In the early Church, the radiant emphasis fell upon the mystery of the incarnation—the union of true divinity and true humanity in the person of Christ. The interior appropriation of salvation by the believer, that is, the subjective dimension of faith, justification, and sanctification, developed far more slowly. The Fathers of the ancient Church gazed upward toward the object of redemption before looking inward toward its application; and thus, the theological edifice of subjective soteriology remained at best an outline, awaiting its fuller shaping in later centuries.
The Latency of Subjective Soteriology
The doctrines surrounding the individual’s appropriation of salvation—faith, justification, and sanctification—were nascent and underdeveloped in comparison to the great objective affirmations of Christ’s person and work. The theology of the early Church, with all its reverence and vigor, placed the incarnation of the Logos at the very center of its proclamation. The twin affirmations of Christ’s full deity and full humanity towered over other considerations, forming the pillars of orthodoxy.
Anyone who comes to this early period expecting to discover the fully articulated Reformation doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide), famously hailed by Luther as the “article by which the Church stands or falls” (articulus stantis aut cadentis ecclesiae), will meet with disappointment. Even the mighty Augustine, who provided the soil in which much later Protestant soteriology would grow, did not formulate the doctrine as the Reformers did. Justification as a declarative act grounded in Christ’s righteousness imputed to the believer through faith was not yet clearly distinguished from sanctification.
In the Apostolic Fathers and apologists, justification—where it is mentioned at all—is often conflated with moral renewal or growth in virtue. Even in Clement of Rome, who seems to reflect Pauline language more than most, justification is blended with the emphasis of James on works. The patristic consensus leaned not toward forensic declaration, but toward ethical transformation.
Sanctification and the Early Moral Emphasis
The prevailing concern of the early Church was holiness of life—growth in sanctity and obedience to Christ. Faith was never detached from virtue, and salvation was perceived as a transformative process in which the believer, by grace, participates in the divine life. The early Fathers extolled good works and frequently hinted at the meritorious character of Christian virtue. Already in germinal form, one finds the seeds of what would later become the Roman Catholic doctrines of merit and even supererogation—the belief that some saints’ virtues exceed the requirements of duty and can benefit others.
This moral weightiness flowed naturally from the martyr-ethos of the early centuries. The faith was not abstract belief but costly fidelity; and in such a context, it is unsurprising that the language of sanctification overshadowed the forensic themes later central to the Reformation.
The Church and the Sacraments
The doctrine of the Church as the communion of grace was treated previously in the discussion on ecclesiastical constitution (see § 53). Likewise, the sacraments—understood as objective, God-ordained means of applying grace—have been addressed in the chapter on worship (see §§ 66–74). These two elements, ecclesiology and sacramentology, formed the framework within which the early Christians understood salvation’s subjective application.
It would remain for the great doctrinal struggles of the Reformation and the insights of modern evangelical theology to unfold more clearly the individual’s encounter with grace—justification as a legal declaration, sanctification as Spirit-wrought renewal, and faith not merely as intellectual assent or obedient trust, but as the sole instrument by which the sinner is united to Christ.
In sum, the early Church lived from the riches of Christ’s incarnation and resurrection. But the full articulation of how the soul lays hold of that treasure—personally, spiritually, and doctrinally—would take many more centuries of wrestling, renewal, and reform.
