114. Solus Christus And Sola Gratia (G) (Mt. 7:15-20)

REVIEW

FLIP CHART: SOM’S KEY VERSE, GOAL, MOTTO

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness ….” (Mt. 6:33a).

The law sends us to Christ for justification; Christ sends us back to the law for sanctification.

FLIP CHART: Show new “Perfect Righteousness” chart explaining steps to coming to Christ (As a worm, mourning, meek, spiritual hunger/thirst with the result of legal righteousness). Explain: moral righteousness, immediate moral change at conversion, gradual change through life’s challenges and speeding up moral change via CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection and Confession/Thanksgiving). Key verse, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb. 10:14).

FLIP CHART: John Stott’s outline of SOM.

TEACHING GOAL: Explain the Reformer’s Biblical understanding of “Solus Christus” and “Sola Gratia”

To finish up his sermon, Jesus gives four powerful illustrations, all with a goal of pressing his listeners for a decision. Each of the illustrations contains a dire warning: destruction, fire, rejection, destruction.

IN CHRIST ALONE

In Christ alone my hope is found.

He is my light, my strength, my song.
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease.
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save
‘Til on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt of life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life’s first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
‘til He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

INTRODUCTION:

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. (Mt. 7:15-20)

REVIEW: . . . . Some key ”SO WHATS?” From the previous lessons.

1. Mt. 7:15-20 warns us against false prophets. We can easily spot false teaching on major doctrines; it is much more difficult to spot gaps in teaching and yet we must make sure the whole counsel of God is taught.

2. Being born with a depraved nature, no amount of good works can save a person from the just punishment of sin.

3. The doctrine of justification by faith is the theological Atlas of the Gospel, the Reformation and Evangelicals. It bears our spiritual world, the entire evangelical knowledge of God as Savior, on its shoulders.

4. Through Justification God declares us not just innocent of guilt but positively righteous. We are freed from guilt and receive Christ’s righteousness as ours.

5. We are saints and sinners at the same time and thus commanded by God to grow in grace and in all the graces of the Christian life.

OUTLINE:

THE FIVE “SOLAS” / “ONLIES” OF THE REFORMATION

1. Sola # 1 – Scripture Alone (Sola Scriptura)

2. Sola # 2 – Christ Alone (Solus Christus)

3. Sola # 3 – Grace Alone (Sola Gratia)

4. Sola # 4 – Faith Alone (Sola Fide)

5. Sola # 5 – God’s Glory Alone (Soli Deo Gloria)

Summary of the Five Solas: The Gospel of Salvation is based exclusively on Scripture, experienced only in Christ, given solely of God’s grace and appropriated by faith alone with the sole purpose of God’s glory.

SOLUS CHRISTUS & SOLA GRATIA – (G)

1. SCRIPTURE ALONE (SOLA SCRIPTURA)

1. Every corruption of Biblical Christianity starts by ignoring the Scripture as the sole source of Biblical truth for life and doctrine.

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4)

2. Those redeemed by Christ have entered a “Royal Priesthood” (I Peter 2:9), and are members of a “Kingdom of Priests” (Rev. 1:6) Thus evangelicals hold to the priesthood of the believer and believe the average Christian can read and understand the Scripture.

3. The Scripture is understood with the enlightenment of Holy Spirit but God also gives the church teachers who, using sound principles of Biblical interpretation (hermeneutics), guide his people into His truth.

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. (John 16:13)

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:11-13)

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. (II Tim. 2:15)

II. CHRIST ALONE (SOLUS CHRISTUS)

ILL: According to University of Virginia sociologist James Hunter, 35% of evangelical seminarians deny that faith in Christ is absolutely necessary. According to George Barna, that is the same figure for conservative, evangelical Protestants in America: “God will save all good people when they die, regardless of whether they’ve trusted in Christ,” they agreed. (Reformation Essentials, Michael Horton)

During the Renaissance (1400-1600AD) there was a movement away from Christ as the only Savior to the saving revelation of God in nature and a fascination with pagan philosophy and the idea that natural religion offered a great deal, even salvation, to those who did not know Christ.

We saw that Luther, when experiencing the thunder and lightening storm prayed to St. Anne, the patron saint of miners (his father was a miner) that if his life was spared he would become a monk.

When the Pope continues to say “Mary is the source of our faith and our hope,” we must continue to say in response that our hope “is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” (An Evangelical and Reformed Faith, Terry Johnson)

QUESTION: What is the weakness in the statement of a well-known evangelical theologian?

“…This cultural influence toward relativism is not only apparent in the masses; it is self-consciously asserted by some of evangelicalism’s own teachers. Clark Pinnock states,

‘The Bible does not teach that one must confess the name of Jesus Christ to be saved. The issue God cares about is the direction of the heart, not the content of their theology.’

For those of us who have some inkling of the direction of their heart (see Jer 17:9), that might not be as comforting as Pinnock assumes.” (Reformation Essentials, Michael Horton)

The Cambridge Declaration: We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial work of the historical Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to the Father.

CLASS ACTIVITY: What verse selection does the best job of explaining that salvation is in Christ alone? If you were allowed one verse selection to use in explaining the Gospel, which one would you use?

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:5-6)

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. (I Corinthians 1:30)

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (II Corinthians 5:21)

For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men — the testimony given in its proper time. (I Timothy 2:5-6)

Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. (Hebrews 7:27)

But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. (Hebrews 10:12)

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. (I Peter 2:24)

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood. (Rev. 1:6)

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (II Cor. 5:21)

Because of these verses and others the Reformers rejected the Medieval concept of the mass as a re-sacrificing of Christ, or even as a re-enactment of that Sacrifice, because his death was once for all. (An Evangelical and Reformed Faith, Terry Johnson)

Purgatory is not needed. There are no unpaid sins to atone for. In Christ there are no unpaid sins.

In all reality the doctrine of “Justification by faith alone” is just a restatement of “Justification by the work of Christ alone.”

Justification is more than removing guilt. That would only make us innocent and not righteous.

III. GRACE ALONE (SOLA GRATIA)

Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt use the term sola gratia repeatedly in his 1519 disputation.

QUESTION: What was/is the major dispute between the Roman Catholic Church and Reformed Theology as to Grace?

THE NECESSITY OF GRACE

The issue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Reformers was never about the necessity of grace but about the sufficiency of grace.

The Roman church taught that Mass is a “sacrifice [which] is truly propitiatory” and that by the Mass “God…grant[s] us grace and the gift of penitence, remits our faults and even our enormous sins” — the reformers returned to the biblical doctrine of salvation by grace alone through faith. (Reformation Essentials, Michael Horton)

The Mormons also believe in the necessity of grace: For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do. (2 Nephi 25:23)

A popular Medieval phrase was “God will not deny His grace to those who do what they can.” Today’s version: “God helps those who help themselves.” Fifty percent of evangelicals in a survey thought this was a direct Biblical quotation while 84% thought it was a Biblical idea.

Is grace able to save or does it fill up what is lacking after man makes his best effort?

THE SUFFICIENCY OF GRACE

According to Scripture, God declares a person righteous before that person actually begins to become righteous. Therefore, the declaration is not in response to any spiritual or moral advances within the individual, but is an imputation of the perfect righteousness that God immediately requires of everyone who is united to Christ by faith alone. When a person trusts Christ, that very moment he or she is clothed in his perfect holiness, so that even though the believer is still sinful, he or she is judged by God as blameless. (Reformation Essentials, Michael Horton)

And because of Abraham’s faith, God counted him as righteous. And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn’t just for Abraham’s benefit. It was recorded for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God. (Romans 4:22-25, The New Living Translation)

“ . . . the difference in doctrine between the RC and the Reformers lies mainly in two facts: that of God as sole actor in grace (in other words, that grace is always efficacious without any cooperation by man), and second, that man cannot by any action of his own, acting under the influence of grace, cooperate with grace to “merit” greater graces for himself (the latter would be the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church).” (Taken from the web)

It is here that we get into the arena of monergism (one working) v. synergism (more than one party working) regarding salvation. All the Reformers were monergists, believing that God’s grace is the essential deciding factor that enables a person to believe. As Augustine, who without doubt was the greatest theologian of the first millennia of the Church said, “God chooses us, not because we believe, but that we may believe…” (The Reformation – Has the Holy Spirit Moved On?, John Samson)

Monergism – God alone is the one who saves; Synergism – God and man work together in salvation.

And are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:24)

And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace. (Romans 11:6)

Made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. (Ephesians 2:5)

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

QUESTION: Why did God choose Israel?

The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (Deut. 7:7-8)

Re-quoting Augustine: God chooses us, not because we believe, but that we may believe . . .

READING: “Grace alone” reminds us that “it is by His doing” that we are “in Christ Jesus” (1 Corinthians 1:30). If I believe, it is because God gave me the ability to believe. If I have chosen Christ, it is because He first chose me (John 15:16). If I love Christ, it is because He first loved me (1 John 4:10). It was while I was dead and blind and ignorant and helpless that Christ died for me and then began to work decisively in my life. The Reformers, and we with them, must never lose sight of the fact that it is by the sovereign, initiating, electing love of God in Christ that we were saved. (An Evangelical and Reformed Faith, Terry Johnson)

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. (Ephesians 1:3-8)

The Reformers were careful to remove any idea that faith generated salvation by emphasizing Sola Gratia. Being who we are, we can easily start taking credit for our salvation due to “our” faith. So Sola Gratia removes the last possible ground for human merit.

ILL: Calvin in his only statement regarding his conversion, found in the preface to his commentary on the Psalms, shows the biblical perspective in our salvation in saying, God drew me . . . God at last turned my course by the secret rein in His providence . . . by an unexpected conversion He tamed to teachableness a mind too stubborn for its years . . . . . (An Evangelical and Reformed Faith, Terry Johnson)

SO WHAT???

1. The Five Solas: The Gospel of Salvation is based exclusively on Scripture, experienced only in Christ, given solely of God’s grace and appropriated by faith alone with the sole purpose of God’s glory.

2. The Scripture is understood with the enlightenment of Holy Spirit but God also gives the church teachers who, using sound principles of Biblical interpretation (hermeneutics), guide his people into His truth.

3. The Cambridge Declaration: We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial work of the historical Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to the Father.

4. We stand with the Reformers, and say that God’s grace is enough, God’s grace is not just necessary for salvation but it is sufficient for our salvation.