A reader alerted us to this quote from John Piper. It appears in the Foreword to Thomas Schreiner’s Faith Alone: The Doctrine of Justification (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015).
As Tom Schreiner says, the book “tackles one of the fundamental questions of our human condition: how can a person be right with God?”
The stunning Christian answer is: sola fide—faith alone. But be sure you hear this carefully and precisely: He says right with God by faith alone, not attain heaven by faith alone. There are other conditions for attaining heaven, but no others for entering a right relationship to God. In fact, one must already be in a right relationship with God by faith alone in order to meet the other conditions (p. 11).
So being in a right relationship with God is by faith alone (i.e., apart from works). But attaining heaven is by faith plus other conditions (i.e., works).
Huh?
Doesn’t John Piper believed in justification?
Apparently not.
You would think that if we can be in a right relationship with God by faith apart from works, that means we can attain heaven by faith apart from works. After all, isn’t that what being in a right relationship with God means—that we’ll spend eternity with Him? Aren’t we eternally saved by faith apart from works?
Piper doesn’t think so. As he said, you need to meet other conditions in order to attain heaven. What are those other conditions?
Faith that is alone is not faith in union with Christ. Union with Christ makes his perfection and powers ours through faith. And in union with Christ, faith is living and active with Christ’s power.
Such faith always “works by love” and produces “the obedience of faith.” And that obedience—imperfect as it is till the day we die—is not the “basis of justification, but … a necessary evidence and fruit of justification.” In this sense, love and obedience—inherent righteousness—is “required of believers, but not for justification”—that is, required for heaven, not for entering a right-standing with God (Ibid.).
If you want to attain heaven you need to obey. You aren’t really justified, and won’t actually attain heaven, unless you live a life of obedience until the day you die.
Piper unquestionably believes in salvation by works.
I’d like to contrast Piper’s position with the Free Grace position using the analogy of a gym membership.
Piper is saying, “Becoming a member of the gym is absolutely free. But if you’re really a member you’ll necessarily pay $50/month. And if you aren’t paying $50/month, then you aren’t really a member. But don’t misunderstand me—the gym is free! It doesn’t cost anything to join! So, how will you be paying, Visa or Mastercard?”
According to Piper’s gospel, you gotta pay to join the “free” gym.
By contrast, and still using the gym analogy, the Free Grace position is simple: “Becoming a member of the gym is absolutely free. Period. Save your money to help out your neighbors.”
We are saved by faith in Jesus, apart from works.
When Reformed and Calvinist types like John Piper and Thomas Schreiner claim to believe in justification by faith apart from works, don’t believe them. They don’t really mean it. At best, they are very confused about it.
Salvation by “faith plus works” and salvation by “faith that works” both make works a condition of salvation.
Instead, listen to what Jesus said,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life” (John 6:47).
Do Piper, Schreiner and the New Calvinists actually believe what Jesus promises? The stunning Christian answer is no.
Barb Inderwiesche
Wow what maze!
Jim Poulos
The understanding of ‘heaven’ and ‘eternal life’ can be viewed from a different perspective.
This might help in understanding this: the work of salvation is more about heaven getting into us than it is about us getting into heaven.
Just consider verses like ‘being conformed to the image of Christ’ or ‘grow in the grace an knowledge of our Lord and Savior,’ or ‘do not be conformed this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,’ all argue that principle.
When Jesus came to earth, heaven came into this world. Those who know Jesus through faith should always be challenged to know Him more and more completely.
Rachel K Sandage
I think your gym analogy is wrong. Both of you say that the gym membership is free (ie by grace). Piper is saying the membership alone won’t do you any good – a gym membership that you don’t use is not going to show any fruit. Eph 2:10 comes to mind for me here – “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.If we are in Christ, God has prepared work for us to do.” Just like the gym has prepared a place for us to work out.
Keith Manning
Mass Confusion to the Nth degree. Free means Free. They make our Gracious Wonderful Savior a swindler. We are Justified freely by His Grace Rom. 3:24 Great Article Shawn!
Jeremy Grant
I’d cite the second half of James as evidence that Piper is right, but I suspect you’ll ignore it.
If you take all of scripture together, meaning you decide to fully accept Paul AND James’ teaching, then the most common sense position is that salvation is a free gift that by necessity of its power in a believers life must produce fruit (you will know them by their fruit).
One who claims to live with the power of God inside them but produces no evidence of the transformative power of the Holy Spirit is according to James, a liar.
James says that faith without works is dead faith, he’s right. Paul says Faith justifies you before God freely, he’s right.
Shawn Lazar
We believe that interpretation of James is badly mistaken.
http://www.freegraceresources.org/james214.html
Johannes
So would you say that George Whitefield, Charles Spurgeon, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones taught salvation by works? I know they didn’t use Piper’s puzzling language distinguishing “being right with God” and “attaining heaven,” but they did teach that the conduct of a person’s life serves as a visible demonstration of faith.
Shawn Lazar
I don’t know. They all wrote a tremendous amount of material. I haven’t read it all. Not by a long shot.
I know that Lloyd-Jones made assurance of salvation impossible because of a similar error. Here is an interview I did with David Engelsma on that problem:
https://faithalone.org/grace-in-focus-articles/assurance-engelsma/
A good test to see whether the men you mentioned taught salvation by faith apart from works, or salvation by some mixture of faith and works, is to ask whether or not they, and their readers, had assurance of salvation. For example, do you have assurance after studying those men? Do you know you have eternal life?
Usually these guys, and their fans, don’t, because they don’t know if they will continue in faith and good works until they die. They usually aren’t sure if they have the “right” kind of faith to be saved. Since Piper teaches salvation by a mixture of faith and works, by his own admission, he and his congregation lack assurance:
https://faithalone.org/magazine/y2010/10F3.html