Josh Howerton on Justification
Forensic — righteousness imputed, not infused
THE POSITION
By grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, always with the rider 'with the words properly defined.' Good works are the fruit of salvation, not the root. Salvation has three tenses: from sin's penalty, power, and presence.
WHY THERE IS NO QUOTATIONTwo sources of unequal strength. Eleven doctrinally dense episodes of the Live Free podcast — 989,088 characters of auto-caption transcript — carry all thirteen positions; Howerton hosts that show with Carlos Erazo and Paul Cunningham, captions do not label speakers, and those transcripts were not retained, so a claim is attributed to him personally only where the surrounding text made the speaker unmistakable, and no quotation from them can be reopened. Positions drawn from the show rather than from him by name are the show's. Against that, one solo sermon has been transcribed and retained with its video id and timestamps — 4 Ways to KILL the Spirit of Fear, 16 Aug 2026 — and the two positions it bears on now carry a quotation any reader can open at the second it was said. Eleven positions still carry none, which is the unrepaired half of this figure and not a principle: the remaining 164 sermons are unread. Automatic captioning mangles proper nouns and technical theological terms throughout; corrections are bracketed.
8 For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
18 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Senior pastor of Lakepointe Church, Dallas–Fort Worth, and host of the Live Free podcast. Researched from primary-source transcripts — see the Live Free Podcast folder.
Cite this page
"Josh Howerton on Justification", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/howerton/justification (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/howerton/justification).