The Main Hinge of Religion

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. ROMANS 3:24

Having spent many chapters on faith, repentance and the Christian life, Calvin turns at last in Institutes 3.11 to the doctrine at the heart of the Reformation. He introduces it with a famous phrase. Justification, he says in effect, is the main hinge on which religion turns, and so we must give it all the more attention. Unless you first grasp how you stand before God, and what His judgement is concerning you, you have no foundation on which to build your salvation, nor on which to build piety towards God.

What justification means

Calvin defines justification with legal precision, which is not surprising in a man trained as a lawyer. To be justified, he says, is to be reckoned righteous in God’s judgement and accepted because of that righteousness. And since no one is righteous in himself, justification by faith means this: that a person, excluded from the righteousness of works, grasps the righteousness of Christ through faith, and, clothed in it, appears in God’s sight not as a sinner but as a righteous man (Institutes 3.11.2).

And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. PHILIPPIANS 3:9

In short, justification consists of two things: the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. God does not merely wipe the slate clean and leave it blank. He writes on it the perfect obedience of His Son.

Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. ROMANS 4:6–7

A declaration, not a process

The crucial point, for Calvin as for Luther, is that justification is God’s verdict, not a gradual process of being made good. It is like a judge declaring a person acquitted, not like a doctor slowly healing a patient. Calvin knew very well that God also heals; that is sanctification, the second part of the double grace. But the two must not be confused. If our acceptance with God depended even in part on how holy we had become, no one could ever be sure of it, because our holiness is always imperfect.

Calvin puts it vividly. If you examine even the best work of the holiest person, you will find in it something of the rottenness of the flesh (Institutes 3.14.9). Before God’s perfect judgement, the finest of our deeds would be condemned. Our only hope is to be clothed in a righteousness that is not our own.

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. ISAIAH 64:6

This is why he says, in his sermon on All Scripture in the Ochorus library, that men may boast as much as they please that their works are virtuous and holy, but when they appear before the heavenly judge, all will be as chaff.

Faith as an empty hand

How then do we receive this righteousness? By faith alone. And Calvin is careful to say that faith does not justify because it is itself a virtue that earns God’s favour. Faith justifies only because it receives Christ. He compares faith to an earthen pot (Institutes 3.11.7). It has no value in itself; its value is the treasure it holds. Or, as others have put it after him, faith is an empty hand held out to receive a gift.

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. EPHESIANS 2:8–9

This leaves no room for pride. Everything we are given, we are given freely. Our faith itself is God’s gift.

Peace of conscience

Why did Calvin care so much about this? Not because he loved controversy, though he engaged in plenty. He cared because of the peace of troubled consciences. He had seen people tormented by the question of whether they had done enough, confessed enough, suffered enough. He believed that the only way to quiet a conscience before God is to show it Christ’s righteousness, perfect and complete, given freely.

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ROMANS 5:1

He saw, too, that this peace is the only true ground for glad obedience. A person who serves God in order to be accepted will serve Him anxiously, like a hired servant. A person who knows he is already accepted will serve Him freely, like a son. Calvin has a lovely passage on this in Institutes 3.19.5, on Christian freedom: God, he says, treats us like a father who receives with delight even the small, imperfect efforts of his children, because they are his children.

Faith alone, but never alone

Calvin’s opponents accused the Reformers of making good works unnecessary. Calvin answered with a sentence that has often been summarised in a Reformation saying: it is faith alone that justifies, but the faith that justifies is not alone. He puts it in his own way (Institutes 3.16.1). Christ justifies no one whom He does not also sanctify. We are justified not without works, yet not through works, since in our sharing in Christ, which justifies us, sanctification is included as much as righteousness.

Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. JAMES 2:17

This is why Calvin placed the chapters on the Christian life before justification. He wanted no one to think that the free forgiveness of sins made holiness optional.

A caution for the reader

Calvin’s doctrine of justification is among the clearest statements of the gospel ever written, and it deserves to be read by every Christian. But his long disputes with Rome on the subject in Institutes 3.11–18 are heavy with polemic, and they sometimes set the opposing position in its worst light. The modern reader will do well to take Calvin’s positive teaching to heart and to read his polemic with charity towards those he was answering, many of whom were also sincerely seeking to honour God’s grace.

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. ROMANS 8:1

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask the question Calvin says we must answer first: how do I stand before God, and on what ground?

2. Name one way in which you have been trying to earn God’s acceptance. Lay it down and receive Christ’s righteousness as a gift.

3. Read Romans 4 slowly, and notice how Abraham and David were both justified by faith.

4. If your conscience is troubled, speak to it the words of Romans 8:1 until it believes them.

5. Consider whether your obedience has been that of a hired servant or a beloved child, and ask for a child’s freedom.

A PRAYER

Holy God, I cannot stand before You in my own righteousness; my best works are stained, and my heart is not pure.

Thank You that in Christ You forgive all my sins and clothe me in His perfect obedience.

Quiet my troubled conscience with the peace that comes from being justified by faith.

And let that peace make me holy, so that I serve You gladly, not as a hired servant but as Your child. Amen.