J. I. Packer calls justification by faith the “storm center of the Reformation.”[1] Justification was at the heart of the gospel of God’s grace that the Reformers rediscovered and began to proclaim. Those 16th century Protestants recognized the importance of this teaching and saw what was at stake in having it firmly established in the church’s confession. Luther’s oft-quoted dictum declares justification to be that article by which the church stands or falls. If you are wrong on this doctrine, it does not matter how much you may have right. Luther went on to call it “the master and prince, the lord, the ruler, and the judge over all kinds of doctrines; it preserves and governs all church doctrine and raises up our conscience before God. Without this article the world is utter death and darkness.”[2] His fellow reformer, John Calvin, in his reply to Sadoleto, said, “Wherever the knowledge of it [justification] is taken away, the glory of Christ is extinguished, religion abolished, the Church destroyed, and the hope of salvation utterly overthrown.”[3] Three hundred years later Charles Spurgeon went so far as to say: “Any church which puts in the place of justification by faith in Christ another method of salvation is a harlot church.”[4] If for no other reason than out of respect for those fathers in the faith who have gone before us, we ought to think very clearly about and care very deeply for the Protestant doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.
By Thomas K. Ascol, To read the whole article CLICK HERE
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