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Of all the beliefs in Christian orthodoxy, the nature of salvation is the most difficult to find common ground on. And if soteriology (the theology of salvation) wasn't such a critical issue to Christianity, one would be tempted to "agree to disagree." However, that is not an option here. Salvation by grace through faith is a crucial part of Christian thought, such that you cannot deviate from it very far and still have Christianity.

That said, is it possible to weed through this subject, coming to a conclusion on the subject that is fair to all orthodox Christians without compromising the Scripture? Most Evangelical Protestants don't realize how important of a question that is. While Evangelical Protestants say that the believer is justified by faith alone, traditional churches like Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox (which make up the majority of Christians worldwide) say, "no works, specifically the sacraments, are necessary for salvation." The sacraments, by the way, are initiary and communal rites in the church, like baptism or the Lord's Supper. Then of course, you have the enigmatic Lutherans, who say both we are justified by faith alone and the sacraments are necessary. Luther himself, who's Reformation revolved around Justification by Faith, held to baptismal regeneration,¹ a doctrine that implies that baptism is required for salvation. Needless to say, we need to think twice before we condemn the majority of Christians as heretics.

Let's start from the first key passage and work out from there. For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9. Here, Paul is rather clear that salvation is by God's grace through faith only. "Grace," here, is commonly defined as unmerited favor. If you give a friend $5, even though he did nothing to deserve it, that would be a graceful act. "Faith" is more or less synonymous with trust. Specifically, Paul has in mind faith in Jesus Christ (cf. Eph. 1:13), and as we will see later His work of atoning for our sins through the cross. Not too much interpretation is required here, as Paul is rather clear in his language: salvation is through faith, an undeserved gift from God. He even drives the point home by saying it is "not of yourselves," and "not of works." In other works, no good deeds nor any actions we may do can merit salvation, because it is given meritlessly.

However, it's not quite that easy. Often James' epistle is often quoted as though it contradicts the above interpretations. What we read here is:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can this kind of faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm and eat well," but you do not give them what the body needs, what good is it? So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead being by itself. But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith without works and I will show faith by my works. You believe that God is one; well and good. Even the demons believe that--and tremble with fear.

... You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. James 2:14-19, 24

James seems to be saying precisely the opposite of Paul: works are necessary for salvation. He starts with a rhetorical question, can faith save a man apart from works? He later says that one is justified by not just faith but also works. So, what are we to make of this?

There are two answers sometimes given to this issue by Protestants. One is that James is talking about being justified in the eyes of man, not of God. The last quoted verse, it is supposed, is the most clear evidence of this: "You see that..." However, James starts early asking if such a faith can save man, meaning that indeed, this is about justification before God. Another attempt at an answer is to say that James is using "faith" differently from Paul, such that he is describing empty belief, not saving faith. In other words, James isn't responding to Paul, but to antinomians, those who hold that the believer doesn't have to do any works. James even compares the "faith" of his opponents with the belief Demons have of God. This is a good start at properly understanding this passage, but it can be developed further.

Here, the soteriology of John 15:1-8, the vine allegory, proves to be enlightening. We have addressed this passage before on this site, so those interested can read my article, The Vine and the Branches (link). I'll summerize my findings here: (1) apart from Christ, no one can do what is necessary to please God; (2) those who abide in Christ, by faith, will do good works; (3) works are necessary in the sense that those who lack works face judgement. From these points, it can be concluded that a professed believer who doesn't have works is anemic in faith. Or to use James' terminology, their faith is dead. Lacking that faith, they fail to produce fruit which pleases God, and thus are "cut off." So it isn't that works merit salvation, it's that lacking faith entails lacking works, and lacking works entails God's judgement on that individual.

Thus, should someone ask whether Paul or James are correct, our answer can be both. We are saved by faith alone, and works are necessary for salvation. Indeed, if we go back to Ephesians 2, we find immediately after the "saved by grace" verse, For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them. v. 10. Also, Paul spends much of Romans explaining the doctrine of Justification by Faith (see Rom. 3-6), yet he warns not to simply believe in vain, but: Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, and do not present your members to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments to be used for righteousness. Romans 6:12-13. Paul is consistently careful not to present grace as an excuse to get out of doing good works, but as freeing believers from sin so they may do as God wills. For this reason, "salvation" should be considered as not only encompassing eternal life, but even the quality and nature of the Christian's present life. We are not just saved from hell, but also from sin itself, and for a purpose in this life and the next.

It is evident that this view is the orthodox view in Christianity. The Eastern Orthodox, who with the Roman Catholics represent the oldest traditions in Christianity, hold that "that there is nothing that a person can do to earn his salvation. It is rather a gift from God, who wants nothing more than to restore the original relationship with mankind."² While the Orthodox believe that Baptism and Chrismation³ are essential to salvation, these are not viewed as meritorious acts by man, but as things done through man by God. The Roman Catholics, who make up the largest percentage of Christians in the world, likewise hold that man cannot merit salvation,⁴ though they also hold some sacraments to be necessary. Even though Luther himself wanted to have James thrown out of the Bible, mainstream Protestant tradition has assented with James that faith without works is dead.

The final question that needs to be addressed is how important this doctrine is to Christianity. Everyone in the orthodox tradition (note, that is "orthodox" with a small "o") would agree that Christianity would not be Christianity without salvation by grace. However, the Bible also gives us good evidence that any attempt to add merit to salvation by grace is heresy. For instance: But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! Galatians 1:8-9, NASB. As mentioned before, some Bible translations render "accursed" here as "eternally condemned" or something similar. The actual Greek word here is transliterated anathema, and is probably better understood in the sense of one being ousted by a given community, or excommunicated.⁵ Either way, preaching a foreign "gospel" constitutes heresy.

There is another page on this site that outlines the Gospel (link). The fundamental point of the Gospel is that we can't save ourselves, and so we must trust solely in the redemption that Christ "bought" for us with his death and resurrection. In a way, the Gospel goes hand in hand with the doctrine of justification by faith, such that you cannot deny one and not deny or have a counterfeit version of the other.

This becomes more clear when we read in more detail the context of Paul's condemnation of false gospels. Specifically, Paul's contention was probably with a schism that scholars call Judiazers, and those who had aligned themselves with them. The Judiazers where a group that taught that it wasn't enough to have faith in Christ but Gentile believers must also become circumcised as a Jew and obey the Old Testament law. We see evidence of this later:

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery. Listen! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you at all! And I testify again to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be declared righteous by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace! For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait expectantly for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision carries any weight--the only thing that matters is faith working through love. Galatians 5:1-6.

Circumcism was the sign of the Old Covenant that a person was under the law. In verse 9 through 12, Paul mentions some "agitators" who are leading some of the people astray into this error. Judaizers seem to be the culprit. Either way, these individuals were attempting to lead people into a sort of soteriology where "the works of the law" were added to grace as meriting salvation. Yet, Paul sees this form of syncretism as undermining the "freedom" of the gospel; he uses rather strong language when he says that those who fall back into the law have fallen away from grace. In essence, when you add some sort of meritorious work, you lose all the graceful aspect of justification. We see this more explicitly stated in another context: Now to the one who works, his pay is not credited due to grace but due to obligation. But to the one who does not work, but believes in the one who declares the ungodly righteous, his faith is credited as righteousness. Romans 4:4-5. Thus, rather than having Christ's atonement as meriting our salvation, you end up with man attempting to merit it Himself. Yet, the gospel is all about man being unable to merit salvation, which is why Christ was crucified. Therefore, as a general principle we may conclude that any theological view which places any onus on man to merit salvation is another gospel, and thus deserves the same sort of anathema Paul pronounced on the Galatian agitators.

We may also conclude that one forfeits salvation on this point, since Paul describes one who seeks to merit their salvation as falling away from grace. A discussion of the doctrine that once one is saved they are always saved is out of the scope of this topic, but it is clear in New Testament theology that grace is necessary for salvation.

It is more than evident that a soteriology based on grace through faith is Biblical and orthodox in Christianity, and that the denial of such is heresy. This is not to say that traditions that say certain activities are necessary are themselves heretical. Rather, the heresy lies in making some such works by people meritorious of salvation. However, if works are seen as something one does because they are saved, rather than in order to secure salvation, then heresy is not committed. There may be debate on whether certain sacraments or works in general are necessary, but so long as merit is left out of the equation, it is a discussion about nonessential theology.

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Notes and Citations:

1. Specifically, Baptismal Regeneration holds that through the act of baptism, God "regenerates" the believer, renewing one as a "new creation" (a la 2Cor. 5:7, cf. Rom. 6:3-4 which Baptismal Regenerationalists see as a prooftext for their view). To read an abbreviated explication of Luther's view on baptism, see here: <http://www.ucc.org/faith/small.htm#BAPTISM>

2. ___. "Eastern Orthodox Church." Wikipedia. September 17, 2005. September 18, 2005. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox#Salvation>

3. Chrismation is the annointing of a believer with oil. It is believed that the Holy Spirit is conferred to the Christian through this sacrament.

4. ___. "Salvation." Wikipedia. September 18, 2005. September 18, 2005. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvation#Roman_Catholicism>

5. Arnold, Clinton E. ed. Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. vol. 3. pp. 270-271. Zondervan. Grand Rapids, MI. 2002.