Did the Early Anabaptists Believe in Justification by Faith Alone?

A Short Apologetic

Here we are again, talking about justification by faith. If you keep up with this column, you know that I have written about this doctrine frequently over the last few years. Why another article on the same issue? Isn’t this merely a theological nicety? It may be important for accurate theology, but is it relevant to normal life?

I keep coming back to this doctrine because I am convinced that the greatest challenge 21st-century Anabaptists are facing is whether we get the gospel right. And that, of course, hinges on what we believe about how sinners are made righteous so they are able to enter an eternity in the presence of a holy God. Many of our own people disregard or dismiss justification by faith alone, while others, in contrast, downplay the righteous demands of a holy God. That is, too many of us are either legalistic or rebellious. Some emphasize obedience but minimize grace, while others disdain any attempt to put biblical commands into practice.

This is a tired old war between two camps who have each lost the biblical gospel. We are content to throw grenades at those we disagree with, while we excuse our own blindness, not realizing that we are in just as much danger of hell for our self-righteousness as other people are for their outright sin. For us conservatives, it is necessary to remember that Jesus directed His harshest critiques at the religiously-upright Jews. The Pharisees obeyed God’s commands impeccably, and for their uprightness Jesus called them “sons of hell.” Don’t assume that the truth is always on your side. Legalists sometimes struggle the most to accept the gospel of grace.

I think what we believe about justification is the greatest challenge, not just for theological purity, but for any Christian to live Christianly. Justification by faith is gospel bedrock. Without it, we don’t just have a weak gospel; we don’t have the gospel at all.

Your daily relationship with God has everything to do with whether you believe this doctrine. Is God more your Father on days when you have it all together than on days when you miss your Bible reading, yell at your kids, and waste time on social media? Instinctively, we think the answer is yes. We think that God is more likely to be gracious to us when we are being obedient than when we are not. When this happens, it reveals that we are relating to God more as a judge than as a Father. And therefore, we are not living in line with the logic of the gospel, which says that God loves us while we were His enemies and died for us while we were sinners. Obedience is not a precondition for God’s grace. He loved us while we were sinners, and will continue to love us even on the days we sin.

As I must emphasize, this does not mean that our obedience is unimportant or irrelevant. But when we inject our performance into the gospel, making it a part of the reason God loves us, we diminish His love and grace by making grace transactional — it is something God gives in response to our actions. But if grace is something we earn, it is no longer grace. Grace does not wait for us to get our act together. It meets us in our sin and draws us out of it.

Do you know the love which casts out fear? Do you know what it means to be free from fear of torment? Do you know what it means to rest in God’s grace to you in Christ? You can experience these things. God wants you to experience these things. Which is why He sent Jesus to atone for our sins and even now offers the benefits of His work to all who will receive Him in faith. In order to understand God’s disposition toward us as His children, we need to understand justification by faith alone. It is vital to our daily lives; it is the life-giving sap of true Christianity.

A Dividing Line

According to some of my fellow Anabaptists, the doctrine of justification by faith alone is a Reformed doctrine which has no place in our circles. They do not think that the early Anabaptists believed it, and therefore don’t believe it either. This concerns me because what we do with this doctrine has a seismic effect on the rest of our theology — up to and including what we believe about God’s character. This is not a small misstep; this is a fundamental redefinition of salvation.

I am not saying that we are saved by our theology, nor that a person needs to comprehensively understand justification by faith alone in order to be saved. There are many people who will go to heaven despite faulty doctrines because they are truly trusting in Christ.

Yet it is concerning that some of our own not only misunderstand the gospel but are actively promoting a wrong view. These teach that our obedience is a part of how we get saved or stay saved, rather than how we show we are saved. The popular illustration that faith and works are like two oars on a boat or two legs on a man are both unhelpful and untrue. We do far better to use Jesus’ analogy in John 15 — we are branches of the vine. The vine is Christ, without whom we have no spiritual life. But if we are in the vine, His life will flow into us. And if His life is in us, we will bear fruit — revealing that we are really alive. Obedience reveals our spiritual state, but it does not determine it.

What Did Early Anabaptists Believe?

My main concern for the rest of this article is to convince you that justification by faith alone was an early Anabaptist doctrine. I will include a number of original quotes, with some commentary. Since the Anabaptists didn’t have a theologian who systemized their beliefs, it’s difficult to argue for any view as the definitive Anabaptist view. But it is easy to show that many of them believed that Christians are justified by faith alone — and not by works.

In his introduction to Menno Simon’s book Confession of the Distressed Christians, J. C. Wenger says it is a “queer notion that because the Anabaptists were vigorous in their demands for a life of earnest Christian discipleship, they were therefore unclear on grace and justification.” In this book, Menno defines his view of justification, saying “We do not seek our salvation in works, words, or sacraments…but we seek them only in Christ Jesus and in no other means in heaven or on earth. We rejoice exclusively in this only means.”

It’s difficult to be much clearer. Salvation is not sought in works, but in Christ. This is the essence of justification by faith — seeking salvation in Christ alone. This, of necessity, excludes our works. When our obedience creeps in, we are no longer seeking salvation in Christ alone. Menno excluded “works, words, [and] sacrament” as grounds for our salvation.

Dirk Phillips agreed, saying, “We are not saved through any commandments or ceremonies of human beings, but through the grace of Jesus Christ and through faith in His name.” Similarly, he said, “The commandments of men are instituted and observed…as though one through them pleased God, washed sins away and fulfilled righteousness, which is a diminishing of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He’s talking about the Catholic system which “instituted and observed…commandments of men.” He says this addition of works diminishes the grace of Christ. If we make human commandments a part of salvation, we diminish the grace of Christ.

On the futility of our works to save us, Peter Tesch said, “We believe and confess from the heart that we and all the children of Adam are so corrupted by original sin that we and all men would be with justice condemned by God forever, we along with our and their good works.” Notice here both an affirmation of our total sinfulness and of the vanity even of our “good works.” We cannot save ourselves, nor can our obedience be counted as all or part of the reason God saves us. Menno agreed with this, saying “If God should judge us according to our deserts…then I confess with the holy David that no man could stand before His judgment.”

So in these few quotes we see (1) that they believed we are saved by grace alone, and (2) that they believed that our works do not contribute to our salvation. This puts them at odds with the modern view that our works are how we get saved. What about the idea that we obey in order to stay saved? Since the early Anabaptists’ emphasized obedience, some conclude that they taught we are kept saved by our obedience.

I don’t think that’s what Menno believed. He said not only that we should seek salvation in Christ alone but also that “we trust by the grace of God to continue thus unto death.” Not only beginning, but also continuing, rests on the grace of God. There is not a point where we should turn from trusting Christ to trusting also in our works. Rather, we need to trust in God’s grace the whole way through.

What then is the place of obedience? It is important, as the early Anabaptists often taught. They emphasized that true faith will bear fruit. As a matter of fact, all true believers will bear fruit, so that fruit-bearing is a legitimate test of true faith. The Anabaptists understood that the best way to test someone’s faith is not by his words but by his fruit.

Again, Menno is helpful here: “We abhor carnal works and desire to conform ourselves to His Word and commandment…because He so taught and commanded us. For whosoever does not walk according to His doctrine, proves in fact that he does not believe on Him or know Him and that he is not in the communion of the saints.” We should underline “proves” because it is the crucial word on this point. Those who give in to sin and refuse to follow Christ prove that they do not believe in Christ, nor know Him, and therefore they are not a part of the one true church.

Whether or not someone obeys Christ’s teaching and commands reveals whether or not they have received Him by faith, been born again, and been filled with the Spirit. Again, obedience does not save us, nor does it keep us saved, but it does reveal the true state of our hearts. If we are spiritually alive, we will be bearing spiritual fruit, and if we are spiritually dead, we cannot and will not bear spiritual fruit. (We should think of spiritual fruit as primarily regarding affections — cf. the fruit of the Spirit in Gal. 5, which are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.)

Living faith produces works; it cannot be otherwise. Peter Tesch said that faith which justifies “must be engaged in all good works through love, which it is capable of doing, in Christ — all things being possible and even light, which were previously unpleasant and arduous.” To put it differently, justification by faith and obedience must be distinguished but they cannot be separated. If faith is real, it will be engaged in good works. In J. C. Wenger’s words, “The true convert to Jesus Christ who is justified by faith is also being transformed by the Spirit of God into a saint.” 

So then, it’s right to conclude that the early Anabaptists believed in justification by faith alone, on the basis of Christ’s work alone and not on the basis of our works. This we find consistently taught. This is different from how they are sometimes appropriated by modern Anabaptists, who like to emphasize their teaching on obedience while neglecting their teaching on salvation by grace alone. This is, I believe, a distortion of the early Anabaptists and the teaching of Scripture.

Instead, they taught that salvation is by grace alone, and that grace comes to us through Christ. Perhaps it would be better to say we are saved through Christ alone and not merely through grace alone, since that is the real heart of the issue. Do we trust in our heritage, our community, our traditions, our distinctions, or our applications instead of or alongside Christ? If so, we are not trusting in Christ alone and remain under divine judgment — perhaps most of all because we are scorning God’s mercy. Christ is our Savior, and we must trust in Him alone to be saved.

Every good thing that comes to us in the gospel comes through Christ. As Menno said, “For Christ’s sake we are in grace; for His sake we are heard; and for His sake our faults and failings…are remitted. For it is He who stands between His Father and His imperfect children, with His perfect righteousness, and with His innocent blood and death, and intercedes for all those who believe on Him and who strive by faith in the divine Word to turn from evil, follow that which is good, and who sincerely desire with Paul that they may attain the perfection which is in Christ.” We are saved for Christ’s sake, and for no other reason.

If justification by faith alone is compromised, the gospel becomes something other than God’s grace given to helpless sinners. Rather, it becomes God’s helping those who by their lives prove themselves to be worthy of salvation. Yet Scripture is clear that no one deserves salvation. Salvation rests upon God’s grace, not upon human work or merit. Justification — the foundational tenet of salvation — rests upon Christ’s work alone. God’s grace comes to us in Christ. His work makes justification — and all of salvation — possible. We are saved, not by merit, not by works, but by Christ alone.