#fivesolas

Concordia University has posted on their web page a piece by a pre-seminary student Adriana Thompson entitled “What are the Five Solas of the Protestant Reformation?” In researching the former Augustinian Catholic monk, Martin Luther, who protested the teachings of the Catholic Church, Thompson concluded from his work and those other reformers there emerged five major doctrines essential to…

The Gospel isn’t really about you.

If that comes as a surprise, let me explain.

(This is post 3 of six blog posts on the Five Solas of the Protestant Reformation. Click here to check out the archive--and more of my writing.)

R. Scott Clark actually said it better than I can:

“The heart of the gospel is not about us. The heart of the gospel is Christ for us (Christus pro nobis). This was the essence of Paul’s message: that Christ came for us, to do for us what we could not and would not do. He obeyed. He was crucified. He was raised. He is ascended. He is returning.  The medieval church turned the gospel into a message about what Christ is doing in us, by grace, in sanctification, and about what we must do to do our part in order to benefit: cooperate with grace. The good news is...We’re recipients. We’re beggars; we’re not contributors to the story."

In 1 Corinthians 15:1-3, Paul tells the confused Corinthians that we must be reminded of the Gospel—that the Gospel must be both preached and received, that it must be our foundation, that it is how we are saved, and that it is of first importance.

1 Corinthians 15:1-4 “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures...”

In verse 3 Paul explains the Gospel:

Christ died for our sins according to the whole of the OT

Jesus was buried and raised according to the complete testimony of the law and prophets

Jesus then appeared to the disciples and many more, and finally to Paul

Martin Luther said, “I must listen to the gospel. It tells me not what I must do, but what Jesus Christ the Son of God has done for me."

The Gospel is good news precisely because it doesn't include us. It is not about us, it is about Jesus.

Sufficient To Save

Now this seems pretty straightforward, and someone may be tempted to think, "No Christian actually thinks the Gospel of salvation is possible apart from Christ!”

Really? Are you sure?

The Reformation concept of “Solus Christus”(Christ Alone) emphasizes that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is not only necessary for salvation but sufficient to save to the uttermost. That no amount of human works or merit can contribute to Christ's finished priestly work. Christ’s all-sufficiency means, by implication, that we are insufficient of ourselves. We can do nothing to save ourselves. That means we need a Mediator.

1 Timothy 2:5-7 tells us:

5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.7 For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

The Catholic Church defined the priest or the church as the means of grace. Here’s how it would go down...Follow this logic: 1. You are a sinner (if you don’t believe this, go have a baby and wait until they are two years old!). 2. Sinners need grace. 3. You can’t get grace without someone offering you grace (by definition grace is getting what we don’t deserve). 4. God offers grace. 5. You can’t get God’s grace without His representatives offering you grace. 6. Unless you are aligned with the church (God’s representatives), you can’t get grace. 7. If you sin, you must do something to realign with the church, where you obtain the grace of God. 8. If you don’t do something to relign with the church, you won’t receive grace. 9. You/the church become the functional Savior. 10. The logical conclusion is that you receive grace when you do something.

The Reformers said “NO! You've completely missed the understanding of God’s grace!”

The Cambridge Declaration states: We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial work of the historical Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to the Father. We deny that the gospel is preached if Christ's substitutionary work is not declared and faith in Christ and his work is not solicited.

The idea behind “Solus Christus” is that Christ alone is the mediator, the go-between, the middle-man. We are the priesthood of believers, we all are connected to Jesus without an intermediary. We can obtain grace because Christ alone has paid the price and offers us grace today.

One Mediator

Now this thought was not popular in the Catholic Church, and the doctrine was thought to be in contradistinction to several teachings of the Roman Catholic Church: the Pope as Christ's representative head of the Church on earth, the concept of meritorious works, and the idea of a treasury of the merits of saints.

But the Reformers said, No! There is only one mediator, I don’t need a priest or a Pope as my means of grace, I just need Jesus. Give me Jesus!

Now in context, Paul exhorts Timothy to have men pray. And the subject of their prayers should include all people, kings and presidents and mayors and people in authority so that we can live a peaceful quiet life. And this good type of prayer pleases our Saving God who wants to save people and bring them into a knowledge of His truth.

Now note the theological reasons for God’s inclusive salvation:

1. There is only one God.

So if there were other gods, there would be other saviors. As it stands, there is ONE God, MONOTHEISM, and Christianity attests to the plurality (the unity-in-oneness) of the Trinitarian God. God exists in loving relational community as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We don’t believe in 3 Gods, but One God in three persons.

2. There is only one way to God through the Messiah

The mediator/middle-man/go-between according to Paul is Jesus. You go to a mediator when you need something agreed upon. And who else could mediate between sinful humans than God who put on human flesh? Who else could appropriate divine grace other than one who was perfect divinity Himself?

There is ‘one mediator.’ A mediator is a person who brings two people or groups together by identifying with both sides and establishing a relationship between them that would not otherwise exist.

3. There is only one means of salvation, the finished sacrificial offering of the sinless Lamb of God, Jesus.

Isn't Christianity just another religion that tells people how to be saved? Don't all religions do that? No! Religions, whether eastern or western, all speak about plight. And the religion is based on what you do to escape the plight. You meditate, or you obey the rules, or you follow the eight-fold path, or you die in jihad, or you abstain from desires, or you preserve the environment. All religions say to escape the plight you do something. You become the savior. But Christianity stands out by saying, “You cannot save yourself from the plight. You need someone else to save you.”

I read recently about a guy named Walter, Wyatt Jr. He was flying from the Bahamas to Miami, and had flown that many times. It was only about an hour long flight. But unfortunately, one afternoon he decided to still fly back to the states after looters had stolen some of his navigational equipment. He only had a compass and a hand-held radio and still flew.

Then a storm came, and he realized he was lost. He put out a mayday call, and a Coast Guard falcon search plane came to find him. Then his right engine died. The fuel tank ran out. At 8pm he glided the plane into the water. He survived, but the plane sank. His head was bloody, and within minutes, he felt a hard bump against his back. A shark had found him. For the next ten hours he stayed afloat, but in the morning, three bull sharks were surrounding him. He began kicking them, but was nearing exhaustion. Then he saw a plane in the sky who radioed nearby and said, "get moving...there's a shark targeting this guy!" The rescue boat dropped a ladder and Wyatt fell on his knees and kissed the deck. He was saved. He had no way to save himself. He didn't need someone to give him four steps to floating safely. 

He didn't need encouragement or better techniques. Nothing less than outside intervention could have rescued him from sure death. That's what Jesus has done for sinners. He is our Mediator.

Jesus was able to bring us back to God because he became ‘the man Christ Jesus’ (v. 5) and gave himself as ‘a ransom for all’ (v. 6). ‘Ransom’ was a word used to describe the price paid to secure a slave’s freedom. This is a powerful picture of the way that Jesus has brought about salvation. Men and women are like slaves, captive to sin and helpless to do anything to save themselves. A price had to be paid because God has to punish sin, otherwise he would be neither holy nor consistent with His nature. So Jesus took the punishment upon himself, bringing forgiveness for sin and freedom from its power.

Christ Alone

Neither salvation (becoming right with God) nor sanctification (becoming like God) can be achieved by any other means. It is through Christ alone.

Galatians 2:21 points this out vividly, “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.”

Thanks to the Reformers, we understand now that we obtain grace solely through our Lord Jesus Christ. That means as you are reading this today, you don’t have to go to a priest or a particular church, or jump through hoops, or do penance or any spiritual calisthenics. Christ stands today to freely mediate grace on your behalf. Will you receive it?

B.B. Warfield reminds us:

There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be trust as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be. It is always on His blood and righteousness alone that we can rest.

With this being the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, everybody and their momma is putting out articles on the five solas, TULIP, Luther, Calvin and all other things Reformation related. Learning so much history has given me a greater appreciation for the legacy that we have inherited. 

When Luther nailed his copy of the 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg church, he could have never predicted how the echoes of his hammer would resonate throughout Europe, changing both religious and secular history forever. 

Born in 1483, Luther studied to become a lawyer. As he studied the use of reason, he felt that it didn’t satisfy his desire to know more of God. He believed that reason could be used to question men and institutions, but not God. God could only be revealed through divine inspiration which is what led him to rely on the Scriptures. 

Caught in a terrible storm in 1505, Luther cried out to St. Anna, promising that if he survived the storm, he would become a monk. He kept his vow and joined the Augustinian order. As a monk, Luther was constantly in anxiety over his sins. At one point, he spent six hours confessing his sins to his superior, Johann von Staupitz who encouraged him to focus on the merits of Christ, rather than his sins. Staupitz wanted Luther to see that true repentance comes from a change of heart rather than rituals. 

In 1507, Luther was ordained to the priesthood. During his first Mass as he held the elements of the bread and wine and prepared for the Communion, he froze. The thought that he, a sinner, was holding the body of Christ terrified him. He felt unworthy to lay unclean hands upon a holy God. 

By 1512, Luther was awarded his Doctor of Theology and inherited the chair of theology from Staupitz at the University of Wittenberg. Throughout the next few years, he continued to struggle with the idea of how sinful man could truly stand before a holy God. 

In 1517, Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar, showed up in Wittenberg to sell indulgences. Purchasing an indulgence would both contribute to the funds to help build St. Peter’s Basilica and would grant the buyer a shortened time in Purgatory for either themselves or somebody else. Luther, who disagreed with the idea that anybody besides God could grant forgiveness posted his theses on the door of the Wittenberg church, inviting people to debate with him and possibly to clear up the manner for him. The date of this was October 31, 1517. Luther had no intention of splitting off from the Catholic church and starting his own church. He wanted clarification on the manner and to get to the heart of the issue. 

The theses got into the hands of the people however. What was meant to be a purely ecclesial matter, started to become a social one. The theses had been printed in 1517 in Germany. By January 1518, several friends had translated them from the scholarly Latin in which they were written into the common German tongue. Within two weeks they had spread throughout Germany. Within two months, they had reached all of Europe. The flames of the Reformation had been lit ablaze and nobody would be able to put them out. 

Luther had mailed a copy of his theses to his Archbishop who checked them for heresy and then passed them along to Pope Leo X. In October of 1518, Luther was summoned to the Imperial Diet where he defended his views. For speaking out against the church, Luther was branded an enemy of the pope.

The Catholic theologian Johann Eck wanted to expose Luther’s theology. In the summer of 1519, the two men debated vigorously. Luther believed that the foundation of the church mentioned in Matthew 16:18 was Christ. Christ himself was the rock and foundation of the church. Luther was accused of being a Hussite, a follower of John Huss who had existed a century earlier. Huss had also spoken out against abuses in the church and was burned at stake. Although Luther denied the charge, after further review, he conceded that he agreed with Huss on many points. These debates with Eck boiled down to whether or not the Pope had sole authority over how to interpret Scripture. Luther asserted that neither Pope nor council were infallible and had contradicted themselves many times in the past. 

It was during this time that Martin Luther also had his famous “tower experience”. Still agonizing over his sins and how he could stand before God, he was stuck on Romans 1:17 which read “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is written ‘The righteous shall live by faith’”. As Luther struggled with this passage, he felt a light go off in his head. The righteousness of Christ was not merely infused into the believer allowing them to do the works necessary to have good standing before God. Rather, the righteousness of Christ was imputed to the believer giving them standing before God on the basis of the works of Christ. This was the birth of sola fide, by faith alone. We can stand assured before God of our justification by faith in Christ and the imputation of his righteousness to us. Faith was a gift given freely by God. 

In the summer of 1520, Pope Leo X issued an edict regarding Luther. 41 of his teachings were seen as heretical. Luther had 60 days to recant them or he would be excommunicated. In December, Luther burned the papal bull that had been issued to him and a month later, he was excommunicated from the Catholic church. According to history, Luther should have gathered his followers around him, they would have created their own separate community and with time, they would have faded out of existence. Yet God had other plans for this German monk. 

Luther was ordered to appear at the Diet of Worms. He went with the protection of Frederick of Saxony. Eck placed Luther’s books in front of him and asked him if he was the author of these books and if he was willing to recant. Luther admitted to being the author and asked for some time to answer the second question. He was given 24 hours. 

The next day Luther showed up and gave his famous speech where he said “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.” Some writings also insert “Here I stand. I can do no other” before “May God help me”. 

This was too much for the Catholic church. An order was issued that anybody could kill Luther without any kind of prosecution. Frederick III hid Luther at Wartburg castle and for a year, Luther translated the New Testament from Greek into German. During this time the fires of the Reformation had swept across Europe. Several groups saw this as a call to radical action and they began to arm themselves and to incite rebellion. This brought Luther out of hiding and through his writings he condemned the rebels. Luther believed that one should still submit to the government put in place by God. He believed the Word itself would be enough to bring about change. As Luther himself said “I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept … the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.”

During this time as Scripture became interpreted into the common language and the writings of Luther spread throughout Europe, many monks and nuns were leaving their former positions. Rejecting the idea that one needed to be celibate to serve before God, Luther helped many of these former clergy to marry. He himself however, refrained from marrying. He barely took care of himself and he lived as though every day might be his last. However one nun, Katharina von Bora refused to marry any other man except for Luther himself. He relented and the two married in a ceremony. 

In organizing the church for those who had left Catholicism, Luther adopted the model they all knew, that of the Mass. However he stripped it down to the bare necessities. All could partake of the elements of Communion. Luther wanted every city to have their own church with their own appointed leaders and pastors. He did not want to replicate the hierarchy of the Catholic church. Luther established a German catechism during this time. During this time, Luther had also started to clash with some of the other Reformers who had sprung up. In 1529, he debated with Ulrich Zwingli about the Real Presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. Although Luther rejected transubstantiation, he believed that Christ was “in, under, and above” the elements while Zwingli believed that the Lord’s Supper was merely a way to remember the sacrifice of Christ. In later years, John Calvin would try to reconcile the two views by stating that the believer, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is carried to heaven where they partake of the blood and flesh of Christ in a spiritual manner. 

All these years of debate and strife had left his body ravaged. In 1546, Luther fell ill and lay on his deathbed. Luther was asked if he stood by the doctrines that he had taught. He affirmed that he did. On February 18, 1546, Luther breathed his last and passed into the glory of God. 

Although Luther was a powerful man who was used by God to bring His church back to truth, we cannot overlook the fact that Luther was just a man. And like any other man, Luther carried the effects of sin within him. The most well-known charge is that Luther was anti-Semitic. On one hand, one could almost excuse it on the charge that most of Christendom was anti-Semitic in that day. But we must also recognize that all of us are accountable for our own sins. Just as we can hold the Puritans accountable for their owning of slaves, we must also hold Luther accountable for his anti-Semitism. We acknowledge that racism is a sin. Luther stands accountable before God for that. Likewise, when Philip I wanted to marry one of his wife’s lady-in-waiting, Luther didn’t speak out and implicitly gave his permission. For that too, Luther will stand before God. 

Yet, these charges alone cannot make us dismiss the work that Luther did. If God only used perfect men to carry His message, we would only have the story of Jesus. Yet there are many men in the Bible who sinned and were used by God. Abraham and Jacob were polygamists yet God made a covenant and established Israel through them. Moses, like Luther, could also be hot-headed, killing the Egyptian and later striking the rock. Yet Scripture states that there has never been a prophet like Moses. David was an adulterer, a murderer, and a terrible father, yet God called him a man after his own heart and established his lineage as the one through whom the Messiah would come. Peter was a coward, fleeing when Jesus was arrested and later denying Jesus, yet he became the first among equals within the apostles. Paul was a murderer of Christians, yet God used him to become his mouthpiece. We can honor Luther without celebrating everything he did. Although Luther never explicitly stated the five solas, it is through his work that they were established. His work on the righteousness of Christ being imputed to us gave us the ideals of sola fide and sola gratia. We are saved purely by the grace of God through faith in Christ. His insistence as Scripture as the ultimate authority even above Pope and council gave us sola scriptura. Luther’s belief that we stand before God based on one mediator gave us solus Christus. And of course, as Luther fought against the Catholic church, he did it all so that God’s glory could be fully proclaimed, soli deo gloria.  As Protestants, we believe that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ, based on Scripture alone and all to the glory of God. 

There is no doubt that Luther was a controversial figure. If you have ever read his writings you can tell he was hot-headed insulting his enemies with sharp wit. Yet, it was this hot-headed German monk that God used in a powerful manner. As David Mathis said “Luther was a pioneer, hacking his way through centuries of superstitious brush with an apostolic machete,” and the other Reformers used more precise surgical tools. Luther had the unenviable task of standing up the church and the pope and calling them back to the Word of God. 

In this we can see that God will always preserve His word until the end of time. Luther did not stand alone nor was he the first to call for reform. Wycliffe, Huss, Waldo and others had also called for reform within the church. Even within the ranks of those who stayed within the Catholic church, such as Aquinas and Erasmus, we see the desire to bring about change. Luther was merely the instrument that God chose to use at that time to bring about change. I’m sure that Luther never expected for things to turn out the way they did. He was merely a monk who was trying to bring about change to the Church that he loved. Yet God used him in a powerful way. 

My prayer for all those who read this is that we may always stand ready to defend doctrine from those who might twist Scriptures to their own end and that we may always recognize where sin lies within our own hearts. May we always submit to the will of God in all things. 

Soli deo gloria and ecclesia reformanda semper reformanda.