Finally, how are the historic doctrinal errors of Arminianism and Antinomianism, so prevalent in the modern church, exposed by a bibli­cal presentation of justification by faith alone?

Arminianism errs in making part of justification's foundation to rest upon faith.¹ By advocating condi­tional predestination and conditional faith unto justification (i.e. that God elects and saves those who believe), Arminian theology is a cruel hoax. John Owen ridicules the Arminian condition of salvation — i.e. faith ­as an impossibility: It is "as if a man should promise a blind man a thou­sand pounds upon condition that he will see." Consequently, Owen styles the Arminian Christ "but a half-me­diator" because He procures the end of salvation but not the means to it.² Charles Spurgeon is more graphic. He compares Arminianism and Calvin­ism to two bridges over a river. The Arminian bridge is wide and easy but does not bring its traveler safely to the opposite shore. It stops short in sight of the shore of eternal communion with God because something is left for the depraved will of the natural man to accomplish — i.e. to exercise faith in Christ by his own strength. The Calvinian bridge is narrow but spans the entire river for Christ Jesus is the alpha and omega of salvation and justification. Arminianism looks promising, but cannot live up to its promises because it depends upon depraved humanity to act; it deceives myriads of souls who think they ac­cept Christ by a simple act of their own will, but do not bow under Christ's lordship. They imagine they possess saving faith while their lives evidence that they remain spiritually dead. Calvinism is promising, how­ever, for it places the entire weight of justification and salvation upon the sufficiency of Christ and the opera­tion of His Spirit who bestows and sustains saving faith.

In the final analysis, if we base our justification on our faith, our works, or anything else of our own, the very foundations of justification must crumble. Inevitably the agonizing, per­plexing, and hopeless questions of hav­ing "enough" would surface: Is my faith strong enough? Are the fruits of grace in my life fruitful enough? Are my experi­ences deep enough, clear enough, per­sistent enough? Every detected inadequacy in my faith is going to shake the very foundations of my spiritual life. My best believing is always defective. I am always too ungodly even in my faith. Apart from Christ, the best of my best is "as filthy rags" (Is. 64:6).

Too many Christians live in constant despondency because they cannot dis­tinguish between the rock on which they stand and the faith by which they stand upon the rock. Faith is not our rock; Christ is our rock. We don't get faith by having faith in our faith or by looking to faith, but by looking to Christ. Looking to Christ is faith.

Nor is it perfect faith, great faith, fruitful faith, strong faith that justifies. If we start qualifying our faith, we de­stroy the gospel. Our faith may be weak, immature, timid, even indis­cernible at times, but if it is real faith it is justifying faith (Mt. 6:30). Our degree of faith affects sanctification and assurance, but not justification. Faith's value in justification does not lie in any degree in itself but in its uniting us to Christ and His glorious achieve­ment. As George Downame illustrates:

A small and weak hand, if it be able to reach up the meat to the mouth, as well performs its duty for the nour­ishment of the body as one of greater strength, because it is not the strength of the hand but the good­ness of the meat which nourishes the body.³

Far too often we are prone to look to the quality of our faith, the quality of our conviction of sin, the quality of our evangelical repentance, the quality of our love for the brethren for confirmation of our justification, forgetting that it is Christ alone who saves by gracious faith alone. As Horatius Bonar states: "It is not the strength of faith, but the perfection of the sacrifice, that saves; and no feebleness of faith, no dimness of eye, no trembling of hand, can change the efficacy of our burnt-offering."⁴

Christ is the solid rock who is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8):

My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus' blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock I stand; All other ground is sinking sand.

We must also firmly reject Anti­nomian or hyper-Calvinistic tendencies which adhere to a justification from eternity that negates the need for actual justification in time by becoming personal partakers of Christ by faith.⁵For example, Abraham Kuyper went be­yond the Synod of Dort in describing justification by faith as merely "be­coming conscious" of the fact that we were already justified by God from eternity and in the resurrection of Christ. Some of our Baptist brethren speak similarly by affirming that the believer is justified in time only with respect to his own conscience by the Spirit's witness. This erroneous view already existed in Puritan times among those with Antinomian ten­dencies, as Thomas Goodwin's apt response to it reveals: "It is vain to say I am justified only in respect to the court of mine own conscience. The faith that Paul and the other apostles were justified by, was their believing on Christ that they might be justified (Gal. 2:15, 16), and not a believing they were justified already."⁶

The view that an actual justifica­tion by faith in time does not exist for the believer faces three additional obstacles: First, it is contrary to Ro­mans 4:6-8 which clearly affirms the imputation of Christ's righteousness in time. Second, time itself would then be a mere parenthesis, for God's people would not be viewed prior to regen­eration as being "children of wrath, even as others" (Eph. 2:3). If justifica­tion by faith does not transfer a sinner from the state of wrath to that of grace, and is merely a recognition of justifi­cation from eternity, all historical rele­vance of justification by faith alone is swept away. Third, if justification by faith is not a personal and historical necessity, the fruits of justification in deadness to sin and aliveness to Christ would likewise be a matter of indifference. One could then ask in all seriousness, "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?" (Rom. 6:2). This Paul strenuously opposes in Romans 6. We have shown that the absence of works is impossible for a true Christian. That faith which justifies is a working faith. "Faith without works is dead" (James 2:21) — yes, dead, not just sick or dying. Saving faith does not exist where it is not accompanied by good works. A fruitless Christian is a misnomer. Where Christ saves, He will also exer­cise His lordship. Contrary to the pri­mary tenet of Antinomianism — the believer may disregard the law alto­gether (anti = against; nomos = law) since he is freed from its demands as a means of salvation — Christ sends the saved believer, who was con­demned by the law prior to being justified by faith, back to the law to live out of gratitude under His lord­ship in obedience to His Word. Luther said that the law was like a stick: "God first used it to beat me, but later I used it to walk with."

As today's Reformed Christians confront various forms of Roman Ca­tholicism, Antinomianism, Arminian-ism, and Modernism, the doctrine of justification by faith alone too often no longer receives its biblical and rightful place. Unfortunately, as Alister McGrath has noted, "The present century has witnessed a growing tendency to relate the doctrine of justification to the ques­tion of the meaning of human existence, rather than the more restricted sphere of man's justification coram Deo [before God]. It is this trend which underlies the existentialist reinterpretation of the doctrine."⁷But when exceptions exist and justification by faith alone is pre­sented in all the freeness of the gospel, are not some bound to say, "This is dan­gerous teaching'? Of course they will and in one sense they are right. Rightly un­derstood and rightly preached, the doc­trine of justification by faith alone exposes the natural enmity of carnal man to the exclusivity and freeness of the gospel. Therefore this doctrine is distorted and wrested to the destruction of souls, both by "can-do" activistic Arminianism on one hand and "won't-do'' passivistic An­tinomianism on the other. Faith is over­emphasized when viewed as a condition of salvation (Arminianism), but under­emphasized when denied as a necessary fruit of salvation (Antinomianism). We are not transferred from the status of death to life by faith as a joint effort with works (Romanists), nor by faith as an act of grace in us (Arminians), nor by faith as it re­ceives the Spirit's witness (Antinomians), nor by faith as it relates to the meaning of human existence (modern existen­tialists), but only by the imputation of Christ's righteousness received by faith.

The precious and momentous doc­trine of justification by faith alone, when biblically preached and rightly balanced, is not a denominational or sectarian peculiarity. It is not a mere species of Christianity. It is the heart of the evangel, the kernel of the glo­rious gospel of the blessed triune God, and the key to the kingdom of heaven. "Justification by faith," John Murray writes, "is the jubilee trumpet of the gospel because it proclaims the gospel to the poor and destitute whose only door of hope is to roll themselves in total helplessness upon the grace and power and righteousness of the Re­deemer of the lost."⁸ In our decadent and desperate day there is a crying need to reestablish and defend, with prayer and hope, in the power of the Spirit, the scriptural proclamation of this doctrine. The relevance and ur­gency of this doctrine relate to the identity of the church, the essence of Christian theology, the proclamation of the gospel, as well as to the scrip­tural-experiential foundations of the Christian faith for every one of us. Not only is justification by faith still, in Luther's words, "the article by which the church stands or falls" (articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae), but by this doctrine each of us shall personally stand or fall before God.⁹ Justification by faith alone must be confessed and experienced by you and me; it is a matter of eternal life or eternal death.