Salvation by Grace - SS

Salvation by Grace -

There was a very big religious & social upheaval 500 yrs ago- in 1517 – called the Protestant Reformation. PR meaning Protestants (Lutheran, Presbyterian & Baptists) who protested some of the actions & theology of the Roman Catholic church, broke away from the RCC. It was a huge deal & changed everything: governments, empires & control.

The RCC taught that we are saved through a combination of God’s grace, the merits that we accumulate through penance & good works, & the superfluity (excessively large amount) of merits that the saints before us had already accumulated. The Reformation’s response, “Sola gratia.”

As humans, we inherited (from our ancestor Adam) a nature that is enslaved to sin. Because of our nature, we are naturally enemies of God & lovers of evil. We need to be made alive (regenerated) so that we trust Christ & are saved through his work done for us.

God is faithful & preserves us & keeps us. When we are faithless toward him, he is still faithful

Eph 2: 1-9, Titus 3:5-7, Romans 5:15 – Romans 4 & 5 specifically, are all about contrasting Salvation by merit & Salvation by grace.

CH Spurgeon, All of Grace – “I think it well to turn a little to one side that I may ask my reader to observe adoringly the fountain-head of our salvation, which is the Grace of God **Grace personified in JC**. ‘By grace are you saved.’ Because God is gracious, therefore sinful men are forgiven, converted, purified & saved. It is not because of any thing in them or that ever can be in them, that they are saved; but because of the boundless love, goodness, pity, compassion, mercy, and grace of God. Tarry a moment, then, at the well-head. Behold the pure river of water of life, as it proceeds out of the throne of God & of the Lamb! What an abyss is the grace of God! Who can measure its breath? Who can fathom its depth? Like all the rest of the divine attributes, it is infinite.”

A central cry of the Protestant Reformation was Salvation by Grace. The RCC taught that their church service “the Mass” actually added to you meriting salvation. Instead the Reformers returned to the Biblical doctrine of Salvation by Grace through faith. Our Righteous standing before God is imputed…(an accounting term meaning deposit like our wheel we talked about before. “US & J” – he takes our negative & gives us his positive). Our Righteous standing before God is imputed to us by grace because of the work of Christ Jesus our Lord. In contrast to the doctrines of self-merit taught by Rome, Sola Gratia & the other Solas of the Reformation were preached by all the Reformers throughout the Protestant movement. As the Baptist Confession of 1689 says, “Christ, by HIS obedience & death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are justified; and did, by the sacrifice of himself in the blood of his cross, undergoing in their stead the penalty due unto them, make proper, real, and full satisfaction to God’s justice in their behalf;….their justification is only of Free Grace, that both the exact justice & rich grace of God might be glorified in the Justification of sinners.

Sola Gratia means, “only grace” & it excludes the merit done by a person to achieve their own salvation. SG is the teaching that Salvation comes from divine grace or “unmerited favor” only, not as something merited by the sinner. This means Salvation is an unearned gift to us from God for Jesus’ sake – meaning on account of His works, not ours.

RCC claims to believe in salvation by grace alone, if we accept their idea of “grace.” For them, grace is a spiritual blessing that Christ won which we continually apply to ourselves in Masses, penance & good works in our pilgrimage toward Salvation. So Salvation is a destination to obtain or get to for RCC & for Protestants it’s a definitive decision by God to declare a sinner “acceptable” in his presence. 

So what is Grace? Grace is a state Romans 5:2, work of Gods Sprit in us 1 Corinthians 15:10, its Christ work Titus 2:11, its Gods gift to believers Romans 12:6

     

All of these uses derive their meaning from the gracious attitude by God who has competed salvation for us Eph 2:8-9 & Romans 11:6

The fundamental meaning of grace is God’s attitude of unmerited favor toward sinners.

If Christ’s work on the Cross IS complete (meaning we don’t have to earn it as he’s already earned it), then salvation MUST be a gift of God’s grace because he gives it free of charge. The inclusion of human works as a necessary requirement for Salvation is a denial of God’s grace. Galatians 2:21.

So the reason why Sola Gratia is so important is not because studying Medieval history saves us but because it teaches us what the real GOSPEL is & how to identify false gospels that sneak works, or even grace + works, into the requirement for salvation. And like all good theology takes glory away from us & the things we do & puts it on God – a Reformation understanding of Salvation is always Trinitarian – the Father predestines you, the Son – earns it for you, the Spirit applies it to you – so they all work together toward your particular salvation, but in different ways.

God did it! That is why we are thankful, that is why we can worship him & that is why He deserves it!

Closing quote - “I began to understand the security of the covenant of grace, and to expect to be preserved, not by my own power and holiness, but by the mighty power and promise of God, through faith in an unchangeable Savior.”
― John Newton, John Newton: Letters of a Slave Trader Freed by God's Grace