In this BLOG I would like to think through justification by faith alone and how the conception of Pelagianism and justification differs from the true Gospel. In the mental approach to evangelism the person evangelized would be approached as if s/he had the power to do his or her duty. The evangelist would simply give the information and tell the person what s/he must do. The will is attacked through reason or the feelings and the person is told to make a choice because it is the human will alone that decides human destiny. According to Pelagianism, God provides external influences and not internal acts in the heart.
But how does all of that influence justification by faith alone? Faith would have to be defined as an act of the human will by which God rewards it with justification or does something in response. Pelagianism has to deny that faith is by grace because it denies the act of God in the soul. So not only does Pelagian thinking have to define faith as an act of the mind or will alone, it has to dismiss the inner workings of grace in the heart by God. But in a consistent way Pelagianism would also have to deny the imputation of righteousness because man has the power to do all it is his duty to do. What we see, then, is a direct attack on the Gospel of grace alone without denying the words “justification by faith.” We have to look carefully at what people mean and not just what they say.
In the Gospel as a whole Scripture teaches that man must be born from above or again (John 3:3-8), and then that being born of God is not an act of the will of man but of God (John 1:12-13). The Pelagian must deny a real act of God in the soul (see earlier BLOGS on the new birth as taught by Asahel Nettleton) in order to stand on his principles of no internal work of God in the soul. But in Titus 3:4-7 we see that a person is justified by grace when it is God who cleanses the soul in regeneration. Without getting into a biblical or logical order of these things, we can note that Scripture does put these things together. We can also remember Ephesians 2:4-8 where it is God who raises the soul from spiritual death and it is God who seats the soul in the heavenly places with Christ. These are all acts of God that are internal to the human being. Regeneration and the cleansing of the soul are all internal acts of God in the human soul. Faith is also said to be the gift of God in Ephesians 2:8 and surely this is an act of God in the soul as well.
Romans 3:24-27 and 4:1-7 show quite clearly that justification is beyond the acts of human beings. A human being is said to be declared just by God by grace as a gift. In the Greek this points to the fact that God justifies by grace as a gift because there is no cause within man for God to justify that person. It is not as the Pelagian teaches that God responds to the faith of a person, but instead faith is the response of the soul to God. God justifies apart from any cause in the human being. Verse 27 shows that this method of justification excludes any boasting at all and of any kind. If the Pelagian view is correct, it allows for boasting because the internal act of faith and of obedience comes from the human being.
But even more, when we move to Romans 4:1-7 we see that justification is not of merit at all and not something that God responds to (v. 4), but rather He justified the ungodly (4:5) and those who stop trying to work for their salvation (4:5). There is nothing that man can do to bring God into some obligation to save him and there is nothing that man can do that would in fact participate in salvation or be a part of it. Pelagianism essentially sets out a gospel of works or at least partial works. It may subscribe to a justification by faith in some parts, but it does not have any part of the gospel in reality. There seems to be many in our day that hold that all man has to do is to work up faith on his own and then do the right things afterwards. That is Pelagianism and that denies the Gospel.
God Loves... Himself 
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