A Church History Tour on Justification

By: Dave Jenkins

Series: Sola Fide: The Heart of the Gospel: Why Faith Alone Still Matters in a Confused Age

The question, “How can a sinner be right with God?” has echoed through every age of the Church. It is not a question of mere curiosity it is the question upon which every soul’s eternity hangs. From the Apostles to the Reformers and beyond, the Church’s health has always depended on how clearly it answers that question. When justification by faith alone is understood and proclaimed, the gospel flourishes. When it is obscured or denied, darkness spreads. This tour through church history will show that justification has always been at the heart of the gospel and that every generation must guard, teach, and rejoice in it anew.

The Apostolic Era: The Foundation Laid

The doctrine of justification begins not with Augustine or Luther, but with Scripture itself. Paul’s letters to the Romans and Galatians form the foundation for all later reflection. In Romans 3–5, Paul teaches that sinners are justified—declared righteous—through faith in Jesus Christ, apart from works of the law. In Galatians, he defends this gospel against those who tried to mix faith and works, warning that to add anything to Christ’s finished work is to preach “another gospel” (Galatians 1:6–9).

The Early Church inherited this apostolic gospel. The Book of Acts records that salvation was proclaimed “through the forgiveness of sins” and “by faith in His name” (Acts 10:43; 13:39). From the beginning, the Church confessed that righteousness before God was a gift received by faith, not a reward earned by works.

The Early Church Fathers: Seeds of Clarity and Confusion

In the centuries after the Apostles, the Early Church defended the deity of Christ, the Trinity, and the Incarnation truths essential to justification. Yet on the doctrine itself, the picture is mixed. Writers like Clement of Rome (A.D. 96) and Ignatius of Antioch (A.D. 110) echoed Paul’s emphasis on grace, warning against self-righteousness. Justin Martyr spoke of believers being “reckoned righteous by faith.” Irenaeus and Athanasius highlighted Christ’s substitutionary work as the basis of salvation.

However, by the third and fourth centuries, moralism began to creep in. Origen and others spoke of justification as both forgiveness and transformation, blending the categories of justification and sanctification. The seeds of confusion were sown: was righteousness imputed (credited) or infused (implanted)?

The decisive moment came with the Bishop of Hippo, named Augustine (A.D. 354–430). Augustine rightly insisted that salvation is by grace, opposing the Pelagian idea that human effort could earn salvation. He stood as a champion of sovereign grace against Pelagianism. Yet Augustine understood justification primarily as God making the believer righteous through grace. The Reformers later recovered the clearer biblical teaching that justification is God declaring sinners righteous through faith alone, on the basis of the imputed righteousness of Christ.

The Medieval Church: From Grace to Merit

As centuries passed, the Church increasingly confused justification (God’s legal declaration) with sanctification (God’s work of growth and change into the likeness of Christ). The sacramental system grew, and with it, the idea that grace was dispensed through the Church rather than received directly through faith.

By the 12th and 13th centuries, theologians like Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas taught that justification involved both the infusion of grace and cooperation with it. Faith was necessary but not sufficient, so one had to add acts of love and penance to complete justification. Salvation was viewed in that system as a process of becoming righteous through participation in the sacraments. Grace began the journey in this vein, but human merit completed it. The result was the line between faith and works was blurred almost entirely. A vast penitential system also was developed: indulgences, purgatory, and the treasury of merits. The gospel of free grace was buried under rituals, fear, and uncertainty.

By the dawn of the 16th century, the Church’s official teaching, enshrined later in the Council of Trent (1547), explicitly denied that justification is by faith alone. Rome taught that righteousness is infused into believers through baptism, increased through good works, and can be lost by mortal sin. It was into this world that the Reformers spoke, and the sound of grace thundered once again.

The Reformation: The Gospel Recovered

The Reformation was not about personal rebellion or political reform; it was about the gospel. Luther’s famous phrase, “the article by which the church stands or falls,” referred to this doctrine: justification by faith alone.

Martin Luther (1483–1546)

As a young monk, Luther was haunted by the question, “How can I find a gracious God?” Despite rigorous fasting and confession, he found no peace until studying Romans 1:17: “The righteous shall live by faith.” In that moment, Luther later wrote, “I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.” He realized that justification is not God making us righteous through works, but God declaring us righteous through faith in Christ’s righteousness alone. Luther’s 95 Theses (1517) and his subsequent writings challenged indulgences and the entire sacramental system that turned grace into commerce. His teaching on Sola fide lit the fire of the Reformation.

John Calvin (1509–1564)

Calvin systematized this recovered gospel. In his book, Institutes of the Christian Religion, he wrote, “We are said to be justified by faith when, excluded from all works, we by faith lay hold of the righteousness of Christ.” Calvin emphasized the double grace (duplex gratia) of justification and sanctification: distinct yet inseparable gifts received in union with Christ. His clear distinction between the two preserved assurance while promoting holiness.

The Reformed Confessions

For the Reformers, justification by faith alone meant that salvation rests wholly on the finished work of Christ. Faith receives what Christ has accomplished; it contributes nothing. The Reformers codified their faith in the great confessions:

• The Augsburg Confession (1530) declared, “Men are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor.”
• The Belgic Confession (1561) insisted that “faith is only the instrument by which we embrace Christ.”
• The Heidelberg Catechism (1563) beautifully summarized: “Even though my conscience accuses me… yet God grants and imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, if only I accept such benefit with a believing heart.”
• The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) affirmed: “Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification; yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love.”

The Post-Reformation Era: Consolidation and Challenge

After the 17th century, the Reformed orthodox theologians—men like Francis Turretin, John Owen, and Hermann Witsius—clarified and defended the doctrine against subtle errors. They distinguished sharply between justification (a once-for-all declaration) and sanctification (a lifelong process). Their writings solidified the Reformation consensus: righteousness is imputed, not infused; justification is received by faith alone, not by faith plus works; assurance is grounded in Christ’s finished work, not human performance.

Yet new challenges arose. The Enlightenment (18th century) shifted focus from divine revelation to human reason. The gospel of grace was replaced by moral improvement. In the 19th century, liberal theology reduced faith to religious feeling and justification to inner transformation. Despite these distortions, evangelical leaders like Charles Spurgeon and J.C. Ryle held fast to the Reformation gospel. Ryle wrote, “Justification is the very hinge and turning point on which the whole matter of salvation turns.”

The Modern Church: Renewal and Retreat

In the 20th century, new debates erupted over justification. The Roman Catholic Church, reaffirming Trent at Vatican II (1962–65), maintained its teaching that justification involves both faith and works. Ecumenical dialogues have sought common ground, but fundamental differences remain: the Reformer’s said justification is by faith alone; Rome still says justification is by faith formed by love—faith plus charity as the basis for acceptance.

Meanwhile, within Protestantism, the “New Perspective on Paul” (championed by E.P. Sanders, James Dunn, and N.T. Wright) redefined justification as God’s declaration of covenant membership rather than acquittal from guilt. This approach downplays sin’s legal problem and shifts justification from the courtroom of God to the community of believers.

In response, Reformed scholars such as John Piper, R.C. Sproul, and Michael Horton have reasserted the classical view. The biblical and confessional doctrine still stands: justification is God’s once-for-all declaration that sinners are righteous in His sight solely because of Christ’s righteousness imputed to them and received by faith alone.

Why the Reformation Still Matters

Five centuries later, some ask whether these distinctions still matter. Isn’t it enough to “love Jesus” and do good? But the Reformers’ cry of “Sola fide!” is as urgent as ever. Every generation faces the temptation to smuggle works into grace. Whether it’s through moral performance, social activism, or spiritual experience, we are prone to base our standing before God on what we do rather than on what Christ has done.

Justification by faith alone guards the gospel’s integrity, fuels assurance, and glorifies Christ. It is not a relic of theological controversy; it is the lifeline of Christian hope. When believers grasp that God justifies the ungodly (Romans 4:5), confidence replaces fear, joy replaces striving, and worship replaces worry. As the hymn says:

“Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling.”

The Ongoing Reformation of the Heart

The doctrine of justification is not only the story of Church history, it is the story of every believer’s heart. Each of us must rediscover, day by day, that we stand before God, not because of our obedience, our feelings, or our faithfulness, but because of Christ’s obedience, His finished work, and His faithfulness to us.

The Church must never outgrow this gospel. The same grace that saved Augustine, awakened Luther, and ignited the Reformation still saves today. The Reformation slogan, Semper Reformanda (“always reforming”), means continually returning to Scripture’s center: the righteousness of God revealed by faith in Christ alone.

Conclusion

The doctrine of justification is the story of grace preserved. From the Apostles to the Reformers, from Paul’s letters to modern pulpits, the truth remains: God justifies the ungodly through faith in Christ alone.

History teaches us that whenever the Church loses this truth, the gospel dims. But whenever the Church recovers it, revival follows. The question that drove Luther still confronts every generation: “How can a sinner be right with God?” The answer has not changed: by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.