Sola Gracia

We continue our look at the 5 Sola's of the protestant reformation. The five things that stand alone as key truths of our faith.

Sola Gracia means that we're saved by God's grace alone.

We live in a society that values the individual and calls us to think well of ourselves. The self-help thinking that is commonly held by people tells you that you have the power within you to change yourself, the power within you to affect the world and the power within to find peace and meaning.

But the Bible never allows us to say that. We see in Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? and God, looking at the creation shortly after he had created humankind did not think well of us. The Bible records these tragic words: Genesis 6:5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Wow, that does not bode well for us does it? And perhaps the greatest challenge is that in this age of self-confidence those kinds of texts are really jarring. People don't like to hear they are not worthy of God's love or that they can bring nothing to God that is of any worth.

The point of these texts is that we cannot save ourselves. We simply don't have it in us. We may desire to be saved and we may even desire to be good, but anyone who has tried to hold fast to a simple New Year's resolution knows that it is almost impossible to even get that right!

And so the gospel is the good news that God the Father achieved everything necessary through Jesus death, burial and resurrection to get us in good standing with him and to free us from everything that holds us in slavery including our default desire for sin.

God has done it all. God is the actor in human salvation and we only respond. It's called grace.

Hebrews 10:14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

Did you hear that? He has perfected...Jesus does the work in making us perfect before God in heaven!

Colossians 1:20 ...and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Jesus death is powerful enough to reconcile all things to God the father, that means he will save you too.

Romans 5:10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

Grace is the life changing truth that God does the work required in saving us and that there is nothing inherently good in us that merits us being saved. And for those of us who through the work of the Holy Spirit recognize our severe shortcomings in the sight of a holy God, this is good news indeed!

It is this truth that we must continue to apply to people's lives in every way that we can. For God does not love good people, but because of his perfect Son, he loves bad bad people, of whom we are of the worst, and that is good news and all world need to hear it!

It reminds me of the words of a song: 'Only by grace can we enter, only by grace can we stand, not by hour human endeavour, but by the blood of the lamb!'