Is Justification By Faith a Hoax?
The Controversial Doctrines of Paul — Part 1
The inspiration for this series actually comes from my article, The Apostle Who Divided the Church, in my previous series, Knowing Your Apostles, where I presented Paul as the most controversial apostle. My approach, based on the apostle Peter’s description of Paul’s writings (2 Peter 3:15–16), is to not only clarify some of these doctrines, but also to expose what I believe are revisionist interpretations of them.
Series Question
Justification by faith is a cornerstone of the gospel. In fact, I’d dare say that without it, Christ’s death and resurrection do not accomplish their intended saving purpose for the sinner because the sinner remains without a righteous standing before God. So why is there any debate about it anyway?
These are the questions I will attempt to answer in this post:
Is the Protestant interpretation of Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith mistaken, as the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) claims?
Or is James the one who actually got it right?
Is justification by faith uniquely Paul’s invention, as a fringe subset of this movement claims?
Did Protestants Misinterpret The Doctrine?
The majority view among New Perspective on Paul (NPP) proponents is that they disagree with the Protestant understanding of Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith. Most do not deny the doctrine itself, but they claim that Protestants misunderstand and overextend it to mean what Paul did not say. It is noteworthy that many of these scholars consider themselves Protestants.
They contend that justification by faith is not primarily about God transferring Christ’s righteousness to an individual sinner, but about God’s declaration of who belongs to His covenant family alongside the Jewish people. But let me address that.
Justification by faith is indeed primarily about God transferring, or imputing, Christ’s righteousness to us. Protestants did not misunderstand it. It is the basis of justification because we can never be justified by works of the law. Paul says:
“But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.”
— Romans 4:5 (NKJV)
Frankly, it is difficult for me to grasp the point of this argument, and it just seems to me to be the kind of scholarship that has no real utility.
Was it James Who Got it Right?
I previously answered this question in my piece The Apostle Who Seemed to Contradict Paul, so I won’t spend much time on it.
Paul and James were answering two different questions. Paul was answering the question of how to be saved, whereas James’s faith-plus-works formulation is about demonstrating the evidence of one’s faith, which is why he said, “faith without works is dead” (James 2:17, 26). James was not saying that works were necessary for justification.
Is Justification by Faith a Paul’s Invention?
This last question is the one that deserves special attention, and it is the most profound and egregious lie. While this is not the position of all NPP scholars, some revisionist interpreters of Paul argue that justification by faith is uniquely Paul’s invention. The suggestion that Paul invented it out of whole cloth is breathtaking, factually inaccurate, and without biblical basis.
Justification by faith was not novel, nor was it invented by Paul. I will outline several instances where it was taught before Paul.
One, interestingly, God Himself instituted the doctrine when the Bible says:
“…believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.”
— Genesis 15:6 (NKJV)
Imputed righteousness is the whole basis of justification: God imputed, in this case, righteousness to Abraham solely on the basis of faith. It was not because of any acts of righteousness that Abraham performed. Paul actually built his doctrine primarily on this theological foundation, with Abraham as the archetype—the first person whom God explicitly declared righteous by faith.
Two, David also understood something about God forgiving sins and not counting a person’s sins against them. We do not know what experience or scenario led him to write this, but he called it a blessing when he said:
“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
Whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity”
— Psalm 32:1–2
Notice the word “impute”; it is the same word Paul used when he described justification by faith, and he referenced David by saying:
“just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works”
— Romans 4:6
Three, the prophet Habakkuk also understood this. In chapter 1, he started out complaining about the widespread unrighteousness in the land and feeling exasperated that God would not answer his prayers and would not judge the people. Then, when God told him that He was going to use the Babylonians—a nation more wicked than they were—for judgment, he was apoplectic and horrified. Then, God assured him that even though the Babylonians would indeed come, the righteous, unlike the proud, would be saved because of their faith:
“Look at the proud one,
His soul is not right within him,
But the righteous will live by his faith [in the true God].”
— Habakkuk 2:4 AMP
I will note, though, that the Hebrew word for “faith” is emunah, and it can also mean “faithfulness” or “steadfastness.” Translations like the NIV and ESV render it as “faithfulness.” However, I believe “faith” is the better translation in this context—not because faithfulness necessarily implies personal righteousness, but because the overall prophecy points to reliance on God rather than human merit.
God said the Babylonians were going to conquer the Israelites, even though they were more righteous than the Babylonians. Habakkuk 1:13 shows that Judah’s relative righteousness would not save them. Therefore, Habakkuk 2:4 is contrasting those who trust in themselves with those who live by faith in the true God.
Lastly, Jesus Himself taught justification by faith. In the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18:9–14, we see it at work. The Pharisee stood before God and boasted about himself (vv. 11–12). The tax collector, on the other hand, would not even lift up his head to heaven but prayed, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” (v. 13).
Jesus said of the tax collector:
“I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other…”
— v. 14
Notice the word “justified.” The tax collector, although a sinner, was justified by God, not on the basis of the works that the Pharisee boasted about, but because of his faith.
We even see Jesus practice this in His treatment of so many people: the man at the pool of Bethesda (John 5), the paralytic (Mark 2:1–12), etc. If Jesus Himself taught justification by faith, I wonder how this subgroup of the NPP can say that Paul invented it, especially when we see that it has been around since Genesis 15.
So, the claim that Paul invented justification by faith on his own is preposterous, ridiculous, and discredits the scholarship of these so-called New Perspective on Paul critics. I believe that this subgroup belongs in the category of those that Peter described as “untaught and unstable” (2 Peter 3:16).
Your Turn
What do you think of my answers? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.