Gospel Guidebook: Getting and Keeping It Right 
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John Gill Was Wrong about the Nature of Faith
by Robert P. TerryUpdated June 1, 2026
Justification by faith is the sinner recognizing the righteousness of God revealed in the propositions of the Gospel, which include, primarily, the proposition that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, who did everything that needed to be done to glorify God and save sinners. If faith is made to be anything more than the bare persuasion that the propositions of the Gospel are true, then it is to that extent that Christ did not do everything that needed to be done to glorify God and save sinners. This is the problem with making faith to involve an appropriating act, a volitional response, a private word from the Spirit, or a life evidenced by good works. Mixing any of these things with the propositions of the Gospel effectively denies the Gospel.
In the case of John Gill, he certainly taught that Christ did it all, even going so far as to say that faith is not a "causa sine qua non" (i.e., a necessary cause or condition) of justification, such as in the case of elect infants, and for this I am grateful and have benefited much from his writings on justification. However, he also said that faith is not the "mere assurance of the object, or a bare persuasion that there is a justifying righteousness in Christ" (see here), thereby indicating that his confidence depended on something other than the justifying righteousness in Christ revealed in the Gospel. Since John Gill already affirmed that faith is not essential in a strict sense, his misunderstanding of the nature of faith might not be as serious as those who do not believe that there is a justifying righteousness in Christ (such as those who hold to the Westminster Standards, the Three Forms of Unity, 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, Free Grace theology, or anything Arminian), but it is still serious enough because by misunderstanding faith, he reveals that he may have never had faith in the things he taught about justification, at least not unadulterated faith. If this be so, granted that he was one of the elect (oh God, be merciful), it would place him among those exceptional cases, which include elect infants, who never enjoyed the benefit of faith, or at least not consistently, his faith having been adulterated with other things. As for these other things, John Gill described them saying, "That faith by which a man is said to he justified, is not a mere assurance of the object, or a bare persuasion that there is a justifying righteousness in Christ; but that there is a justifying righteousness in Christ for him; and therefore he looks unto, leans, relies, and depends on, and pleads this righteousness for his justification: though this act of his may be attended with many doubts, fears, questionings, and unbelief. And what is short of this I cannot apprehend to be true faith in Christ, as the Lord our righteousness." So, according to John Gill, any faith that does not appropriate to itself the status of the elect by performing some elusive act of leaning, relying, depending on, and pleading Christ's righteousness until it can say, whether timidly or boldly, that "Christ died for me" cannot be regarded as worthy of the Lord our righteousness, which if understood according to the natural force of words, transforms the "Lord our righteousness" in that "justifying righteousness in Christ" extra nos (outside ourselves) into a "Lord our righteousness" in a "justifying righteousness in Christ for me" that requires the sinner to differentiate himself from other sinners through his "true faith" intra nos (inside ourselves). If taken to its logical end, any person who exercises this "true faith" could very well stand side-by-side with the Pharisee, saying, "God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are."
The Gospel is a message that consist entirely of declarative propositions. We must resist the temptation to turn these propositions about what God did into a call to action to appropriate the status of the elect to ourselves by somehow confirming that "Christ died for me." Unless Universalism be the clear teaching of Scripture, there is no way for an unbeliever to know if Christ died for him (in an efficacious manner, which is the only thing that really matters). Now, this is exactly the problem with John Gill's description of faith, for it requires the unbeliever to confirm that Christ died for him as an element of believing the Gospel, something that is simply impossible. To overcome this impossibility, he has the unbeliever delve into a sort of Christian mysticism to perform some elusive "heart work" within himself through leaning, relying, depending on, and pleading Christ's righteousness until at least he faintly feels that Christ died for him individually. Sadly, this description of faith is not limited to John Gill (and the Particular Baptists), but is the prevailing understanding of faith among Calvinists, and it fulfills the dreadful words of Isaiah, "Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: Walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; Ye shall lie down in sorrow." In contrast, the Apostles never required anyone to believe that Christ died for him individually as a condition for experiencing justification by faith and the new birth (i.e., what the Calvinists call conversion), but consistently taught that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that whoever believed this proposition had life in His name (John 20:31).