Is Salvation By Faith Alone Or By Faith Plus Works?

The cardinal assertion of evangelical truth made by all Reformers was that true justification was by faith alone in Christ alone, leading to the central protestant doctrine known as "salvation is by grace alone through faith alone".

Salvation is from start to finish a work of God, through the Holy Spirit, man is drawn to recognise his own need to be made right with God. The Holy Spirit convicts of sin and leads the sinner to embrace Christ by faith. Even that very faith, that is like the empty hand of a beggar reaching out to Christ as his saviour, is a gift from a gracious God, who sent his only son Christ to die a sinners death on behalf of sinners in need of mercy.

Martin Luther when speaking of his conversion said:

"If you have a true faith that Christ is your Saviour, then at once you have a gracious God, for faith leads you in and opens up God’s heart and will, that you should see pure grace and overflowing love. This it is to behold God in faith that you should look upon his Fatherly, friendly heart, in which there is no anger nor ungraciousness. He who sees God as angry does not see him rightly but looks only on a curtain, as if a dark cloud had been drawn across his face."

Later one of the famous English puritans put it this way:

"Justification is the very hinge and pillar of Christianity. An error about justification is dangerous, like a defect in a foundation. Justification by Christ is a spring of the water of life. To have the poison of corrupt doctrine cast into this spring is damnable."

Thomas Watson

I pray you will be mightily encouraged and also armed with the truth of God's word to defend against the wiles of the devil who wants to draw you into relying on your own goodness or willingness for salvation. Nothing could be more disastrous for your soul. To fail to understand this most central of all Christian truths, is to lose the very gospel itself.