Justification by faith and the Churches of Christ

Churches of Christ often begin their study of the gospel by carefully examining the conversions listed in the book of Acts. Here the assumption is made that if a person will believe in God and be obedient to all of the same commands as the New Testament believers were at salvation, you can be saved as well.

Unfortunately holding such a belief system as cooperating with New Testament commands for salvation puts the Church of Christ member at a great disadvantage when hearing the gospel for the very first time.

For when someone shares with them how we are saved by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, what they hear is that you can be saved by merely believing the facts of the Christian faith.

And being well aware that "even the demons believe" and that just believing the facts of the Christian faith does not save, while correctly rejecting "easy-believe-ism" salvation, they also unfortunately reject the entire doctrine of salvation by personal faith in Jesus Christ.

Thus they embrace a works gospel theology by default and seldom, if ever, come to a biblical understanding of what the doctrine of justification by faith actually teaches.

The doctrine of justification by faith

In contrast to this view, justification by faith begins with an understanding of our own great spiritual need and fallen spiritual condition before God.

The Bible tells us that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) and that we are all guilty before God for violating His commands and righteous standard of holiness (Romans 3:9-20).

The penalty for sinning against God is death and eternal separation from Him (Romans 6:23) and God would be perfectly just to send anyone to hell because of their own willful disobedience to Him (Romans 3:19-20).

But God is not only just and holy but also gracious and merciful and has made provision for our sin through Jesus Christ (Romans 3:21-26).

On the cross Jesus Christ paid the penalty for sin that we deserved. And if we will accept by faith that Jesus Christ took upon Himself all of God's wrath, anger and righteous indignation for our sin, God will forgive us and accept Christ's death and punishment for sin in place of our own (Romans 3:25-30).

And by raising Christ to new life after His death on the cross, God has demonstrated He has accepted Christ's punishment as payment for our own sin, to all who will believe and trust in Him (Romans 4:23-25).