Wednesday, October 30, 2024 PM

All right, so tonight we're going to have a special lesson about the Protestant Reformation. Not going to go through all of the history of it and the major persons and characters and causes and so forth, but we're going to talk about the five solas, which is a way of talking about how are we benefited today and how we understand the gospel and how we understand our life together as a church, how we understand Christian living today directly benefited from the outcome of the Protestant Reformation.

So the five solas that can make up something of a sentence, and so I've written that over here on the right side of the board, saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to scripture alone, for the glory of God alone.

Now these five solas are represented in the English, as you can see, the Latin sola is just simply the word alone. Okay, so that's where the sola is, and that's very important to recognize. And if there were going to be three particular things that were most critical in all of these five solas, it's these.

This sola, faith alone, that we are justified by faith alone, saved by faith alone. This was considered to be the principal reason, the principal need for the Protestant Reformation is considered to be the article upon which the church stands or falls the most important.

Of all.

However, as Luther began to debate, he quickly realized and everyone else quickly realized that this is where most of the battle was fought. This was the major issue, but this is where the battle was really fought, was scripture.

Alone.

And so if this is getting wobbly, probably it's because of this getting wobbly. The other observation to make about the five solas, the most important thing is the fact that they have this alone on all five.

Everything here, Roman Catholics agree with wholeheartedly, whether in the 1500s or presently, their only contention is alone. All right, so we're going to talk about these. These are the Latin expressions that you're going to see sometimes on various banners that we have hanging up around, and you're going to encounter that somewhere in reading different books.

But we're going to walk through them in this order. Other people will have them in a different order, but this is what we're going to walk through tonight. Sola gratia, saved by grace alone. In Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 8, we hear a passage of scripture that would be a great memory verse for sola gratia, or saved by grace alone.

Ephesians 2 .8 is just that memory verse. It says, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. And so when you hear not of yourselves, that's where the alone comes in.

Now, that's part of a larger passage that would be good to study for this particular theme, which is Ephesians 2 verses 1 through 10. So verse 8 can be the memory verse, and then verses 1 through 10 could be something you study as a whole.

Some people go ahead and just memorize the whole thing, which is also good. Essentially, what this means is we're talking about how are we saved, why are we saved, by what do we know we are saved. That's the real critical question of the Protestant Reformation.

And so from the very beginning, we say this, we are saved by grace alone. That's what the Bible tells us. This simply gets at the idea that we are undeserving. That's what that's saying. When it comes to us being saved, we start with this, we don't deserve it.

We don't deserve joy. We don't deserve forgiveness. We don't deserve life. We don't deserve fellowship with God. We don't deserve to be loved by Him. We don't deserve to be called His children. We don't deserve to be part of a new spiritual family.

We don't deserve any of that. We don't deserve eternal life. When we say grace alone, that's a way of saying we are saved even though we don't deserve any of it.

All right?

So that's kind of where this whole sentence starts, grace alone. And now, when we think about grace, I have an illustration prepared and there were three young people that helped me with it. Now, I gave on Sunday night, I think it was, I gave three young people Pokemon cards.

Can you raise your hands who got the special Pokemon cards? All right. We've got three of you.

Right.

Very good.

Now, all the other children, did you notice that three people got really special Pokemon cards and they weren't like, you know, basic. These were really nice Pokemon cards. I want to stress that. Those three guys got, and they got it for free.

They didn't even ask. I just showed up and handed it to them. And I didn't give any of the rest of you any. Exactly. I didn't give, I only gave three of the children Pokemon cards and I didn't give it to any of you other kids that really like Pokemon.

And I didn't give it to any of the dads who secretly also like Pokemon. I didn't do that. Now, someone's going to say, that sounds unfair. And you nailed it. Unfair. That's a great way to talk about grace.

Grace is unfair. What is fair is that we should be judged by our creator for defaming his glory every day of our lives. And yet, what is unfair is that he would be kind and merciful and loving and save any of us.

That is simply unfair, but we can rejoice in that grace. So, this was an article of contention in the Protestant Reformation because Roman Catholicism denies the alone. They deny the alone. They say we're saved by grace, but they deny the alone part.

They see some kind of merit, some kind of deservedness in the very nature of man. And, in fact, we are to take whatever we have in terms of our merits and use that and employ it for God if we want to know that salvation.

So, they deny the alone part. They're fine talking about grace, even though they talk about it in some very strange ways. But they deny the alone part, and that was the historical conflict. And so, very often, you will find the conflict between Erasmus and Luther, Erasmus trying to maintain there's some level of value and goodness in man, and Luther going off on Erasmus and bondage of the will saying, no, there's no good at all in man.

If we're saved, we're saved by grace alone. Modern, why is this still important today? Because I think the modern conflict is something that you've encountered many times over and you had no idea how to label it, so I'm going to give you the label tonight.

Are you ready for the label? The label is moralistic therapeutic deism, MTD, just write down MTD. It's kind of like the MSG that you get in some of your food. It's not good for you. MTD, moralistic therapeutic deism.

So, God is around, and he's here to fix your problems, and you want to live good and believe in yourself.

Okay?

So, this is going to be on everything from Life Church to K-Fluff. You're going to find moralistic therapeutic deism, okay? And there's just an idea of the goodness of people, and we need to be better, and that's what Jesus is here for.

So, sola gratia is still an article of contention, and we still need it to be reminded about the gift of salvation. Secondly, sola fide, through faith alone, and the memory verse for this sola is Galatians 2, verse 20.

Galatians chapter 2 and verse 20. It says, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me, living by faith.

And for a passage to study, you just go on to chapter 3 of Galatians, in Galatians 3, verses 7 through 14. Galatians 3, verses 7 through 14 is the passage you can study and think about how Abraham was saved by faith alone, and everybody who believes in Jesus is saved by faith alone.

And the idea here is simply that we are unable. Not only are we undeserving, that's grace alone, but we are simply unable. We can't save ourselves. There's nothing that we can do. We can't conjure something up or go do something to make it work.

We are unable to please God, satisfy God, atone for our own sins, and so on. And, alright, what's in the box? Someone's going to guess it automatically, I'm sure, but someone, okay, what do you think is in the box?

Blessing bag supplies. What now? Blessing bag supplies.

Blessing bag supplies. That is not what's in the box.

Yes?

I didn't know it was marked. Excellent reader. Okay, yes?

Air.

You are correct.

Yeah.

Nothing.

Right?

Do you remember the hymn that says, nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.

Right?

Faith alone. We bring nothing. We bring nothing. All we're doing is we're going to lay hold of Jesus. We're going to lay hold of his righteousness, his merits, and his goodness. Historically, the reason why this was such a problem for the Roman Catholic Church was because of the alone, the alone part.

Not only did they believe in man's merit, but they believed in man's means. They had all sorts of means by which you could attain to some parts of salvation. You could go on a pilgrimage, and you could go to a reliquary and see and venerate John the Baptist's diaper or something like that, and you could get some merit from going to these places and doing these various things.

Do your penance, go through, say your Hail Marys, say your Paternosters, go through all of these things, and they would say, faith, yes, but not faith alone. Not faith alone. The modern conflict that we have today is somewhat similar.

There are people today who would say that, yes, faith, but with that you must prove yourself in a way that matters at the end of everything. So that by your good works, you will obtain heaven. And there's various names for that, some of them academic, some of them not.

But many people today think, oh no, you've got to do something to help, otherwise it doesn't work. But faith alone is still the most important point because it sits between the fact of grace alone that we're totally undeserving and the fact that we have Christ who is absolutely deserving.

He is all of our righteousness. And that's the third sola, sola Christus, saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. And you'll know this memory verse, Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth and the life and no man comes to the Father except through me, John 14 .6.

That's a good memory verse. Jesus said something a little bit more expanded than that, but the very same message in Matthew chapter 11, verses 25 through 30, that's a good passage to study for in Christ alone, Matthew 11, verses 25 through 30.

And again, the memory verse there is John 14 .6. When we say in Christ alone, we simply mean we are unrighteous. We're saying we're unrighteous, but he is righteous. In fact, and we're saying we are unrighteous in the way that we mean he is all of our righteousness, where Paul laid aside all of his merits and all of his claims to fame and so on there in Philippians 3, so that he may lay hold of Christ and Christ alone for his righteousness.

And there's only one person who can stand in for us. All right, so does anybody have a key for that? Does anybody here have any keys? You all have keys? You've got keys. If we were to try their keys on this lock, do you think it would work?

No.

All right, let's see if I have any keys. Yeah, I do. I've got, I don't know, maybe about a dozen keys on here. Do you think any of these will work on here, on this? Oh, now it's a split decision.

Split decision.

What about the big one? That one's very impressive. Do you think that one will work? No, no. I have several locks at home that all look exactly the same with slightly more rust. And do you know I've got only one key to all those locks?

It's right there. That little one. Surprising, perhaps. But even though some of these other keys are small enough to maybe fit, only one of them unlocks. Only one. Just one.

See?

Only one does it. And when it comes to being made in the image of God and needing to be made right with God, there's only one person who can stand in our place and for our sake, and that's Jesus Christ.

There have been a lot of great and amazing people in history, and we've got some of their pictures up on the wall, but none of them attained to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ alone is the one who saves us because of who He is.

Now historically, Roman Catholicism denied this because they, not only did they believe in man's merit and man's means, they believed in many mediators. So they said, well, you can't go to God directly.

You need a mediator. By that, they mean you need a go-between. Well, the Bible tells us there was one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Roman Catholicism would say, well, there's also Mary.

There's also Joseph. There are also many saints whom you can venerate and pray to, and they'll put a good word in for you because they had extra grace in their lives which they made a deposit in, and this investment team will put in a good word for you to God.

And so they believed in many different mediators to God, not just one, but we say in Christ alone because that's what the Bible says. And today, this is still a contention, that this is too simple, it lets you off the hook too much, there's just too much forgiveness and grace here, and that salvation is not in Christ alone.

Salvation must come by social change, and until you make efforts to do social change and create a new humanity together, you're not going to be saved. Some sort of variation on liberation theology. Fourthly, we know all this to be the case, as we've been saying all along, because it's according to Scripture alone.

We've been mentioning the memory verses and the passages to study because that's the basis for why we know any of this, is because God gave us His Word so we would know who He is, who we are, and how to be saved.

And the memory verse here is 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every.

Good work.

So, that's a familiar passage, but you can also study, not just 2 Timothy 3, 16 -17, but also 2 Peter, 2 Peter 1, verses 16 -21, 2 Peter 1, verses 16 -21 would be a passage to study. And this reminds us that we are unknowing, we just don't know.

How shall they believe if they do not hear? How shall they hear without a preacher? Right? We just don't know, truly, who God is in His fullness, and who Jesus Christ is in His glory and righteousness, and how it is that we may be saved unless somebody tells us, and God has told us in His Word, He has told us in the Scriptures, given us the gospel to proclaim.

We are unknowing, that's why we need the Scripture. Now, I found the biggest Bible I own.

It's pretty big.

Do I have a volunteer from the crowd to hold it? Okay, come on. Okay, are you ready for this?

Did you bulk up for it?

Okay.

Is that a little heavy?

Yeah, it's a little heavy for a Bible, isn't it?

Yeah.

I was having back problems, so I had to stop. Now, why do we make Bibles like this, with the gold gilt edges, and then all of the silk ribbons, and the leather binding, and the nice pages, best of the best quality stuff?

Why do we do that? Is it because we're making idols out of Bibles? We are accused of that very often, but that's not why we do it. We're saying something about the preciousness of it. We're saying something about the need to preserve it.

We're saying that I'm going to come to this again and again, and it needs to be robust, and I should be able to come again and again to this Word, and it's got to outlast me, and outlast my children, and my grandchildren should be using it.

That's why we make Bibles like this, because of how we view the value of God's Word. Now, historically, Roman Catholicism was very much against sola scriptura, because they would say that nobody can understand the Bible on their own.

They have to have somebody come along called the magisterium. The magisterium is a Latin word, which means the teachers, the teachers, and this would be the official position of the church on any given theological topic, any biblical topic, any biblical passage.

The teachers of the church, the magisterium, would tell you what that means, and depending on what decade it was, that would be the meaning. Today, if you engage a Roman Catholic and you were to show them the claims of the magisterium in the church council of Trent, perhaps, the very first time that Roman Catholicism as we know it today was ever codified was in the 1500s after the Protestant Reformation.

The very first time that they had their official list of sacraments, the very first time they began to put people into the Hall of the Saints, the very first time that they codified what it meant to be Roman Catholic was after the Protestant Reformation.

I don't want anybody to tell you that Roman Catholics have been doing the very same thing from year 100, not even close. But if you show somebody the council of Trent and the things that they claim, Catholics today would heartily disagree with it, even though they're told they must believe whatever the church has told them throughout all of the years.

They would disagree, for instance, the council of Trent would say, anybody who says that salvation is by faith alone is anathema, cut off from God, condemned to hell. Anybody who says scripture alone is anathema, cut off from God, condemned to hell.

Hard to find Roman Catholics today who would say that, and yet that is the official position of the church, and they are required to believe the official position of the church, so they find themselves in a bit of a quandary.

Now there's a modern conflict. Why is Sola Scriptura still important today? Because there are so many modern conflicts, so many modern options to turn away from the scriptures and depend upon other things.

Perhaps your own personal spiritual experiences tell you what is true, the idea of the charismatic avenue to truth. Perhaps you can only believe what you can take in through your senses, your sense perceptions.

That's modern day secularism and empiricism. But I think the main conflict today is what was called standpoint epistemology, meaning you can't know what I know because you don't know the troubles I've seen.

Because I have suffered in unique ways and I've been through unique things, what I believe is true for me, and you can't ever really know that because you haven't walked a mile in my shoes, let alone all thousand miles in my shoes.

And that idea of standpoint epistemology has very much bled into the church. Number five, according to the glory of God, for the glory of God alone. And this is really a summation of all of this. If all of this is true and we're only saved by what God has revealed to us and it's only Christ and it's only through faith and by grace, if that's the case, then that means, logically, that salvation is for the glory of God alone.

And we don't get any applause for our salvation, God gets all of the applause. And a memory verse for that would be Romans 11, verse 36, doxology. Romans 11, verse 36, for of him and through him and to him are all things, to whom be glory forever, amen.

So that's a good memory verse for that. And if you want a passage to study, it would be Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 -14, where we hear the refrain, time and again, to the praise of the glory of his grace, to the praise of the glory of his grace, to the praise of the glory of his grace.

So it's Romans 11, verse 36, the memory verse, and then Ephesians 1, 3 -14 for the passage to study. And this reminds us, for the glory of God alone, it reminds us that we are not God. We are not God.

In fact, one way of saying that is that we are unholy without God. The opposite of holy is not technically sin. The opposite of holy is common. We say that God is holy, holy, holy. When the seraphims say that God is holy, holy, holy, he's saying he's utterly other than.

Us.

He is above us and beyond us. He is precious, unlike us. He is to be praised and cherished far more than us. We are creatures. He is creator. He reveals himself to us as holy, and by doing so, he shows that he deserves all of the glory.

Speaking of holy, holy, holy, that used to be the number one hymn in certain hymnals, but I've got a hymnal here. Now, how many different hymnals are there in the world today? A whole bunch more than there used to be.

It used to be there was a hymnal, and the only hymnal that you had around was the book of the Psalms, but it came in five books, five scrolls, five different scrolls with all the Psalms, and do you know what they were full of?

Praises to God because of how great and wonderful he is, and today, all across the world, we have hymnals full of songs praising God for who he is because we're saying he gets all the glory, and if he gets all the glory, then we're going to need a lot of different songs to specify all the parts of all, all the glory in creation, all the glory in history, all the glory in the church, all the glory in our lives, and so we sing a lot of different hymns to give him all the glory.

Roman Catholicism essentially denies that alone as men are very much magnified. If you keep up with the latest developments in Mariology, in the study and worship of Mary, a lot of really cool, hip, new worship songs being written for Mary these days, complete with tapestries and banners and worship practices and dances to Mary.

Well, so you can't say alone because there's a whole lot of glory going to Mary and a whole lot of glory going to other men such as the Pope and so on, and this is a modern conflict today. Glory of God alone indicates that he should be the centerpiece.

He should be the main idea. It kind of talks about the fear of the Lord, doesn't it? That we should think of him first and think of him most, so glory to God alone. But that is in conflict with the way that a lot of people think today, even in the name of Christ, where they make human flourishing to be the centerpiece of everything.

Someone not so long ago in trying to describe about what sin really is and the new most popular definition of sin in evangelicalism is that sin is whatever is against human flourishing and God is against sin because it's against human flourishing.

So human flourishing is the sun around which all of us orbit, including God. There's a problem with that. There's a problem with that. No, glory of God alone. He's the centerpiece. And I would say that so many of the so-called moral dilemmas, how do we explain the world in which we live that is so full of suffering and difficulty and God is a good God?

How do we explain that? You make human flourishing the centerpiece of your theology. You have an unresolvable dilemma when it comes to the problem of evil. But if God is the center of your understanding and your belief, if it's his glory that matters the very, very most, far more than the well-being of any creature that he has made, including us, now we can rest in the fact that God is all powerful and he is all good.

So that's an important point to make. So those are the five solas. Sola gratia, sola fide, sola Christus, sola scriptura, and sola deo gloria. Another Latin phrase that kind of explains a before and after picture of this is post tenebrex lux, after darkness, light.

After darkness, light, that was the motto of the Reformation. And if we dilute these by getting rid of the alones, if we change the meaning of the terms and if we move away from scripture and so forth, then it will be confusion and it will be darkness.

The whole idea was that after the darkness came light. Another note about the word Reformation, re-form-ation, was not that this was a brand new idea, that these ideas from the scriptures had never been thought of before, they had.

It was an acknowledgment that things were going in the wrong direction, there was a lot of corruption and a lot of problems in the church at large that needed to be corrected. So there was a re-forming, a going back to the things that were solid, that had been there generation after generation after generation by God's good grace to preserve the church.

So if you find something from the 400s or from the 600s or from the 800s and so on, one of our brothers in Christ wrote a long time ago, it may seem a little bit odd, but that doesn't mean that they are Roman Catholic.

That was long before that whole idea even came into play. So what the reformers were trying to do was to go back to something that was solid and sure and bring a correction to all manner of apostasy and corruption in the church.

By the way, this is a good thing that should be happening again and again and again. I don't know if you've noticed, but sometimes churches get so big and so systematized that sometimes they lose focus on things like this and then corruption can come in and all sorts of problems can happen.

Have you ever noticed that? It's possible that that can happen. There is a need for a constant coming back to the scriptures and holding on to those alone so that God gets all the glory and puts our focus where it needs to be.

These things have been helpful to us and that's why I wanted to stress it tonight. Any questions or thoughts before we close? Alright, that's all we have for tonight. We have one question. We are unrighteous.

We are unrighteous. Yeah, we are undeserving, we are unable, we are unrighteous, we are unknowing and unholy. That's why we need these five solos.

Very good.

Dwight has a great suggestion, which I wholeheartedly agree. On the back of our music handouts tonight, someone has wisely put A Mighty Fortress is.

Our God.

So, on some of them. Some of us have it, some of us don't. It's unfair, yes, very unfair. If somebody who does have, so you can share, so get ready to share with those who don't.

Have a copy.