How Can I Be Right with God?

How Can I Be Right with God? examines the doctrine of justification by faith alone, explaining how sinful people can be reconciled to a holy God through the imputed righteousness of Christ.

Part of the Crucial Questions series, this booklet by Dr. R.C. Sproul traces the recovery of justification as the central issue of the Protestant Reformation. Beginning with the Reformation motto post tenebras lux—”after darkness, light”—Sproul recounts Martin Luther’s spiritual crisis and his discovery that the righteousness required for salvation cannot come from within but must be received from God. Drawing on the Apostle Paul’s urgent warnings in Galatians, the booklet establishes why the doctrine of justification stands at the heart of the biblical gospel.

Across nine chapters, Sproul explains justification as God’s legal declaration, the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer, the nature of saving faith, and the resulting peace and access believers enjoy before God. He distinguishes carefully between faith as personal trust in Christ and faith misunderstood as a meritorious work, showing how the Reformers understood justification to be received by faith alone in Christ alone. The booklet concludes with the assurance that those who are justified have lasting reconciliation with God—not an uneasy truce, but an enduring peace secured by Christ’s finished work.

Key Themes

• Justification by faith alone as the article on which the church stands or falls
• The imputation of Christ’s righteousness as the sole ground of the believer’s standing before God
• Martin Luther’s spiritual crisis and the recovery of the biblical gospel
• The nature of saving faith as personal trust and reliance on Christ
• Peace with God and access to His presence as fruits of justification

Featured Quotes

“To tolerate the distortion of the gospel into another gospel is to tolerate the intolerable.”

“Calvin insisted that justification is not just initiated by faith, it is completed by faith.”