For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

-Romans 1:16-17, ESV

I readily admit that Reformed theology is the perspective of my posts and theology page.  But what does it mean to be Reformed?  This is important for those who find themselves in a Reformed church since the doctrines and practices of churches that call themselves Reformed are actually quite varied.  But there are some distinctives that truly Reformed churches will have in common.  That will be our focus in this brief series.  This post will lay the foundation that all Reformed churches can agree on: soteriology (salvation).  Next time we will expand on this with Calvinism.  Then, we will discuss the importance of confessionalism and finally covenant theology.  This will all lead into the topic of covenant renewal worship, in which I will briefly explain why we do what we do on Sunday morning. 

The Reformation Foundation

What does it mean to be Reformed?  Alistair Begg once defined it like this: “You start by reading your Bible, then you become biblical, then you’re Reformed”.  That is the essence of Reformed theology: studying Scripture and then letting Scripture dictate everything else.  But isn’t that just being biblical?  It certainly is, which means that all churches that are being biblical should be “Reformed”.  That so many are not indicates that few Christians know Scripture and fewer make Scripture the final authority over faith and life.  This is not to say that those who do not call themselves Reformed are not Christians or that they do not believe the Bible, but goes to show that the Church as a whole has a long way to go in being conformed to the image of Christ.  So why call it “Reformed”?  Essentially, getting back to obeying the Bible was the driving force behind the Protestant Reformation, so we are following in the footsteps of Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, etc. Their emphasis was on salvation, so the Reformed view of salvation is one that most Christians can agree upon, even if they do not call themselves Reformed.  To understand this, we need some background on what led to the Reformation in the first place.

By the time Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, the Roman Catholic Church had strayed quite far from Scripture, and they have yet to recant.  As a result, the Roman Catholic Church cannot be considered a true church but heretical and apostate, having abandoned Scripture’s clear teaching on primary doctrines.  That is not to say there are no true Christians who are Catholics.  God can still work amidst much false teaching, so just because they were taught false doctrines does not mean the Holy Spirit cannot regenerate them.  So just as we should pray that Jews repent and embrace their Messiah, we should also pray that Catholics discover the true Christ and His salvation as Luther did. 

How can I call the largest denomination in the world heretics and apostates?  Here is just a partial list of Catholic doctrines that directly contradict what is clearly taught in Scripture.  We have previously discussed their false doctrines about Mary, baptism, and communion, but these are relatively minor when compared to their false doctrines regarding Scripture and salvation.  By the Sixteenth Century, they had exalted the pope and church tradition above Scripture and made salvation about works rather than faith.  Instead of trusting in Christ, salvation became about storing up merit, of which most were deficient but some (the saints) had a surplus.  Instead of Christ as the only mediator between God and man, the pope and all of the cardinals, bishops, and priests below him placed themselves in the mediatorial role along with Mary and the saints.  They then taught that after death comes Purgatory, which is a place of torment where people continue to pay for their sins.  All of this plays into their teaching on indulgence: transferring surplus merit from the saints to others so that they can escape Purgatory.  What set Luther over the edge was that Rome was actually selling indulgences.  All of this contradicts Scripture in several places, so it can only be described as heresy.  These heresies are not the result of Scriptural study but of corruption.  It can be argued that this began as soon as Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and peaked in Luther’s day when Rome was the only entity uniting the disparate peoples of Europe.  Rome had immense power during this time, and these doctrines enabled them to hold onto that power.  But Jesus promised that not even the gates of hell can prevail against His Church (Matthew 16:18) and that He would destroy anyone who destroys His Church (1 Corinthians 3:17), so a return to Scripture was inevitable.  Starting with Luther then spreading throughout Europe, the Reformation took different forms in different places, but can be summed up in the Five Solas: sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), sola fide (faith alone), sola gratia (grace alone), solus Christus (Christ alone), and soli Deo gloria(glory to God alone).[1] 

Sola Scripture (Scripture Alone)

The first (and arguably most important) sola is sola Scriptura: Scripture alone is our highest authority, so the Reformation began with a return to the supremacy of Scripture.  The Bible stands alone as the Word of God, so only Scripture is perfect, infallible, and inerrant.  Only Scripture was inspired by God and contains everything we need for life and godliness.  Only Scripture is the ultimate source and standard for truth, so only Scripture can claim ultimate authority over what we believe and how we live.  This theme was woven throughout our discussion of submission in the church, workplace, community, marriage, and parenting: no one has the authority to disobey Scripture or compel anyone else to disobey Scripture.  The Christian cannot participate in or endorse Pride Month activities, use pronouns clearly inconsistent with biology, support or facilitate the murder of children in the womb, or many other things because Scripture forbids it—and we must obey God rather than man.  But in the same way the Christian cannot pray to Mary or the saints, try to earn salvation by works, go to any mediator other than Christ, or believe any of the other Catholic heresies because Scripture forbids that too.  Scripture alone is our highest authority, and we must reject anything that contradicts Scripture.  And as we saw when discussing miraculous spiritual gifts, since the canon of Scripture is complete, we must also reject any attempt by anyone to bring any new “word from God”.  That is what sola Scriptura means.  But it is also important to note what it does not mean.  Sola Scriptura means that Scripture stands alone as our highest authority, not that it is our only source of truth.  There is much to gain from the writings of the saints throughout two thousand years of church history, the theologians of today, our own pastors, and hopefully this blog.  There is also much to gain from secular sources, but sola Scriptura dictates that the Christian must view all of these through the lens of Scripture and pass them through the filter of Scripture before using them.  We must always go back to Scripture, so a Scripture-saturated life is the hallmark of the Reformation, making this first sola of utmost importance.

Sola Fide (Faith Alone)

Next is sola fide: salvation is by faith alone, not by the merit of others through indulgences as was thought during Luther’s day or by any other means like heredity, pious works, or endless confession.  In our day, this also rules out any form of social gospel including critical theory, so we cannot be saved by charity, reparations, redistribution of wealth, apologizing for whiteness, or being an ally of some supposedly-marginalized group.  Social reform is downstream of the Gospel, naturally resulting as obedience to Scripture brings about love for our neighbors.  We must not put the cart before the horse as so many American churches have done. 

What does it mean that salvation comes through faith?  Faith is often misunderstood as simply intellectual ascent, but belief only becomes faith when it leads to action—the action of placing trust in someone or something.  So saving faith is complete trust in—and thus dependence on—God alone to deliver on His promises to save, keep, sanctify, and ultimately glorify us (Hebrews 11:1) such that if God is not true to His promises we will perish (1 Corinthians 15:14-17).[2]  This is the faith of Abraham that was counted to him as righteousness (Romans 4), and only that kind of faith can save.  That utter reliance on God leaves no room for anything else, so salvation must be by faith alone.  That is the clear and repeated teaching of Scripture, so sola fide proceeds naturally from sola Scriptura.

Sola Gratia (Grace Alone)

Closely related is sola gratia: salvation is by the grace of God alone.  In contrast to the Catholic teaching of gaining merit, grace is the unmerited favor of God.  Therefore, sola gratia means that salvation is the free gift of God to those He has chosen to give it, and is thus completely independent of our works or merit.  As we will see next time, the entire process of salvation from predestination in eternity past all the way through to glorification in the future is the work of God.  This is seen throughout Scripture but is clearest in Ephesians:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

-Ephesians 2:4-9, ESV

Salvation is a free gift from our gracious God, and faith is the vehicle He has chosen to use to deliver that gift. But what of good works, since faith without works is dead (James 2:14-26)?  Paul continues: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10 cf. Philippians 2:12-13).  Here we see that faith and works are inseparably linked, but here too we must not put the cart before the horse.  Our good works are the result of the Holy Spirit working in us and are a response to our faith, so faith must precede works.  Our works then act as evidence of our faith, so if they are missing, we should question whether our faith is true saving faith or mere intellectual ascent.  The latter is what James calls dead faith that is useless for salvation.  So even our good works are a result of the grace of God, meaning that not only salvation but all of the Christian life is sola gratia.

Solus Christus (Christ Alone)

The most important aspect of faith is the object of that faith.  The next sola then is solus Christus: salvation is through Jesus Christ alone, not a pastor or priest, the pope, penance, upbringing, or looking deep within ourselves.  Salvation can only come through our being united with Christ so that all of what He accomplished is applied to us.  And what He accomplished was far more than most Christians realize.  The Gospel is not just that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and then rose from the dead.  Every aspect of His earthly life from the Incarnation to the ascension was necessary for salvation.  When discussing the Incarnation and virgin birth, we saw that Jesus had to be truly God and truly human to accomplish salvation.  But even before that, in eternity past, the Father, Son, and Spirit agreed on the plan of salvation, so Christ’s work on our behalf began before time itself.  Once on earth, Jesus had to live a life of perfect obedience while facing all of the same temptations and weaknesses we do in order to earn righteousness on our behalf.  Only then was He able to take on all of God’s wrath for our sin and die in our place.  His resurrection then showed that He had accomplished all that was necessary for our salvation and then His ascension established His infinite and unstoppable reign.  Jesus is therefore not a means of salvation but THE ONLY means of salvation.  All of Scripture supports this, especially the I AM statements in John: Jesus is THE bread of life, THE light of the world, THE door, THE good shepherd, THE resurrection and life, THE way, truth, and life, and THE vine.  To say otherwise is to belittle Jesus Christ, which we dare not do.  If salvation could have been achieved without God the Son taking on flesh and suffering unimaginably, can we have any doubt that our Heavenly Father who loves the Son infinitely more than we could ever imagine would have used other means?  Solus Christus therefore means that Christ is the only means of salvation because Christ is the only one who could accomplish salvation.  But it goes beyond salvation, since Jesus Christ is not only our only Savior but also our only Lord.  Jesus Christ is the King above all earthly authorities and He must reign until everyone either bows the knee in submission to Him or is crushed by Him.  All authority has been given by the Father to Christ (Matthew 28:18), so no earthly authority has the right to disobey Him or compel anyone else to disobey Him.  Therefore, solus Christus also means that when they come into conflict, we must obey Jesus Christ rather than men.

Soli Deo Gloria (To the Glory of God Alone)

All of this means that only God accomplishes salvation so only God gets the glory for it.  This is the final sola, soli Deo gloria: all glory goes to God alone and not to any person.  Rome glorified the pope and the saints, thus stealing God’s glory and giving it to mere humans.  But God gives His glory to no other (Isaiah 42:8) so neither should we.  All of salvation is the work of God, even our response of faith and repentance. This is the result of all of the other solas.  Scripture stands alone as the highest authority, so all glory goes to God as the author of Scripture.  Faith is a dependence on God and grace is His free gift, so all glory for the work of salvation goes to Him.  And that faith is a complete dependence on Christ alone, so we can share no glory with Him.  Rome in Luther’s day had abandoned all of this, so the Five Solas summarize the necessary break from Rome in order to return to the clear teaching of Scripture. 

Semper Reformanda

The Five Solas are the foundation of the Reformation: salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone as revealed in Scripture alone.  But isn’t that the bare minimum of what one must believe to be a Christian?  In truth, it is not even the bare minimum but just the beginning of what it means to be a Christian, much less what it means to be Reformed.  Thus I will end with another important concept of the Reformation: semper reformanda(always reforming).  A return to the centrality of Scripture and right soteriology is only the first step in letting Scripture shape every aspect of life and doctrine.  Just as individuals are progressively sanctified by the Holy Spirit, we should expect the Church as a whole to be progressively sanctified.  Semper reformanda means that even today the Church is in need of reforming.  I have pointed out various heresies that are official Catholic doctrine, but how many Protestants hold to similar doctrines?  In our own ways, we often commit idolatry, break the second commandment, refuse to submit to the lordship of Jesus, disregard the Law and difficult New Testament commands (including keeping the Sabbath and tithing), neglect the local church, and effectively put humans and their teachings above God and Scripture.  The American Church just like the Roman Catholic Church is in need of reforming.  After looking at Calvinism next time, we will then start to see the distinctives of Reformed theology through confessionalism and then covenant theology.

NOTES:

[1] Stephen G. Myers, “What the Christology of the Reformation Teaches Us Today,” in Joel R. Beeke ed., The Beauty and Glory of the Reformation, Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2018: 179. For more background on the Reformation, see Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity.

[2] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan: 1994: 710-711; Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, Edinburgh, UK: Banner of Truth Trust: 2021: 520-521, 527; John Murray, Redemption—Accomplished and Applied, Edinburgh, UK: Banner of Truth Trust: 1961: Section 2, Chapter 4.