It happens not infrequently, in theological conversation with pastors or students, or while I’m editing a piece for LF, that I come across a statement claiming that Lutherans teach justification “by grace alone.” That is not wrong… not exactly. But it is also not quite right.

Lutherans teach justification by faith alone, yes; but so do Roman Catholics. They did even before the Joint Declaration. The Reformed and the Methodists and the Anglicans and pretty much everybody else within the broad scope of Christian orthdoxy teach justification by grace alone. So to say that Lutherans teach it too is not false—it may even be a generous ecumenical gesture—but it doesn’t get to the heart of what Lutherans staked their lives on.

The distinctive Lutheran teaching is justification by faith alone. But this often makes Lutherans uncomfortable, especially when they have learned (rightly) that everything is God’s doing. Saying we are justified by “faith alone” sounds like perhaps faith is our coercive claim on God to justify us. It sounds like it might just be a back-door entrance to works righteousness after all, with faith as the ultimate good work.

The problem is that the word faith has been distorted so that the original meaning is obscured. Faith does not mean for Luther or the reformers a noble leap into the dark cloud of unknowing. It is not primarily existential, though it has an existential element; it is not primarily mental, though it requires mental knowledge of Christ. Faith is the receptor for Christ: it receives but does not make or claim. And it is not, decisively not, a human work. It is the work of the Holy Spirit within the human body, mind, and soul. In this sense, there is no opposition between the faith in Christ and the faith of Christ (as certain New Testament schools would have it): we are justified by having this faith of Christ in us, attaching us to him and his proferred salvation.

By contrast, a Pelagian could easily say that you are justified by grace, because God gives you the grace to “do what is in you.” But this is clearly not the gracious justification that Lutherans means.

On the other side, Methodists speak of the necessity of human choice in faith—but they assume that “prevenient” grace has already enabled it. Thomas Aquinas assumed we were justified only by faith formed by love—but love and faith, as theological virtues, must be God-given and God-infused. They are not meritorious human works, but divine gifts. In this light, it is clear that the Lutheran insistence on faith alone is to clarify the possible confusions that can come out of such Methodist or Thomist teaching, by pointing to the instrumentality of faith, but does not assert the gracious origin of justification against supposed doubters.

So I say to my fellow Lutherans: by all means, speak of justification by grace when you are uplifting our ecumenical commonality. But when you speak of the distinctive Lutheran teaching on justification, declare boldly and fearlessly that we are graciously justified sola fide.