The Gospel of Christ

Our next question is a crucial one: Did Christ Himself actually teach the doctrine of justification by faith — the doctrine Paul so clearly proclaims? Or did Paul, however sincerely, reshape Christ’s message through his own way of thinking and the world he lived in?

Put differently, did Paul truly understand and faithfully represent the mind and purpose of the One whose messenger he claimed to be? And to what extent might Paul’s own background and habits of thought have influenced the way he expressed Christ’s teaching?

Our goal here is to set aside what is merely Pauline in Paul’s theology, so that we can reach the actual teaching of Christ Himself — the teaching of One far greater than even the greatest Apostle.

Fortunately, this task is made much easier by the fact that the New Testament contains other very early Christian writings that are clearly independent of Paul. It is to these that we now turn.

The Witness of John

First, the Fourth Gospel and the First Epistle of John, which clearly come from the same author, immediately demand our attention. The Gospel presents an account of Christ’s teaching, while the Epistle reflects deeply and thoughtfully on that same teaching.

By the latter part of the second century, both works were universally accepted throughout the Christian world as having been written by the beloved Apostle John. That widespread and confident agreement strongly suggests that these writings were already old and well known by that time. It is extremely unlikely that their true author — clearly a thinker of great intellectual power — could have vanished entirely from memory, only to have another man mistakenly credited in his place by all the Churches across the Roman Empire.

This conclusion is strengthened by the unanimous tradition that John lived to a very old age. The strong external evidence for authorship is also supported by internal features of the texts themselves. (For further discussion, see Westcott’s Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, as well as Dissertation V in my commentary on Galatians.)

When we turn to these Johannine writings, we immediately notice how different they are from Paul’s letters. The tone, the way of thinking, and even the vocabulary are strikingly distinct. Familiar Pauline expressions — righteousness through faith, justification through faith, faith reckoned for righteousness, reconciliation to God — are nowhere to be found. Instead, a new set of expressions takes their place.

What we have here, then, is a very early and entirely independent witness to the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.

Faith and Eternal Life in John

Interestingly, the noun faith (or belief) appears only once in these writings (I John v. 4). Yet in the Fourth Gospel, the verb “to believe” occurs more often than in all of Paul’s letters combined.

Again and again, Jesus is presented as teaching that believing is the unique condition and channel of salvation. In His conversation with Nicodemus (John 3:15–16), Christ emphatically declares that God gave His only-begotten Son so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life. (The same idea appears in John 4:40.)

He goes on to say that the one who believes in Him is not judged, while the one who does not believe is already judged because of that unbelief. Elsewhere (John 3:36; v. 24; vi. 47), Jesus states plainly that whoever believes in Him has eternal life already and has passed from death into life. Similar teaching appears in John 11:25–26 and throughout I John (5:1, 5, 10, 13).

In short, the doctrine of eternal life as a present possession for all who believe in Christ stands out in John’s writings just as clearly as justification by faith stands out in Paul’s.

Though the language differs, the underlying reality is the same. From the standpoint of spiritual life, these two ways of speaking are fully equivalent.

Paul teaches that the wages of sin is death, and that those who are unsaved are already spiritually dead because of their sins. But he also teaches that those who believe — whose sins are forgiven — are already made alive in Christ (Rom. 6:23; Eph. 2:1, 5; Col. 2:13). This life, already possessed by believers and destined to unfold into eternal joy, is exactly what Christ means by “eternal life.”

Since death is the penalty for sin, eternal life necessarily includes forgiveness of sin. In I John 2:12 (compare 1:9), this forgiveness is explicitly described as a present reality, in close verbal agreement with passages such as Eph. 1:7, Col.1:14, and Acts 13:38.

And since Christ is presented as the future Judge of the world, to promise eternal life to all who believe is, in effect, to pronounce their justification by faith. Thus, Paul’s teaching both flows from and points back to the teaching attributed to Christ in the Fourth Gospel.

Faith Over Against Works

A striking parallel appears in John 6:29 and Rom. 3:27. When Jesus addresses Jews who assumed salvation depended on works, He says, “This is the work of God: that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” Paul, shaped by his lifelong engagement with the Law, describes the Gospel as “a law of faith.”
In both cases, faith is given a unique and decisive role in salvation.

The Synoptic Gospels

We now turn to the Synoptic Gospels. As already noted, by the latter part of the second century the First Gospel was universally accepted as the work of an Apostle, while the Second and Third were attributed to close companions of Apostles. Even earlier, the writings of Justin Martyr show that Christians possessed accounts of Christ’s teaching that closely matched our present Gospels.

The sharp differences in language and thought between the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel confirm that these, too, provide independent testimony to the teaching of Christ.

In the First Gospel especially, obedience rather than faith is emphasized as the condition of entering the kingdom of heaven. Only those who do the will of the Father will enter (Matt. 7:21). The wise builder is the one who hears and acts on Jesus’ words (v. 24). When asked about eternal life, Jesus replies, “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matt. 19:17).

Yet faith is by no means absent. Again and again it appears as the condition of blessing and spiritual power. An afflicted woman is told, “Your faith has saved you” (Matt. 9:22). Two blind men are healed according to their faith. The disciples fail to heal because of unbelief, while faith makes all things possible (Matt. xvii. 20). Jesus even declares that faith can move mountains (Matt. 21:21).

Throughout the First Gospel, faith is consistently linked to spiritual effectiveness. Mark records Jesus opening His ministry with the call to “repent and believe the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). Luke warns that the devil snatches away the word so that people may not believe and be saved (Luke 8:12).

Forgiveness of Sins

The forgiveness of sins — so central to Paul’s teaching — is equally prominent in the Synoptic Gospels. Jesus teaches His disciples to pray, “Forgive us our debts.” Faith is directly connected to forgiveness in Matt. 9:2, and Jesus explicitly claims authority on earth to forgive sins (v. 6). With one notable exception, He declares that all sin and blasphemy can be forgiven (Matt. 12:31–32).

The same emphasis appears across the Synoptics. Forgiveness is the goal of John the Baptist’s preaching (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3). At the Last Supper, Jesus explains that His blood is poured out “for forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). After the resurrection, He commands that forgiveness of sins be proclaimed to all nations in His name (Luke 24:47).

All of this shows that securing forgiveness was a central purpose of Christ’s mission and death.

The Wider New Testament Witness

Peter’s preaching fits perfectly with this message. At Pentecost, he calls people to repent and be baptized for forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38). Speaking to Cornelius, he declares that everyone who believes in Christ receives forgiveness through His name (Acts 10:43).

Elsewhere in the New Testament, faith is consistently portrayed as the means of spiritual safety, stability, and salvation (I Peter 1:5, 9). Faith is tested, refined, and proven more precious than gold. It is essential for effective prayer (James 1:3; v. 6, 15). James’ discussion of faith and works underscores faith’s central importance, even while clarifying its proper expression.

Jude speaks of “the faith once delivered to the saints” and urges believers to build themselves up in their most holy faith. The Israelites perished in the wilderness because of unbelief.

Across the New Testament — Revelation being no exception — there is deep unity beneath surface diversity. The message is always good news, and at its heart lies the forgiveness of sins for all who believe, or its clear equivalent.

The Origin of This Teaching

In the Old Testament, forgiveness is occasionally mentioned, but nowhere do we find a clear declaration that God now receives all who believe His word into His favor. That promise belongs to the future New Covenant (Jer. 31:34; Ezek. 36:25). Nor does such teaching appear in any pre-Christian literature.

By contrast, forgiveness through faith is everywhere in Christian writings, across all churches and all ages. It is a distinctive and new feature of the Gospel.

This shared core must have a single source — and that source can only be the actual teaching of Christ Himself. If Jesus truly taught, as the Fourth Gospel repeatedly records, that those who believe in Him already possess eternal life, then the theology of the entire New Testament makes sense.

If He is also the Judge of the world, then His promise of life is nothing less than a verdict of acquittal. Through faith, even sinners are justified.

Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith is therefore not an invention but a logical development of Christ’s own teaching. The deep harmony between Paul and John leaves no room for doubt that both faithfully understood their Master. The Synoptic Gospels strongly reinforce this conclusion.

The Only Plausible Explanation

If, on the other hand, Christ did not teach this doctrine, we would have to believe that all the earliest Christian records and preachers fundamentally misunderstood Him. Yet these same teachers won for Christ the allegiance of all subsequent generations and radically altered the course of human history for the good.

The idea that they were disastrously mistaken about the central message they preached is simply untenable. The only explanation that fits all the evidence is that Jesus of Nazareth actually taught that God receives into His favor — despite their past sins — all who believe the good news He proclaimed.

Finally, notice that this conclusion does not depend on assuming the special authority of Scripture. We have treated the New Testament as historical evidence, weighing its testimony as we would any other documents. Just as consistent agreement among independent witnesses in a court of law can establish the truth beyond doubt, so the deep unity beneath the New Testament’s diversity assures us that this central teaching truly comes from Christ Himself.

Even if the Fourth Gospel were not written by the Apostle John — though strong evidence supports that claim — it cannot be much later than the early second century. Its independence from Paul only strengthens its value as a witness.

Like the Synoptic Gospels, it stands as an independent testimony to the teaching of Christ.

 

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This post is based upon Lecture XIII from J. A. Beet's book Through Christ to God: A Study in Scientific Theology (1893), re-written with the assistance of Microslop CoPilot. The original text may be found at the Internet Archive here: Through Christ to God.