to their salvation. They would be adding something of their own “merit” to their salvation. The sinner could therefore boast in themselves regarding their salvation. Salvation would not be “all of God” or “all of grace.”
All this, of course, is a gross misunderstanding of the nature of man, sin, and faith. These Calvinist teachings are rooted in their theistic determinism supported by a misinterpretation of Ephesians 2:8 and 9. (I will deal with this passage later.) According to the Calvinist, because all things are predetermined by God and man is totally unable to do anything like believe in God or Jesus, faith must be a “gift” God gives only to his elect. Those God has chosen to save experience faith as part of their unconditional election. God causes them to believe. These mistaken doctrines (i.e., universal divine causal determinism and “total inability”) drive the Calvinist to the false conclusion that faith is impossible as the responsibility of the sinner’s own will or decision. I have argued above and will argue again that this is not what the Bible presents or teaches about faith. Faith in Scripture is the personal and willing response the sinner is called upon to give to the “good news” of their salvation. Furthermore, those who do believe are commended for their faith, and, as we already saw above, those who refuse to believe are held culpable for their unbelief. More on this later too.
Interestingly, Calvinist J. I. Packer corrects the misunderstanding of his fellow Calvinists on this point by making a distinction between faith as “the means whereby righteousness is received and justification bestowed,” and “the ground of justification.” He states,
“Faith in Christ, says Paul, is the means whereby righteousness is received and justification bestowed. Sinners are justified ‘by’ or ‘through’ faith…Paul does not regard faith as the ground of justification. If it were, it would be a meritorious work, and Paul would not be able to term the believer, as such, ‘one who does not work’ (Rom. 4:5); nor could he go on to say that salvation by faith rests on grace (v. 16), for grace absolutely excludes works (Rom. 11:6).” 1
What Packer rightly points out is that faith is not the “ground” of justification. The ground of justification is the death of Christ on the cross. The ground of justification is Christ’s death and resurrection (Rom. 4 and 5). Therefore, justification, or salvation, has already been accomplished for all sinners. So why are not all sinners saved? Because faith, not being the ground of justification, is therefore the only condition upon which the sinner appropriates the justification which has already been accomplished for them. It is the means whereby righteousness is received. The sinner is saved by putting their faith in this work of Christ. And if the ground of justification is found only in the work of Christ, then the response of faith in Christ’s work alone is not the sinner’s “work” nor “meritorious,” as Packer indicates. Therefore, it certainly seems that God intends that sinners believe in Christ and therefore any sinner can believe.
New Testament scholar Gerald Hawthorne makes the following observations about the use of the words “righteous,” “righteousness,” and “justify” in relation to the nature of faith in Phil. 3:9. In this text Paul writes,
“…and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith.” (CSB)
Hawthorne comments,
“Now when these terms are employed in a religious context, the question naturally arises: “What must a man do if God is to declare that he is in the right and so give judgment in his favor?” (Caird). For the Jew the answer was: “I must obey the Law of Moses!” Paul’s answer, stemming from his new understanding of the OT (cf. Pss 14:1-3; 53:1-3; 143:2), developed now in the light of his Damascus road experience, is that human beings are too sinful ever to able to do enough good to be declared good by God. What is more, God does not ask for good works, but for faith (cf. Gen. 15:6). The trouble with a righteousness based on what a person can do is that it is always self-righteousness (cf. Rom. 10:1-3), providing a basis for self-boasting. Paul’s argument runs thus: “If I try to earn God’s favorable verdict by my own goodness, I am aiming at a righteousness of my own [ἐμὴν δικαιοσύνην], one which is my own achievement and which will give me a claim on God’s recognition. But as long as I am doing this, I disqualify myself from the true righteousness, which is not based on merit [cf. Isa. 61:10]. For faith is not an alternative way of earning God’s favor; faith is the opposite of merit, an admission that I cannot earn God’s approval, but can only accept his free offer of forgiveness, grace and love. And since the offer is made in the life and above all in the death of Christ, true righteousness, the condition of being truly right with God, must come through faith in Christ.”
Faith, therefore, in its strictest sense is not intellectual assent to a series of propositions about Christ, but the act of personal trust in and self-surrender to Christ.” 2
From the human side of our responsibility to God and the revelation of God in Christ, faith is at the heart of this divine-human encounter. Faith is the response of the individual to God’s revelation of himself to mankind and the gracious working of the Spirit of God in the offer of salvation contained in the gospel message. From the divine side, the boundaries for human response are set. The only way of salvation has been accomplished “in Christ,” and the only way to appropriate that salvation has been delineated – “by faith”. And it may be noted here that both aspects have been put forth from “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” from “before the foundation of the world.” God predetermined that salvation would be appropriated by the sinner by faith and that only those who believe “in him” would be saved. That is God’s plan from the beginning of the world. That is the meaning of “he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.” (Eph. 1:4) It is not a random, capricious choosing. It has reference to being “in him.” It refers to those who believe. It is not a plan applicable only to some who have been predestined by God to it while all others are excluded from it for reasons unknown to us. Rather, it is a plan now fully revealed in Christ and the gospel and therefore it is applicable to any and all sinners. Believers are designated as God’s chosen ones that are to be holy and blameless before him; predestined to adoption and an inheritance. (Eph. 1) Before God ever created anything, he designed faith as the way his salvation should be appropriated by sinners. (Eph. 1:15, 19)
We have the following questions for the Calvinist. If Christ’s death and resurrection are the ground of justification and Paul says faith is the means whereby “righteousness is received and justification bestowed,” from what texts does the Calvinist establish their distinction between those God wills to save (the elect) and those he does not will to save (the non-elect)? What prevents a sinner from putting their faith in the work of another – Jesus – for their justification and salvation? Why is it that simply believing in another’s work on your behalf makes your justification meritorious? Why wouldn’t any sinner be able to simply believe in Jesus as their savior, which is what they are told and called to do in the gospel? Their “total inability?” Then what of the scriptures that indicate that faith is the means by which a sinner receives salvation? Where in Scripture does it say that the sinner cannot appropriate salvation by this “means” unless this “means” is predetermined for them and therefore caused by God in them? If it is God himself that bestows faith only on the basis of one’s unconditional election, then what is the purpose of faith or its role in salvation? How does it retain its function as “the means whereby righteousness is received and justification bestowed?”
The non-Calvinist answers these questions just to say that faith is the condition for salvation. Packer presents the matter as if it is the sinner that does the believing and by believing the sinner receives righteousness and justification. And that is as it should be. What then of this talk about faith being meritorious? According to Packer the issue of merit is sidelined by faith being the means and not the ground of justification. Therefore, faith is something the sinner can and must do. Moreover, this talk of faith as the means whereby righteousness is received, and justification bestowed, presumes that faith is not given by God only to a special class of people – the uncondtionally elected. If there is an uncondtionally elected class of people, and only these are granted faith by God himself, the issue of merit would not arise. Only if the sinner themselves is called upon to exercise faith does that issue arise, but it arises only on a misconception of the nature of faith and given the false doctrine of “total inability.” Only when the sinner is made responsible for the belief or unbelief could the idea of “works,” “merit,” or “boasting” arise. But concern about “works,” “merit,” or “boasting” is avoided precisely due to the nature of faith itself. Faith, even though required from the sinner as their genuine free will response, is antithetical to works, merit, or boasting. Faith is precisely this surrender of self, the giving up of oneself and one’s own works or merits, along with any boasting that accompanies such an understanding of salvation. A true understanding of faith is the sinner assenting to rest upon the work and merit of another for their salvation. Faith is the only means by which the sinner appropriates to themselves the benefits of the work of Christ on their behalf, thereby abandoning their own works or merits to receive salvation. Faith is the God ordained means by which the sinner can receive the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection which are the ground of their justification and salvation. If Packer, as a Calvinist, still believes faith must be given by God or else the sinners response must be considered a “work” or “merit” contributing to salvation, then he seriously misunderstands the nature of faith and the true nature of human freedom and responsibility. It should also be pointed out that Packer would be inconsistent in blaming the sinner for their unbelief while holding to total depravity and unconditional election.
Faith, by definition, includes an admission that one cannot merit their salvation. Calvinists are incoherent in this matter. They believe that it is meritorious work to humbly admit that I cannot be saved by my meritorious works. But this is obviously nonsense and imposes upon the concept of faith the Calvinist’s doctrines of “total inability,” “effectual call,” “irresistible grace,” and “unconditional election.” Rather, the biblical view is that God in Christ has effectively accomplished salvation for all sinners, but the “gift” of salvation must be received (Rom. 3:21-30, 5:1-2, 12-21, esp. v. 17). The only way it can be received is by faith. Faith, by its very nature, is the opposite of works. It is the only condition appropriate to a salvation that is “all of God” because instead of a “work” it is a surrendering to the merit of Christ’s work on the sinner’s behalf. Indeed, Paul everywhere contrasts the universality of the new way of faith with the futility of “works” of the law, thus proving that faith cannot in any way be considered a work or meritorious (Gal. 2:15-5:15). Faith is never considered a contribution to one’s salvation or meritorious towards one’s own righteousness in Paul’s thinking. It is the sinner’s response to God and Christ, for “now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 3:21-23, NIV) Theologian William MacDonald writes,
“He who comes to God must come believingly, diligently, and ready to receive the promised “Spirit of grace.” “In spirit” he receives “the Spirit”; through (dia) faith he receives the grace of God. The giving is totally God’s to do, and the receiving in faith is the wisest, most commendable, and most integrative (of one’s whole psyche) act that man ever does. At this point I can hear someone crying, “foul,” by saying, “You are making faith into a meritorious work.” Never. It is a response to God, not something done before God; a “work” must be independent if it is to provide grounds for a man’s own boasting. But the remarkable thing about faith is that while it is no basis for man’s boasting before God, it is the basis for God’s boasting in men! Case in point: the hall of faith in Hebrews eleven, including such suffering men of faith of whom “the world was not worthy.” God is pleased by faith and honors it – even though it is only a response to him. The faith-response is not passive, as though we were only spectators. John glimpsed a beautiful scene in the revelation of Jesus and inquired as to the identity of the white-robed people who surrounded and served the Lamb on the throne of God. The answer underscores the active character of faith: “These are they who…have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” They washed them!”3
This is the biblical testimony to the nature and purpose of faith. Any theology that purports to be biblical must not distort the definition of faith as trust and surrender as well as its nature as a free will response to God’s saving grace in Christ. Faith is not a meritorious contribution to one’s salvation that robs God of glory if not a “gift of God” granted only to a limited number of souls predestined to salvation. The Calvinist fears the introduction of human autonomy in the process of salvation by which man would be able to boast. But a correct understanding of faith precludes boasting. The Calvinist therefore locks up faith within God’s unconditional election of those he chose to save, leaving all others with the inability to believe the “good news” of their salvation. But once we see that God himself has planned faith to be the only appropriate response that is freely given by the one hearing the “good news” of God’s gracious provision of salvation in the gospel message, and that faith is of the nature of surrender, humility, and complete trust in Christ and God, it becomes a sort of pride all its own and the height of human autonomy to teach that faith cannot be had by the sinner unless God causes it on the basis of having predestined them to salvation. Indeed, this is another gospel other than what Paul taught. (See Gal. 1) It is a pharisaical tendency to go beyond biblical truth to teach that salvation is unconditional even with respect to faith. That, in itself, is an exercise in human autonomy that leads to theological distortion and a kind of pride and boasting all its own, that is, that the Calvinist presumes he is among the elect. Calvinism requires a person to presuppose they are among an elect group which God has favored above all others and they are therefore saved. There is a kind of religious pride that even tells God what he cannot do – that is, offer all sinners his salvation on the condition of faith! And anyone who feels like they can boast in their faith, just doesn’t understand faith. I will just mention here the Calvinist’s objection to this non-Calvinist position on faith, that is, the Calvinist claims that only the doctrine of unconditional election can humble the sinner such that he comes to confess that his salvation is “all of God.” I will address this flawed reasoning in the section of Luther and faith below.
In the meantime, it is important to note that the Calvinist’s thinking and interpretation regarding faith is strained because of the universal divine causal determinism that is at the heart of their theology. But, of course, the Scripture never teaches such a comprehensive determinism and therefore presents faith as the responsibility of the sinner, and never as meritorious towards one’s salvation. People are involved in whether they will be saved or not. They are involved in their eternal destiny. They, of course, are not involved in the planning or accomplishment of their salvation. That only comes through Jesus’ death and resurrection. That is the salvation that is the “gift of God” (Eph. 2:8,9). The “gift of God” is not faith or an efficacious grace as we will see below in an examination of Eph. 2:8-9. Rather, Scripture everywhere testifies to the fact that the sinner is involved in the appropriation of salvation to themselves – which is a distinction the Calvinist fails to appreciate. Faith is not grounded in a sinner’s unconditional election to salvation but in the gospel message that tells them about Christ and calls them to faith. And as was made clear above, faith is the God ordained means by which the sinner appropriates to himself the salvation Christ has already wrought on his behalf.
It also important to understand that the Spirit accompanies the gospel message as the presence of God who desires that all persons come to a knowledge of the truth and salvation (1 Tim. 2:3-36). Therefore, the Spirit is involved in the proclamation of the gospel and at work in the hearts of those hearing it with the intention that they believe the message they are hearing. Therefore, the Spirit enables the sinner to respond in faith to the gospel, but the Spirit does not” effectually call” the sinner in either overcoming or altering their will. The Spirit does not produce an “irresistible grace” that occurs only in the elect. The Spirit does not irresistibly cause faith in those God has chosen to save, leaving all others without the hope of salvation. Note that on Calvinism, even though the non-elect are called to faith and salvation through the gospel message, they cannot believe. This is a serious matter. It indicts God in the double-talk of a disingenuousness message in that it proclaims “good news” to the non-elect hearer, yet at the same time it does not apply to them. In contrast, the Spirit’s role is to enable the sinner to respond positively to the gospel message, but he does not act irresistibly upon him. As is evident throughout the Scriptures and in our experience, the sinner may accept or reject that salvation. Any sinner may exercise faith by virtue of their hearing the “good news” of their salvation and the Spirit’s work through that message. But ultimately they must humble themselves (Mt. 18:4, 23:12; Lk. 18:14; Phil. 2:5-8; James 4:6, 10; 1 Pet. 5:6). It is the sinner who must believe. Hence, they may also reject the offer of salvation, and in doing so they are resisting the work of the Spirit that accompanies the message (Acts 7:51). And in that God has provided every inducement to believe, the sin of continual rejection and unbelief only further hardens the person’s heart and magnifies their deserved condemnation.
If faith is the means of receiving salvation and therefore not a work or meritorious, and therefore there is no need for it to be irresistibly granted by God only to the elect, then this shows that the Calvinist doctrines of total inability and unconditional election are false. As far a God is concerned, salvation has one condition that is required of the sinner to acknowledge God’s grace in providing salvation and appropriating to themselves – faith.
1 J. I. Packer, “Justification,” New Bible Dictionary, 3rd. ed., (Downers Grove, InterVarsity, 1996), 639.
2 Gerald F. Hawthorne, Word Biblical Commentary: Philippians (Waco: Word Books, 1983), 141.
3 William G. MacDonald, “The Spirit of Grace” in Grace Unlimited, ed. Clark H. Pinnock (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1975), 89.
The Truth of the Gospel 