Reformation x Sola Gratia

This is week three of exploring the five solas of the reformation. The word “sola” in Latin means “only” and these five solas are statements from the Protestant Reformation that outline some of the major disagreements between Protestants and Catholics. This week I want to explore the idea of sola gratia

Thinking Through Sola Gratia

The idea of sola gratia (by grace alone) is closely related to the idea of sola fide (by faith alone). If we look again at Ephesians 2:8-9, we see both grace and faith mentioned.

Ephesians 2:8-10

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

How are we saved? We’re saved completely and only by God’s grace, and that grace is accepted completely and only by faith. Good works don’t save us. In fact God won’t let us have anything to do with salvation because he wants all the glory for saving us—no one gets to boast but Him!

The word grace means “unmerited favor.” Think about that. When God saves someone, he is giving them his favor, his love, his affection. And this favor is bestowed on us not because of anything we have done, it is unmerited. In other words, it’s unearned.

The Darkness of the Human Heart

This is important because most of us are not being nearly honest enough with ourselves about how dark and prone to rebellion our hearts are. Look at how the Bible describes sinful humanity:

Jeremiah 17:9
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Matthew 15:18-20
18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.

John 2:24-25
24 But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

Matthew 23:37
37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

Do you see what these Scriptures are indicating? Can we trust our hearts to lead us to truth and happiness? No! Our hearts are evil and lie to us. From our hearts proceed all sorts of evil thoughts, murder, adultery, lying, slander, etc. We’re not evil people because we do evil things. Rather we do evil things because we are evil. Some of us hide this better than others, but we all know there are things we’ve thought about or done or said that we don’t want anyone to know about. Deep down we are evil. Our hearts are evil.

Further, we don’t run to God, we run away from him. Jesus wisely didn’t entrust himself to the crowds because “he knew what was in man.” In other words, he had a firm grasp of the evil in everyone’s heart, and he knew people couldn’t be trusted. And though Jesus desired to see all of Jerusalem saved, and to gather them to himself, they were running from him instead. They were unwilling to receive salvation.

We Need Grace

Our only hope for salvation is the grace of God from beginning to end. We are saved by grace alone. The Bible explains to us that even our ability to receive the gospel message (to repent and believe) is a gift of grace. Left to ourselves we don’t run to Jesus, we run away. This is a deep mystery, and I’m not trying solve the conundrum of man’s responsibility and God’s sovereignty, I’m embracing the mystery. But listen to what the Scriptures say:

John 6:44
44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

Romans 9:15-16
15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

We are saved not because of us, but because of God. He is the determining factor. Again, this is mysterious. I’m not dismissing the role our choices play in what happens in this life, but what I am saying is that over and above our choices, there is a sovereign God who is working powerfully in ways we don’t fully understand. And that apart from his working, none of us would choose God or come to salvation on our own. We too would be like Jerusalem refusing to be gathered to Jesus and saved by Him.

Matthew Barrett sums this up well, he says:

“Sola gratia, however, is not limited to our justification, but spans all of salvation from start to finish. In fact, the grace that saves us is, as John Newton so famously sung, “amazing,” because it does not originate with us at all but stems from God’s mercy in eternity. As Paul says, God “chose us in him [Christ] before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4)”" [1].

Catholic and Protestant Differences

Both Catholics and Protestants teach that we are saved by grace, but just as in the discussion about justification, they define the word “grace” differently. Nate Pickowice explains: “For the Roman Catholic Church, grace was a ‘thing’—a force of divine power bestowed on believers to accomplish spiritual tasks. A shot in the arm, a boost; one writer even likened it to a spiritual Red Bull” [2]. Specifically, the Catholic Church teaches the need for believers to concern themselves with pursuing seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, penance, holy eucharist, marriage, anointing the sick, and holy order. These sacraments bring saving grace to those who do them. So in the Catholic conception of things, the Holy Spirit gives believers grace in order to pursue sacraments which bring more grace, so that in end all of this will work together and result in salvation (but only after a period of purgatory).

The Reformers saw this as confusing grace and works. Works are the outgrowth of God saving us, but they don’t save us themselves. Our salvation from beginning to end is the work of God. Sacraments don’t bring saving grace, but instead remind us and assure us of the grace already given to us by Jesus who has done everything necessary to save us.

I want to encourage you to rest in the accomplished and finished work of Christ on your behalf. Believe in Jesus. Cling to Jesus. That is all you need.

- Ben

[1] Matthew Barrett, “The Five Solas,” https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/the-five-solas/?queryID=03edae5e599d32a0369b2cc2eb430dd5.

[2]. Nate Pickowicz, Why We’re Protestant: The Five Solas of the Reformation, and Why They Matter (Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2022), 59.