The Protestant Reformation was a religious movement that began in the 16th century, aiming to reform the beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church that saw salvation as requiring both faith and men’s good works, including compliance with the Church’s sacramental system for man to be made right with God. This was contrary to the Reformer’s Biblical understanding of salvation being a free gift from God, apart from human merit or works of any kind. The Reformers believed, and rightly so, that salvation, God’s rescue of sinful men and women from His wrath and judgement, and restoration to the glorious life with God for which man was created, as being in its totality, “of the LORD!” (Jonah 2:9).
This truth was conceptualized in what are referred to as the Five Solas of the Reformation. Sola is a Latin term we translate as solo meaning alone.
The first sola is by GRACE Alone. The term grace, is defined historically as a free gift, unmerited and undeserved, given out of love. Grace, as used in the Bible, thus describes how God freely and gladly displays His infinite goodness, wisdom, power and love on behalf of men and women He created in His image and likeness for our present and eternal joy, pleasure, satisfaction and significance in Him. As I have noted in previous posts, God’s grace was displayed in the glory of creation, with Him making mankind in His image and likeness to share in His glorious existence and to enjoy His abundant goodness. It is displayed now in His gracious self-revelation of His person and purposes, of His wisdom and guidance that are found in scriptures (Acts 20:32) and in the day to day providential blessings all of mankind receive to various degrees from God while in this world, despite our sin (James 1:17).
And most gloriously, it is displayed in His salvation from His judgment and wrath – His just and righteous response to our sin, a response that has its ultimate end in death and Hell (Psalm 9:17). Sin is defined in 1 John 3:4 as “lawlessness” and in Romans 3:23 as falling short of the glory of God. It is essentially our rejection of God’s purpose for and rule over our lives, in which we have opposed His order and design for human flourishing and our individual happiness in Him, pridefully believing we can achieve for ourselves both, independent of Him (Ecclesiastes 7:29).
Saving grace is revealed and provided in and through the third sola, that being the person and work of JESUS CHRIST Alone, the benefits or blessings of which we receive through the second sola, FAITH Alone, which itself is a gift (Ephesians 2:8-9) (Romans 3:21-26).
Jesus Christ, eternally God the Son, graciously leaves His throne in Heaven and comes into this sin condemned world as a man, Himself now dependent on the grace of God the Father (John 5:30). He comes as a man so that through His sinless life, sacrificial death on the cross and miraculous resurrection, He would accomplish everything necessary for God to graciously and justly forgive sinful men and women who put their faith in Him of their sins, and to declare them righteous or in right standing with Himself (2 Corinthians 5:21). In mercy, which is His goodness toward the Hell-deserving, He grants them spiritual life, adopting them as His beloved children, and thus reconciling and restoring them to the glorious relationship with God for which mankind was created to enjoy – what is referred to as eternal life (Ephesians 2:1) (Romans 8:15) (Romans 6:23).
Faith, in general, is the absolute certainty – unwavering conviction – deep rooted assurance in our heart that something is right and true despite the absence of any immediate, observable evidence. It is the unwavering confidence and trust we place in a person, object or experience to fulfill a promise or expectation, and then living our lives according to that promise.
Saving Faith is thus the absolute certainty, unwavering conviction, deep rooted assurance in our heart of God’s promise that those who will repent of their sin and trust in Jesus Christ, God the Son, alone, as their all sufficient Savior (Philippians 3:20), submit their life to Him as LORD (Romans 10:9-10), and worship Him alone as the object of their deepest love and source of their greatest joy, will not perish in Hell, but receive the gift of eternal life (John 3:16).
Being spiritually dead, faith is not something we can work up in ourselves, but is a gift which Jesus authors in our heart by the work of the Holy Spirit when He initiates our salvation by granting us spiritual life through regeneration or being born again (Ephesians 2:1-4) (Ephesians 2:8-9) (Hebrews 12:2) (Titus 3:3-7).
Johnathan Edwards describes this gift of faith as follows: Faith is the soul’s entirely clinging, adhering, and fully believing the revelation of Jesus Christ as our Savior, or thus, faith is the soul’s embracing the truth of God, that reveals Jesus Christ as our Savior, or thus faith is the soul’s entirely submitting to and depending upon the truth of God, revealed in Christ our Savior. It is the whole soul according and assenting to the truth (of God) and embracing of it. There is an entire yielding of the mind and heart to the revelation of God (found in His word and in creation), and the giving of our life over to it, and adhering to it, in both our inclinations and affections. It is admitting and receiving it with entire credit and respect (to Jesus). The soul (the entirety of our inner man) receives it as true, as worthy and most excellent.
The Reformers understood that each of these truths are revealed to us by SCRIPTURE Alone, apart from the Catholic Church’s traditions or Papel decrees (2 Timothy 3:14-15) (Romans 10:17). This is the fourth sola.
The fifth sola recognized that God’s ultimate motivation in providing everything necessary for our salvation was to the GLORY of GOD Alone, thus destroying mankind’s ultimate expression of our sinful pride, namely the belief that we as rebellious, sin corrupted, spiritually dead men and women, could do anything of ourselves, to make ourselves right and acceptable to a Holy God (Psalm 115:1) (1 Samuel 2:2).
When the Bible speaks of the glory of God, it is speaking of the outshining of the infinite perfections of His majestic being that make Him unquestionably and eternally worthy of our love, trust, fear, obedience, and worship (Isaiah 43:7) (Ephesians 1:11-12) (John 1:14).
Thus, in this age, our salvation is the ultimate display of the glory of God’s grace, proclaiming His worthiness to be loved with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, as we look forward to the glory of His grace in the age to come as it will be revealed in the new heavens and new earth that Jesus will establish at His second coming (Luke 10:25-28) (Ephesians 2:4-7) (2 Peter 3:12-13).
Thus, we pray joyfully, expectantly and continually with the Apostle John, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20-21)
Grace and Peace ×