Grace or Good Intentions?

"For by grace you have been saved through faith...." (Ephesians 2:8).

What is saving faith? Is it simply trusting in Christ for salvation, or does it also include my own good intentions to live a better life and walk in obedience to God's commands? Free Grace says the former, while Lordship Salvation says the latter.

For example, Wayne Gruden, a Reformed theologian and a proponent of "Lordship Salvation" (although he prefers not to use that label), says that saving repentance (which he agrees is included in saving faith) is "a heartfelt sorrow for sin, a renouncing of it, and a sincere commitment to forsake it and walk in obedience to Christ."[1] So all these things are included in saving faith, according to Grudem.

But notice this testimony from a former "proud Pharisee" who had similar good intentions, but came to realize that this is not the way of salvation by Christ alone:

"Let me confess ingenuously [candidly], I was a professor of religion, at least a dozen of years, before I knew any other way of eternal life, than to be sorry for my sins, and ask forgiveness, and strive and endeavor to fulfil the law, and keep the commandments, according as Mr. _____, and other godly men had expounded them: and truly, I remember, I was in hope, I should at last attain to the perfect fulfilling of them: and in the mean time, I conceived, that God would accept the will for the deed, or what I could not do, Christ had done for me.

And though at last, by means of conferring with Mr. Thomas ______ in private, the Lord was pleased to convince me, that I was yet but a proud Pharisee; and to show me the way of faith and salvation by Christ alone."[2]

Similarly, notice the following account from the life of John Wesley:

"It is well known that the celebrated John Wesley was a long time in deep anxiety about his salvation, and for years lived, as he himself says, 'preaching, and following after, and trusting in that righteousness whereby no flesh can be justified.' When alluding to the days he spent at the university, and the state of mind he was then in, he writes—'I cannot well tell, what I hoped to be saved by now, when I was continually sinning against that little light I had; unless by those transient fits of, what many divines taught me to call, repentance.' 'The struggle,' he tells us, 'continued for ten years,' until one evening he listened to a person who was reading Luther's 'Preface to the Romans.' While he heard the Reformer's description of the change which God works in the heart, through faith in Christ, he felt as he had never done before; 'I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation, and an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.' Soon after his conversion, he paid a visit to the Moravian Settlement, at Hernhutt, in Germany, and tells us, in his Diary, that his views became much clearer, and his faith strengthened by the private conversations and public discourses he there enjoyed. He speaks of one sermon preached by Christian David, that made an abiding impression upon his mind. His words are as follows:—'The fourth sermon which he preached, concerning the ground of our faith, made such an impression upon me, that when I went home, I could not but write down the substance of it, which was as follows:'—And here is a part of the sermon. 'You grieve for your sins; you are deeply humble; your heart is broken. Well. But all this is nothing to your justification. The remission of your sins is not owing to this cause, either in whole or in part. Nay, observe farther, that it may hinder justification; that is, if you build anything upon it; if you think I must be so and so contrite; I must grieve more before I can be justified. Understand this well. To think you must be more contrite, more humble, more grieved, more sensible of the weight of sin, before you can be justified, is to lay your contrition, your grief, your humiliation, for the foundation of your being justified; at least, for a part of the foundation. Therefore, it hinders your justification; and a hindrance it is which must be removed, before you can lay the right foundation. The right foundation is not your contrition, not your righteousness, nothing of your own; nothing that is wrought IN YOU by the Holy Ghost; but it is something without you; viz.: the righteousness and blood of Christ. This is the word, 'To him that believeth on God which justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.' See ye not that nothing in us is the foundation. Works? Righteousness? Contrition? No. Ungodliness only. This, then, do, if you will lay a right foundation. Go straight to CHRIST, with all your ungodliness. Tell him, 'Thou, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, searching my heart, seest that I am ungodly. I do not say, I am humble or contrite; but I am ungodly. Therefore, bring me to him that justifieth the ungodly. Let thy blood be the propitiation for me: for there is nothing in me but ungodliness.'"[3]

Oh how futile it is to try to gain God's acceptance and favor through self-effort and striving, rather than by simply receiving and resting!

 

Let us heed the warning of Martin Luther when he instructs us not to confuse law with grace:

"Therefore I warn you, and each one of you, especially such as are to be directors of the conscience, that you exercise yourselves in study, reading, meditation and prayer, so as you may be able to instruct and comfort both your own and others' consciences in the time of temptation, and to bring them back from the law to grace, from the active (or working) righteousness to the passive (or received) righteousness: in a word, from Moses to Christ."[4]

"For the devil is wont [or, accustomed], in affliction and in the conflict of conscience, by the law to make us afraid, and to lay against us the guilt of sin, our wicked life past, the wrath and judgment of God, hell and eternal death, that by this means he may drive us to desperation, make us bond-slaves to himself, and pluck us from Christ. Furthermore, he is wont [or, accustomed] to set against us those places of the Gospel, wherein Christ himself requires works of us, and with plain words threatens damnation to those who do them not. Now, if here we be not able to judge between these two kinds of righteousness, if we take not by faith hold of Christ sitting at the right hand of God, who maketh intercession unto the Father for us wretched sinners (Hebrews 7:25), then are we under the law and not under grace, and Christ is no more a savior, but a lawgiver. Then can there remain no more salvation, but a certain desperation and everlasting death must need follow."[5]

The Bible makes it clear in Ephesians 2:8-9 and in many other passages (e.g. Acts 15:11, 20:24; Rom. 3:24, 4:4-5, 4:16; Eph. 1:7, 2:5; Titus 2:11, 3:7, etc.) that sinners are saved "by grace," not by good intentions.

If you are trusting—even in the slightest—in your own good intentions to get you to heaven (such as in your commitment "to walk in obedience to Christ"), then you are trusting in yourself, at least in some measure. That is not salvation by grace! I implore you, change your mind (repent) and trust in Christ alone, Christ completely, Christ all-sufficient and Christ enough for salvation, and then you will find rest for your soul! In the back flyleaf of my Bible are written these words, which I wrote there many years ago: "The road to heaven is paved with the blood of Jesus. The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

References:

[1] Wayne Grudem, "Free Grace" Theology: 5 Ways It Diminishes the [Lordship] Gospel (Crossway, 2016), p. 42. In his book, Grudem says that "we are justified by faith alone (faith is the only response that God requires from us), but the faith that justifies is never alone (because it never occurs by itself, but is always accompanied by—or includes—repentance from sin" (Ibid., p. 38). As mentioned above, Grudem gives this definition for repentance: "Repentance is a heartfelt sorrow for sin, a renouncing of it, and a sincere commitment to forsake it and walk in obedience to Christ." (Ibid., p. 42.) So according to Grudem, saving faith always "includes" these things. I want to emphasize that Grudem here is not saying that these things follow or should follow saving faith; he is saying that saving faith "includes" these things! All these things are included in Grudem's definition of "justification by faith alone". In other words, it is "justification by faith alone" in name only. In reality, Grudem's definition of "justification by faith alone" includes much more than faith alone! But according to the Bible, saving faith is simply receiving Christ (see John 1:12, 3:16, 4:10; Rom. 3:24, 4:4-5, 6:23, etc.), not making a commitment that I'm going to walk in obedience—that's works!

[2] Edward Fisher, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, Part 1, First American Edition (Pittsburgh: Published by William Paxton, 1830), p. xvi.

[3] J. Oswald Jackson, Repentance: Or, The Change of Mind Necessary for Salvation Considered, pp. 50-51.

[4] This statement by Luther (from his Commentary on Galatians) is quoted in The Marrow of Modern Divinity, p. vi.

[5] Martin Luther's Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, https://media.sabda.org/alkitab-8/LIBRARY/LUT_CGAL.PDF (accessed October 15, 2025).