The Necessity of Good Works in Salvation
May 23, 2026 · 20 min · 8 segments
This is an AI reading of this post: https://anglicanaesthetics.substack.com/p/the-necessity-of-good-works
May 23, 2026 · 20 min · 8 segments
This is an AI reading of this post: https://anglicanaesthetics.substack.com/p/the-necessity-of-good-works
The necessity of good works so an old clip from John Piper has been making the rounds lately in the Protestant world where he declares, you don't get to heaven by faith alone.
You get justified by faith alone.
Some have expressed horror at this thoroughly Protestant line because they've forgotten that the issue about good works was never over whether they are means to eternal life.
The disagreement with Rome over this issue centers on whether good works merit the forgiveness of sins, whether they in any sense reduce the punishment owed to believers.
To understand that whole idea, see here.
I was originally not going to say more than I've already said.
But in the spirit of fighting for the renewal of Orthodox Anglicanism, I think I must now.
F.R. John Fonville, the Rector of Paramount Church in the Diocese of the Rocky Mountains, recently put out an article denying any instrumentality to good works in salvation.
Now, I like the Diocese of the Rocky Mountains.
They are both doing excellent work.
But I'm convinced that just as we need to clamp down on Anglo-Papalism to recover Orthodox Anglicanism, we also need to clamp down on Puritan Anglicanism.
Both are mistakes.
Both are distortions of our heritage as Anglicans.
One such mistakes Puritan evangelical Anglicanism makes is on the role of good works.
F.R. John Fonville claims that no Reformed confession teaches that the Christian's good works are instrumental in salvation, meritorious for salvation, or that salvation is by or through good works.
I want to show that Reformed and Anglican writers alike both universally confess the necessity of good works for salvation.
F. R. Fonville tries to argue against this from the fact that the Reformed confessions all rightly teach that good works have no role whatsoever to play in procuring justification, the verdict of God whereby God receives us into his family as beloved sons and daughters and forgives us of all sin.
And this is true, good works have no such role, and Rome is to be rejected on this score.
But F. R. Fonville makes the opposite error, that they are not instrumental in the possession of salvation or the maintenance of it.
And there, he is simply wrong.
So recall that salvation is more than just justification.
It is true that none of the punishments due from justice to our sins are emitted by works.
The necessity of good works so an old clip from John Piper has been making the rounds lately in the Protestant world where he declares, you don't get to heaven by faith alone.
You get justified by faith alone.
Some have expressed horror at this thoroughly Protestant line because they've forgotten that the issue about good works was never over whether they are means to eternal life.
The disagreement with Rome over this issue centers on whether good works merit the forgiveness of sins, whether they in any sense reduce the punishment owed to believers.
To understand that whole idea, see here.
I was originally not going to say more than I've already said.
But in the spirit of fighting for the renewal of Orthodox Anglicanism, I think I must now.
F.R. John Fonville, the Rector of Paramount Church in the Diocese of the Rocky Mountains, recently put out an article denying any instrumentality to good works in salvation.
Now, I like the Diocese of the Rocky Mountains.
They are both doing excellent work.
But I'm convinced that just as we need to clamp down on Anglo-Papalism to recover Orthodox Anglicanism, we also need to clamp down on Puritan Anglicanism.
Both are mistakes.
Both are distortions of our heritage as Anglicans.
One such mistakes Puritan evangelical Anglicanism makes is on the role of good works.
F.R. John Fonville claims that no Reformed confession teaches that the Christian's good works are instrumental in salvation, meritorious for salvation, or that salvation is by or through good works.
I want to show that Reformed and Anglican writers alike both universally confess the necessity of good works for salvation.
F. R. Fonville tries to argue against this from the fact that the Reformed confessions all rightly teach that good works have no role whatsoever to play in procuring justification, the verdict of God whereby God receives us into his family as beloved sons and daughters and forgives us of all sin.
And this is true, good works have no such role, and Rome is to be rejected on this score.
But F. R. Fonville makes the opposite error, that they are not instrumental in the possession of salvation or the maintenance of it.
And there, he is simply wrong.
So recall that salvation is more than just justification.
It is true that none of the punishments due from justice to our sins are emitted by works.
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