Sola Gratia – Sunday School (5 Solas)

Sola Gratia –

Through the last several weeks we’ve seen that 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 that we can earn or purchase. The Reformation’s response, “Sola gratia.”

Sola Gratia means “only grace” & it excludes the merit done by a person to achieve 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 from God for Jesus’ sake.

SG-Q#1- 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. ‘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. Though the RCC taught that the Mass is a “sacrifice [which] is truly propitiatory” meaning attending mass merited a good work – the Reformers returned to the Biblical doctrine of Salvation by Grace through faith. That 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 accompanying Doctrines of Grace were preached by all the Reformers throughout the Protestant movement.

SG-Q#2 - 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.

**Stress** In denying Solus Christus or Christ Alone, RCC has to deny Sola Gratia & Sola Fide. The RCC still 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. 

**Stress** 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. ML makes a big deal of this fact in his Commentary on the book of Galatians, where Paul is so white hot with anger that the Judaizers are putting his church back under the bondage of obedience to the Law that he calling down damnations on them & saying they’ve been lead astray by “another” gospel.

Why does God do it? God in showing mercy, grace, kindness – for his glory

Where does ‘faith’ come from? Faith is the tow rope of salvation

Sola Gratia – Quote #3 - Here are some great words from Luther on salvation by grace alone.  These quotes are from a sermon on Titus 3:4-8 and can be found in volume 3 of Baker’s 7-volume set of Luther’s sermons (edited by J. N. Lenker and others).
 “So he [Paul in Titus 3:5-7] discards all boasted free will, all human virtue, righteousness, and good works.  He concludes that they are all nothing and are wholly perverted, however brilliant and worthy they may appear, and teaches that we must be saved solely by the grace of God, which is effective for all believers who desire it from a correct conception of their own ruin and nothingness…He who does not receive salvation purely through grace, independently of all good works, certainly will never secure it…Truly, then, we are saved by grace alone, without works or other merit.”

Why Sola Gratia is important?

2 weeks ago we spent the whole hour exalting or lifting up Christ to a pre-eminent place of glory. Sola Gratia does that as well because behind all of the “we are NOT saved by works” rhetoric is a secret; we really are completely saved by works! The difference between Protestants & the RCC is that we are trusting solely in the fact that Christ’s many works are applied (or imputed) to us via faith in his holy life lived & atoning sacrifice for us on the cross.

Just like Paul said in the Romans 4 passage we studied at the beginning of class, which says, “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” We cling to this works-less gifted righteousness applied by faith like barnacles cling desperately to boat-bottoms & mollusks cling to whales! They hang on for dear life. That is the way we cling to the Christ & the Cross, that is how he is exalted.