Sola Gratia: Our Only
Method
Eph.
2:8-9
For by grace are ye saved
through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the
gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should
boast.
We have so far examined
two tenets of the true Christian faith, and likewise two
pillars of the Reformation:
·
Sola Scriptura, Scripture
alone — our only Model
·
Sola fide, faith alone —
our only Means
In a sense, it is
this point that is the crux of the whole Reformation
debate. This is seen by recounting the story of Luther
and Erasmus. Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) was a Dutch
humanist and theologian. While ordained a priest in
1492, it seems that he never actively worked as a priest
and, like Luther, criticized some of the Church’s
excesses. He and Luther greatly respected one another,
but they had a fundamental disagreement over the human
will. In 1524, Erasmus published his book The Freedom
of the Will, which dealt with the issue of grace,
but from a subtle, roundabout way. He chose to make the
biggest issue of all the question of “free will,” that
is, how much impact sin had (or did
not have) on man’s will. In
it he wrote, “By free choice in this place we mean a
power of the human will by which a man can apply himself
to the things which lead to eternal salvation, or turn
away from them.”[i] In other words, man has
voluntary or free power in and of himself to choose the
way which leads to salvation apart from the grace of
God. In Erasmus’ mind, God and man work together to
bring man’s salvation.
Luther responded to
Erasmus by publishing his most famous work, The
Bondage of the Will, in 1525. Amazingly, while
disagreeing with virtually everything Erasmus wrote,
Luther actually commended
Erasmus for recognizing the real core issue separating
Rome and the Bible believers. He wrote, in fact:
that unlike all the rest,
you alone have attacked the real thing, the essential
issue. You have not wearied me with those extraneous
issues about the Papacy, purgatory, indulgences and such
like . . . you and you alone have seen the hinge upon
which it all turns, and aimed for the vital spot. For
that I heartily thank you.[ii]
In short, Erasmus
was not so foolish as to defend any of the major points,
for they are indefensible. Rather, he pointed out “the
hinge upon which it all turns.” The issue of “free will”
to Luther was the crux of the matter, namely, whether
Christianity is a religion of pure grace or
partial grace, that is, either all of God
or partly of God with man.
Would God simply supply the grace and man in his own
power would supply the faith, or would God supply it
all?
Sola gratia,
then, declares that God supplies not only
forgiveness by grace, but even faith by
grace. That is why Christ is called “the author and
finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:2), for He is the
beginning and the ending of it. He has done all of it.
In fact, the doctrine of sola fide cannot be
understood in its fullest apart from sola
gratia. What is the source of
faith? Is it the God-given means to salvation or is it a
condition to salvation that man is left to himself to
fulfill? Is grace God’s contribution while faith is
man’s contribution? Is salvation wholly of God or does
it ultimately depend upon something that we do for our
salvation, namely, exercise our faith?
It was this issue
that drove the reformers. Did they believe in the hated
doctrines of the sovereignty of God and election,
doctrines that are mocked, maligned, and mutilated in
our day? They most certainly did! Why? Because
they believed in sola scriptura, which clearly declares that man is so sinful
that even his will is fallen. As Paul wrote to the
Romans:
As it is written, There is
none righteous, no, not one: There is none that
understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
They are all gone out of the way, they are together
become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no,
not one. (Rom. 3.10-12)
Scripture goes on to
say that God has given man the faith to believe, as our
text declares: For by grace are ye saved through faith;
and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. The
clear and obvious antecedent for the pronoun “it” is
faith. Faith had to be the God’s gift, for
without that gift, fallen man would
never believe. Several other
Scriptures strongly substantiate this
principle:
And [Jesus] said,
Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me,
except it were given unto him of my
Father. (Jn. 6:65, emphasis
added)
For unto you it is
given [granted] in the behalf of Christ, not only
to believe on him, but also
to suffer for his sake. (Phil. 1:29, emphasis
added)
And when [Apollos]
was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote,
exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was
come, helped them much which had believed through
grace. (Acts 18:27, emphasis
added)
Another often quoted
verse is John 1:12: “But as many as received him, to
them gave he power [i.e., right] to become the sons of
God, even to them that believe on his name.” Many Gospel
preachers quote this verse, as they rightly should, but
sadly they stop without quoting the very next one:
“Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the
flesh, nor of the
will of man, but of God.” Where did we get the will
to believe? In ourselves? No, because we were dead (Eph.
2:1-3). Rather it was God’s grace that gave us the will
to believe. Man’s will has nothing to do with salvation,
not even with believing. It is all of God. Were we born
again because
of our will? No, thank God, we were born again in
spite of our will.
That beloved Puritan
commentator Matthew Henry (1662-1714), who could read
the Bible when he was only three years old, and of whose
commentary Spurgeon said, “Every minister ought to read
it entirely and carefully through once at least,” said
it well when he wrote:
We do not become the
children of God as we become the children of our natural
parents. Grace does not run in the blood, as corruption
does. It is not produced by the
natural power of our own will. As it is not of blood, nor of the will of the
flesh, so neither is it of the will of man. It
is the grace of God that makes us willing to be His (emphasis in the original).
Some 100 years before,
John Calvin wrote:
Ought we not then to be
silent about free-will, and good intentions, and fancied
preparations, and merits, and satisfactions? There is
none of these which does not claim a share of praise in
the salvation of men; so that the praise of grace would
not, as Paul shews, remain undiminished.[iii]
In other words, let us
stop prattling on about free-will and other human merit.
It’s all of grace. Still another writer, this time a
Greek authority, writes:
God does not merely give
to both Jews and Gentiles the possibility of faith; He
effects faith in them. Eph. 2:8 makes it especially
plain that all is of grace and that human merit is
completely ruled out. To understand the Pauline and then
the Lutheran doctrine of justification it is essential
to make it clear that faith is not a new human merit
which replaces the merit of works, that it is not a
second achievement which takes the place of the first,
that it is not something which man has to show, but that
justification by faith is an act of divine grace. Faith
is not the presupposition of the grace of God. As a
divine gift, it is the epitome and demonstration of the
grace of God.[iv]
Spurgeon also dealt
with this truth in his sermon “All of Grace.” It
continues to amaze me how many evangelicals argue that
Spurgeon did not believe in the Doctrines of Grace, or
like some choose to spit out of the mouths
“Calvinism.” Well, bless
their hearts, they obviously have not read very much
Spurgeon, for he was a strong, staunch, and very vocal
defender of the doctrines of sovereign grace. Of our
present subject he wrote:
Even the very will thus to
he saved by grace is not of ourselves, but is the gift
of God . . . I ask any saved man to look back upon his
own conversion, and explain how it came about. You
turned to Christ, and believed on his name: these were
your own acts and deeds. But what caused you thus to
turn? What sacred force was that which turned you from
sin to righteousness? Do you attribute this singular
renewal to the existence of a something better in you
than has been yet discovered in your unconverted
neighbor? No, you confess that you might have been what
he now is if it had not been that there was a potent
something which touched the spring of your will,
enlightened your understanding, and guided you to the
foot of the cross.[v]
Dear Christian
Friend, what touch your dead, depraved heart and drew
you to the foot of the cross, regenerated your soul, and
gave you the faith to believer? Sovereign
grace.
It is truly interesting
when we articulate that word grace. Why? Because there
is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that few words are
more misunderstood, misused, or misapplied than grace.
It is bandied about by just about everyone today. Two
people can be discussing grace, in fact, but mean two
entirely different things. Other words in this category
are “election,” “predestination,” “foreknowledge,” and
others, but grace is at the heart of every one of those,
as well as other concepts, so to misunderstand grace is
to be totally clueless as to what Biblical Christianity
and its doctrines are about. If we do not understand
grace, we understand nothing of the Christian
faith.
A case in point
again is Roman Catholicism. Yes, it most certainly
speaks of grace, but it means something vastly
different from what Scripture
says and what the reformers defended. Here’s what the
Council of Trent declared:
If anyone says that
by the said sacraments of the New Law [a term that
refers to the Trent’s canons and decrees on the seven
sacraments] grace is not conferred through the act
performed [ex opere operato,
lit., “the work worked”] but [says] that faith alone in
the divine promises is sufficient for the obtaining of
grace, let him be anathema.[vi]
In other words,
grace is not received from God by faith,
but is rather infused by man’s
works, specifically, through
his performing of the sacraments. The Catholic Church,
therefore, maintains that the church is the dispensary
of grace. It is through the church that grace emanates
from Christ and is dispensed to the individual through
the sacraments. Such blasphemy is beyond imagination,
but what is worse is how many “evangelicals” are
jettisoning the Reformation embracing the Roman
Church.
The word grace
translates the Greek charis.
In Classical Greek it meant “that which affords joy,
pleasure, delight”[vii] and from there several
meanings developed: grace, favor, thankfulness,
gratitude, delight, kindness, etc.[viii] Originally, then, the
word didn’t carry the idea of something “unmerited”
because Greek philosophy (which is at the root of our
western culture) believed in human merit and
self-sufficiency. Even then, however, the Greeks thought
they needed “a little help,” so they prayed to their
gods for favors and gifts.
It was, therefore,
in the New Testament that charis was transformed.
While some of the meanings from the Classical Greek
are found, the New Testament usage is unique
because New Testament grace is coupled with the
person and work of Jesus Christ. If you remove
Christ, and therefore grace, all you
have left is another religion that is based on human
merit. You have ten practical commandments, many ethical
principles for living, but all you have is mere
religion.
One example of this
appears in John 1:17: “Grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ.” Does that say grace and truth came by religion,
works, or human merit? No, for the ultimate
manifestation of God’s grace is Jesus Christ. Throughout
the New Testament, in fact, grace is coupled with
Christ, for He is the ultimate manifestation of the
grace of God. Christ is the focus of all Scripture, in
fact. The Old Testament prepared for Him, the
Gospels presented Him, and the Epistles
propagated Him. Grace is about Christ.
This transformation of charis
is summed up by Greek scholar Kenneth
Wuest:
In pagan Greece, the word
referred, among other things, to a favor done by one
Greek to another, out of the spontaneous generosity of
his heart, without hope of reward. Of course, this favor
was always done to a friend, not an enemy. When the word
is used in the [NT], it takes an infinite leap forward,
and acquires an additional meaning which it never had in
pagan Greece, for this favor was done by God at the
Cross, not to one who loved Him, but to one who hated
Him.[ix]
Grace can,
therefore, be clearly defined as the unmerited favor
of God toward man manifested primarily through the
person and work of Jesus Christ, apart from any merit or
works of man.
If we may be so bold, if
anyone defines grace differently than that (or similar
to that), let them be accursed (Gal. 1:8-9). Anyone who
does not preach that doctrine of grace—and Roman
Catholicism certainly does not—is a false teacher. Many
verses of Scripture substantiate that definition.
Especially pointed is Romans 11:5-6:
Even so, then, at
this present time also there is a remnant according to
the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no
more of works; otherwise grace is no more
grace. But if it be of works,
then is it no more grace . . . (emphasis
added).
To speak of grace
plus works—and “free will” is simply another aspect
of human merit—is in essence to
redefine grace as something other than grace. Consider
just two other passages:
While by the proving
of this ministration they glorify God for your professed
subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for
your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men,
and by their prayer for you, who long after you for the
exceeding grace of God in you. Thanks be unto God
for His unspeakable gift (II
Cor. 9:13-15, emphasis added).
That the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in
Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord
Jesus Christ (II Thes. 1:12).
Before we close, one
more historical note is essential. The depth of Erasmus’
error, as well as Catholicism’s error, is Arminianism,
which is no less than theological heresy. While such a
statement causes a firestorm when uttered in some
groups, the roots of Arminianism go back to an apostle
named Pelagius (c.
360-420), a British monk and theologian. About 400 he
postulated his ideas of how man is saved. He believed
each person has the same “free will” that Adam had and,
therefore, is able to choose good or evil for himself.
He said that this is possible because each person is
created separately and uncontaminated by the sin of
Adam. Sin, therefore, is a matter of will, not nature. It is just as easy for a man to choose good as
it is to choose evil. Why, then, is there so much sin we
must ask? Pelagius maintained that the reason is not a
corruption of the will by original sin, but rather by
the simple weakness of human flesh. The obvious problem
with that, however, is where does the weakness of human
flesh come from?
After the resounding
defeat of Pelagius’ views at the Council of Ephesus in
431, John
Cassianus (c.360-435) tried to find a compromise.
While he taught that all men are sinful because of the
fall, and that the fall weakened the will, he still, like Pelagius, rejected that
the fall totally corrupted the will. He taught that the
will is partially free and can, therefore, cooperate
with divine grace in salvation, which is exactly what
Erasmus would argue a few centuries later. The
Semi-Pelagian maxim, therefore, was, “It is mine to be
willing to believe, and it is the part of God’s grace to
assist.” While these views were condemned at the
Synod[x] of Orange in 529,
it is very enlightening to note one historian’s comment:
“[Cassianus’] doctrine lay somewhere between that of
Augustine and that of Pelagius (hence called
Semi-Pelagian) and was not
essentially different from the accepted Catholic
doctrine.”[xi] What is Roman
Catholicism? It is Semi-Pelagianism, plain and
simple.
Which brings us to
James Arminius (1560-1609), who became the spokesman for
several ministers in Holland who did not agree with the
Doctrines of Grace. Reluctant to make his views public,
Arminius finally agreed to do so at a national synod. He
died, however, nine years before it was called in 1618.
His followers, therefore, presented his views in a
five-point statement, called the “Remonstrance”
(protest, opposition). While many today enjoy blasting
away at the so-called “five points of Calvinism,” it was
actually the “five points of Arminius” that came
first and attacked orthodox
doctrines of sovereign grace that had stood for
centuries. In essence, the Remonstrance
stated:
·
While
man did inherit Adam’s sin and is under God’s wrath, he
is still able to initiate his salvation after God grants
him grace to cooperate.
·
God’s
election had “its foundation in the foreknowledge of
God.” Therefore, election is conditional on man’s
acceptance.
·
Christ’s death did not actually save but made
salvation possible to those who believe.
·
While
God’s grace is needed, God doesn’t draw man effectually,
rather man believes only in his power and can resist the
Holy Spirit’s call.
·
Finally, God gives believers the ability to win
out over all sin and not fall from grace, but Scripture
also seems to indicate that it is possible for a
believer to fall away from salvation.
In spite of it
all, however, it is now happening again! Proving
that something is wrong doesn’t make it go away, and the
same was true of Arminianism. On the contrary,
Arminianism deeply imbedded itself into theological
thought. In his Introduction to Luther’s classic, The Bondage of the
Will, J. I. Packer wrote that
“the present-day Evangelical Christian has
semi-Pelagianism in his blood.”[xii] How true this is!
Countless evangelicals hold the Arminian view because
they fail to stop and just think what the words for by
grace are you saved really mean. Arminianism
(historically and today) is nothing but warmed-over
Roman Catholicism, with which we can have absolutely no
compromise, regardless of what many “evangelicals” are
saying today to the contrary. While there are a few who
are standing today and condemning this fourth attack,
their voices are being overpowered by the masses of
preachers and teachers who are Arminian, that is, to be
frank, Roman Catholic. They market Jesus like they are
selling shoes, tell people to “walk the aisle” and “say
this prayer,” and turn have turned the Gospel into just
another religion.
A case in point was the
19th Century so-called revivalist Charles
Finney, who has become virtually the “patron saint” of
many evangelicals. His errors, however, are almost
unimaginable. Finney was, in fact, no less than a
full-blown Pelagian; he denied original sin, the
substitutionary atonement, justification, and the need
for regeneration by the Holy Spirit. He also invented
the modern staple of evangelism that we call the “altar
call,” in which he would pressure people to “make a
decision for Jesus,” “a commitment to Christ,” and other
clichés we have adopted as though they were biblical.
“Finneyism” is, in fact, one of the biggest contributors
to today’s predominant Arminian theology, which we deal
with in a little more detail in our final study in this
series. Doctrine always works itself out in practice,
and the practice of Arminianism demonstrates its series
doctrinal foundation.
We close with this
statement on sola gratia, as
stated in The Cambridge Declaration of the Alliance of
Confessing Evangelicals on April 20,
1996:
We reaffirm that in
salvation we are rescued from God’s wrath by his grace
alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit
that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our
bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual death to
spiritual life.
We deny that salvation is
in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or
strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this
transformation. Faith is not produced by our
unregenerated human nature.
What is sola
gratia? It is that salvation is solely by grace from
beginning to end, that grace is the only
method. If we do not embrace
this core tenet of the Reformation, we have returned to
the errors of Pelagius and the darkness of
Rome.
[i] E. Gordon Rupp, P.
Watson, Luther And Erasmus: Free Will And
Salvation (The Westminster
Press, 1969), p. 47.
[ii] Martin Luther,
The Bondage of the Will (Grand Rapids:
Fleming
H. Revell, 1992), p.
319.
[iii] Calvin’s
Commentaries
(Ephesians).
[iv] H. Hanse in
Theological Dictionary of the New
Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel,
trans. and ed. by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1967), Vol. IV, p.
2.
[v] Metropolitan
Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 61
(published 1915).
One very outspoken
preacher makes the unbelievable blunder, “Charles Haddon
Spurgeon never preached one sermon a year on ‘the five
points of Calvinism.” A quick review of Spurgeon’s
preaching proves this be incredibly ridiculous.
Spurgeon’s The
New Park Street Pulpit is a six-volume work covering
Spurgeon’s first six years at that church. After the
completion of the new tabernacle, the series name was
then changed to The Metropolitan
Tabernacle Pulpit. The fact is
that in his first year (Volume 1, 1855) Spurgeon
preached three sermons dedicated to sovereign grace
subjects: “Election” (two parts) and
“Free-will¾a Slave.” In his second year, he
preached four: “Sovereignty in Salvation,” “Effectual
Calling,” “Final Perseverance,” and “Divine
Sovereignty.” In his third year, he preached two:
“Particular Election,” and “Salvation is of the Lord.”
In his fourth year, he preached five: “The Death of
Christ,” “Particular Redemption,” “Human Inability,”
“Providence,” and “Sovereign Grace and Man’s
Responsibility.” In his fifth year, he preached three:
“Free Grace,” “Predestination and Calling,” and “Man’s
Ruin and God’s Remedy.” Finally, in his sixth year,
Spurgeon preached three: “The Treasure of Grace,”
“Election and Holiness,” and “High Doctrine.” It was
then in the very next year (April 11, 1861), when
Spurgeon opened the Metropolitan Tabernacle, he
sponsored a Bible Conference on the theme “Exposition of
the Doctrines of Grace.” He and five other speakers
expounded on “Election,” “Human Depravity,” “Particular
Redemption,” “Effectual Calling,” and “Final
Perseverance of Believers in Christ Jesus.” We should
also add that all these sermons are merely the obvious ones.
The message of sovereign grace permeates all of
Spurgeon’s preaching.
[ix] Wuest (I Timothy
1:1)
[x] A “synod” or “council”
was a meeting of various church leaders who gathered to
establish church policy, determine doctrine, combat
heresy, or settle other issues. The first Church Council
was held in Jerusalem to combat the heresy of the
Judaizers (Acts 15). Because of the dominance and
corruption of Roman Catholicism, each council must be
analyzed to determine its real good.
[xi] Elgin Moyer, Who Was Who in
Church History (Chicago: Moody
Press, 1951), p.78 (emphasis
added).
[xii] “Historical and
Theological Introduction,” The Bondage of the
Will,
p.58.
