The Rest of the Solas

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Well, as was already announced, we are on Reformation Day today, and certainly we can name ourselves in the minority of folks who realize that that's exactly what today is.
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I noted as we were leaving my neighborhood, I did not see that most of the people, especially the young people walking down the sidewalks, were dressed as Martin Luther.
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In fact, I, in all my years, have never seen a John Calvin outfit, not that I would have necessarily recognized it one way or the other, but didn't see one of them at all.
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So something tells me that we are in a small minority who are observing this.
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That's now what Pastor Frye doesn't know, aside from the fact that I changed the hymns on Sunday morning, and we sang
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Mighty Fortress then, which is fine. I think we can sing it more than once. But we also, as those of you who are here know, that during Sunday school,
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I did somewhat of a travelogue, and showed you my pictures from my visit to Wittenberg.
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And so we saw many of the places of Luther's life that I had seen back in September myself.
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And then, again, if you're not with us, we covered the material and formal principles of the
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Reformation. On Sunday, in the Sunday morning sermon, we looked at the material principle, that which was the primary preaching and teaching aspect that brought about the
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Reformation. And that was, of course, the preaching of the doctrine of sola fide, faith alone.
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We talked about the fact that it was not an alone faith, it was that faith is alone, that instrument, that empty hand of faith that can grasp hold of God's grace.
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You have anything in that hand, you're not going to be able to grasp hold of the promises of God. And then
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Sunday evening, we looked at the formal principle, which the Reformers very quickly had to move to, and that was the concept of sola scriptura, that the scriptures are the sole, infallible rule of faith for the church.
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Not the sole rule of faith, and we have a confession of faith, but it is not infallible, it is subservient, to the scriptures, it does not have the same nature as the scriptures being
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Theognistas. And so, what I felt would be appropriate this evening in our time together, would be to consider this evening the rest of the solas of the
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Reformation. A lot of folks can identify those first two, at least sola fide, faith alone.
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But there are, traditionally anyways, five solas of the
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Reformation, and I think that we especially, even our young folks, should be able to know the five solas of the
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Reformation. In fact, I think you all should be sharing this with your friends and neighbors at work tomorrow when they're talking about what they did on this evening.
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You can talk to them in Latin, and they will be deeply impressed by that.
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I would imagine in the parts department at Midway, they do Latin all the time. All the time, yes,
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I thought so. But, or at least something related to Latin, or sounds like Latin, we're not sure, but anyways.
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So, what were, how many would confidently, right now, feel that you could list all five solas of the
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Reformation? Okay, you can put your hand down now, thank you.
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You didn't need to raise both hands either, I didn't, I mentioned that in passing. But, we have the two, sola fide and sola scriptura.
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One is very, very well known, but needs to be defined, is sola gratia.
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Sola gratia. Grace alone. Now, if you've heard me speak on this subject, and by the way,
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I apologize for my voice, I probably have to stop a couple of times and avail myself of that hydrous oxide down there.
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But, evidently, there was something in the air today, and it is not reacting well with my sinuses.
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But, sola gratia, grace alone, if you've heard me teach on this subject, you've heard me say many, many times, the issue of the
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Reformation was not the necessity of grace.
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The issue of the Reformation was not the necessity of grace. Write that down. Because, there are people running around today,
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I could name names, who are so excited to discover that the
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Roman Catholic Communion affirms the absolute necessity of grace. And, of course, they do.
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In fact, the Council of Trent anathematized anyone who said that you could be saved apart from God's grace.
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So, the necessity of grace, even the Mormons, I've quoted for you from the
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Book of Mormon in the past, the Book of Mormon says, is by grace we are saved after all we can do.
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2 Nephi 25 -23. So, even the Mormons say it's by grace we're saved. Well, after all we can do.
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Translates, in their language, into you put out a 100 % effort, then grace meets you. Which, if you're thinking about it, is a mission impossible salvation system, since no one ever does 100%, but that's another issue.
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It may become more or less relevant on November 7th. But, almost every religion that even calls itself slightly
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Christian will affirm the absolute necessity of grace. The only people other than that, the people who deny that, are called
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Pelagians. And, the Pelagian controversy raged at the beginning of the 5th century.
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And, Augustine was involved with that, and Pelagianism was condemned. Pelagius believed that every man was a new
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Adam. And, the only reason that men sinned was because of the bad examples of people around them, but that you were not born with sinful nature, it was not necessary that you sin, and it's not necessary that you have grace, either, to be saved.
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So, why sola gratia? I've heard many a Catholic say, you cannot be saved outside of the grace of God.
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So, why sola gratia? Do they believe sola gratia? No. Because the issue of the
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Reformation was never the necessity of grace, the issue of the Reformation was the sufficiency of grace.
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That's the issue. And, you know what, it's still the issue today. It's still the issue today.
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I wish I could tell you that every person associated with the Reformation in history believed in the utter sufficiency of grace, but I cannot.
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There have always been those who have looked to forms of sacramentalism and things like that to control or mediate the grace of God.
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But, the real issue then, and the real issue today, in regards to the freedom of God and salvation, all comes back to, is
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God's grace sufficient to save? Is grace something that makes us savable, or is grace something that actually saves?
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Those are two very different propositions. To say that grace has made us savable is not the same thing as to say that I have been saved by grace.
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We need to keep that in mind. And so, while there are members of the
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Roman Catholic community who will say, Oh, we believe in sola gratia. That's not what we mean. We don't mean the mere necessity.
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When we say sola gratia, we are talking about the sufficiency of God's saving grace requires nothing beyond itself.
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It is not a synergistic cooperation. It's not something that makes us savable. It's not that Jesus merited enough grace for salvation on the cross.
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That's another common statement you hear Roman Catholics make. But, the reality is that God's grace is free, and it is sufficient.
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And hence, God saves freely. So, that's sola gratia. So, we have sola fide, sola scriptura, sola gratia.
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Then we have solus Christus, solus
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Christus, Christ alone. Now, what was the need for that?
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Well, does anyone know what tomorrow is in the
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Roman Catholic sacramental calendar? Liturgical calendar? All Saints Day.
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And so, we well know that by the time of Martin Luther, there was a tremendous focus, and it has only,
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I would say it has increased primarily because of the increase in focus upon Mariolatry, and the focus upon her and her intercession.
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But, there were many, many saints already who were being appealed to for assistance, and it has only become more gross, more open since then.
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I've actually debated Roman Catholic apologists who have defended the idea that it is appropriate for us to pray not only to saints, but also to angels to seek their intercession for grace.
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So, you can see how many of the solas are related to one another. Obviously, sola gratia and sola fide are like this, because the faith that saves is the work of the
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Spirit of God, and so on and so forth. So, we can see that they are very closely related. And solus
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Christus would be related to the others as well, because the affirmation is that the unique central assertion that Jesus and Jesus alone is
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Savior is fundamentally denied, it is fundamentally compromised, when you allow for, in essence, a pantheon of minor deities to stand between you and Christ.
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And that's what you have. I mean, you go to very heavily
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Roman Catholic countries, I'm not talking about secular countries, but you go to southern
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Mexico, you go to many of the Central American countries, and observe
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Roman Catholic worship in those places. Some places in Spain, in Portugal, and, of course, in Italy itself.
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Even though secularism certainly has made huge inroads there as well. And you will see what
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I mean. You will see the fervor of the religious worship.
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And, of course, Rome says, no, we only worship God, we only give to God, Latria, we give to the saints, and to Mary, well, give the saints, and to Mary, hyper -Dulia.
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But, there truly is no biblical distinction at this point. To serve and to worship, singular
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Hebrew term in the Old Testament is used to speak of these things.
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And so, as you see people rocking back and forth, lighting candles, praying in front of a statue of saint whoever, or Mary especially, it is natural for you to recognize that this individual is engaged in religious worship.
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Call it what you will, this person thinks they have a direct personal access to this individual, and that somehow this individual, knowing what their requests are, is able to, in some fashion, provide assistance, aid, in their time of need.
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And it becomes especially problematic when we consider the prayers that are offered within Roman Catholicism to Mary, seeking her intercession, entrusting the soul of the individual to Mary for salvation, and seeking
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Mary's protection from the world, from the flesh, and from Jesus, their judge.
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I will never forget, many of you, some of you who have been around here as long as dirt has, remember the first few debates that I did back in 1990, shortly after we started coming here in 1989.
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Many of you young people are going, oh, they're talking about ancient history again. Yes, okay. And you remember that I debated a man by the name of Jerry Matitox.
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I've actually debated Jerry 13 times. I think I deserve some type of award, some type of Jove award or something, for debating
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Jerry Matitox 13 times, if you've ever heard him. At the time, he was a student at Westminster Theological Seminary.
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I debated him in Boston, at Boston College. And we were doing a radio program on W -E -Z -E.
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For some reason, I remember the station. And I read to him one of these prayers where a person trusts themselves to Mary, and they pray for Mary's protection from, if I recall, it was the world demons and Jesus.
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Because by one prayer from you, he will be appeased. And I expected
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Jerry to respond by going, oh, James, James, James, you're misrepresenting us.
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This is just a form of piety, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'll never forget when he looked across the studio.
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It was through the arms of various microphones, because we were in a radio studio.
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But he looked through those things in the way, and he looked at me, and he said on the air,
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James, I pray for the day when you will be able to pray that prayer with me.
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It really took me aback. Didn't expect it. Made for a good conversation. Was highly illustrative.
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But there you have the reason for Solus Christus. Because if you're having to go to Mary out of fear of Jesus, then you don't understand who
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Jesus is. And you don't understand what the gospel is. And you don't understand his role as Savior.
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And you don't understand what it means to enter into the presence of God before the throne of grace by means of his very flesh, which opens the way to do that.
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And it is just a fundamental denial of the Christian gospel.
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And yet there are thousands, yay, sadly, millions around the world who pray that kind of prayer regularly.
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Hence the need of Solus Christus. It is Christ and Christ alone who is the
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Savior. We think of that single text in John chapter 6, where the son indicates he's not come down from heaven through his own will, but the will of him who sent him.
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And what is the will of him who sent him? That of all that he's given him, he lose none. Raised up on the last day.
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He has that power. Solus Christus. That is our confession. So, we have
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Sola Fide, we have Sola Scriptura, we have Sola Gratia, we have Solus Christus.
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What's left? Soli Deo Gloria. Soli Deo Gloria. To the glory of God alone.
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And you can see the direct relationship here between Solus Christus and Soli Deo Gloria.
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Because, again, part of what prompts this assertion is the division of glory that comes about when you have multiple saints, angels, intermediaries through whom you are able to obtain help before the throne of God.
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I mean, even when you consider the doctrine of indulgences, you end up standing before God in this multi -patchwork robe which is made up of the righteousness of Christ, Mary, and the saints.
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The saints being individuals not just who have been canonized, but a saint, technically, is a person who has more positive merit than they have temporal punishments on their souls when they die.
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Therefore, they go directly into the presence of God. Their extra merit is placed into the treasury of merit from which indulgences are drawn.
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And so when you receive an indulgence, then you're receiving the extra merit that comes from this mixed treasury made up of the excess merits of Christ.
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You only need to shed one drop of blood to redeem the world. But since he bled copiously, there's all this extra merit.
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Mary, who likewise was sinless, and therefore has tremendous extra merit.
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And then the saints. Some saints have lots of extra merit, some saints not so much. But it's all placed in this treasury of merit under the control of the
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Magisterium of the Church and the keys of Peter, and hence when you stand before God, this is your righteousness.
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That obviously results in a diminishment, a diffusion of the glory of God.
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And I guess you could say that Soledad Gloria is the overarching capstone because everything else beneath it fits together to defend the complete freedom of God in the salvation of his people.
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He is able to save his people freely.
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He is not under constraint. He is not in a situation where he tries and yet fails.
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And hence we can think of Ephesians chapter 1, which explains the ultimate purpose in all things.
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Not only is God described there as the one who works all things according to his own wise counsel and his own predetermined plan, but all these things are done from eternity past, as stated earlier, to the praise of his glorious grace.
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And certainly Soledad Gloria draws attention away from ourselves because so much of modern evangelicalism and modern
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Arminianism may speak of the glory of God, but functionally, where is the glory of God in a system of salvation where God is trying, trying, trying and yet in many instances today failing?
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Where is the glory of God when he is forced by some external contingency to try to save one person whom he knows in his divine knowledge will never be saved equally with every other person that he knows will be saved?
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How does all that fit together? I don't believe that it does. And so Soledad Gloria is an overarching correction of all of those abuses that draw attention away from the fact that the gospel is perfectly accomplished by the triune
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God, that it's a triune gospel, that it flows from the Father's, the decree of the triune
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Godhead, but flows from the Father, accomplished by the Son, applied by the Spirit. All those things are true, though we don't want to so divide things up that it does not remain a truly triune action.
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But that's what Soledad Gloria does, is it protects and reaffirms that all of this is done to the glory of God.
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So those are the five solas. And I hope that you'll keep those in mind, see their interrelationship, and be very, very thankful because 495 years ago in Europe, well, 495 years ago where we live, there was no light at all.
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There was no light here. The light of the gospel comes much later.
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And the reason, really, that there is light here now is because of what took place then.
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And as I said, it wasn't just Luther, there were many others as well, but we celebrate the breaking in of that light this evening, and truly, we should rejoice.