Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The
righteous will live by faith.”
Galatians 3:11
Once Solus Christus was established, once Sola Gratia came
to be understood, Sola Fide logically
followed. Only Faith! What else could the third Sola be? For it is by grace you have been saved, through
faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that
no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Only because Christ did it, only because God’s grace desired
restored fellowship, do we come to the point of being saved through our faith.
And this faith is a gift of God. As Martin Luther said, “Faith is not a human
response but a work of God through the means of grace.”
I said faith logically follows our revelation of Christ’s
redemption and God’s act of grace, but apparently the step of faith is not
logical at all. The sixteenth century Roman church was diluting personal faith
by elevating self-merit as the way to be saved. Today, many have adopted the faith-plus theology: faith plus works, faith
plus goodness, faith plus the law. If I am good enough, if I do enough, if I keep
the rules, are all words in their repertoire. Everyone will get to heaven by
the way he or she chooses.
Not so. Justification
is not to be taken lightly, and most certainly not something I can do on my
own. Justification means made righteous.
In my natural born state, I am guilty no matter how good I think I am. I can do
nothing to erase my guilt. It is Christ who nailed all my guilt to the cross. In
that one act, redemption was done, complete, finis! It means the curtain of the
Law which I cannot keep, which separated me from a Holy God, is torn in two.
But that is a divine
truth I must buy into, or in other words, have faith in. Faith means I am persuaded. It means that God has
opened the eyes of my heart with His gift of faith. It means I am confident in
what Jesus did for me. It means I am bathed, clean in God’s grace. In plain
English, Saving is all (God’s) idea and
all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from
start to finish (Ephesians 2:8 MSG).
Only Faith!
Nancy P
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