Faith Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine of Justification
Overview
What can we add to God’s mercy to be saved? The Reformers broke with the Roman Church when they answered that Christians are justified by faith alone. But evangelicals no longer seem certain about that keystone of faith. In Faith Alone, a Gold Medallion finalist and Evangelical Book Club main selection, R.C. Sproul discerns a softening of the doctrine of justification and explains why Christians must return to the biblical, Reformation view. He provides biblical evidence and theological reasons why Protestantism and Roman Catholicism divided in the first place, and why that division remains an uncrossed chasm.
Top Highlights
“I can hardly believe Hodges means what he says. This is antinomianism with a vengeance.” (Page 171)
“yet insists that God does not require it for eternal salvation.” (Page 170)
“The charge of legal fiction makes the gospel itself a fiction. The biblical gospel stands or falls with the concept of imputation. Without the imputation of our sins to Christ, there is no atonement. Without the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us, all the infused grace we have will not save us. Christians who receive the grace of regeneration and the indwelling presence and power of the Holy Spirit still sin and fall short of the glory of God.” (Page 106)
“The Reformers asserted that God considers the believer formally just before he is materially just. For Rome God does not consider the believer formally just until or unless he is materially just.” (Page 130)
“The Reformers viewed justification as being forensic, resting on God’s judicial declaration that the sinner is counted as just or righteous by virtue of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. To be declared just on the sole grounds of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness was to them the very essence of the gospel.” (Page 44)
- Title: Faith Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine of Justification
- Author: R. C. Sproul
- Edition: electronic ed.
- Publisher: Baker
- Print Publication Date: 1995
- Logos Release Date: 2000
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Justification; Reformed Church › Doctrines; Justification › History of doctrines
- ISBNs: 9781441236869, 080101090, 9780801019494, 1441236864, 0801019494
- Resource ID: LLS:42.110.48
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-28T20:20:03Z
R. C. Sproul (1939– 2017) was a respected teacher, theologian, pastor. He was the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries where he served as executive editor of Tabletalk magazine.
Sproul held degrees from Westminster College, Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary, Free University of Amsterdam, and Whitefield Theological Seminary. He taught at several colleges and seminaries including Reformed Theological Seminary and Knox Theological Seminary. He served as senior minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel, in Sanford, Florida. Sproul’s teaching can be heard daily on the ‘Renewing Your Mind’ radio broadcast which plays in over 40 countries.
Sproul wrote over 70 books and articles including the classic The Holiness of God and several theological articles in Tabletalk magazine.
' fill='none' fill-rule='evenodd' stroke='%23f9d200' stroke-width='3'/%3E%3C/svg%3E)
