Salvation by Faith – Modern John Wesley

Preached at St. Mary’s, Oxford, before the university, on June 18, 1738.

“For it is by grace you have been saved through faith.” (Ephesians 2:8, Berean Standard Bible)

Every blessing God has given the human race comes from His sheer grace—His free, undeserved favor. We have no claim on even the least of His mercies. It was free grace that “formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7, BSB), stamped His image on the soul, and “put all things under his feet” (Psalm 8:6, BSB). The same free grace still gives us life and breath and everything else (Acts 17:25, BSB). We have nothing in our being, our possessions, or our actions that could deserve the least thing from God. “All that we have accomplished You have done for us.” (Isaiah 26:12, BSB). So every good we have is more evidence of His mercy; whatever righteousness is found in us is God’s gift.
How then can a sinner atone for even the least of his sins—with his own works? No. Even if they were many and holy, they would not be his to boast of, but God’s. In truth, our works are themselves tainted; each one would need atonement. Only bad fruit grows on a bad tree. Our hearts are corrupt; we have “all sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23, BSB)—that original righteousness stamped on us by our Maker. Having neither righteousness nor works to plead, our mouths are stopped before God (Romans 3:19, BSB).
If sinners find favor with God, it is “grace upon grace” (John 1:16, BSB). If He keeps pouring out blessings—above all, salvation—what can we say but, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15, BSB). This is how “God proves His love for us: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8, BSB). “By grace,” then, “you have been saved through faith.” (Ephesians 2:8, BSB). Grace is the source; faith is the condition of salvation.
To avoid falling short of God’s grace, we must carefully ask:
I. What kind of faith saves?
II. What salvation comes through that faith?
III. How should we answer common objections?

I. What kind of faith saves?

First, saving faith is not merely the faith of a pagan. God requires even a pagan to believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him (Hebrews 11:6, BSB); to seek Him by glorifying Him as God and giving thanks (Romans 1:21, BSB); and to practice basic moral virtue—justice, mercy, and truth—toward others. A Greek or Roman, even a Scythian or an Indian, is without excuse if he does not believe at least this: the being and attributes of God, a future judgment with reward and punishment, and the binding nature of moral duty. This is only pagan faith.
Second, saving faith is not the faith of a devil, though that goes further than a pagan’s. The devil believes there is a wise and powerful God, gracious to reward and just to punish; he also believes Jesus is the Son of God, the Christ, the Savior of the world. He cried, “I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” (Luke 4:34, BSB). He believes what Jesus said, and what Scripture says—he even confessed of Paul and Silas, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.” (Acts 16:17, BSB). He believes “He appeared in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16, BSB), that He will “put all His enemies under His feet” (1 Corinthians 15:25, BSB), and that “all Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16, BSB). This is how far the faith of a devil goes—and he trembles (cf. James 2:19, BSB).
Third, saving faith is not merely what the apostles had while Christ was on earth. They believed enough to leave everything and follow Him (Luke 18:28, BSB). They had power to heal diseases and cast out demons (Luke 9:1, BSB) and were sent to preach the kingdom of God (Luke 9:2, BSB). Yet saving faith, in the sense to be explained, is more.
What, then, is the faith through which we are saved? In general, it is faith in Christ—Christ Himself, and God through Christ, are its proper object. This sets it apart from ancient or modern pagan faith. It is also different from the devil’s faith because it is not merely a cold, rational assent—a string of ideas in the head—but a disposition of the heart: “With the heart one believes unto righteousness,” and “if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:10, 9, BSB).
It also differs from the apostles’ pre-Easter faith because it owns the necessity and merit of Christ’s death and the power of His resurrection—His death as the only sufficient means to redeem us from eternal death, and His resurrection as our restoration to life and immortality: “He was delivered over to death for our trespasses and was raised to life for our justification.” (Romans 4:25, BSB). Christian faith is not just assent to the whole gospel; it is a full reliance on Christ’s blood, a trust in the merits of His life, death, and resurrection; a resting on Him as our atonement and our life—given for us and living in us—and therefore a closing with Him and clinging to Him as our “wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30, BSB)—in one word, our salvation.

II. What salvation comes through this faith?

First, whatever else it includes, it is a present salvation. It is attainable—indeed, actually attained—on earth by those who partake of this faith. The apostle says to the believers in Ephesus—and through them to believers of every age—not “you will be saved,” though that is true, but “you have been saved through faith.” (Ephesians 2:8, BSB).
You are saved—put all in one word—from sin. That is the salvation through faith. This is the great salvation announced before Christ’s birth: “You are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21, BSB). Scripture sets no limits here: all His people, that is, all who believe in Him, He saves from all their sins—original and actual, past and present, of body and spirit. Through faith in Him, they are saved from both the guilt and the power of sin.
From the guilt of all past sin. The whole world is guilty before God (Romans 3:19, BSB). If the Lord kept a record of sins, who could stand? (Psalm 130:3, BSB). The law brings knowledge of sin, but not deliverance from it, so that no one can be justified by works of the law (Romans 3:20, BSB). But now “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ is for all who believe.” “They are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God presented Him as an atoning sacrifice, through faith in His blood… to demonstrate His righteousness… for the remission of sins previously committed.” (Romans 3:22, 24–25, BSB, lightly adapted). Christ has taken away the curse of the law, being made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13, BSB). He has “canceled the record of debt… nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:14, BSB). “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1, BSB).
Being saved from guilt, they are saved from fear—not from a childlike fear of offending God, but from servile fear: fear that torments, fear of punishment, fear of God’s wrath. They no longer see Him as a harsh Master, but as a gracious Father. “You have not received a spirit of slavery that returns you to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” (Romans 8:15–16, BSB). They are also saved from the fear, though not the possibility, of falling away and missing the promises. Thus they “have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” They “rejoice in hope of the glory of God,” and “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:1–2, 5, BSB). Therefore they are persuaded—though not always with the same fullness—that nothing can separate them “from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38–39, BSB).
Again, through this faith they are saved from the power of sin as well as from its guilt. “He appeared to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning.” (1 John 3:5–6, BSB). “Little children, let no one deceive you… The one who has been born of God does not practice sin… and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.” (1 John 3:7–9, BSB, lightly adapted). “We know that everyone born of God does not keep on sinning; the One who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot touch him.” (1 John 5:18, BSB).
The person born of God by faith does not sin:
(1) not by habitual sin, for all habitual sin is sin reigning, and sin cannot reign in one who believes;
(2) not by willful sin, for while he abides in faith his will is set against all sin and hates it as deadly poison;
(3) not by sinful desire, for he continually desires God’s holy and perfect will, and by grace he stifles any rising unholy desire at birth;
(4) nor by infirmities of act, word, or thought, for these lack the consent of his will—and without consent they are not properly sins. Thus, “the one born of God does not commit sin.” Though he cannot say he never sinned, yet now he does not live in sin.
This is the present salvation through faith: salvation from sin and its consequences, often summed up by the word justification—in its broadest sense, a deliverance from guilt and punishment by Christ’s atonement now applied to the believing soul, and a deliverance from the power of sin by Christ formed in the heart (cf. Galatians 4:19, biblical allusion). The one thus justified—saved by faith—is truly born again, born of the Spirit into a new life “hidden with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:3, BSB). As a newborn child, he gladly receives the “pure milk of the word” and grows (1 Peter 2:2, BSB), going on in God’s strength from faith to faith (Romans 1:17, BSB), from grace to grace (biblical allusion), until at last he becomes a mature person, “attaining to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:13, BSB).

III. Common objections answered

Objection: Preaching salvation or justification by faith alone opposes holiness and good works.
Answer: It would, if we spoke of a faith separate from holiness and good works. But we preach a faith that produces them.
This objection is as old as Paul: “Do we then nullify the law through faith?” “Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.” (Romans 3:31, BSB). Those who do not preach faith do nullify the law—either by weakening it with interpretations that drain its spirit, or by failing to show the only way to fulfill it. But we establish the law by showing its full, spiritual reach and by calling all into the living way in which “the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.” (Romans 8:4, BSB). Trusting only in Christ’s blood, believers use all the ordinances He appointed, do the good works “prepared in advance for us to do,” and grow the same holy temper that was in Christ (Ephesians 2:10; Philippians 2:5, BSB).
Objection: Does preaching this faith lead to pride?
Answer: Accidentally it may; so every believer must be warned: “You stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid… Consider therefore the kindness and severity of God… if you do not continue in His kindness, you too will be cut off.” (Romans 11:20–22, BSB). And remember, “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded… by the law of faith.” (Romans 3:27, BSB). If a person were justified by works, he would have reason to boast. But there is no boasting for “the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly.” (Romans 4:5, BSB). Hear also the verses around our text (Ephesians 2:4–9): “God, who is rich in mercy… made us alive with Christ (by grace you have been saved)… so that He might display the surpassing riches of His grace… For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is the gift of God; not by works, so that no one can boast.” (BSB).
Objection: Will speaking of free mercy—saving or justifying freely by faith alone—encourage people to sin?
Answer: Some will abuse it and “continue in sin so that grace may abound” (Romans 6:1, BSB). Their blood is on their own heads. God’s goodness should lead to repentance (Romans 2:4, BSB)—and will, in the sincere. Knowing there is forgiveness, they will cry for God to blot out their sins through faith in Jesus. If they seek Him earnestly in all appointed means and refuse to be comforted without Him, He will come and will not delay (biblical allusion). In Acts, God often worked faith like lightning: the jailer heard, believed, and was baptized within the hour (Acts 16:31–33, BSB); three thousand believed the first time Peter preached (Acts 2:41, BSB). Even today, He is mighty to save (biblical allusion).
Objection: If a person cannot be saved by all he can do, won’t this drive people to despair?
Answer: Yes—to despair of self-salvation by one’s own works, merits, or righteousness. And so it should. No one can trust Christ’s merits until he renounces his own. “Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.” (Romans 10:3, BSB).
Objection: Is this not an uncomfortable doctrine?
Answer: That lie is from the devil. This is the only truly comforting doctrine for self-destroyed, self-condemned sinners: “Everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame… the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on Him. For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” (Romans 10:11–13, BSB). Mercy for all—for Zacchaeus the extortioner (Luke 19:1–10, BSB), for Mary Magdalene the notorious sinner (Luke 8:2, BSB). Then even you may say, “I can hope for mercy!” Yes, afflicted one, God will not despise your prayer. He may even say soon, “Take courage, son/daughter; your sins are forgiven.” (Matthew 9:2, BSB, lightly adapted)—so forgiven they no longer rule you (cf. Romans 6:14, BSB), and the Holy Spirit bears witness with your spirit that you are God’s child. (Romans 8:16, BSB). “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters… without money and without price.” (Isaiah 55:1, BSB). Whatever your sins—though scarlet (Isaiah 1:18, BSB), though more than the hairs of your head (Psalm 40:12, BSB)—return to the LORD, and He will abundantly pardon (Isaiah 55:7, BSB).
Objection: Salvation by faith should not be preached first, or perhaps at all.
Answer: “No one can lay a foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 3:11, BSB). So “whoever believes in Him will be saved” (cf. John 3:16, BSB) must be preached first. “But not to all.” To whom, then, should we not preach it? The poor? No—“the poor are evangelized” (Luke 7:22, BSB). The unlearned? God has revealed these things to such from the beginning. The young? “Let the little children come to Me.” (Mark 10:14, BSB). Sinners? Least of all—“I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17, BSB). If anyone, you would exclude the rich, learned, reputable, moral—yet even they must hear. Our commission is, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” (Mark 16:15, BSB). If any twist it to their destruction, they bear their own burden. Still, “as the Lord lives, whatever He says, that we will speak.” (biblical allusion).
Now especially we affirm, “by grace you have been saved through faith,” for never has this doctrine been more timely. Only this can truly stop the spread of teaching that makes human merit share in justification. It is endless to chase every error one by one; salvation by faith strikes the root. Our Church rightly called this the strong rock and foundation of the Christian faith; it first drove such errors from these kingdoms, and only this can keep them out. Only this checks the flood of immorality. Can you drain the sea drop by drop? Then you may reform a nation by warnings against particular vices. But bring in “the righteousness of God through faith,” and the proud waves are stilled (Romans 3:22, BSB, biblical allusion). Only this silences those who glory in their shame and deny the Lord who bought them (Philippians 3:19; 2 Peter 2:1, BSB). Some speak loftily of the law—as if near God’s kingdom; but take them from law to gospel, from works to the righteousness of faith, to Christ “the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Romans 10:4, BSB)—and those who seemed almost Christians are revealed as far from life (God have mercy!).
This is why the adversary rages when salvation by faith is declared; why he stirred up earth and hell to destroy its first preachers; why, knowing that faith alone overturns his kingdom, he hurled lies and slander to frighten Martin Luther from reviving it. As that man of God said, it enrages the strong man armed to be stopped by a little child with a reed—especially when he knows the child will surely overthrow him. Lord Jesus, Your strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9, BSB). Go on, little child who believes; His right hand will teach you awesome deeds (Psalm 45:4, BSB). Though you are weak, the strong man will not stand before you. You will conquer under the Captain of your salvation, “conquering and to conquer,” until all enemies fall and “death is swallowed up in victory.” (Hebrews 2:10; Revelation 6:2; 1 Corinthians 15:54, BSB).
“Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:57, BSB). “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.” (Revelation 7:12, BSB).