(Sola Fide) Justification By Faith Alone, Baptismal Regeneration, Or Both?

                                                            by Joel Sexton

My Soteriology, for the most part, is Confessional Lutheran. That being said, both Ed Stevens and Don K. Preston are both correct in a sense. It is not either or, but faith and baptism.

The central and foundational doctrine in all of Scripture is the doctrine of, "Sola Fide." That is justification by faith alone. That the wretched sinner under God's wrath, who turns and recognizes his plight in sin, and grabs onto the righteousness of Christ imputed to his account.

There is no work that can be done since the law demands perfection [Rom 3:19-21; Gal 3:10-14; 5:3]. That's why we need a substitute on two accounts, First in providing forgiveness of sin through His propitiatory sacrifice. The sinner's sins are now forgiven. But God demands perfect obedience to His law, so Christ kept the law perfectly, in thought, word and deed in the place of mankind [Rom 8:3-4; 2 Cor 5:21].

This is Christ "Passive" obedience in his death on the cross. Experiencing the cup of God's wrath [Jn 18; 20]. This motif is found also in the prophets [Isa 51:7]. The cup of trembling. Next, we have Christ's "Active" obedience to the law. Both His active and passive obedience is imputed (logizami), which means to take into account, credit,

So when God looks at the believing sinner, He doesn't see our sin, but it is nailed to the cross [Col 2:13-14]. He also doesn't see our sin because we are ''clothed'' with the righteousness of Christ. Luther called it snow covering a dunghill. (the very first snowfall covered the ugliness of the dunghill).

We See this great doctrine hammered out mainly in Paul [Rom 3:21-26; 4:1-8; 5:1-11; 8:1-4; 33; 1 Cor 30-31; 2 Cor 5:21; Eph 2:8-9; Gal 2:11f; 3-4]

BUT. The apostle of justification by faith also emphasized the necessity for baptism to be "United to Christ" or as Paul usually puts it, to be "in Christ." [Rom 6:3f' Gal 3:28] and yet we are also "in Christ" by faith! I struggled with what I thought was a contradiction for over 5 years. But just as the act of justification is a "gift" [Rom 3:24,26; Eph 2:8-9] we also see Paul in [Titus 3] speaking of the water with the word "washing in regeneration."

I have done an unfinished 10 pt series on the doctrine of justification, as well as done some careful exegesis of such passages as [Rom 3:19-26; 8:33; Gal 3:10-14]. So I know this doctrine like the back of my hand.

But with that being said. At the end of the day, I will accept BOTH, Sola Fide AND Baptismal regeneration, since for me all I need to read is "Thus saith the Lord."