Foundational Theology - The 5 Solas, Part 2 - Sola Fide

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Foundational Theology - The 5 Solas, Part 3 - Sola Gratia

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Hello, everyone.

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This is Pastor Andy Cain of By His Grace, and once again, I welcome you to another episode of Foundational Theology.

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Now, this is just the second part, and first time we are actually going through the five solos to begin with, and the first time we covered solo scriptura.

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And let me just say another quick word about that before we move on. It is amazing to me, I was watching a video two or three days ago with Dr.

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James White, and he was talking about a particular group or organization, I won't name them, but he was talking about how they had an issue with their theology, and the root of it was they had abandoned solo scriptura.

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And you see this so often with the social justice movement or this so -called social justice gospel, with the social justice warriors and all these different things.

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Whether it's them or any other group for that matter, it's always an abandonment at some point, and it's usually foundational or at the beginning point, an abandonment of solo scriptura, an abandonment of the one true gospel.

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This is why, and I do hope to at some point pick back up in Galatians in a sermon series, but this is why

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Paul was so amazed that these people that had been set free from the law and legalism and set free in Christ would so easily be disturbed and go for a gospel which really is not another gospel, but it's a perverted gospel.

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So solo scriptura is so important, that's why I started with that. But I do want to cover today, solo fide, meaning faith alone, faith by itself, faith plus nothing else.

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You cannot add works to it. Now, foundationally in terms of the atonement, we are saved by works, but it's

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Christ's work. It's Christ's work on the cross that makes salvation a free gift of God's grace and mercy.

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The key to it being faith alone is in terms of our justification, there are no works that we can provide.

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We cannot add to the work of the cross, and we can certainly not take away from it. It is the work of the cross alone, that atonement that the high priest

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Jesus Christ did on our behalf as his people that pays for our sins. It is our faith that is placed in this mediator, this second person of the

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Trinity, the Son of God, the living Son of God, the eternal Jesus Christ that saves us.

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And to note this and to bring this out about solo fide, I want to take a look at the second chapter of the book of Ephesians.

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It says, and you, and this is Paul talking to the Christians here, he says you were dead.

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You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. Notice that there is a distinct and foundational shift and difference between the one that is lost, the one that Romans describes as the one being in rebellion.

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Colossians describes it as being formerly alienated and hostile in mind. And also in Romans 8 it talks about those of the flesh and those of the spirit drawing that distinctive line between the lost and the saved, the unregenerate and the regenerate.

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So Paul is really driving this point home. He says you once walked this way. And in fact, later in the book here in Ephesians 5, in verse 7 it says, therefore do not become partners with them for at one time you were darkness.

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So Paul uses the darkness and light aspect as well. He says, you once were darkness, but now you are light, not of yourselves, not of works, solo fide, faith alone.

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You are light in the Lord. And because of that, Paul can command us to walk as children of light for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true and try to discern what is pleasing in the

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Lord. Then he says, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

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Now if you walk as a children of light, you can only do that because by solo fide, by faith alone, you've been justified and made alive in Christ.

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And if you walk in the light as Christ is in the light, you will naturally expose the deeds of darkness, not only in yourself, but in those around you.

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And a lot of people won't like that. And sadly, this is obviously, I cover this a lot on the

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By His Grace program, but even in churches, you will expose disobedience in churches when you try to walk specifically the manner worthy of the calling of which you've been called and walk as a child of light.

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But getting back to Ephesians 2, it draws a distinction. It says, you were dead in your trespasses and sins.

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You used to walk that way, meaning you no longer walk that way. That's no longer who you are.

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2 Corinthians chapter 5 talks about how we are a new creature in Christ. All things have passed away.

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Behold, new things have come. He says, you normally, or you once walked, notice he adds on this other phrase, following the course of this world.

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See, the unregenerate mind, the unregenerate soul, the one who is dead in trespasses, dead in their sins, can only choose from those range of options consistent with their nature.

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This is the essence of total depravity. We will cover this as a part of foundational theology later.

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We will cover the doctrines of grace and things like that, which this is a part of it. I believe the five souls, and I believe the tulip of Calvinism all kind of goes together in my mind, all part of the grace of God.

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He says that totally depraved person makes his choices based on his nature, which is dead in sin.

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He loves his sin. He chooses his sin. If left to himself, he would die in his sin. This is how we all at some point walked, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

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That spirit that was once formerly at work in us, in our flesh, is still active and still working in the sons of disobedience, the ones that are still unregenerate.

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He says among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, notice that we carried out the desires of the body and the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

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You see, you don't become a sinner when you sin. You sin because you're a sinner.

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Those that are unregenerate, they naturally do what is theirs by nature. We naturally would sin because it was ours by nature.

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See, that's the whole essence of the new birth, is we have a new heart. God just doesn't clean our heart up or make it better.

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He takes out our heart. He gives us a new, it's a spiritually speaking, of course, takes out our heart, not referring to a literal organ inside our body as part of our flesh, but spiritually speaking, takes out the heart, that inner seat of man, where the will and the desires and our decision making comes from.

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Takes out that heart of stone, replaces it with a heart of flesh, gives us a new nature, new desires, new wants.

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Now, sermon for another day, but it talks about, in Ephesians 6, how that new spirit wars with the flesh because we haven't received our glorified body, but we should have these new desires and want to walk differently.

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But he says the unregenerate walk that way because they are by nature children of wrath. But notice he says, but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, loved his people, loved the elect, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

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It is monergism. It is a all of God salvation, is a work of God in the human heart.

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Man can do nothing to change his state. That is why it takes God regenerating the human heart, regenerating us, making us live in Christ.

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Then we are able to show and to possess that sola fide, that saving faith that loves

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God and loves his son and wants to please him. And we notice this based on the order in which he is laying it out here.

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He says, we were dead in trespasses and sin, made alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved.

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See, if it was anything on our part, any merit of ours, anything that we could do to either cause or ensure us being saved, then it wouldn't be fully by God's grace.

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It has got to be all of God because it is all of his grace because we don't deserve any of it. And then he says, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

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God with his eternal degrees, his eternal purposes, what he is working out in time, even our salvation is all to his glory and part of his purposes.

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And then notice finally here he says, by grace you have been saved through faith, sola fide.

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It is our faith that saves us, not our works, nothing about ourselves, only that saving faith in Jesus Christ.

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And he says, this is not your own doing. It's not your own doing. That means the grace of God and your faith is even not your own doing.

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Your faith is a natural consequence of a regenerated heart, which is why regeneration must precede faith.

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Because the unregenerate, the one that is walking and dead in trespasses and sin by nature, children of wrath, cannot possess saving faith.

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They're spiritually dead. They must be raised to spiritual life first. He says, it's not your own doing.

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It is the gift of God, the gifts of repentance and faith, not a result of works so that no one may boast for we are his workmanship.

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We are his workmanship. He lays us out on the table and he crafts us and works us and makes us alive in Christ and sanctifies us and works in us.

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Our own Christian life is not us living it. It is Christ living out his life in us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which

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God prepared beforehand. He laid it out. That's the whole purpose of my ministry, By His Grace.

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That's the whole purpose of my theme for my ministry, which is our journey is paved by his grace.

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It's the reason I'm going through the book of Jonah on the By His Grace program, laying out and showing how

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Jonah's life was paved by the grace of God, how our lives is paved by the grace of God as Christians, because it says, which

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God prepared beforehand. God is paved and laid out the path of our life by his grace, that we should walk in them and we walk in them through the power of the spirit, the spirit pushing us and carrying us along, developing that righteousness in us, sanctifying us, showing us how to live and to love

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God and to walk in a manner and in a pattern consistent with the

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Christ likeness and with the salvation that we have received as a free gift of God's grace.

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It is all finds its basis and its foundation in sola fide, faith alone.

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We are united by faith. We are the faith ones, the believing ones of John 3 16. John 3 16 says, for God loved the world, the created order in this fashion that he sent his son, the second person of the

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Trinity, both co -eternal and co -equal as God. He sent him to die and to make the atonement for sin so that all the believing ones will have as a present possession, eternal life, not in a life in the sense of measuring it in time, but a life that has a certain quality to it.

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It's an eternal life and it can only come from the one who is eternal life. That's Jesus Christ.

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He came, he is the life and we receive and share in his eternal life because we are his people.

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What a beauty. I urge you to spend some time in the book of Ephesians, specifically chapter two here, studying and meditating on the fact of who you are in Christ and it should affect your behavior.

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Your faith is what saves you. Your faith is what is lived out in your life and this faith is never alone.

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It always produces the works of Christ because Christ is working those works in us. Now, obviously we don't have to work to maintain our salvation.

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So many people get this off. They don't catch the distinctions. They make category errors.

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They try to say, well, you're saying you have to keep on working. No, what we're saying is every single person that God saves always produces the fruit of that salvation.

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Now we all obviously struggle in the flesh and have sinful times and times when we need to repent and get that relationship restored and then move on down the road of sanctification.

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We're covering in the book of Jonah how God uses even our sin to build and craft our testimony. So our sin doesn't keep

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God from fulfilling his purposes in us, but it's not his best and we'll certainly lose out on reward and we'll certainly lose out on glory that we could have brought to God in that vein and we'll cover that more in detail when we look at Soli Deo Gloria.

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But to wrap this up, just understand this. This is not by works, not by tradition, rituals, rites, anything you can do, but by faith in the

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Son of God. Amen. Well thank you for joining me once again on Foundational Theology as we have covered

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Sola Fide today. I trust this was both informational for you and hopefully it will spur you to go to the scriptures and study them for yourselves.