A common critique is that this doctrine makes for lazy Christians. The objection goes something like this: If I am justified merely by faith and not works, then there is no need for me to do good works. But the Reformers scoffed at that notion, because it misinterprets what God is doing for us through faith in Christ! Since our salvation is secured by a gracious gift of saving belief in Christ’s works, then that will stir us up to love and good works.

To understand the importance of the statement “faith alone,” we need to remember why the Reformers sought to recover the doctrine of God’s grace. They wanted to emphasize the fact that we are made right with God not through any merit of our own but rather through God’s own free grace. In Christ, we receive unmerited favor from God.
The Roman Catholics in the sixteenth century would have agreed with this to some extent. They indeed believed we needed God’s grace to get to heaven. But how do we get the grace? Here’s what they said at the Council of Trent in 1547 (which is still Roman Catholic doctrine today):

If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be accursed. (Sixth Session, Canon IX)

Faith is the gift of God.
This is very strong language. What Rome is saying is that if you believe that it is purely by faith that you receive God’s grace, you will be accursed—that is, damned to hell. What’s the problem with this? It’s the very teaching of Scripture that they are condemning! Paul could not be clearer:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph. 2:8-9)

Rome wanted to say that we are saved by God’s grace in cooperation with faith and works. In fact, it even saw faith itself as one of the works that earns us God’s grace. But you can’t earn grace—otherwise, it’s not grace, not a gift. Rome taught a theological contradiction, one that Paul warned against in Ephesians 2.
In response to Rome’s perversion of biblical doctrine, the Reformers returned to the Scriptural truth that nothing we do can earn favor with God.
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‌When we’re asked the question, how do you know that you’ve worshiped, we want to be able to say something like “I felt God.” I experienced his presence. ‌But here’s what we need to remember: while we truly are in God’s presence through Christ, it is in the Spirit, and it is not yet a physical reality. It will one day be a physical reality. But that time has not yet come. We are already there spiritually, but not yet bodily.

If we wish to be faithful to the biblical doctrines recovered in the Protestant Reformation, then our worship must be according to Scripture alone, by grace alone, through Christ alone. Indeed, when we draw near according to Scripture, by grace, through Christ, we are entering the very presence of God in heaven for communion with him.
However, although drawing near to the heavenly sanctuary is a very real reality in Christ, it is not yet a physical reality. Our bodies are still here on earth, while we really are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. What this reveals is the important spiritual essence of our participation in the heavenly worship of God through Christ. As Paul says in Ephesians 2, we have access to the Father through Christ in one Spirit. The Spirit of God is the agent who makes this possible because it is a spiritual reality.
The problem is that physical human beings naturally tend toward defining the essence of our communion with God in physical terms. This was the challenge for the Hebrew converts to Christianity that the author of Hebrews was addressing.
‌As Jews, when they thought of worship, they thought of it in terms of the physical temple, animal sacrifices, and ceremonies. These were physical rituals of worship established by God at Sinai, but the author of Hebrews emphasizes in verse 18 that we have not come to that mountain that may be touched. Those physical rituals of worship were but a mere copy and shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, he says in Chapter 10. Now, we come to a better mountain, we come to the heavenly mountain through Christ alone.
But since the true form of these realities is something that we experience spiritually now and not yet physically, these Hebrew Christians struggled. Those Old Covenant external forms of worship “felt” more real, and so they were being tempted to forsake spiritual worship in the heavenly temple in favor of earthly, physical forms of Old Covenant worship.
‌And many Christians throughout history have likewise failed to understand the spiritual reality of our participation in heavenly worship. Many medieval Christians wanted to experience the worship of heaven tangibly here on earth, either expecting that heaven came down to them while they worshiped or that they were experientially led into the heavenly temple through the sacramental ceremonies. They desired a heavenly worship “that can be touched.” And so they drew much of their worship practice from the Old Covenant, introducing into their worship an altar and priests with beautiful robes and trappings, and the lighting of candles and incense, and elaborate processions and ceremonies.
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If Jesus is not God, as John asserts and Jesus himself declares, and if he is not “my Lord and my God” as Thomas exclaims, then we have no hope. We have no gospel. Jesus is able to die in our place and reconcile us to the Father precisely because he is the divine Son of God, worthy to atone for the sins of all who would believe in him.
I usually don’t care to debate the theological opinions I hear on the radio. This is mostly because I believe Christian radio hosts are simply trying to love Jesus, love people, and do some encouraging things in the world. Furthermore, they do not seem to offer their opinions as though they believed they were the official teachers of the church universal.
Every now and then, however, someone says something that causes me to say, “No!” In my head, this is usually followed by a little bit of debate with whoever said what they said. In this hypothetical interaction, I often attempt to offer a bit winsome correction. To be honest, though, this is simply an exercise that helps me get my own head around why I think what I just heard is out of theological bounds.
The other day I was driving down the road and listening to a Christian radio station somewhere in Wisconsin. I do not remember what song had just played and, honestly, I do not recall much of what was going on. However, at one point the host said something along these lines:
“When we spend time with Jesus, by proxy we meet with God.”
When I heard that, I paused. I immediately knew something was off. But I wanted to be sure, so (at the next stop), I looked up the dictionary definition of proxy to see if it meant what I thought it meant. Here are the definitions of proxy via Merriam-Webster.
First, Webster provides the “essential meaning.”

A person who is given the power and authority to do something (such as vote) for someone else;
Power or authority that is given to allow a person to act for someone else.

Then, a fuller meaning is provided. The problematic language within the “essential meaning” and the “fuller meaning” is simply that a “proxy” acts as a “substitute…for another.” The idea of being a proxy is that the proxy represents and acts for someone else, for someone they are not. For instance, imagine if it were legal to allow your spouse to vote in your place during an election. I might give my wife the right to cast my vote if I’m unable to do so due to sickness, travel, or any other unforeseen circumstance. She acts on my behalf yet she is not me. Or, perhaps, imagine I have given power of attorney to her so that she can sign a document for me. She again acts on my behalf but she, again, is not me. We are not the same person.
If that is the meaning of proxy, then the host of the radio show has said in essence that when you meet with Jesus, you meet with God via someone who acts on God’s behalf but is not God himself. At least this is the implication of the words, even if this was not the intent. He did not say that when you meet with Jesus, you meet with the Father via proxy. There is perhaps a way we could nuance that to make it work, since the Son is not the Father, though they are one in essence. But, even there, the Son and the Father, along with the Spirit, are without division. To meet with the Son is to be with the Father and the Spirit. However we might have parsed out that idea is beside the point. The host said that when you meet with Jesus, you meet with “God via proxy.” That does not work, because to meet with Jesus is to meet with the God of the Cosmos.
The Bible is abundantly clear on the identity of Jesus Christ. He is no mere mortal. Jesus is God of very God, while also being fully human. When we talk of Jesus, we speak of the one in whom perfect deity and complete humanity are joined together without mixture or confusion.
The Gospel of John paints the picture as clear as any portion of the Bible. As soon as John opens his Gospel, the deity of Jesus flies off the page.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1-5)
In the context of John, the Word is a reference to Jesus (John 1:14). John opens by pointing to the creation account in Genesis, letting the reader know that this Jesus, though recently born of a woman, was there when the world was created. He was with God at the start and, in fact, “was God.” Being God, he is the agent of creation and had life in himself. He was, then, the a se Word (from where we get the idea of aseity).