Sola Fide Series

Series Pt 3 – The Five Transcendent Truths

Sola Fide

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

What is Sola Fide? Like last week it is a Latin phrase that means “Only faith or faith alone.”

What is faith? The biblical definition of faith is found in Hebrews 11:1 :

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)

I love Sinclair Ferguson’s definition of faith - “The receiving and relying on Christ and His righteousness. It is Christ-directed, not self directed. It is Christ-reliant, not self-reliant.”

Habakkuk 2:4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.

Romans 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

Galatians 3:11 But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.

Hebrews 10:38 Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

Jefferson M. Williams

“This morning, we come to faith alone. This was the material principle of the Reformation. The question at hand was, “How is one made right with God?” The theological term for this is “justification.”

The way you answer this question makes all the difference. Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants would all agree that being made right before God involves faith. But as Protestants, we assert that it is by faith alone that we are made right before God.

James Montgomery Boice defines justification as “an act by which God declares sinners to be righteous by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.”

Terry Johnson reminds us that it is a judicial act of God:

“It’s a declaration, not a process, a new status, not a new nature, it the verdict of the judge, not the works of the accused.”

Remember, the equation is Jesus + Nothing = Everything. The Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, and Catholics would all disagree with this equation. To them, it is Jesus + good works (missions, confession, church attendance) = everything.

“There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. (Romans 3:24-25)

I. The Operation of Faith – “Therefore being justified by faith…

Justification means "just-as-if-I-never-sinned."

NO RECORD ANYWHERE

Dr. Roy Gustafson has the finest illustration of justification I have ever heard. It seems that there was a man in England who put his Rolls-Royce on a boat and went across to the continent to go on a holiday. While he was driving around Europe, something happened to the motor of his car. He cabled the Rolls-Royce people back in England and asked, "I’m having trouble with my car; what do you suggest I do?" Well, the Rolls-Royce people flew a mechanic over! The mechanic repaired the car and flew back to England and left the man to continue his holiday.

As you can imagine, the fellow was wondering, "How much is this going to cost me?" So when he got back to England, he wrote the people a letter and asked how much he owed them. He received a letter from the office that read: "Dear Sir: There is no record anywhere in our files that anything ever went wrong with a Rolls-Royce." That is justification!

W. Wiersbe, Key Words of the Christian Life, p. 16

Theologian Louis Berkhof wrote, "Justification is a judicial act of God, in which He declares on the basis of righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ that all claims of the law are satisfied with respect to the sinner." Source: Systematic Theology, p. 513.

a. The source of our justification - the grace of God and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

We are justified freely by grace through redemption. Redemption is the language of the marketplace. It means to buy back or to ransom.

b. The ground of our justification - the work of Christ.

God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith.

The big theological term for this is “propitiation.” This means a substitutionary sacrifice which satisfies the wrath of God.

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)